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ST. LOUIS – An Amber Alert was issued late last night for a 12-year-old Berkeley girl who authorities believe was kidnapped as she left her middle school in Ferguson Monday afternoon. Natonja Holmes s 4’7 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She has brown eyes and her hair was braided. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
Detectives at the Ferguson Police Department are investigating the case. Authorities said it started as a missing person case but was elevated to an Amber Alert and kidnapping investigation once critical surveillance video surfaced.
Authorities believe there are two female suspects. Investigators shared that Holmes was leaving Ferguson Middle School on Monday afternoon at 2:30 when one of the suspects wearing a pink hat and turquoise leggings was captured on surveillance video from the school guiding her by the arm into a blue minivan.
Police said the minivan did not have either front or rear license plates. Authorities explained that the minivan could be a 2008 to 2010 Kia Sedona but it could also be a Dodge minivan.
This happened Monday afternoon, but the Amber Alert was just issued late Tuesday night. Ferguson police explained the timeline. They said Natonja’s family filed a missing person report when she did not return home, but police did not have evidence of a potential abduction until authorities saw the surveillance video from the school showing Natonja being led to the minivan by the one suspect.
Another major concern for authorities is that Natonja’s family is telling police that they don’t know the woman who put Natonja into the minivan. If you have any information, you are asked to call the Ferguson Police at 314-522-3100. | https://fox4kc.com/news/amber-alert-12-year-old-berkeley-girl-abducted-after-leaving-school-monday-afternoon/ | 2022-09-14T13:15:02 | en | 0.97418 |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Everybody, hug your puppy.
When a Nashville animal shelter named a litter of puppies after the Backstreet Boys, they probably weren't expecting to meet the real members of the pioneering boy band.
The Nashville Humane Association shared photos last week of puppies named after each of the Backstreet Boys members, plus one named "Millennium" after the band's 1999 album. But they weren't the only Backstreet Boys in town: The puppies' namesakes were in Nashville for their "DNA World Tour."
"These pups were invited to visit them AND HELP them with a special production shoot," the shelter said on Instagram Monday. "As you can see from the photos in this post, the experience was Larger Than Life for all involved! We are so grateful for this superstardom support towards raising adoption awareness for some adorable 9–10-week-old shepherd mix shelter pups!"
It was time for the world to quit playing games with the pups' hearts, the shelter said. Most were available for adoption starting Tuesday, with AJ and Howie being ready later this week.
So were people interested in adopting a Backstreet Boy? The shelter said via email Tuesday that the post "broke the internet" on its social media pages, leading to plenty of interest in the puppies.
"If there was ever a moment to have 6 degrees of separation (plus unconditional love) from a Backstreet Boy... Now is your chance! And we're all sure you want it that way. Cause all of these pups promise that they'll never break your heart," the shelter wrote. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/backstreet-shelter-puppies/507-849e4ebf-1b79-4d6d-9fa9-d870c061a470 | 2022-09-14T13:15:04 | en | 0.973472 |
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Nearly a quarter of all the state’s school districts are only in session four days a week this year due to a shortage of teachers.
Over the past four months, a State Board of education commission has been studying and asking educators what should Missouri do to hire teachers and keep them on board, a big answer is pay.
“If there’s one thing that is in your control that is going to give you the greatest sense of meeting your bottom line, wouldn’t you invest in it?,” said Margie Vandeven, commissioner for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) at the monthly State Board of Education meeting Tuesday.
In a state that is suffering a teacher staffing crisis, more than 140 schools are pivoting to four-day weeks. Legislation passed back in the early 2000s, allowed schools to move to shortened school weeks following the recession to help save money on things like utilities and fuel on buses, but now it’s a perk for employment.
DESE said last fall that there were more than 3,000 positions in classrooms across Missouri that were either left vacant or filled by someone not qualified. Vandeven said the department does not have those numbers yet for this school year.
The State Board of Education created a commission to study the shortage of teachers and how to keep them in the state. The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Blue Ribbon Commission is made up of 22 members from the business communities, lawmakers, and other educators who were appointed in the spring by the Missouri Board of Education. After four months of research, the commission said it has finished its work.
“There’s some big asks in there but they are certainly appropriate asks,” said Charlie Shields, president for the Board of Education.
Member Mary Schrag told the board she would wait until October when the full report is released to give more details, but she did say there were nine recommendations overall.
“We had an immediate [recommendation] which included recommending an increase in starting teacher pay to at least $38,000,” Schrag said. “The second is short-term where we had recommended prioritizing teacher mental health and around tuition assistances.”
Other recommendations she said included the commission continuing their work. In August, educators were also surveyed about retention and recruitment. Schrag said that 1 in 5 teachers, more than 40% of principals and 50% of superintendents responded.
In July, the governor approved nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to increase minimum teacher pay from $25,000 to $38,000. Under the legislation, the state pays for 70% while the rest is on the district. It means schools have to opt into the program, but the funding from the state is only for one year. The commission’s recommendation is to keep it permanent.
Missouri currently has the lowest starting teacher wage in the country with an average of $32,970. According to the National Education Association, the national average starting wage for educators is $41,163. Vandeven said heading into this year, roughly 65% of districts are participating.
“If you look at all the external forces that are out there and take that all away, the one single thing we can do in our schools, the greatest level factor is the teacher in the classroom,” Vandeven said.
According to researchers at the Missouri State University College of Education, 141 districts in 2022 will have four-day school weeks, an all-time high.
Back in June, the State Board of Education voted to expand testing scores in hopes of getting more teachers certified. By tweaking the state’s qualifying score, more than 500 teachers could be added to the workforce.
According to DESE, roughly 550 teachers miss the qualifying score on the certification exam anywhere between one to four questions. Those candidates have already completed their accredited program but didn’t score high enough on the exam.
Back in April, the board approved to expand the test scores for elementary certification exams by a -2 standard error of measurement (SEM) after a new assessment was implemented in August and enough educators weren’t scoring high enough.
In June, the board agreed to change the qualifying score to -1 SEM starting immediately. This means someone that missing a handful of questions would be certified.
Teachers aren’t the only ones leaving the education field. During this 2022-2023 school year, the state faced one of the largest numbers of openings for superintendents in recent history. Of the state’s 518 school districts, 104 of them spent the summer searching for superintendents. More than 53% of those openings are due to retirements from the last school year.
According to the Missouri Association of School Administrators (MASA), 56 superintendents retired this past school year, that number is up from 43 in 2021, 41 in 2020, and 36 in 2019. Compared to years past, in 2019 there were 76 superintendent openings going into the school year. By 2020, when most districts finished the school year virtually, that number increased to 86 but decreased back down to 83 in 2021.
Of the 104 superintendent openings, all have been filled, but some with interims.
To view the map made by Jon Turner at Missouri State University showing the districts that are implementing a four-day week for the 2022-2023 school year, click here.
The Blue Ribbon Commission will release its full report to the State Board of Education in October. Shields said after that, the recommendations will be released to legislators and the education community, and then he hopes the commission will meet with the General Assembly sometime in January. | https://fox4kc.com/news/education/teacher-retention-recruitment-commission-finishes-work/ | 2022-09-14T13:15:08 | en | 0.977074 |
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden gathered a crowd of thousands at the White House Tuesday to celebrate last month’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, even as a new government report showed how hard it could be to bring surging prices down near prepandemic levels.
Despite its name, the law’s impact on inflation is expected to be modest at best.
Tuesday's economic report — inflation at 8.3% year-to-year, though just 0.1%. from July to August — was a harsh reminder of how difficult it might be to hit the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2% a year. Even as gasoline prices have declined since June, the costs of housing and food remain especially high in a way that suggests further Fed rate hikes and more economic pain to bring down prices.
U.S. stock indices fell sharply on the inflation report, with the benchmark S&P 500 down more than 4.3% on Tuesday.
Still, Biden and congressional Democratic leaders hailed the new law, with the president raising his voice and taking off his jacket in campaign style at the event on the White House South Lawn.
“With this law the American people won and special interests lost,” Biden said, taking a victory lap for legislation that rounded out the last piece of his domestic agenda for his first two years in office.
The legislation, which passed with only Democratic votes in Congress, also included the most substantial federal investment in history to fight climate change — some $375 billion over a decade — and will cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 out-of-pocket annually for Medicare recipients. It also would help an estimated 13 million Americans pay for health care insurance by extending subsidies provided during the coronavirus pandemic. The measure is paid for by new taxes on large companies and stepped-up IRS enforcement on wealthy individuals and entities.
Biden in his remarks criticized Republicans for voting against the measure, contending they opposed a bill that would lower prices.
“I believe Republicans could have and should have joined us on this bill as well,” Biden said. “After all, this bill cut costs for families to help reduce inflation at the kitchen table.”
The law may help lower prescription drug prices, but outside analyses suggest it will do little to immediately bring down overall inflation. Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office judged it would have a “negligible” effect on prices through 2023. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model went even further to say “the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero” over the next decade.
In theory, the law could reduce inflationary pressures because it would lower annual budget deficits by $300 billion over 10 years.
But by partially forgiving student debt and changing the repayment structure in an August executive order, Biden likely has wiped out those deficit savings, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. An analysis by the fiscal watchdog estimates that the president’s executive order on student debt would cost roughly $500 billion over 10 years, “completely eliminating any disinflationary benefit.”
Still, voters are especially sensitive to gasoline, which declined 10.6% in August. The Biden administration has repeatedly cited relief at the pump as gas costs have fallen since June —when average U.S. prices crested above $5 a gallon. AAA estimates that gas prices nationwide averaged $3.71 a gallon on Tuesday. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/biden-inflation-reduction-law-despite-new-report/507-eb60bf43-056e-426b-b3ea-64f11c875f76 | 2022-09-14T13:15:10 | en | 0.971651 |
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A prehistoric human skeleton has been found in a cave system that was flooded at the end of the last ice age 8,000 years ago, according to a cave-diving archaeologist on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.
Archaeologist Octavio del Rio said he and fellow diver Peter Broger saw the shattered skull and skeleton partly covered by sediment in a cave near where the Mexican government plans to build a high-speed tourist train through the jungle.
Given the distance from the cave entrance, the skeleton couldn’t have gotten there without modern diving equipment, so it must be over 8,000 years old, Del Rio said, referring to the era when rising sea levels flooded the caves.
“There it is. We don’t know if the body was deposited there or if that was where this person died,” said Del Rio. He said that the skeleton was located about 8 meters (26 feet) underwater, about a half-kilometer (one third of a mile) into the cave system.
Some of the oldest human remains in North America have been discovered in the sinkhole caves known as “cenotes” on the country’s Caribbean coast, and experts say some of those caves are threatened by the Mexican government’s Maya Train tourism project.
Del Rio, who has worked with the National Institute of Anthropology and History on projects in the past, said he had notified the institute of the discovery. The institute did not immediately respond to questions about whether it intended to explore the site.
But Del Rio said Tuesday that institute archaeologist Carmen Rojas told him that the site was registered and would be investigated by the institute’s Quintana Roo state branch Holocene Archaeology Project.
He stressed that the cave — whose location he did not reveal because of a fear the site could be looted or disturbed — was near where the government has cut down a swath of jungle to lay train tracks, and could be collapsed, contaminated or closed off by the building project and subsequent development.
“There is a lot more study that has to be done in order to correctly interpret” the find, Del Rio said, noting that “dating, some kind of photographic studies and some collection” would be needed to determine exactly how old the skeleton is.
Del Rio has been exploring the region for three decades, and in 2002, he participated in the discovery and cataloguing of remains known as The Woman of Naharon, who died around the same time, or perhaps earlier, than Naia — the nearly complete skeleton of a young woman who died around 13,000 years ago. It was discovered in a nearby cave system in 2007.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is racing to finish his Maya Train project in the remaining two years of his term over the objections of environmentalists, cave divers and archaeologists. They say his haste will allow little time to study the ancient remains.
Activists say the heavy, high-speed rail project will fragment the coastal jungle and will run often above the fragile limestone caves, which — because they’re flooded, twisty and often incredibly narrow — can take decades to explore.
Caves along part of the coast already have been damaged by construction above them, with cement pilings used to support the weight above.
The 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) Maya Train line is meant to run in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, connecting beach resorts and archaeological sites.
The most controversial stretch cuts a more than 68-mile (110-kilometer) swath through the jungle between the resorts of Cancun and Tulum.
Del Rio said the route through the jungle should be abandoned and the train should be built over the already-impacted coastal highway between Cancun and Tulum, as was originally planned.
López Obrador abandoned the highway route after hotel owners voiced objections, and cost and traffic interruptions became a concern.
“What we want is for them to change to route at this spot, because of the archaeological finds that have been made there, and their importance,” said Del Rio. “They should take the train away from there and put it where they said they were going to build before, on the highway … an area that has already been affected, devastated.” | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/prehistoric-skeleton-found-in-mexico-cave-threatened-by-planned-train/ | 2022-09-14T13:15:14 | en | 0.974809 |
WILMINGTON, Del. — President Joe Biden made a quick jaunt to his home state on Tuesday evening to vote in Delaware's primary, one of the last round of contests ahead of the November elections.
Biden is well known for taking any excuse to escape the White House for his family home, but most of his trips are during weekends. This time he and first lady Jill Biden were gone for only a few hours, which still required the usual assortment of security and motorcades, plus a flight on Air Force One.
The president didn’t say why he declined to cast a mail ballot, which is allowed in Delaware, a voting strategy that Democrats have emphasized to increase turnout.
Biden voted at the Laird Performing Arts Center at the Tatnall School before making a quick stop at his house in Wilmington. During the last election, when he was the Democratic presidential candidate, he cast an early ballot at the Carvel State Office Building in October 2020.
Presidents often look for opportunities to return to their home states to vote in person. In October 2020, Donald Trump voted early at his West Palm Beach, Florida, precinct before a full day of campaigning in key swing states for his failed reelection bid. Barack Obama did the same in Illinois during the 2014 midterms as he campaigned for the state’s incumbent governor and Democratic senator.
Rhode Island and New Hampshire also are holding primary contests on Tuesday.
The sole competitive statewide contest in heavily Democratic Delaware is for state auditor, where incumbent Kathleen McGuiness is running for reelection despite being convicted of conflict of interest and other misdemeanor charges in July. Under Delaware law, McGuiness — who is awaiting sentencing — was allowed to stay on the ballot.
The conviction, stemming from the hiring of McGuiness’s daughter in her office, made the auditor the first statewide elected official in Delaware’s history to be convicted of criminal charges while in office. She is being challenged by Lydia York, a lawyer who has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party and would be the first Black person in that role if elected. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/biden-votes-delaware-primaries/507-88ac0369-6bb2-4363-b9f2-8abf22996d1d | 2022-09-14T13:15:16 | en | 0.980145 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twitter’s former security chief told Congress Tuesday there was “at least one agent” from China’s intelligence service on Twitter’s payroll and that the company knowingly allowed India to add agents to the company roster as well, potentially giving those nations access to sensitive data about users.
These were some of the troubling revelations from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert and Twitter whistleblower who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to lay out his allegations against the company.
Zatko told lawmakers that the social media platform is plagued by weak cyber defenses that make it vulnerable to exploitation by “ teenagers, thieves and spies” and put the privacy of its users at risk.
“I am here today because Twitter leadership is misleading the public, lawmakers, regulators and even its own board of directors,” Zatko said as he began his sworn testimony.
“They don’t know what data they have, where it lives and where it came from and so, unsurprisingly, they can’t protect it,” Zatko said. “It doesn’t matter who has keys if there are no locks.”
“Twitter leadership ignored its engineers,” he said, in part because “their executive incentives led them to prioritize profit over security.”
In a statement, Twitter said its hiring process is “independent of any foreign influence” and access to data is managed through a host of measures, including background checks, access controls, and monitoring and detection systems and processes.
One issue that didn’t come up in the hearing was the question of whether Twitter is accurately counting its active users, an important metric for its advertisers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is trying to get out of a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, has argued without evidence that many of Twitter’s roughly 238 million daily users are fake or malicious accounts, aka “spam bots.”
Even so, “that doesn’t mean that Musk won’t use Zatko’s allegation that Twitter was disinterested in removing bots to try to bolster his argument for walking away from the deal,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.
The Delaware judge overseeing the case ruled last week that Musk can include new evidence related to Zatko’s allegations in the high-stakes trial, which is set to start Oct. 17. During the hearing, Musk tweeted a popcorn emoji, often used to suggest that one is sitting back in anticipation of unfolding drama.
Separately on Tuesday, Twitter’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly to approve the deal, according to multiple media reports. Shareholders have been voting remotely on the issue for weeks. The vote was largely a formality, particularly given Musk’s efforts to nullify the deal, although it does clear a legal hurdle to closing the sale.
Zatko’s message echoed one brought to Congress against another social media giant last year. But unlike that Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Zatko hasn’t brought troves of internal documents to back up his claims.
Zatko was the head of security for the influential platform until he was fired early this year. He filed a whistleblower complaint in July with Congress, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among his most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee, said Zatko has detailed flaws “that may pose a direct threat to Twitter’s hundreds of millions of users as well as to American democracy.”
“Twitter is an immensely powerful platform and can’t afford gaping vulnerabilities,” he said.
Unknown to Twitter users, there’s far more of their personal information disclosed than they — or sometimes even Twitter itself — realize, Zatko testified. He said Twitter did not address “basic systemic failures” brought forward by company engineers.
The FTC has been “a little over its head”, and far behind European counterparts, in policing the sort of privacy violations that have occurred at Twitter, Zatko said.
Zatko’s allegation that Twitter was more concerned about foreign regulators than the FTC, Enberg said, “could be a wakeup call for U.S. lawmakers,” who have been unable to pass meaningful regulation on social media companies.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said one positive result that could come out of Zatko’s findings would be bipartisan legislation to set up a tighter system of regulation of tech platforms.
“We need to up our game in this country,” he said.
Many of Zatko’s claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. Twitter has called Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative … riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies” and lacking important context.
Still, Zatko came off as a convincing whistleblower who has “a lot of credibility in this space,” said Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University. But he said many of the problems he raised can likely be found at many other digital technology platforms
“They avoid security protocols in a sense of innovating and running really fast,” Lightman said. “We gave digital platforms so much autonomy at the beginning to grow and develop. Now we’re at a point where we’re, ‘Wait a minute … This has gotten out of hand.’
Among the assertions from Zatko that drew lawmaker attention was Twitter’s apparent negligence in dealing with governments that sought to get spies a job inside the company. Twitter’s inability to log how employees accessed user accounts made it hard for the company to detect when employees were abusing their access, Zatko said.
Zatko said he spoke with “high confidence” about a foreign agent that the government of India placed at Twitter to “understand the negotiations” between India’s ruling party and Twitter about new social media restrictions and how well those negotiations were going.
Zatko also revealed Tuesday that he was told about a week before his firing that “at least one agent” from the Chinese intelligence service MSS, or the Ministry of State Security, was “on the payroll” at Twitter.
He said he was similarly “surprised and shocked” by an exchange with current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal about Russia — in which Twitter’s current CEO, who was chief technology officer at the time, asked if it would be possible to “punt” content moderation and surveillance to the Russian government, since Twitter doesn’t really “have the ability and tools to do things correctly.”
“And since they have elections, doesn’t that make them a democracy?” Zatko recalled Agrawal saying.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the committee’s ranking Republican, said Tuesday that Agrawal declined to testify at the hearing, citing the ongoing legal proceedings with Musk. But the hearing is “more important than Twitter’s civil litigation in Delaware,” Grassley said. Twitter declined to comment on Grassley’s remarks.
In his complaint, Zatko accused Agrawal as well as other senior executives and board members of numerous violations, including making “false and misleading statements to users and the FTC about the Twitter platform’s security, privacy and integrity.”
Zatko, 51, first gained prominence in the 1990s as a pioneer in the ethical hacking movement and later worked in senior positions at an elite Defense Department research unit and at Google. He joined Twitter in late 2020 at the urging of then-CEO Jack Dorsey. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/whistleblower-china-india-had-agents-working-for-twitter/ | 2022-09-14T13:15:21 | en | 0.969268 |
WASHINGTON — Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage negotiations who has worked to secure the releases of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, visited Moscow this week and held meetings with Russian leaders, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night.
The visit came as American officials have continued to press Russia to release Griner, who was sentenced last month to nine years in prison in a drug possession case, and Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges. The U.S. government regards both as wrongfully detained.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to facilitate a swap. Though he did not detail the terms, a person familiar the matter said the U.S. had offered to release convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
In in interview with The Associated Press last month, Richardson said he was hopeful about the chances of a two-for-two prisoner swap. In cases like this, Richardson said at the time, “it’s proportional — two-for two.”
The person who confirmed Richardson's visit insisted on anonymity to discuss private negotiations. The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which Richardson founded, issued a statement declining to comment on his visit. The nature of the dialogue and any outcome were not immediately clear.
CNN was first to report Richardson's visit. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/bill-richardson-visits-russia-as-griner-whelan-remain-jailed/507-86f3c53e-0d8f-41a3-8c38-7533fc06ab1b | 2022-09-14T13:15:23 | en | 0.973842 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nba/new-york-knicks/articles/40753625 | 2022-09-14T13:15:26 | en | 0.738227 |
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Senior officials from social media companies will face questions from senators who fear the sites could fuel individuals to commit acts of domestic terrorism.
On Wednesday, both former and current employees of social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, will testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“It’s incredibly important that we understand what’s happening,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman. “Domestic terrorism is a number one form of terrorism right now that we are facing, and a lot of those terrorists have been linked in some way to contact those individuals through social media.”
Peters said he believes the companies’ algorithms are intentionally sending users dangerous content to keep them on their sites for profit.
“The question we have is how do folks who are just using these platforms on an everyday basis suddenly find themselves going down a rabbit hole that can lead to very extreme content,” said Peters.
Republicans, like Florida Sen. Rick Scott, agree this problem is real. Scott hopes the Democrats and Republicans can find solutions without unfairly censoring conservative users.
“We have to look at things that are causing problems for our society,” said Scott. “I think one thing we have got to look at is how biased many of the social platforms have become.” | https://fox4kc.com/politics/washington-dc-bureau/social-media-platforms-to-testify-at-senate-hearing-on-domestic-threats/ | 2022-09-14T13:15:27 | en | 0.958349 |
BOSTON — Nonbinary athletes will be able to run in next year's Boston Marathon without having to register as members of the men's or women's divisions, race organizers announced Monday.
The Boston Athletic Association, which administers the prestigious marathon, said it's been working to expand opportunities for nonbinary people — not just for the marathon but for the BAA's other races, which include a 5K, a 10K and a half marathon.
Organizers confirmed the change as registration opened Monday for the 127th running of the marathon on April 17, 2023. A field of about 30,000 is expected for next spring's edition of the storied race.
Nonbinary athletes can submit entry applications if they've completed a marathon as a nonbinary participant during the current qualifying window, the BAA said. It said it's still working to establish qualifying standards for nonbinary participants, but that its online applications will include “nonbinary” as a gender option.
“Discussions are ongoing with nonbinary athletes in an effort to further promote inclusion at all BAA events,” the organization said, adding, “We view this first year as an opportunity to learn and grow together.”
Nonbinary pro miler and 1,500 runner Nikki Hiltz, who came out as transgender last year and narrowly missed a spot on the U.S. team for the Tokyo Olympics, lauded the move.
“There’s still so much work to be done but I’m thrilled that nonbinary runners are being acknowledged by the Boston Marathon and BAA,” Hiltz tweeted.
The Boston Marathon is the latest major marathon to begin adding nonbinary divisions.
Last year's Philadelphia Distance Run, a premier event offering a half marathon and a 5K, became the first large race in the U.S. to establish a nonbinary division and offer equal prize money.
The Brooklyn Marathon and Half Marathon followed in April. Eighty-two competitors who had registered as nonbinary participants were among the finishers. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/boston-marathon-welcomes-nonbinary-athletes-2023-race/507-159a14e2-3c7d-4ede-8650-46737dd97be9 | 2022-09-14T13:15:29 | en | 0.96527 |
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NEW YORK — Monica Lewinsky had a tempered, compassionate response to the death of Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation of Bill Clinton helped reveal her affair with the president and, she once wrote, made her life a “living hell.”
“As I'm sure many can understand, my thoughts about ken starr bring up complicated feelings,” she tweeted Tuesday after reports that Starr had died at age 76. “But of more importance, is that i imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him.”
Lewinsky was a White House intern in the mid-1990s, in her early 20s, when she began a relationship with Clinton, one that Starr would document in exhaustive, explicit detail. Starr had initially been retained to look into an Arkansas real estate deal Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in, but his investigation shifted after he learned of allegations about the president's private behavior. Lewinsky denied their affair in a sworn affidavit, but did not know that her former colleague, Linda Tripp, had been taping their phone conversations about Bill Clinton and would turn them over to Starr.
Lewinsky would recall with horror being interrogated for hours in 1998 by Starr's prosecutors — but not Starr himself — and threatened with prison if she didn't cooperate with their investigation, a demand she initially refused. Months later, she agreed to testify about the affair, and turned over to prosecutors a dress stained with the president's semen, in return for immunity.
Lewinsky later wrote that she was diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized,” and was for years subjected to crude jokes. But starting with a Vanity Fair essay in 2014 and a TED talk she gave in 2015 on “The Price of Shame,” she has become a widely respected anti-bullying activist. David Letterman and John Oliver are among those who have apologized for once mocking her.
Writing in Vanity Fair in 2018, Lewinsky remembered finally encountering Starr in person, at a Greenwich Village restaurant the previous Christmas Eve. Starr stepped forward with a “warm, incongruous smile,” and introduced himself to Lewinsky, who was dining with her family.
“Ken Starr asked me several times if I was ‘doing O.K.’ A stranger might have surmised from his tone that he had actually worried about me over the years. His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable,” she wrote.
"I turned and introduced him to my family. Bizarre as it may sound, I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn’t hounded and terrorized just me but also my family — threatening to prosecute my mom (if she didn’t disclose the private confidences I had shared with her), hinting that they would investigate my dad’s medical practice, and even deposing my aunt, with whom I was eating dinner that night."
Starr would write about Lewinsky in his 2018 memoir “Contempt,” describing how “Monica screamed, she cried, she pouted, and complained bitterly about her scheming, no-good, so-called friend (Tripp).” But their threats, and the urging of Lewinsky's mother to accept the prosecutors' terms, did not change her mind.
“Monica overruled her mother. She would fall on her sword rather than implicate the president of the United States,” Starr wrote. “It was becoming increasingly clear: in thinking she was a naive, starstruck young woman in love who would quickly cooperate, we underestimated her. In her determination to protect the president, Monica kept a team of experienced FBI agents and career prosecutors twiddling their thumbs for much of the day.” | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/lewinsky-shares-response-to-starrs-death/507-0dc8d9d9-3cee-4646-bfa2-52bbb4ce71e4 | 2022-09-14T13:15:35 | en | 0.989727 |
WASHINGTON — Upending the political debate, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide abortion ban Tuesday, sending shockwaves through both parties and igniting fresh debate on a fraught issue weeks before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Graham's own Republican Party leaders did not immediately embrace his abortion ban bill, which would prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy with rare exceptions, and has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic-held Congress. Democrats torched it as an alarming signal of where “MAGA” Republicans are headed if they win control of the House and Senate in November.
"America’s got to make some decisions," Graham said at a news conference at the Capitol.
The South Carolina Republican said that rather than shying away from the Supreme Court's ruling this summer overturning Roe v. Wade's nearly 50-year right to abortion access, Republicans are preparing to fight to make a nationwide abortion ban federal law.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we’re going nowhere,” the senator said while flanked by female advocates from the anti-abortion movement. “We welcome the debate. We welcome the vote in the United States Senate as to what America should look like in 2022.”
Reaction was swift, fierce and unwavering from Democrats who viewed Graham's legislation as an extreme example of the far-right's hold on the GOP, and as a political gift of self-inflicted pain for Republican candidates now having to answer questions about an abortion ban heading toward the midterm elections.
“A nationwide abortion ban — that’s the contrast between the two parties, plain and simple,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington who is in her own fight for reelection, said Republicans “want to force” women to stay pregnant and deliver babies.
“To anyone who thought they were safe, here is the painful reality,” she said. “Republicans are coming for your rights.”
The sudden turn of events comes in a razor-tight election season as Republicans hoping to win control of Congress are struggling to recapture momentum, particularly after the Supreme Court's landmark decision sparked deep concerns among some voters, with signs of female voters peeling away from the GOP.
In a midterm election where the party out of the White House traditionally holds an advantage, even more so this year with President Joe Biden's lackluster approval ratings, the Democrats have regained their own momentum pushing back the GOP candidates in House and Senate races.
Tuesday's announcement set up an immediate split screen with Biden and Democrats poised to celebrate their accomplishments in a ceremony at the White House after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Republicans forced to answer for Graham's proposed abortion ban.
"This bill is wildly out of step with what Americans believe," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
"While President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, health care, and energy – and to take unprecedented action to address climate change — Republicans in Congress are focused on taking rights away from millions of women," Jean-Pierre said.
Graham's legislation has almost zero chance of becoming law, but it elevates the abortion issue at a time when other Republicans would prefer to focus on inflation, border security and Biden's leadership.
The Republican bill would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of rape, incest or risk to the physical health of the mother. Graham said it would put the U.S. on par with many countries in Europe and around the world.
In particular, Graham's bill would leave in place state laws that are more restrictive. That provision is notable because many Republicans have argued that the Supreme Court's ruling leaves the abortion issue for the states to decide. But the legislation from the Republicans makes it clear states are only allowed to decide the issue if their abortion bans are more stringent.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who is one seat away from majority control, declined to embrace Graham's legislation.
“I think every Republican senator running this year in these contested races has an answer as to how they feel about the issue," McConnell said. He said most GOP senators prefer having the issue dealt with by the states, rather than at the federal level. "So I leave it up to our candidates who are quite capable of handling this issue to determine for them what their response is.”
The Democratic senators most at risk this fall and other Democratic candidates running for Congress appeared eager to fight against Graham's proposed nationwide abortion ban.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, tweeted that Graham “and every other anti-choice extremist can take a hike.”
Her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt, has during his campaign insisted that abortion is protected in the state constitution, which it may no longer be under this bill.
In Colorado, another Democrat up for reelection, Sen. Michael Bennet, tweeted: “A nationwide abortion ban is outrageous. "
Bennet pledged "to defend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, no matter what ZIP code she lives in. We cannot afford to let the Republicans take back the Senate.”
His opponent in Colorado, Republican Joe O’Dea, who supports putting abortion access that had been guaranteed under Roe v. Wade into law, agreed, in part: “A Republican ban is as reckless and tone deaf as is Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s hostility to considering any compromise on late term abortion, parental notification or conscience protections for religious hospitals.”
The races for control of Congress are tight in the split 50-50 Senate, where one seat determines majority control, and in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose only a few seats.
Pelosi called Graham's bill the “clearest signal of extreme MAGA Republicans’ intent to criminalize women’s health freedom in all 50 states and arrest doctors for providing basic care. Make no mistake: if Republicans get the chance, they will work to pass laws even more draconian than this bill.”
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill tried to hold the party together amid the differences.
“I think that what it’s attempting to do is probably change the conversation a little bit,” said Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and second-ranking party leader.
“Democrats are implying that all Republicans are for a ban without exceptions, and that’s not true,” Thune said. “There are Republicans who are in favor of restrictions. And I think this is an attempt to at least put something out there that reflects the views of a lot of Republicans who are in favor of some restrictions.”
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington who is in her own fight for reelection, said Republicans “want to force” women to stay pregnant and deliver babies.
“To anyone who thought they were safe, here is the painful reality,” she said. “Republicans are coming for your rights.”
The sudden turn of events comes in a razor-tight election season as Republicans hoping to win control of Congress are struggling to recapture momentum, particularly after the Supreme Court's landmark decision sparked deep concerns among some voters, with signs of female voters peeling away from the GOP.
In a midterm election where the party out of the White House traditionally holds an advantage, even more so this year with President Joe Biden's lackluster approval ratings, the Democrats have regained their own momentum pushing back the GOP candidates in House and Senate races.
Tuesday's announcement set up an immediate split screen with Biden and Democrats poised to celebrate their accomplishments in a ceremony at the White House after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Republicans forced to answer for Graham's proposed abortion ban.
"This bill is wildly out of step with what Americans believe," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
"While President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, health care, and energy – and to take unprecedented action to address climate change — Republicans in Congress are focused on taking rights away from millions of women," Jean-Pierre said.
Graham's legislation has almost zero chance of becoming law, but it elevates the abortion issue at a time when other Republicans would prefer to focus on inflation, border security and Biden's leadership. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/lindsey-graham-nationwide-abortion-ban/507-5f623200-497a-44ea-9a28-62b556529e37 | 2022-09-14T13:15:41 | en | 0.961507 |
WASHINGTON — MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell said Tuesday that federal agents seized his cellphone and questioned him about a Colorado clerk who has been charged in what prosecutors say was a “deceptive scheme” to breach voting system technology used across the country.
Lindell was approached in the drive-thru of a Hardee’s fast-food restaurant in Mankato, Minnesota, by several FBI agents, he said on his podcast, “The Lindell Report.” The agents questioned him about Dominion Voting Systems, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and his connection to Doug Frank, an Ohio educator who claims voting machines have been manipulated, he said.
The agents then told Lindell they had a warrant to seize his cellphone and ordered him to turn it over, he said. On a video version of his podcast, Lindell displayed a letter signed by an assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado that said prosecutors were conducting an “official criminal investigation of a suspected felony” and noted the use of a federal grand jury.
The circumstances of the investigation were unclear. The Justice Department did not immediately respond Tuesday night to a request for comment about the seizure or investigation.
“Without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge,” FBI spokeswoman Vikki Migoya said in an email.
Federal prosecutors have been conducting a parallel investigation alongside local prosecutors in Colorado who have charged Peters with several offenses, including attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and official misconduct. The Republican was elected in 2018 to oversee elections in Colorado’s Mesa County. A deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, was also charged in the case, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation.
For more than a year, Peters has appeared onstage with supporters of former President Donald Trump who made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The charges against Peters and Knisley allege the two were involved in a “deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment, and set in motion the eventual distribution of confidential information to unauthorized people.”
State election officials first became aware of a security breach in Mesa County in 2021 when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website. Because each Colorado county has unique passwords maintained by the state, officials identified them as belonging to Mesa County, a largely rural area on the border with Utah.
Peters appeared onstage in August 2021 at a “cybersymposium” hosted by Lindell, who has sought to prove that voting machines have been manipulated and promised to reveal proof of that during the event.
While no evidence was provided, a copy of Mesa County’s voting system hard drive was distributed and posted online, according to attendees and state officials.
The copy included proprietary software developed by Dominion Voting Systems that is used by election offices around the country. Experts have described the unauthorized release as serious, saying it provided a potential “practice environment” that would allow anyone to probe for vulnerabilities that could be exploited during a future election.
Nearly two years after the 2020 election, no evidence has emerged to suggest widespread fraud or manipulation, while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won.
The Mesa County breach is just one of several around the country that have concerned election security experts. Authorities are investigating whether unauthorized people were allowed to access voting systems in Georgia and Michigan.
Lindell said the federal agents had also questioned him about when he first met Frank, an Ohio math and science educator, who is among a group of people who have been traveling across the U.S. meeting with community groups claiming to have evidence that voting machines were rigged in the 2020 election.
In court records, prosecutors say Frank met with Peters and members of her staff in April 2021 in her office. During the meeting, Frank told Peters that the county’s election management system was vulnerable to outside interference and the group discussed concerns the state was going to “wipe” the machines, according to the court records. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/mypillow-executive-fbi-agents-seized-his-cellphone/507-7a3dbaaa-e725-436b-9fd3-abfcab62bd84 | 2022-09-14T13:15:47 | en | 0.98288 |
NEW YORK — Oprah Winfrey has selected a prison memoir by Jarvis Jay Masters, currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison in California, for her latest book club pick. Masters' “That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row” was first published in 2009.
Activists for years have called for the release of Masters, sentenced to death in 1990 for taking part in the murder of a San Quentin prison guard. Masters, first imprisoned in 1981 for armed robbery, has filed numerous appeals in efforts to have his murder conviction overturned. A hearing is scheduled for next month in federal court.
“A little more than 10 years ago, I was given a memoir by Jarvis Jay Masters, a man serving a death row sentence in San Quentin,” Winfrey said in a statement Tuesday. “His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system, and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today, which is why I’m naming ‘That Bird Has My Wings’ as my latest Oprah’s Book Club selection.”
Masters said in a statement that he would be “forever grateful” to Winfrey for choosing his book.
“I turned 60 this year, having entered San Quentin at the age 19. I wrote ‘That Bird Has My Wings’ while in solitary confinement, isolated and alone,” he said. “My greatest hope at that time was that a few young people would read my story and learn from my mistakes. Thanks to Ms. Winfrey and her book club, my story will be introduced to a national audience. It is my greatest hope that their lives will be the better for it."
Supporters of Masters have backed his claims of innocence and cited him as a model of how people can transform themselves. In “Don’t Stop Believing That People Can Change,” a New York Times essay published in April, author Rebecca Solnit wrote that “he has often defused potential violence and offered solace and a trustworthy ear to the sorrows of those around him.”
Masters has also written “Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart,” published in 1997. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/oprah-memoir-selection/507-790fa405-a03c-404a-88c0-c692aecc7569 | 2022-09-14T13:15:53 | en | 0.974921 |
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LONDON, UK — Queen Elizabeth II's coffin will leave Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it is taken amid somber pageantry on a horse-drawn gun carriage past crowds of mourners to the Houses of Parliament, where the late monarch will lie in state for four days.
Crowds began massing early along the flag-lined road outside the palace for the procession from the monarch's official London residence to the historic Westminster Hall at Parliament. King Charles III and other members of the royal family will walk behind the coffin.
Thousands of people are gathering on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace and along the banks of the River Thames hours before the coffin procession begins.
About a half-hour before the procession was due to start, the gun carriage passed through the palace's wrought iron gates.
Joan Bucklehurst, a 50-year-old retail worker from Cheshire in northwestern England, said the queen “meant so much for everybody.”
“She was amazing, yeah,” she added, choking up with emotion. "So, we had to be here. We’ve been here a few times when there have been special occasions, but this one, I couldn’t miss this.”
The crowds are the latest manifestation of a nationwide outpouring of grief and respect for the only monarch most Britons have ever known, who died at her beloved Balmoral summer retreat on Thursday at age 96, ending a 70-year reign.
“It’s a very sad day, but it’s our last opportunity to do our duty for the queen and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the king, and that makes us all very proud,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, of the Household division, who is responsible for organizing the ceremonial aspects of the Queen’s funeral.
London’s Heathrow Airport said it was adjusting timetables to prevent overhead planes disturbing the procession. British Airways canceled 16 flights as a result of the changes.
The airport said in a statement that the changes would “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.”
Troops involved in the procession have been preparing since the queen died. So have the horses of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.
Sgt. Tom Jenks, from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, said that the horses have undergone special training, including how to handle weeping mourners, as well as flowers and flags being thrown onto streets as the procession passes by.
People stood behind metal barriers or sat on folding chairs, umbrellas at the ready, takeout coffees in hand under gray skies hours before the coffin was scheduled to leave the landmark palace at 2:22 p.m. (1322 GMT).
Crowds have lined the route of the queen's coffin whenever it has been moved in its long journey from Scotland back to London.
On Tuesday night, thousands braved a typical London drizzle as the state hearse, with interior lights illuminating the sovereign's flag-draped casket, drove slowly from a military air base into the heart of London.
Geoff Colgan, a taxi driver who took the day off to witness the moment, stood stunned in the moments after the queen’s coffin passed.
“It’s one of those things you know would happen, but when it does you can’t believe it,” he said, holding his toddler.
Earlier, in Edinburgh, some 33,000 people filed in silent respect past her coffin as it lay for 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral.
Hundreds of thousands are expected to do the same in London when the queen lies in state at the 900-year-old Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, for four days before her state funeral on Monday.
The hall is where Guy Fawkes and Charles I were tried, where kings and queens hosted magnificent medieval banquets, and where ceremonial addresses were presented to Queen Elizabeth II during her silver, golden and diamond jubilees.
Chris Bond, from Truro in southwest England, was among those lining up along the banks of the River Thames. He also attended the lying in state of the queen's mother in 2002.
“Obviously, it’s quite difficult queuing all day long, but when you walk through those doors into Westminster Hall, that marvellous, historic building, there was a great sense of hush and one was told you take as much time as you like, and it’s just amazing,” he said.
“We know the queen was a good age and she served the country a long time, but we hoped this day would never come," he added.
Chris Imafidon, secured the sixth place in the queue.
“I have 1,001 emotions when I see her," he said. "I want to say, God, she was an angel, because she touched many good people and did so many good things.” | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/queen-procession-buckingham-palace-to-lying-in-state/507-019c0da4-4acb-416f-ba5d-5ae7546f5aa5 | 2022-09-14T13:15:59 | en | 0.970752 |
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SEATTLE — Starbucks ringing up record sales but struggling with low employee morale plans to spend $450 million next year to make its North American stores more efficient and less complex.
The company also said it plans to open 2,000 net new stores in the U.S. by 2025, with an emphasis on meeting the growing demand for new types of service, including drive-thru, mobile ordering and delivery. Drive-thru now makes up 50% of U.S. sales, for example, while delivery demand has grown by 24% so far this year.
“It’s clear that our physical stores have to change. Our physical stores were built for a different era,” said John Culver, Starbucks’ chief operating officer, at a day-long event for investors in Seattle Tuesday.
Culver said customizable cold drinks, which now make up as many as 75% of Starbucks' U.S. beverage orders, are taxing employees in kitchens designed for simpler hot drinks. Starbucks debuted a new work station that requires less movement and can cut 50 seconds off the process of making a blended iced mocha. It also announced a new patented technology that will cut the time needed to make cold brew coffee from 20 hours to a few seconds.
The introduction of an increasing number of hot food items is also slowing Starbucks' kitchens. Culver said Starbucks expects to serve 300 million breakfast sandwiches in the U.S. this year, each of which takes up to 85 seconds to warm in its ovens. Starbucks plans to start cooking them in batches and storing them in warmers next to the drive-thru windows.
The company touted other upcoming benefits for workers, including more flexible scheduling, more generous sick time accrual and expanded ability for mobile customers to tip.
Starbucks executives made little mention of a growing unionization effort at its U.S. stores during morning presentations Tuesday. But it has clearly been an impetus for the company to think more deeply about ways to improve employees’ work life. Since late last year, 236 of Starbucks’ 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize, an effort the company opposes.
“The reality is, we have a trust deficit with our partners,” said Frank Britt, Starbucks’ executive vice president and chief strategy officer. “The work we do in our stores today is too physically hard.”
It wasn't immediately clear if the new investments and technology would be offered to non-union stores; Starbucks said the company hasn't yet decided how the investment will be doled out. But in May, Starbucks announced $200 million in additional pay and training but said that benefit would only go to non-union stores.
Starbucks says it is required to negotiate new benefits with union stores. But in August, the Seattle office of the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against the company, saying it was violating U.S. labor law by withholding wage increases and other benefits from workers in unionized stores. A hearing in that case before an NLRB administrative judge is scheduled for October.
Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing workers, said around 300 protesters picketed outside the Starbucks meeting on Tuesday.
Culver said the company will respect the unionization process and negotiate with the stores that vote to unionize. But he also reiterated the company's position.
“There are two paths. We can work together as partners, side by side, or we can have a third party between us," he said.
Leading the company's revamp will be Laxman Narasimhan, a former PepsiCo executive who was named Starbucks’ CEO last week. Narasimhan will spend the next six months shadowing interim CEO Howard Schultz, who helped shape the company after buying it in 1987 and has been leading it on a temporary basis since April. Schultz will remain on Starbucks’ board when Narasimhan assumes the CEO position in April.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for me to be learning at the feet of one of the best entrepreneurs in the world,” said Narasimhan, who described himself as a “right-brained" operational expert who also loves art, music and writing poetry.
Narasimhan, 55, who most recently was CEO of the U.K.-based consumer health and hygiene company Reckitt, also said he agrees that Starbucks has to renew its focus on exceeding its' employees expectations if it wants to serve its customers well.
Schultz said Starbucks notched the best sales week in its 51-year history in August when it introduced its fall drink lineup. But Schultz said Starbucks lost its way during the pandemic, when employee retention tumbled even as customers demanded new service like curbside pickup.
Starbucks shares fell 1.4% Tuesday during a broader market downturn as investors fretted about stubbornly high inflation. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/starbucks-plans-to-speed-up-service-boost-employee-morale/507-7810afd6-5fc2-40c9-961d-930e2d7669f6 | 2022-09-14T13:16:05 | en | 0.97227 |
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NEW YORK — World markets slipped Wednesday after Wall Street fell the most since June 2020 as a report showed inflation has kept a surprisingly strong grip on the U.S. economy.
European benchmarks were marginally lower while Asia saw bigger losses. U.S. futures edged higher, with the contracts for the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 up 0.3%. European futures were lower.
Tuesday's report showed U.S. inflation slowed only to 8.3% in August, instead of the 8.1% economists expected. That dashed hopes that inflation was falling back to more normal levels after peaking in June at 9.1%, allowing the Federal Reserve to moderate its interest rate hikes.
Now, traders are bracing for the Federal Reserve to ultimately raise interest rates more than expected to combat inflation, with all the risks for the economy that entails.
Germany's DAX lost 0.2% to 13,165.86 and the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.3% to 6,2275. Britain's FTSE 10 shed 0.7% to 7,334.75. The futures for the Dow industrials and S&P 500 both were down about 0.3%.
Tensions between the U.S. and China also were weighing on sentiment. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to meet later in the week, underscoring the countries' warming ties as the West pushes ahead with sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
The meeting Thursday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of a summit dominated by Moscow and Beijing, reflect the strong ties between the former Communist rivals now locked in rivalry with the U.S.
The U.S. is meanwhile reportedly considering new sanctions against Beijing aimed at deterring aggression against Taiwan, a self-governed island democracy that China claims as its own territory.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 2.3% to 18,875.59 and the Shanghai Composite index declined 0.8%, to 3,237.54.
Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 2.8% to 27,818.62, while Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 2.6% to 6,828.60. In Seoul, the Kospi lost 1.6% to 2,411.42.
On Tuesday, the Dow lost more than 1,250 points and the S&P 500 sank 4.3% after Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected report on inflation. The Nasdaq composite closed 5.2% lower.
Bond prices also fell sharply, sending their yields higher.
The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for Fed actions, soared to 3.74% from 3.57% late Monday. The 10-year yield, which helps dictate where mortgages and rates for other loans are heading, rose to 3.42% from 3.36%.
Traders now see a one-in-three chance the Fed may hike its benchmark rate by a full percentage point next week, quadruple the usual move.
The Fed has already raised its federal funds rate four times this year, with the last two increases by three-quarters of a percentage point. The rate is currently in a range of 2.25% to 2.50%.
Higher rates hurt the economy by making it more expensive to buy a house, a car or anything else usually purchased on credit. Mortgage rates have already hit their highest level since 2008, creating pain for the housing industry. The hope is that the Fed can pull off the tightrope walk of slowing the economy enough to snuff out high inflation, but not so much that it creates a painful recession.
Tuesday's data casts doubt on hopes for such a “soft landing.” Higher rates also hurt prices for stocks, bonds and other investments.
Expectations for a more aggressive Fed have also helped the dollar add to its already strong gains for this year. The dollar has been surging against other currencies in large part because the Fed has been hiking rates faster and by bigger margins than many other central banks.
That's especially true for Japan, where the benchmark rate remains at minus 0.1%. The dollar bought 143.47 Japanese yen, down from 144.57 yen late Tuesday. The euro rose to 0.9981 cents, up from 0.9969 cents.
U.S. benchmark crude lost 47 cents to $86.84 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 47 cents to $87.31 on Tuesday. Brent crude, the international pricing standard, gave up 53 cents to $92.64 per barrel. | https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/stocks-down-worldwide/507-faebd9c1-419f-4333-be34-f08b3be4fe14 | 2022-09-14T13:16:12 | en | 0.963793 |
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As the Senate prepared to move on a bill that would protect same-sex marriage, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) on Monday pushed back against GOP objections that it is unnecessary.
Some Republicans have said the Respect for Marriage Act, which would make marriage a constitutional right regardless of a couple’s sex, race, ethnicity or national origin, is moot because the U.S. Supreme Court has already protected marriage equality.
“The same court that overturned Roe vs. Wade puts in jeopardy a number of other Supreme Court cases: the case that affirmed same-sex marriage, the case that affirmed interracial marriage,” Baldwin, the lead Democratic negotiator for the new bill, said on CNN.
Lawmakers sprung to action after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his opinion on the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, argued that the justices should also reconsider cases like Obergefell v. Hodges, which secured same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, and Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married couples the right to access contraceptives.
Millions of U.S. couples, Baldwin said, “are legitimately concerned about the legitimacy of their marriage.”
Democrats are still working to secure 10 GOP votes to ensure the bill can overcome a Republican filibuster. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a sponsor of the bill, is a “yes” vote, along with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) previously told reporters that he “probably will” vote for the bill.
Negotiators are considering an amendment to address GOP concerns about creating legal problems for religious groups, which could expand Republican support for the bill.
Baldwin said that, before the amendment, she had “five [Republicans] on the record and three more soft, not-quite-on-the-record” in her push toward the needed 10 votes.
Her fellow Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) initially indicated he’d support the proposal but later backtracked and dismissed the bill as “just Democrats opening up a wound that doesn’t need to be opened up.”
The Respect for Marriage Act would formally repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which narrowly defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman — legislation that remains in place despite being negated in part by the Supreme Court.
Repealing the outdated legislation would be a strong and “very affirming statement” from Congress, Baldwin said.
“We often think, when we say the word marriage, of the wedding rights, but with a marriage certificate comes very important rights and responsibilities that people rely on, say, hospital visits and, you know, all sorts of things that are really important. So this is timely right now.”
Baldwin said Johnson has “gone back and forth quite a bit on this issue” and added that she hopes he’ll revert back to supporting the bill after seeing the new amendment.
“This is a real issue to millions of couples across the United States. This is not being done for political purposes. We have, already, a nice bipartisan group working very hard to pass it,” Baldwin said.
The House passed its Respect for Marriage Act 267-157 in July, with 47 Republicans joining all Democrats voting in favor.
The bill could pass the Senate this month, and Baldwin says she expects the Senate to vote on it next week.
This story was updated at 1:50 p.m. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/baldwin-pushes-back-on-gop-arguments-against-same-sex-marriage-legislation/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:15 | en | 0.964793 |
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President Biden on Monday will announce the director of a new agency focused on biomedical innovation and sign an executive order on biotechnologies as part of an update on his administration’s efforts to cure cancer.
Biden will travel to Boston on the 60th anniversary of former President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” speech at Rice University, where Kennedy outlined his goal for the United States to land a man on the moon.
The president will provide an update on his administration’s “Cancer Moonshot,” an initiative he relaunched in February with the goal to cut the cancer death rate in half over the next 25 years and improve the lives of caregivers and cancer survivors.
Biden on Monday will announce the appointment of Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural director of Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, an agency created in March focused on developing biomedical technologies to improve health outcomes.
The president will also sign an executive order launching a national biotechnology and biomanufacturing initiative. The order will bolster research and aim to solidify supply chains so that biotechnologies used in the fight against cancer are developed and produced in the U.S., according to a White House fact sheet.
“This initiative is rooted in the principles of equity, ethics, safety, and security that will help benefit all Americans and the global community, and maintain United States technological leadership and economic competitiveness,” the White House said.
Biden will also give an update on the progress of his “Cancer Cabinet,” a group of advisers and administration officials tasked with securing funding and developing treatments for cancer.
The president will highlight recent developments like the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act by Democrats in Congress, which includes provisions to lower prescription drug costs, some of which are used to treat certain forms of cancer.
He will also note the launch of a National Cancer Institute study aimed at identifying blood tests that can detect one or more cancers with the goal of earlier detection in cancer patients.
Before the speech on Monday, Biden will make remarks on the investments in the bipartisan infrastructure law in Boston.
The cause of ending cancer has been personal for Biden, whose son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. The president has talked about ending cancer throughout his campaign and presidency, saying it would be a priority for him. He has also framed it as a bipartisan effort, meeting with members of both parties at the White House last year to discuss the effort. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/biden-to-sign-order-boosting-biotech-as-part-of-cancer-moonshot-update/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:21 | en | 0.961496 |
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Saturday said it would deactivate a West Texas border patrol account that retweeted far-right posts from Stephen Miller, who was a key architect of former President Trump’s immigration policy as a senior White House adviser.
CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said the retweeted content was removed and the Office of Professional Responsibility was investigating the situation.
“Totally unacceptable and disappointing that any CBP Twitter account was used to R/T offensive, unauthorized content,” Magnus tweeted. “This must not happen again.”
The CBP Twitter account retweeted two posts from Miller over the weekend, according to screenshots shared on Twitter, including one in which Miller ranted against perceived criminals.
“Violent criminals lay waste to our communities undisturbed while the immense power of the state is arrayed against those whose only crime is dissent,” Miller wrote. “The law has been turned from a shield to protect the innocent into a sword to conquer them.”
In another post retweeted by CBP West Texas, Miller took aim at the media, saying its “greatest power is its ability to frame what is a dire national crisis (eg “cops are racist” summer ’20) and what is not.”
“Biden’s eradication of our border means we are no longer a Republic – he’s ended nearly 250 years of constitutional government. The media is silent,” Miller tweeted.
The immigration policies Miller helped shape under Trump were criticized as being blatantly racist and based on fear-mongering. He reportedly helped craft Trump’s travel ban, which targeted Muslim countries; the 450-mile long steel bollard wall on the Mexican border; and the family separation policy.
A separate statement from CBP, shared by Magnus on Saturday, said the retweets of the CBP West Texas account do not reflect the agency’s views on immigration.
“The tweets do not reflect the values of this administration and our work to rebuild a humane, orderly, and secure immigration system,” the statement reads.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed Miller last week in connection to its investigation into Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/border-patrol-to-probe-totally-unacceptable-retweets-of-stephen-miller-posts/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:28 | en | 0.966617 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/cf/minnesota-golden-gophers-football/articles/40753739 | 2022-09-14T13:16:33 | en | 0.738227 |
Simmering tensions among congressional Democrats are rising to the surface as the party looks to secure a few more legislative victories in the final two-month sprint to the midterm elections.
Both chambers have jam-packed agendas as they enter the final policy-making month before the November midterm elections.
The House, which reconvenes on Tuesday, will not be in session in October so that lawmakers can head home to campaign — leaving little time for legislating.
The Senate, which reassembled last week, is scheduled to be in session for part of next month, though it is unlikely they will use the extra days in Washington.
At the top of the agenda is legislation to prevent a government shutdown on Oct. 1.
Funding the government itself isn’t splitting liberal and centrist Democrats, but there are likely to be divisions over how to get a bill through Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to include language in a stopgap government funding measure on permitting reform to make good on a deal he and other party leaders made with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to secure his support for passage of last month’s Inflation Reduction Act.
But liberals in the House and in the Senate — including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — oppose the reforms.
“I rise this morning to express my strong opposition to the so-called side deal that the fossil fuel industry is pushing to make it easier for them to pollute the environment and destroy our planet,” Sanders said on the Senate floor last week.
The permitting reform legislation is expected to expedite the development of fossil fuel and other energy products by setting maximum timelines for environmental reviews, among other things.
Schumer promised Manchin that permitting reform would pass in exchange for his support of the multi-billion dollar climate, taxes and health care bill. Manchin’s backing was essential in helping Democrats secure enough support in the 50-50 Senate to trigger Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Sanders called the permitting reform legislation “a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry,” and argued that the measure would sabotage Biden’s goal of halving carbon emissions by the year 2030.
“Really, at a time when climate change is threatening the very existence of our planet, why would anybody be talking about substantially increasing carbon emissions and expanding fossil fuel production in the United States?” the Vermont Independent asked.
The resistance does not end in the Senate.
More than House 70 Democrats penned a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday asking that the permitting reform legislation be omitted from the continuing resolution — a push against the side deal struck between Manchin and Schumer.
“The inclusion of these provisions in a continuing resolution, or any other must-pass legislation, would silence the voices of frontline and environmental justice communities by insulating them from scrutiny,” the lawmakers, led by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), wrote.
If Schumer goes through with his plan and tacks permitting reform onto the continuing resolution, and if that stopgap passes through the Senate, progressives in the House would be faced with a tough decision: vote “no” and potentially trigger a government shutdown, or ignore misgivings about the legislation and vote “yes.”
Schumer could, however, play one more hand that would effectively force his colleagues on the left to support the measure despite their doubts: add a bill protecting marriage equality on the federal level to the continuing resolution.
But the majority leader and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), a sponsor of the marriage equality bill, have both said they prefer to hold a separate vote on the legislation.
Tensions between liberals and centrists will also likely bubble up over other agenda items.
Centrist House Democrats are expected to push hard for a vote on policing legislation that has been delayed twice because of disagreements with House liberals.
Pelosi punted a vote on the public safety bills last month, writing in a letter to colleagues that “conversations continue on finding consensus for a robust public safety package.”
Liberals had opposed increases for police funding across the country given the outcry over violence by police against minority communities.
But centrists running in tough races against the backdrop of Republicans decrying rising crime rates want to pass legislation that would provide more money for police.
The policing legislation was supposed to move in July with a bill to ban assault weapons, but Democratic leaders decided to separate the two measures to leave more time for consensus building.
But it’s far from clear that progress is being made.
As the negotiations over policing bills continue, moderates — especially Democrats facing difficult reelection races in November, known as “Frontliners” — are pushing for a vote to cinch a victory they can tout during the final weeks of campaigning.
“President Biden said best in his State of the Union address: the answer is not to defund the police. The answer is to fund the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities,” one Frontliner told The Hill, speaking anonymously to talk about a sensitive topic.
“This legislation has passed every test, except among the loud few, and does right by our communities to ensure safety and accountability. With our majority on the line, Democrats need to put their money where their mouths are and pass this bill before November,” they added. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/democratic-tensions-rise-to-surface-in-sprint-to-midterm-elections/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:35 | en | 0.960856 |
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday warned that gas prices may spike again this winter.
Yellen told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that gas prices could rise due to the European Union largely halting Russian oil purchases this winter and banning provision of services that allow Russia to ship oil by tanker.
“It is possible that that could cause a spike in oil prices,” Yellen said.
But Yellen noted a western price cap proposal was designed to balance curbing Russian oil revenues helping fund its war in Ukraine, while maintaining some access to Russian oil to “hold down global oil prices.”
“So I believe this is something that can be essential,” she said. “And it’s something that we’re trying to put in place to avoid a future spike in oil prices.”
The Group of Seven nations, which includes the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, agreed to a price cap on Russian oil earlier this month. The nations did not say exactly what the cap would be yet.
The move is designed to restrict Russian oil sales above a certain price. And if Russia moves to sell to friendlier nations, such as China or India, it will likely face higher service costs and competition from countries selling less expensive product.
Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer, has threatened not to sell to countries that participate in the oil cap, which could further exacerbate a rise in global oil prices.
Moscow has also effectively shut down a major gas pipeline to European nations, claiming it needs repairs, which could further shake up the world’s energy sector.
After soaring to a national average of $5 per gallon earlier this year, gas prices have fallen to an average of $3.71 in the U.S., according to transportation organization AAA. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/gas-prices-could-spike-again-this-winter-yellen-warns/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:42 | en | 0.965126 |
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the first woman to clinch a major-party nomination for president, on Sunday responded to skepticism from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that a woman could hold the nation’s highest office.
“I think that a woman will become our president at some point,” Clinton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I certainly understand all of the obstacles you have to overcome to get there. But I continue to tell young women and girls that if they feel motivated to pursue political office, they should do so, with their eyes wide open about how hard it is.”
In an interview with GQ earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez — herself an oft-cited name as a potential future presidential candidate — said her experience as a congresswoman showed her “how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women.”
Misogyny, Ocasio-Cortez said, “transcends political ideology,” and the patriarchy permeates all parties.
The second-term congresswoman talked about hearing from girls who say they want to see her as president, saying, “I admit to sometimes believing that I live in a country that would never let that happen.”
Clinton, who won the popular vote against then-Republican candidate Donald Trump in 2016 but lost the electoral college count, acknowledged Ocasio-Cortez’s concerns, but said it was still worth fighting to get a woman winning the White House.
“I think it’s sad that we have so many people who seem to either resent or oppose women in the public arena, whether it’s politics and government or the media or anything else. That’s something we have to keep standing up against and speaking out against,” Clinton said.
“Unfortunately, social media, with all of its misogyny, has made it more difficult, but we can’t be bullied into silence or giving up on our own dreams. We have to continue to pursue them and encourage others to do the same.”
Clinton, who became former President Obama’s secretary of state after losing to him in the 2008 Democratic primary for president, has been open about a number of her own battles with misogyny and sexism.
She revealed last week that she started wearing her now-mainstay pantsuits after press circulated “suggestive” photographs shot up the then-First Lady’s skirt.
On tour with daughter Chelsea to promote their women-focused docu-series “Gutsy,” Clinton also said last week that she won’t run again for president.
“But I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we have a president who respects our democracy and the rule of law and upholds our institutions,” Clinton told CBS News. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/hillary-clinton-disputes-ocasio-cortez-notion-that-us-cant-elect-a-woman-president/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:48 | en | 0.975009 |
The House panel investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to revive the public portion of its probe this month, eyeing at least two more hearings in the coming weeks to highlight former President Trump’s role in the deadly rampage.
Publicly, the inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack has been overshadowed in recent weeks by the FBI’s extraordinary seizure of thousands of government documents, including those alleged to be highly sensitive, from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last month — part of a separate Justice Department investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of federal records.
But behind the scenes, the Jan. 6 select committee has spent Congress’s long summer recess plugging away, interviewing a number of new witnesses while seeking the cooperation of several more, including such prominent GOP figures as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The work has continued against the backdrop not only of the legal battle surrounding the FBI search, but of Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) losing her primary battle against a Trump-backed candidate. Despite Cheney’s loss, many Democrats think the focus in the headlines on Trump is helping their party ahead of the midterms.
As the House returns to Washington this week, the panel is promising to air its new findings in at least one public hearing this month, with another perhaps to follow in October — a schedule that would put Trump and his GOP supporters on the defensive heading into November’s midterm elections.
The exact timing of the hearings, as well as the witness list, remain works in progress, according to members of the committee. But a central focus of the investigation throughout August was the wide-ranging effort by a long list of Trump supporters — some of them on Capitol Hill — to install slates of fake electors in certain battleground states where Trump has claimed, falsely, that he prevailed over President Biden. Gingrich, the committee has found, was a part of that effort.
“Former House Speaker Gingrich appears to have been involved in some of the planning around the counterfeit electors scheme, and efforts to substitute a fraudulent process for the actual process,” a member of the select committee said in an interview.
Another member of the committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), said Gingrich’s campaign to keep Trump in the White House did not stop even after Congress voted to certify Biden’s victory in the aftermath of the failed insurrection.
“We also have information about his efforts to get the election overturned, even after the riot on the 6th,” Lofgren told CNN earlier this month.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the select committee, delivered a letter to Gingrich this month seeking his “voluntary cooperation.” The request cited Gingrich’s communications with several top Trump advisers — including Meadows, Jared Kushner and Jason Miller — about methods to reverse the election outcome and suggested Gingrich may have been in direct touch with Trump on the subject.
Snippets of Gingrich’s emails obtained by the panel reveal he had suggested line edits for a post-election TV ad in Georgia, where Trump was defeated, promoting conspiracy theories around voter fraud. The message, Gingrich advised, should include reference to a “call to action.”
“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger,” Gingrich wrote to Kushner and Miller, adding that viewers “will then bring pressure on legislators and governors.”
“These advertising efforts were not designed to encourage voting for a particular candidate,” Thompson wrote to Gingrich. “Instead, these efforts attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the election after voting had already taken place.”
The Sept. 1 letter was a clear sign that the committee’s investigation is far from over, while raising new questions about what remaining figures could be implicated as its work continues.
Meadows, it was already known, is one of them. While Trump’s former chief of staff had delivered thousands of text messages to investigators last year, he has refused to speak with the panel, even under subpoena. The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress last year, but the Justice Department declined to bring charges. The standoff remains under litigation.
Some members of the select committee are also interested in speaking with Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who had sought to overturn the 2020 election and solicited the help of several well-placed figures, including Meadows and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had drafted the dubious legal reasoning on which the “stop the steal” effort relied.
“Speaking as one member and only as one member, I would say she has a relevant testimony to render, and she should come forward and give it,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), another member of the select committee, said earlier this month in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program.
“I don’t want to overstate her role — we’ve talked to more than 1,000 people,” Raskin continued. “But we’d like to hear from Gingrich and we’d like to hear from her, too.”
Still another figure of interest is Tony Ornato, a former Secret Service agent who doubled as Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Ornato has already spoken with investigators, but they want him back to clarify discrepancies in testimony surrounding Trump’s alleged clash with his security detail on the day of the Capitol attack.
“We do want to talk to him again,” Lofgren told CNN. “There are a lot of things that just don’t add up, to me, on what the Secret Service has said and the material that we’re getting.”
Also largely unexplored by the committee are Trump’s actions in the window between the Capitol attack of Jan. 6 and Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20 — a time period during which Trump’s own Cabinet members were considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
The committee has hinted at that effort in clips shown of a conversation with Trump’s Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia — who penned a memo urging Trump to stop questioning the election results — as well as in a letter to Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“You appear also to have detailed knowledge regarding President Trump’s state of mind in the days following the January 6th attack. For example, you appear to have had a discussion with President Trump on January 10th that may have raised a number of specific concerns about his possible actions in the days before the January 20th inaugural,” the committee wrote to the popular pundit.
The committee has also suggested it could imminently release a report on the National Guard’s hours-long delay in getting to the Capitol to defuse the violence on Jan. 6.
But time is running short.
With Democrats expected to lose control of the House in the midterms, the panel will have to wrap up its investigation before year’s end, or Republicans will pull the plug on it. With that in mind, the panel is expected to issue an interim report on its findings before November’s elections, with its final report to follow later in the year.
“When the final report is released, the committee is dissolved,” Lofgren said earlier this summer. “And so, so long as information continues to come in, we want to avoid that result. We don’t want to prematurely cut off witnesses who want to be heard.” | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/jan-6-panel-set-to-reemerge-with-eye-on-newt-gingrich/ | 2022-09-14T13:16:56 | en | 0.976214 |
Stephen Curry says Americans should treat President Trump — and his potential 2024 White House bid — as a serious “threat.”
“Take Trump seriously? Of course,” the Golden State Warriors star and NBA Finals MVP told Rolling Stone magazine for a cover story published Monday for its October issue.
“Most of his rhetoric — before he was president, during his last four years, and even now, if he tries to run again — has a tone of divisiveness that doesn’t have a place in our country,” he said.
“As serious and as loud as the threat is of him or whoever else is running for office,” Curry, 34, continued, “there’s a similar urgency and a loudness that’s necessary on the other side.”
It’s not the first time that Curry has spoken out against the 45th president. After Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank called the then-commander in chief an “asset” to the country in a 2017 interview, Curry told the San Jose Mercury News, “I agree with that description, if you remove the ‘et’ from asset.”
That same year, Curry said he didn’t want his team to make a traditional stop at the White House to celebrate their NBA championship title. Following Curry’s remarks, Trump tweeted that the White House invitation had been “withdrawn.”
Curry, a board member of When We All Vote, Michelle Obama’s voter registration and engagement organization, opened up about his activism to Rolling Stone.
“You’re growing and evolving on the same page as these national, politicized conversations, but it doesn’t have to be sides,” he said.
“What I try to do is be real, but also activate conversation that is sometimes uncomfortable,” the NBA All-Star said.
“The current events of the Trump era, I don’t wake up and say, ‘I wanna go at that conversation,’” Curry told the magazine.
“Some of this stuff falls on your doorstep and people want a perspective or comment, and sometimes you cough that up unsolicited.”
Curry said that while he didn’t regret not speaking out more in 2016 when the NBA weighed moving its All-Star game from North Carolina in protest of a controversial law requiring that transgender people use the bathroom corresponding to their biological sex, he could’ve “been a lot stronger” on the issue.
“We get attacked as athletes sometimes when you don’t want to say something — ‘I need to get more educated,’ there’s all these lines that people use,” Curry said.
“It kind of seems like you’re soft or like you’re equivocating or avoiding whatever the situation is.”
Curry also revealed that former President Obama — a frequent golfing partner and well-known basketball fanatic — once scolded him for repeating on a 2018 podcast a conspiracy theory that questioned whether astronauts really landed on the moon.
Following the podcast interview, Curry recalled, “I got an email. It was a pretty stern, direct one from President Obama.”
After telling him that humans did step foot on the moon, Curry said Obama instructed him, “You’ve got to do something about this.”
Following Obama’s advice, Curry hosted an Instagram Live discussion with an astronaut for his more than 45 million followers, and auctioned off a pair of custom-made space-themed sneakers, with proceeds going to STEM education programs.
Curry said back in June, after clenching his fourth NBA championship and telling the cameras, “What are they gonna say now?” he received a congratulatory call from Obama.
The ex-president suggested tweaking the boast slightly, telling Curry, “What the f— are they gonna say now?” | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/stephen-curry-says-trump-should-be-treated-as-serious-threat/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:03 | en | 0.967449 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, a gearhead with his own vintage Corvette, will showcase his administration's efforts to promote electric vehicles during a visit to the Detroit auto show.
The Democratic president, who recently took a spin in his pine-green 1967 Stingray with Jay Leno for a segment on CNBC's “Jay Leno's Garage," may get the chance to slide behind the wheel of a new vehicle Wednesday during his stop in Detroit. He doesn't get many chances anymore in the driver's seat; he's not allowed to drive on public roads as president.
But he’s mostly going to the North American International Auto Show to talk shop, plugging the huge new climate, tax and health care law that offers tax incentives for buying electric vehicles.
While Biden has been taking credit for the recent boom in electric vehicle battery and assembly plant announcements, most were in the works long before the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law on Aug. 16. Biden's 2021 infrastructure legislation could have something to do with it — it provides $5 billion over five years to help states create a network of EV charging stations.
Biden was set in Detroit to announce approval of the first $900 million in infrastructure money to build EV chargers across 53,000 miles of the national highway system and 35 states.
Under the newest law, electric vehicles must be built in North America to be eligible for a new federal tax credit of up to $7,500. Batteries for qualifying vehicles also must be made in North America, and there are requirements for battery minerals to be produced or recycled on the continent. The credits are aimed at creating a U.S. electric vehicle supply chain and ending dependence on other countries, mainly China.
Passage of the measure set off a scramble by automakers to speed up efforts to find North American-made batteries and battery minerals from the U.S., Canada or Mexico to make sure EVs are eligible for the credit.
In April, Ford started building electric pickup trucks at a new Michigan factory. General Motors has revamped an old factory in Detroit to make electric Hummers and pickups.
Long before legislators reached a compromise on the legislation, each company announced three EV battery factories, all joint ventures with battery makers. A GM battery plant in Warren, Ohio, has already started manufacturing. A government loan announced in July will help GM build its battery factories.
Ford said last September it would build the next generation of electric pickups at a plant in Tennessee, and GM has announced EV assembly plants in Lansing, Michigan; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Orion Township, Michigan. In May, Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, said it would build another joint venture battery factory in Indiana, and it has announced a battery plant in Canada.
Hyundai announced battery and assembly plants in May to be built in Georgia, and Vietnamese automaker VinFast announced factories in North Carolina in July. Honda and Toyota both announced U.S. battery plants after the act was passed, but they had been planned for months.
Biden has been talking for a long time about the importance of building a domestic EV supply chain and that may have prodded some of the companies to locate factories in the U.S. But it’s also advantageous to build batteries near where EVs will be assembled because the batteries are heavy and costly to ship from overseas.
And auto companies are rolling out more affordable electric options even despite battery costs. The latest came last week from General Motors, a Chevrolet Equinox small SUV. It has a starting price around $30,000 and a range-per-charge of 250 miles, or 400 kilometers. Buyers can get range of 300 miles, or 500 kilometers, if they pay more.
The Equinox checks the North American assembly box. It will be made in Mexico. The company won’t say where the battery will be made but it is working on meeting the other criteria for getting the tax credit.
___
Krisher reported from Detroit. | https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/Car-guy-Biden-to-tout-electric-vehicles-at-17440245.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:07 | en | 0.970496 |
A new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reportedly reveals former President Trump told aides following the 2020 presidential election that he would remain in the White House after President Biden’s inauguration.
Haberman wrote that Trump seemed to recognize he had lost to Biden immediately following the election, but his mood later changed, according to CNN.
“I’m just not going to leave,” Haberman writes Trump told one aide, the network reported.
“We’re never leaving. How can you leave when you won an election?” Trump reportedly told another.
Haberman’s book, titled “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” will be released early next month.
The New York Times reporter, who previously worked for Politico, the New York Post and New York Daily News, gained a reputation during the Trump presidency for repeatedly breaking scoops on the administration.
Haberman writes in her new book that Trump in the immediate aftermath of the election asked advisers to tell him what went wrong, telling one adviser “we did our best,” CNN reported, adding that he also told junior press aides, “I thought we had it.”
But later, Trump reportedly began expressing his intention to not leave the White House in January 2021 upon the start of Biden’s term as Trump’s team began attempts to overturn the election.
“Why should I leave if they stole it from me?” Trump asked during a conversation with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, CNN reported.
The Hill has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.
Trump and his allies’ actions following the 2020 election have come under scrutiny through multiple investigations.
A House select committee is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and is expected to hold an additional public hearing later this month. A separate Justice Department probe is also examining the attack.
In Georgia, an Atlanta-area district attorney is investigating whether Trump and his allies unlawfully attempted to overturn the election in the state. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney who helped lead the post-election efforts, said he is a target of the probe.
Trump has indicated he is also mulling a third bid for the White House in 2024. He has said he has made up his mind if he will run, but Trump has yet to make a formal campaign announcement. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/trump-insisted-he-would-stay-in-white-house-after-loss-book/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:09 | en | 0.979586 |
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NEW YORK (AP) — Carolina Herrera breathed spring back to life at Monday's New York Fashion Week show with a romantic portrayal of nature and beauty, accentuating that the brand's modern and striking feminine aesthetics work for every woman throughout the seasons and decades.
Inspired by one of his favorite childhood novels, “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, designer Wes Gordon said that “in a world that can be dark and scary and unpredictable, it’s okay for some things to just be pure joy and beauty."
"That’s what this morning was about,” he added.
The Plaza Hotel ballroom's grand elegance boomed with Barbara Streisand’s classic “Funny Girl" hit “Don't Rain on My Parade,” complementing the romantic bliss emanating from the maximalist hand-painted tea roses and peonies gowns, mini-dresses and matching bucket hats and denim jumpsuits worn by models adorned with a classic crimson red lip and, in some cases, chunky, droopy earrings.
“I really created a palette of five beautiful floral prints, that I reimagined in lots of different scales and colorways," Gordon said. "I view this collection as a garden.”
Gordon and his team skillfully handcrafted a multitude of looks starting with the opening gown, a striped cotton blouse paired with a taffeta ball skirt, illustrating a whimsical high-class gardener vibe in line with true Herrera fashion.
Models Stella Maxwell and Karlie Kloss each had two separate looks. Maxwell shined in a mini yellow taxicab-colored floral dress while Kloss' height accentuated her second look, a long sleeve, yellow peony trench gown.
Sitting in the front row were Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Martha Stewart and singers Ellie Goulding, Sabrina Carpenter and Becky G.
Standout pieces included a bold dramatic body-hugging column dress with a large rosette sleeve, which was seen on actress Kate Hudson the previous night at the Toronto Film Festival. Another eye-catching moment featured a mini yellow tent dress that almost looked like it was floating on the model.
But the showstopper was Precious Lee's closing gown, a strapless, bodysuit black silk chiffon dress trimmed with tulle. Lee held the extravagant train with her hands as she closed the show.
Gordon emphasized that Herrera's ability to evolve each season is because of the brand's ability to listen, specifically to women.
“It’s not hard to evolve with the times if you just pay attention to women who wear your clothes,” Gordon said. | https://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/article/Carolina-Herrera-unveils-secret-garden-at-NY-17438096.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:09 | en | 0.943146 |
Former President Trump is fighting a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to allow its review of classified materials taken from Mar-a-Lago to continue, with Trump’s legal team arguing the investigation “at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control.”
The filing continues to assert the former president has broad power to control his records even after he leaves office, even the classified records that the Justice Department argued Trump can have no possible claim to, and thus do not require review by a third-party special master.
In the filing, Trump’s legal team pushed back against the idea that there was any possible damage from the mishandling of records.
“There is no indication any purported ‘classified records’ were disclosed to anyone. Indeed, it appears such ‘classified records,’ along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service,” they wrote.
The response from Trump’s team came after the Justice Department last Thursday indicated it planned to appeal a federal district court judge’s ruling green-lighting a special master, also asking her to approve a partial stay that would exclude some 300 classified records from their review.
“The classification markings establish on the face of the documents that they are government records, not Plaintiff’s personal records,” the DOJ wrote.
“And for several reasons, no potential assertion of executive privilege could justify restricting the executive branch’s review and use of the classified records at issue here.”
But Trump’s team claimed Monday that classification status matters little within the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and that Trump’s document issues should be sorted with the National Archives, or NARA.
“Of course, classified or declassified, the documents remain either presidential records or personal records under the PRA,” they wrote.
“At best, the government might ultimately be able to establish certain presidential records should be returned to NARA. What is clear regarding all of the seized materials is that they belong with either President Trump … or with NARA, but not with the Department of Justice.”
The brief also seeks to undercut the heart of the Justice Department’s argument that its criminal investigation is “inextricably intertwined” with a separate intelligence community review of the documents led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that the judge allowed to continue.
The FBI is part of the intelligence community and would be the agency responsible for investigating any mishandling of intelligence that the review uncovers, DOJ said.
Though in a Friday night filing the Trump legal team said a special master should be afforded three months to complete a review of the documents, in its latest brief to the court it said the investigation could withstand a “brief pause.”
It also alleges the ODNI damage assessment into potential fallout from the mishandling of the records is a way to further DOJ’s criminal investigation.
“The government contends that the FBI and ODNI, and their personnel, are so inseparable they are incapable of having agents outside the criminal case participate in the ODNI-led investigation. This convenient, and belated, claim by the Government relative to enjoining the criminal team’s access to these documents only arises because the FBI concedes the intelligence community review is actually just another facet of its criminal investigation,” Trump’s legal team wrote.
The filing is the closest Trump’s legal team has gotten to repeating claims by the former president that he declassified the information found in his home – but they stop short of actually doing so.
The brief spends a few pages noting that presidents have the power to declassify documents but never say that Trump actually did so.
“The government’s stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump’s term in office,” Trump’s legal team wrote.
“There is no legitimate contention that the chief executive’s declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch. Yet, the government apparently contends that President Trump, who had full authority to declassify documents, ‘willfully’ retained classified information in violation of the law,” they added.
In an earlier round of filings, the DOJ noted that in the months of discussions Trump’s legal team never raised the prospect that the former president had declassified the intelligence material at his home, nor had they offered any explanation for why he had roughly 10,000 government records stored there.
A response brief from Trump’s team the next day was silent on those matters.
— Updated at 11:18 a.m. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/trump-presses-court-to-keep-blocking-doj-access-to-records/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:15 | en | 0.965314 |
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Irene Papas, the Greek actress and recording artist renowned for her dramatic performances and austere beauty that earned her prominent roles in Hollywood movies as well as in French and Italian cinema over six decades has died. She was 93.
The Greek Culture Ministry confirmed her death Wednesday.
“Magnificent, majestic, dynamic, Irene Papas was the personification of Greek beauty on the cinema screen and on the theater stage, an international leading lady who radiated Greekness,” Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.
Papas became known internationally following performances in “The Guns of Navarone” in 1961 and “Zorba the Greek” in 1964, acting alongside Hollywood stars Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn. In all, she starred in more than 50 movies.
Born Irene Lelekou in a mountainous village near the southern Greek city of Corinth, Papas was the daughter of two schoolteachers. Her father was also a drama teacher.
Papas left home at 18 to marry Greek film director Alkis Papas despite her family’s disapproval. They divorced four years later. After the death of American Actor Marlon Brando in 2004, Papas revealed in an Italian newspaper interview that the two had been romantically involved.
A supporter of the Greek Communist Party, Papas was a vocal opponent of the military dictatorship that governed the country between 1967 and 1974 and lived much for life outside Greece, including in Rome and New York.
Papas was also known for her appearance in ancient Greek tragedies. Many of her iconic international movie roles were earned portraying Greek characters. But she also starred with Kirk Douglas in the 1968 crime drama “Brotherhood” and with James Cagney in the 1956 Western “Tribute to a Bad Man.”
Greek arts institutions thanked Papas for her support for younger actors. The Athens-based Greek Film Center described her as “The greatest Greek international film star,” adding: “Her image is a timeless imprint of Greek female beauty.” | https://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/article/Greece-s-Irene-Papas-who-earned-Hollywood-fame-17440671.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:15 | en | 0.97864 |
The Biden administration next month will place new restrictions on U.S. shipments of semiconductor chips and chipmaking equipment to China, according to Reuters.
The Commerce Department will formalize new rules prohibiting the shipment of chipmaking equipment to Chinese factories that produce advanced semiconductors, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
U.S. companies seeking to export the equipment must obtain a Commerce Department license.
Three U.S. companies — KLA Corp., Lam Research Corp., and Applied Materials Inc. — already operate under the restrictions as directed by the Commerce Department.
The Hill has reached out to the Commerce Department for comment.
Semiconductor chips power most electrical systems and machines, from appliances to computers, vehicles and modern weapons.
Over the summer, the U.S. passed the Chips and Science Act, seeking to increase America’s competitive with China in the semiconductor industry with $50 billion in funding for the industry.
Last month, as tensions soared between the U.S. and China over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)’s visit to Taiwan, the U.S. began restricting the export of high-end graphics computer chips to Russia, China and Hong Kong.
Chipmaking company Nvidia, based in California, said the U.S. began requiring a license to export chips that are better than or equal to its A100 graphics card to those three countries. A similar restriction was reportedly applied to the company Advanced Micro Devices.
According to Reuters, the Commerce Department will formalize the licensing rule for exporting the highly advanced semiconductor chips next month.
China has demanded the U.S. drop the requirement, which affects data centers, artificial intelligence systems and other equipment that requires highly advanced chips.
The U.S. was once responsible for producing 37 percent of global semiconductor chips, but is now responsible for just 12 percent of production, according to the White House.
The Commerce Department announced last week it was planning to spend about $28 billion of the newly approved funding for grants, subsidies and loans to boost domestic production of key computer chips. | https://www.ktsm.com/hill-politics/us-to-ramp-up-restrictions-on-semiconductor-exports-to-china-report/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:21 | en | 0.950684 |
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LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state will be an occasion of regal symbolism, strong emotion — and an extremely long line.
Marshaling the hundreds of thousands of people who want to view the late monarch’s coffin will test Britain’s famous queuing skills to their limit.
Authorities overseeing the mammoth logistical challenge have consulted queue management experts and behavioral scientists to create not so much a line as a temporary community. It features 10 miles (16 kilometers) of “queuing infrastructure,” including moveable barriers and more than 500 portable toilets along a route leading to Parliament's Westminster Hall, where the coffin will rest.
Hundreds of stewards, police officers and first-aid volunteers, 30 multi-faith pastors and two sign language interpreters are assigned to look after the welfare of people waiting in line.
The queen’s coffin is scheduled to travel Wednesday from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, where it will lie in state from 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) until 6:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) on Monday, the day of her funeral.
Hours before the coffin had arrived, the line of mourners already stretched from Parliament across nearby Lambeth Bridge and snaked along the south bank of the River Thames. The designated route stretches for 6.9 miles (11 kilometers) past the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Tate Modern art gallery and Tower Bridge to Southwark Park in south London, which can accommodate another 3 miles (4.8 km) of zigzagging queues.
Officials say they can’t predict how many people will line up to pay their respects at Westminster Hall, but it is likely to be many more than the 200,000 who visited the Queen Mother Elizabeth’s coffin over three days in 2002. Transit operator Transport for London estimates that more than 1 million people will travel to the city center to be part of commemorations through Monday.
Transport for London Commissioner Andy Byford called it “the biggest event and challenge that TfL has faced in its history.”
The government has warned that navigating the line will be a feat of endurance.
“You will need to stand for many hours, possibly overnight, with very little opportunity to sit down as the queue will be continuously moving,” it said in a set of detailed instructions for those wanting to come.
People will be able to check the line’s length and waiting times on the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport's social media accounts. Those joining will be given numbered wristbands so they take food or toilet breaks without losing their place. A separate accessible line has been set up for people unable to stand for long stretches.
As ever in Britain, jumping the queue is a definite no-no. Officials hope mourners’ sense of fairness will make the line largely self-policing. Given the vagaries of British weather, people are advised to carry both an umbrella and sunscreen.
The government is offering other helpful hints: Bring food and drink, but be sure to consume it before reaching the front. Bring a portable power pack to keep phones charged.
When they reach Parliament, people will pass through airport-style security scans. Prohibited items include large bags, liquids, spray paint, knives, fireworks, flowers, candles, stuffed toys and “advertising or marketing messages.”
Those in the queue on Wednesday were convinced all the hassle would be worth it.
“To give up my day queuing is nothing compared to what she’s done for 70 years,” Gina Carver from Tunbridge Wells in southern England said of the late queen. “And she does feel like our grandmother.”
___
Follow AP coverage of Queen Elizabeth II at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii | https://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/article/Huge-line-to-view-monarch-s-coffin-is-queue-fit-17440742.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:22 | en | 0.944149 |
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NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey has selected a prison memoir by Jarvis Jay Masters, currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison in California, for her latest book club pick. Masters' “That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row” was first published in 2009.
Activists for years have called for the release of Masters, sentenced to death in 1990 for taking part in the murder of a San Quentin prison guard. Masters, first imprisoned in 1981 for armed robbery, has filed numerous appeals in efforts to have his murder conviction overturned. A hearing is scheduled for next month in federal court.
“A little more than 10 years ago, I was given a memoir by Jarvis Jay Masters, a man serving a death row sentence in San Quentin,” Winfrey said in a statement Tuesday. “His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system, and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today, which is why I’m naming ‘That Bird Has My Wings’ as my latest Oprah’s Book Club selection.”
Masters said in a statement that he would be “forever grateful” to Winfrey for choosing his book.
“I turned 60 this year, having entered San Quentin at the age 19. I wrote ‘That Bird Has My Wings’ while in solitary confinement, isolated and alone,” he said. “My greatest hope at that time was that a few young people would read my story and learn from my mistakes. Thanks to Ms. Winfrey and her book club, my story will be introduced to a national audience. It is my greatest hope that their lives will be the better for it."
Supporters of Masters have backed his claims of innocence and cited him as a model of how people can transform themselves. In “Don’t Stop Believing That People Can Change,” a New York Times essay published in April, author Rebecca Solnit wrote that “he has often defused potential violence and offered solace and a trustworthy ear to the sorrows of those around him.”
Masters has also written “Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart,” published in 1997. | https://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/article/Winfrey-selects-prison-memoir-That-Bird-Has-My-17437926.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:28 | en | 0.973927 |
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A prehistoric human skeleton has been found in a cave system that was flooded at the end of the last ice age 8,000 years ago, according to a cave-diving archaeologist on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.
Archaeologist Octavio del Rio said he and fellow diver Peter Broger saw the shattered skull and skeleton partly covered by sediment in a cave near where the Mexican government plans to build a high-speed tourist train through the jungle.
Given the distance from the cave entrance, the skeleton couldn’t have gotten there without modern diving equipment, so it must be over 8,000 years old, Del Rio said, referring to the era when rising sea levels flooded the caves.
“There it is. We don’t know if the body was deposited there or if that was where this person died,” said Del Rio. He said that the skeleton was located about 8 meters (26 feet) underwater, about a half-kilometer (one third of a mile) into the cave system.
Some of the oldest human remains in North America have been discovered in the sinkhole caves known as “cenotes” on the country’s Caribbean coast, and experts say some of those caves are threatened by the Mexican government’s Maya Train tourism project.
Del Rio, who has worked with the National Institute of Anthropology and History on projects in the past, said he had notified the institute of the discovery. The institute did not immediately respond to questions about whether it intended to explore the site.
But Del Rio said Tuesday that institute archaeologist Carmen Rojas told him that the site was registered and would be investigated by the institute’s Quintana Roo state branch Holocene Archaeology Project.
He stressed that the cave — whose location he did not reveal because of a fear the site could be looted or disturbed — was near where the government has cut down a swath of jungle to lay train tracks, and could be collapsed, contaminated or closed off by the building project and subsequent development.
“There is a lot more study that has to be done in order to correctly interpret” the find, Del Rio said, noting that “dating, some kind of photographic studies and some collection” would be needed to determine exactly how old the skeleton is.
Del Rio has been exploring the region for three decades, and in 2002, he participated in the discovery and cataloguing of remains known as The Woman of Naharon, who died around the same time, or perhaps earlier, than Naia — the nearly complete skeleton of a young woman who died around 13,000 years ago. It was discovered in a nearby cave system in 2007.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is racing to finish his Maya Train project in the remaining two years of his term over the objections of environmentalists, cave divers and archaeologists. They say his haste will allow little time to study the ancient remains.
Activists say the heavy, high-speed rail project will fragment the coastal jungle and will run often above the fragile limestone caves, which — because they’re flooded, twisty and often incredibly narrow — can take decades to explore.
Caves along part of the coast already have been damaged by construction above them, with cement pilings used to support the weight above.
The 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) Maya Train line is meant to run in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, connecting beach resorts and archaeological sites.
The most controversial stretch cuts a more than 68-mile (110-kilometer) swath through the jungle between the resorts of Cancun and Tulum.
Del Rio said the route through the jungle should be abandoned and the train should be built over the already-impacted coastal highway between Cancun and Tulum, as was originally planned.
López Obrador abandoned the highway route after hotel owners voiced objections, and cost and traffic interruptions became a concern.
“What we want is for them to change to route at this spot, because of the archaeological finds that have been made there, and their importance,” said Del Rio. “They should take the train away from there and put it where they said they were going to build before, on the highway … an area that has already been affected, devastated.” | https://www.ktsm.com/news/national-news/prehistoric-skeleton-found-in-mexico-cave-threatened-by-planned-train/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:28 | en | 0.974809 |
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee
(THE CONVERSATION) Invented civilizations are usually thought of as the stuff of sci-fi novels and video games, not museums.
Yet in 1972, the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art at Cornell University exhibited “The Civilization of Llhuros,” an imaginary Iron Age civilization. Created by Cornell Professor of Art Norman Daly, who died in 2008, the show resembled a real archaeological exhibition with more than 150 objects on display.
Unaware of Llhuros, I started fabricating and documenting my own imaginary ancient culture using ceramics and printmaking for my undergraduate thesis in 1980. The following year, as a graduate student, I learned about Llhuros and began a decadeslong correspondence with Daly.
With scams, deceptions and lies flourishing in our digital age, an art exhibition that convincingly presents fiction as fact has particular currency.
A culture made from scratch
Daly’s project was truly groundbreaking. The exhibition included a map of the excavation sites, old tools and religious artifacts that Daly had crafted, all from the culture’s distinct periods – “Early Archaic,” “Archaic,” “Late Archaic,” “Middle Period” and “Decline.”
There were translations of Llhuroscian poetry that Daly had written; soundtracks with reenactments of Llhuroscian ceremonies and songs performed by a women’s church choir; audio interviews with fake Llhurosian scholars; and a 56-page exhibition catalog with an invented bibliography and glossary of Llhuroscian terms.
Daly – with guidance from Marilyn Rivchin, a museum staffer; and Robert Ascher, a Cornell anthropology and archaeology professor – conceived everything.
To the casual viewer, Llhuros appeared to be real. The artifacts and tools were often made from found objects – an Ivory dish-soap bottle transformed into an earthenware figure, or a “nasal flute found at the early excavations at Lamplö” made from a metal stove burner. Many of the objects were cracked and broken, with patinas and incrustations making them appear as if they’d survived centuries. The tension between real and fake was tangible.
At the time, the exhibition attracted enthusiastic reviews in Newsweek and The New Republic. But the New York art world largely overlooked it.
Testing the viewer’s grasp of reality
Prior to creating “The Civilization of Llhuros,” Daly was making paintings and sculptural reliefs influenced by Native American and prehistoric art.
His earlier work had much in common with other 20th century artists, from Pablo Picasso to Max Ernst, who drew inspiration from art outside of the European canon. These artists questioned Western academic traditions and valued the direct and expressive forms found in African and Native American art. This approach to making art can be problematic, since there’s an element of cultural appropriation. But it also speaks to a desire to connect with universal aspects of human culture.
So why would Daly shift his creative practice to the mock-documentary form, creating an entire fake culture in the form of a museum exhibition?
A few key moments cultivated the idea.
One of his tall sculptural works had been exhibited in a faculty dining room. But people kept mistaking it for a hat rack, which frustrated Daly: He assumed that the value of an artwork was self-evident and that it should be able to “speak for itself.” Clearly, that wasn’t always the case. So by creating an exhibition – replete with a catalog, visual guides and explanatory labels – he could extend the meaning of his visual art. If the art object does not speak for itself, why not fabricate a narrative as part of the show?
Another realization came to Daly while attending a performance of contemporary music. At the concert, he observed that the audience was working hard to resist the random interference of auditory distractions, from program rustlers to feet shufflers. Daly considered ways that a visual artist could employ what he called “planned interference” to provoke deeper audience engagement with the work.
This insight compelled him to use a variety of ironic signals to disrupt the credibility of the museum narrative and test the viewer’s understanding whether Llhuros was real or invented. He might assemble a massive bronze temple door from plastic foam packing cartons, or create an oil lamp that resembles an orange juicer.
For Daly, stories about the Llhuroscians are also about what it is to be human, with themes of guilt, desire and faith appearing in many of the works. With his recurring “stilt walker,” he depicts a religious pilgrim who carries a bird on his head, walking on stilts of different lengths. The self-imposed struggle of the man, who appears across several works, comes from the guilt he feels.
The art of fraud
Like Daly, I was interested in the use of documentary forms to present works of fiction. My mock-documentary exhibitions have shifted from archaeological themes to include anatomical prints, a collection of contemporary folk art, a creationist organization from the 1920s, and an early 20th century circus. I am drawn to this form of art because I am inspired by the idea of inventing artworks that appear to have the authority of history.
In her 2021 book, “Sting in the Tale: Art, Hoax and Provocation,” artist and writer Antoinette LaFarge describes Daly’s approach as a form of “fictive art,” arguing that the mock-documentary uses of historical forms, as well as “self-outing” through ironic signals, have significance for a contemporary culture saturated with misinformation.
There are, of course, precedents: In his 1917 bathtub hoax, journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken presented a fabricated history of bathtubs in America. P.T. Barnum became known for his creative hoaxes, which included his Feejee mermaid specimen, made from an orangutan and a salmon. Where Mencken sought to teach the American public about their gullibility, Barnum wanted to make a quick buck and didn’t care whether his audience believed the ruse. Fictive art draws on this history to create relevant works of contemporary art.
To mark the 50th anniversary of “The Civilization of Llhuros,” I have organized a free, daylong virtual symposium to be held on Oct. 8, 2022. An international roster of presenters will discuss Daly’s exhibition and his legacy as a teacher. It will also feature contemporary artists who work with Llhuros as a paradigm.
Today, fact-checking outletsand algorithms help people spot deception and misinformation. But art that tests your perceptions of what is real – allowing you to suspend your disbelief, while also giving you the opportunity to recognize the tools of deception – can play a role, too.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-an-artist-convincingly-exhibited-a-fake-iron-age-civilization-with-invented-maps-music-and-artifacts-189026. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/50-years-ago-an-artist-convincingly-exhibited-a-17440754.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:34 | en | 0.96631 |
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Senior officials from social media companies will face questions from senators who fear the sites could fuel individuals to commit acts of domestic terrorism.
On Wednesday, both former and current employees of social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, will testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“It’s incredibly important that we understand what’s happening,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman. “Domestic terrorism is a number one form of terrorism right now that we are facing, and a lot of those terrorists have been linked in some way to contact those individuals through social media.”
Peters said he believes the companies’ algorithms are intentionally sending users dangerous content to keep them on their sites for profit.
“The question we have is how do folks who are just using these platforms on an everyday basis suddenly find themselves going down a rabbit hole that can lead to very extreme content,” said Peters.
Republicans, like Florida Sen. Rick Scott, agree this problem is real. Scott hopes the Democrats and Republicans can find solutions without unfairly censoring conservative users.
“We have to look at things that are causing problems for our society,” said Scott. “I think one thing we have got to look at is how biased many of the social platforms have become.” | https://www.ktsm.com/news/washington-dc/social-media-platforms-to-testify-at-senate-hearing-on-domestic-threats/ | 2022-09-14T13:17:34 | en | 0.958349 |
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Aziz Huq, University of Chicago; David Landau, Florida State University, and Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago
(THE CONVERSATION) A county court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Sept. 6, 2022, became the first in more than 150 years to disqualify a person from public office because they participated in an insurrection.
District Court Judge Francis Mathew found that Couy Griffin, a former county commissioner and founder of the group Cowboys for Trump, had participated in the violent U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Mathew invoked a nearly forgotten part of the 14th Amendment, called Section 3, which can disqualify certain people from state or federal office if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or given “aid or comfort” to the United States’ enemies.
The clause was first adopted after the Civil War to keep former Confederates from participating in politics. The amendment says that disqualified people are barred for life from either running for or being appointed to office. But Congress can vote by a two-thirds majority to waive this ban.
The clause fell into general disuse after 1872, when Congress gave amnesty to most former Confederates in a move toward reconciliation.
Some observers have argued that Section 3 disqualification should be dusted off to address the Jan. 6 mob and to stop other people who have threatened and committed violence – or tried to disrupt federal elections – from serving in government.
Mathew’s decision has also renewed talk among Democrats and good-governance groups about finding a way to use Section 3 against former President Donald Trump in order to disqualify him from ever holding office again.
We are scholars of comparative constitutional law who have worked on democratic backsliding around the world. In a forthcoming article, we point out that disqualification is potentially a useful tool to protect democracy, but it can also be dangerous – it rubs up against the basic idea of democracy as a system in which anyone can run, and voters can decide.
Recent attempts at disqualification
The disqualification of Griffin is one of several efforts voters and advocacy groups have lobbied for after Jan. 6. Most of these efforts have failed to remove someone from office or prevent them from running. But the examples are still useful in understanding how disqualification might be an alternative to more punitive criminal law options.
A suit filed by a group of voters to disqualify Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, foundered in July when a Georgia court affirmed a lower court ruling that she had not “engaged in insurrection.”
Arizona and Wisconsin state judges have also rejected efforts to use Section 3 as a sword against those who supported the Jan. 6 insurrection. But none of these targets actually participated in the mob at the Capitol. Mere support of the rioters, or questioning the election outcome, is protected political speech under the First Amendment.
Griffin, though, engaged in a physical invasion of the Capitol.
Mathew’s careful opinion contains extensive factual findings and legal analysis. So it tees up nicely the question of whether and how disqualification from democratic office is legitimate, justified or effective in defense of democracy.
This is especially important in the U.S., where there is a lack of recent historical experience with disqualification of people working in politics.
When disqualification makes sense
Other countries make much more extensive use of political disqualification than the U.S. does, as we show in our forthcoming study.
Israel’s courts, for example, have repeatedly disqualified candidates for lack of “good character.” In Pakistan, the supreme court disqualified sitting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2017 after he was named in the Panama Papers because of corruption.
There are various costs and benefits to disqualifying someone from office, and there are also open questions of how to correctly interpret Section 3. We focus on the first question of costs and benefits here.
Democracies require robust protections for free speech and association. But these freedoms can be abused by those seeking to undermine democracy itself.
For example, Mathew documents Griffin’s persistent efforts to cast doubt on the legitimate outcome of the 2020 election and to instigate violence to derail President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Most of Griffin’s actions, however, fell far short of the threshold necessary to justify criminal penalties for incitement – the First Amendment requires that the violence be imminent.
Griffin, nonetheless, participated in a concerted threat to American democracy. Disqualification is a way to address such threats without the heavy hand of the criminal law.
Section 3, more generally, is another way to address high-level misconduct in politics. As we have explored in another study published in 2021, Congress has rarely impeached a U.S. president – and an impeached president has never actually been removed from office. Given partisan dynamics, it is unclear if impeachment could actually remove and disqualify a sitting president.
This might leave Section 3 as the best alternative.
The risks of disqualification
Mathew’s opinion suggests that Section 3’s “aid and comfort” language can go uncomfortably far. It could potentially chill legitimate political speech – including criticism of the government, or support for a foreign power – that doesn’t threaten democracy.
For example, plaintiffs justified the need to disqualify Griffin by saying that he committed “actions that normalized and incited violence” by “dehumanizing the opposition as ‘wicked’ and ‘vile.’”
Dehumanizing speech about political opponents is indeed often unhealthy for democratic practice, but it has become routine in politics.
Another challenge is that the text for Section 3 is not entirely clear about how disqualification actually works. Does it apply automatically to anyone who engages in insurrection? Or does it require some sort of either judicial or legislative process?
There is no settled answer.
In an 1869 decision, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase suggested that Section 3 did not apply automatically – rather, disqualification occurred when Congress, or perhaps a state legislature, authorized it.
Mathew rejected the position that only Congress could make the determination and instead held that Griffin could be disqualified by order of a state court.
The potential breadth and ambiguity of Section 3 creates a risk that the measure could be repurposed, against its original aims, in a way that hurts democracy.
The bigger picture
Disqualification, then, is a superficial remedy to a profound problem. It might be effective against a low-level official like Griffin, but the bigger the target, the less power everyday voters have.
Imagine that some court was persuaded to disqualify Trump from a state’s 2024 presidential ballot. Such a move could be considered to disenfranchise his supporters. This could play into Trump’s beliefs that the “game is rigged.”
Whatever the correct legal answer, there is a strong case for eliminating the uncertainty around how Section 3 works. We’ve argued for a carefully crafted federal statute that clearly explains when it applies and how it works.
If disqualification is to become an effective sword to defend democratic politics, it must not become a two-edged one that later weakens the democratic process in the U.S.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/a-new-mexico-official-who-joined-the-capitol-attacks-is-barred-from-politics-but-the-little-known-law-behind-the-removal-has-some-potential-pitfalls-for-democracy-190402. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/A-New-Mexico-official-who-joined-the-Capitol-17440758.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:40 | en | 0.956863 |
LONDON (AP) — Horse-drawn gun carriage to carry Queen Elizabeth II's coffin during procession is on its way to Buckingham Palace.
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NEW YORK (AP) — The British author known in part for his news-making bestseller on Princess Diana has a biography of Queen Elizabeth II coming out Nov. 15. Andrew Morton's “The Queen” was supposed to be published in 2023, but it was moved to this fall after the queen died last week at age 96.
“During her long and storied reign Queen Elizabeth II devoted herself to her family and the wider family of nations. During times of national celebration and concern, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, she was the glue who kept the nation together," Morton said in a statement released Wednesday by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group.
“Teasing out the character of the woman behind the impassive mask has been one of the challenges and fascinations of this biography,” he said.
According to Grand Central, Morton will draw upon archival research and his long relationships with palace insiders, including private secretaries and bodyguards. He has written unauthorized books on William, Prince of Wales and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex among others. But he had the cooperation of his subject for the 1992 release “Diana: Her True Story — in Her Own Words,” in which Diana acknowledged marital troubles with Prince Charles, now King Charles III. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Andrew-Morton-bio-of-Queen-Elizabeth-II-due-in-17440712.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:47 | en | 0.976486 |
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Jon-Patrick Allem, University of Southern California
(THE CONVERSATION) In early September 2022, electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs – the face of the vaping epidemic among teenagers – agreed to pay US$438.5 million to 33 states.
The settlement concludes a two-year bipartisan investigation into the e-cigarette maker’s marketing and sales practices for its vaping products. Those states claimed that Juul marketed its addictive nicotine products to adolescents. The company had previously settled suits with four other states.
As part of the settlement, Juul has also agreed to limit marketing and sales practices that may appeal to adolescents. In addition, the company faces pending lawsuits by nine other states and hundreds of claims on behalf of teenagers who want to hold Juul responsible for their nicotine addiction.
In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration stated that e-cigarette use, or “vaping,” among youths had reached “epidemic proportions.” Juul’s arrival coincided with massive increases in vaping among teenagers.
Though Juul is just one type of e-cigarette in a field of vaping products, its sales comprised 70% of the market at the end of 2017. Juul quickly dominated after its launch in 2015 because of its discreet design – it is small, concealable and resembles a USB thumb drive device – as well as its high-nicotine concentration and range of flavors. The 33 states that are party to the suit claimed that the company’s aggressive and targeted marketing and sales practices have fueled the uptake in vaping among adolescents.
As a researcher in tobacco control, I use publicly accessible data from social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to capture and describe the marketing practices of companies whose products may directly affect public health. I’ve conducted studies that examined the impact of tobacco marketing on adolescents and young adults.
Juul use among kids has been a research focus of mine since 2016. It was during this time when my colleagues and I found hundreds of Twitter posts describing students sneaking Juul products onto school grounds to use during school hours. The latest settlement marks a small victory for those working to curb Juul use among teenagers.
Nicotine’s effects on the developing brain
In 2021, a survey by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that some 2.55 million high school and middle school students – or 9.3% of U.S. students in that age range – said they had used a tobacco product in the previous 30 days. E-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product; according to the 2021 survey, 2.06 million high school and middle school students reported having used e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes like Juul often contain nicotine, which has been shown by a vast body of research to be an addictive substance. Extended exposure to nicotine can have a detrimental impact on brain development during adolescence.
Adolescent brains continue to develop into early adulthood, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. This brain region is involved in higher cognitive development, including cognitive functions related to attention, memory and cognitive flexibility. Human neuroimaging studies have revealed that nicotine exposure results in long-term functional and structural changes in the brain .
How Juul use took off among teenagers
The two-year investigation into Juul revealed that the company grew quickly in popularity in part by marketing to underage users by organizing launch parties. Juul also hired young and trendy-looking models to appear in advertisements and relied on social media posts to raise brand awareness.
Juul’s use of social media to appeal to young people was a concern that my colleagues and I raised in 2018. We examined whether adolescents – defined in our study as people under age 18 – were following Juul’s official Twitter account and the extent to which adolescents shared Juul’s posts to their own followers – other adolescents.
To accomplish this, we collected all tweets from Juul’s official Twitter account from February 2017 to January 2018. We then identified Juul’s tweets that were retweeted, meaning shared by others on Twitter. We found that there were 721 unique users who shared Juul’s tweets during that time. We then determined whether those unique users were adolescents or adults based on a systematic classification procedure.
Our study showed that 25% of users following Juul were adolescents. We also found that an adolescent could be exposed to Juul’s posts without directly following Juul’s official account, as a result of retweeting.
Our findings have clear implications for public health. For example, a meta-analysis – or study that synthesizes the pertinent and available data on a topic from prior research – found that exposure to online e-cigarette marketing increases an adolescent’s risk of trying e-cigarettes.
Targeted strategies aimed at youth
While Juul has not admitted any wrongdoing, as part of the settlement it has agreed to refrain from marketing aimed at youth and from depicting persons under age 35 in any marketing. Juul also agreed to forgo the use of paid influencers – public figures with sizable followings on social media platforms who promote products on behalf of brands for monetary compensation or other benefits. And as part of the settlement, the company agreed to refrain from product placement, use of cartoons and other marketing practices that appeal to adolescents.
I’m cautiously optimistic that the settlement reached between Juul and the states will help curb e-cigarette use among adolescents. However, Juul’s share of the e-cigarette market has decreased in recent years, replaced by disposable, one-time-use e-cigarettes like the newly popular PuffBar. PuffBar offers its products in a variety of flavors, which is important because flavored e-cigarettes are trendy among U.S. middle school and high school students.
Juul is just one e-cigarette company that has employed marketing practices that appeal to adolescents. For example, our team’s research found that e-cigarette companies were using cartoons as company logos and in other promotional material. We’ve documented 106 companies that have used cartoons to help establish their brand identities.
In 2021, we examined the associations between recognition of e-cigarette packaging with cartoons and e-cigarette use. We also studied adolescents’ susceptibility to e-cigarette use and their expectations of benefits and risks from use. To assess the degree to which adolescents recognize cartoon images on product labels, we presented adolescents in our study with 40 images of e-cigarette packages – 20 with cartoons and 20 without. We then asked each adolescent whether they recognized the products.
We found a positive association between recognition of cartoon images and e-cigarette use, susceptibility to use and a perceived social benefit of use. In other words, we determined that adolescents recognized e-cigarette-related cartoon marketing, and that these adolescents were using e-cigarettes.
A step in the right direction
The settlement comes at a time when the public outcry against teen vaping has reached a fever pitch. Although the settlement is an important step forward, research from the tobacco control community shows that marketing practices from tobacco companies can and will influence young people to consider trying tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.
As Juul’s popularity wanes and new e-cigarette companies begin to capture more of the market share, strict measures to curb additional marketing practices will be critical in the efforts to keep more young people from becoming addicted to nicotine.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/e-cigarette-maker-juul-settled-a-lawsuit-over-its-practice-of-targeting-teens-through-social-media-parties-and-models-heres-why-the-company-is-paying-438-5-million-to-dozens-of-states-190399. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/E-cigarette-maker-Juul-settled-a-lawsuit-over-its-17440752.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:53 | en | 0.951244 |
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers on Wednesday adopted new legislation aimed at guaranteeing “decent” minimum wages for workers across the 27-nation bloc.
The vote — with 505 in favor, 92 against and 44 abstentions — came as inflation and skyrocketing energy bills have left many households struggling to make ends meet.
Minimum wages across the EU vary widely, and setting a minimum remains a competence of member countries. The highest minimum wages are in Luxembourg, Ireland and Germany, the lowest in Bulgaria, Latvia and Estonia, according to EU data.
Under the new law, member countries will have to guarantee “that their national minimum wages allow workers to lead a decent life, taking into account the cost of living and wider pay levels," the Parliament said.
The legislation will apply to all EU workers who have an employment contract or employment relationship.
EU governments will have two years to comply with the legislation once it is formally approved by the European Council, likely later this month.
“Prices for groceries, energy bills and housing are exploding. People are really struggling to make ends meet. We have no time to waste, work must pay again," said Agnes Jongerius, a lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats group.
The law would also boost collective bargaining for pay in countries where fewer than 80% of workers are covered by the process. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/EU-Parliament-adopts-new-bloc-wide-rules-on-17440716.php | 2022-09-14T13:17:59 | en | 0.970553 |
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BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union unveiled plans Wednesday to ban products made with forced labor, in an effort to crack down on a modern-day form of slavery that a U.N. agency estimated affects more than 27 million people worldwide.
The European Commission, which proposes EU laws, said the policy would remove from the 27-nation bloc’s markets all products made with forced labor. It would also stop them from being made in the world’s biggest trading bloc or shipped through it.
The move does not target specific companies, industries or countries.
“Our aim is to eliminate all products made with forced labor from the EU market, irrespective of where they have been made. Our ban will apply to domestic products, exports and imports alike,” commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.
The EU's executive arm defines forced labor as a situation where a person is coerced to work through violence or intimidation, or in more indirect ways by having their debt manipulated, their identity papers stolen or being threatened with denunciation to immigration authorities.
Under the plans, the commission would set up and operate a public database containing information about suspect products and practices. EU countries would designate an authority to enforce the rules, and customs officers would have responsibility for ensuring compliance at the bloc’s borders.
The aim is to focus on high-risk products. Investigations would be launched if national authorities believe forced labor may have been used. Suspected cases involving bigger operators that make the most products would be the preferred target, rather than small businesses.
If a product made with forced labor is already sold in the EU, the company involved would be required to pull it off the market and dispose of it. If the company refuses, it would face penalties under the law of the country it operates in.
Europe’s main union umbrella organization, the European Trade Union Confederation, welcomed the plans.
“Many of the people in forced labor are manufacturing goods destined for sale in Europe, so a properly enforced ban should cripple the profits of the criminals behind these violations,” ETUC Deputy General-Secretary Claes-Mikael Stahl said.
The International Labour Organization estimated that in 2021 around 27.6 million people were forced to work on any given day, including 3.3 million children. Women and girls accounted for 11.8 million of that number.
Textiles, mining and agriculture are among the industries most notorious for the practice.
The commission’s proposal must now be debated by the EU member countries and the European Parliament. The rules would enter force two years after an agreement is concluded. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/EU-moves-to-ban-products-made-with-forced-labor-17440701.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:05 | en | 0.965123 |
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Border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan have killed about 100 troops on both sides in the largest outbreak of fighting between the longtime adversaries in nearly two years, fueling fears of even bigger hostilities.
Here is a look at the decades-long conflict between the two neighbors, and the latest clashes.
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
Armenia and Azerbaijan have faced each other off in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than three decades.
The mountainous region is part of Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.
The territory in the southern Caucasus covers an area of roughly 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), about the size of the U.S. state of Delaware.
During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azeris, fueled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks, boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years.
Fighting broke out in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia, and after the 1991 Soviet collapse hostilities escalated into a full-blown war, killing an estimated 30,000 people and displacing about 1 million.
When the war ended with a cease-fire in 1994, Armenian forces not only held Nagorno-Karabakh itself but also broad areas outside the territory’s borders.
International mediation efforts over the following decades failed to achieve a diplomatic settlement.
THE 2020 WAR
On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation called “Iron Fist” to reclaim control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, offered it strong support.
In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6,700 people, Azeri troops drove Armenian forces out of areas they controlled outside the separatist region and also seized broad chunks of Nagorno-Karabakh proper.
A Russia-brokered peace deal on Nov. 10 allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim control of the areas occupied by Armenian forces outside Nagorno-Karabakh for nearly three decades, including the Lachin region, which holds the main road leading from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Armenian forces also agreed to surrender control over significant sections of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal.
The agreement triggered years of protests in Armenia, where the opposition denounced it as a betrayal of the country's interests and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Pashinyan has weathered the pressure, defending the deal as the only way to prevent Azerbaijan from seizing all of Nagorno-Karabakh.
AND THE NEW HOSTILITIES?
Sporadic clashes between Azeri and Armenian forces have repeatedly erupted in the area, but the fighting that began Tuesday was the most serious since the 2020 peace deal.
Both sides blamed each other for starting hostilities, with Armenia accusing Azerbaijan of an unprovoked attack and Baku saying it was responding to shelling by Armenian forces.
Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed while Azerbaijan said it lost 50.
Russia moved quickly to help negotiate an end to hostilities, but a cease-fire it tried to broker has failed to hold and clashes have continued.
Late Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a call with leaders of countries belonging to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated grouping of several ex-Soviet nations that includes Armenia. The leaders agreed to send a fact-finding mission including top officials from the grouping to the conflict area. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/EXPLAINER-What-s-behind-the-new-17440702.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:07 | en | 0.957695 |
NEW DELHI (AP) — The French foreign minister said Wednesday that the war in Ukraine will not overshadow France’s commitments to the Indo-Pacific region, where India and its allies view China’s rising influence with suspicion.
Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and her Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed the security situation in the region and the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including concerns about food security and rising inflation, officials said.
Colonna said the two countries share the same concern about China's role in the region.
“We spoke a lot about the general situation in the Indo-Pacific and the many challenges that have emerged because of China. We have basically the same analysis, we also share the same concerns, because we know the role the Chinese are playing and we want to make sure that there is no imbalance in the Indo-Pacific,” Colonna said at a news briefing.
Jaishankar said that it was important for like-minded countries to work together in the region to ensure peace, security and prosperity. “We consider France as an Indo-Pacific player that has a long-standing presence in the Indian Ocean,” he added.
Indian and Chinese soldiers last week began pulling back from a key friction point on their disputed border as part of efforts to lower tensions in a more than two-year standoff that has sometimes led to deadly clashes. The two countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the de facto border, called the Line of Actual Control.
In June 2020, India said it lost 20 troops and China said it lost four soldier when the two sides fought with clubs, stones and fists.
Jaishankar said Wednesday that the disengagement of troops was completed.
Colonna said France is working to ensure that food coming from Ukraine, which is essential for many countries, continues in the form of exports while the European Union strives to ensure transparency in the market so that prices remain reasonable.
Colonna and Jaishankar echoed calls to find solutions to end the war. “There should be a return to dialogue and diplomacy,” Jaishankar told reporters.
Colonna, who is on a three-day visit to India, will travel to Mumbai on Thursday, where she will meet with industry leaders. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/France-India-say-they-share-concerns-over-17440732.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:19 | en | 0.965604 |
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PARIS (AP) — A French court was expected to issue a verdict Wednesday in the trial of the Yemeni airline that operated a passenger plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean in 2009, killing 152 people.
The Yemenia flight departed from Paris, picked up more passengers in the southern French city of Marseille and made a stopover in Sanaa, Yemen, where 142 passengers and 11 crew members boarded another plane to continue to Moroni, the Comoros capital.
During the landing in strong winds, the aging Airbus A310 crashed about 15 kilometers (9 miles) off the Comorian coast on June 30, 2009.
Yemenia, which is the flagship carrier of Yemen, has been charged in the Paris court with “manslaughter and unintentional injuries” in the civil case, and faces a fine of up to 225,000 euros ($237,000). The company has denied responsibility.
Most of the passengers onboard were from Comoros. Yemenia was tried in Paris over the injuries of the crash’s only survivor, who was 12 years old at the time, and the deaths of 65 French citizens.
The survivor, Bahia Bakari, clung to floating debris from the plane for 11 hours in the sea before being rescued. She suffered a broken collarbone, a broken hip, burns and other injuries, and her mother died in the crash.
Now 25, Bakari gave powerful testimony in a packed courtroom in May, earning praise for her bravery from judges and lawyers.
Other witnesses slammed what they claimed was the poor state of air travel from Yemen, which has since been embroiled in a brutal civil war. Some claimed Yemenia was more interested in profits than in taking care of its passengers.
A lawyer for the victims’ families, Said Larifou, denounced the operation of passenger plans that he claimed were “flying coffins.”
In 2015, two French courts that oversaw civil proceedings ordered Yemenia to pay more than 30 million euros ($31.6 million) to the victims’ families, who deplored the slowness of the procedure between France and the Comoros, a former colony that became independent in 1975.
The airline in 2018 signed a confidential agreement with 835 beneficiaries, who had to wait several more years to receive compensation.
No representatives of the company attended the Paris trial. Bakari deplored the absence and said she wished the company would apologize.
Despite the pain of reliving the memories, she said she felt relieved to have a trial, even so many years later. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/French-court-to-rule-on-Yemeni-plane-crash-that-17440765.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:25 | en | 0.976634 |
NEW YORK (AP) — Parenthood and the death of his dear friend and former “Full House” co-star Bob Saget helped convince John Stamos it was time to write his memoir.
The publisher Henry Holt announced Wednesday that Stamos' “If You Would Have Told Me” is scheduled for fall 2023.
“'If You Would Have Told Me' is the book I never planned to write, but after losing Bob, finally becoming a father, and wanting to honor all the colorful people who have made me who I am today, I figured if not now, when?" Stamos, 59, said in a statement released through Henry Holt.
“Honestly, while writing this book I’ve realized I have about a million stories to tell, and I think you may like at least four hundred of them. It has been cathartic and healing and sometimes heartbreaking to dig in and reveal so much.”
Stamos' long career ranges from his early appearances on “General Hospital” to his years on “Full House” as Uncle Jesse to touring with the Beach Boys. He became a father in 2018 after his wife Caitlin McHugh gave birth to their son Billy.
According to Holt, the Emmy-nominated actor will describe “the surreal highs and devastating lows of a misunderstood heartthrob who has always remained a dorky kid from Orange County, and of his midlife quest to find sobriety and a family of his own.” | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Full-Life-John-Stamos-memoir-scheduled-for-fall-17440694.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:27 | en | 0.984027 |
BERLIN (AP) — German energy supplier Uniper said Wednesday that it is exploring the possibility of the government acquiring a majority holding in the company as its losses mount, a jump from the roughly 30% stake that the state already has pledged to take.
The government put together the rescue package in July after Russia's cuts to natural gas supplies forced Uniper to buy gas at far higher prices on the market to fulfill its supply contracts. As the energy crisis drives up prices, the European Union's executive Commission has proposed measures to help households, including tapping into the extraordinary profits of electricity producers.
Uniper is majority-owned by Finland-based Fortum, in which the Finnish government holds the largest stake.
Uniper said in a statement that “due to the increased uncertainties in the operating environment, the parties are also looking into alternative solutions,” including “a straight equity increase that would result in a significant majority participation by the German government in Uniper.”
It added that no decisions have yet been made beyond the July rescue package.
It includes a roughly 267 million-euro capital increase signed by the German government alone and an additional 7.7 billion euros through a tool that provides equity by issuing company shares — as Uniper’s cash needs require. An existing 2 billion-euro credit facility from Germany’s state-owned KfW development bank was increased to 9 billion euros.
The government also decided to introduce a new levy on natural gas, aimed at rescuing importers slammed by the Russian cutbacks tied to the war in Ukraine. It later moved to lower value-added tax on gas from 19% to 7% until the end of March 2024 in an effort to make up for the effect of the surcharge.
Russia’s Gazprom started reducing gas deliveries to Germany through the main Nord Stream 1 pipeline in mid-June, citing alleged technical problems and the effect of Western sanctions. German officials have dismissed that explanation as an excuse for a political decision to create uncertainty and drive up prices.
Russia, which before the reductions accounted for a bit more than a third of Germany’s gas supplies, has since cut off deliveries through Nord Stream 1 altogether.
As a result of that cutoff and extremely high and volatile gas and power prices in Europe, Uniper said its “financial losses due to the higher gas procurement cost have significantly increased.”
In a separate move last week, gas importer VNG also sought help from the German government. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/German-government-could-raise-stake-in-gas-17440686.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:33 | en | 0.971791 |
Jim Beam plans to ramp up bourbon production at its largest Kentucky distillery to meet growing global demand in a more than $400 million expansion to be powered by renewable energy.
The project will increase capacity by 50% at the Beam plant in Boston, Kentucky, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the same percentage, Beam Suntory said Wednesday.
The company behind the top-selling bourbon said it has reached production capacity at the Boston plant, about 36 miles (58 kilometers) south of Louisville, Kentucky. The expansion will be used to produce two mainstays — Jim Beam white and black label bourbons — and will mostly support expected sales growth overseas, especially in European and Asian markets, said Carlo Coppola, managing director of the Beam brands.
Jim Beam has registered mid-single-digit growth globally in the past two years, the company said.
Mixing renewable energy into crafting whiskey, Beam will use a process that produces renewable natural gas to power the plant, the company said.
Beam Suntory said it has entered into an agreement with 3 Rivers Energy Partners to build a facility across the street to convert waste from making bourbon into biogas, which will be treated to renewable natural gas standards and piped directly back to the distillery.
Once the project is completed, expected to be in 2024, the distillery will be 65% powered by renewable natural gas and 35% by fossil-based natural gas, the company said.
“This expansion will help ensure we meet future demand for our iconic bourbon in a sustainable way that supports the environment and the local community that has helped build and support Jim Beam,” said Beam Suntory President and CEO Albert Baladi.
Beam Suntory, whose products include Kentucky-crafted Maker’s Mark, said last year it wants to cut its companywide greenhouse gas emissions and water usage in half by 2030. The company’s more ambitious goal is to remove more carbon than is emitted from its operations and among its supplier base by 2040. The spirits giant also is committed to planting 500,000 trees annually by 2030, with a goal of planting more trees than are use to make barrels to hold its aging whiskeys.
The new project will create 51 more jobs and includes additional storage warehouses. Bourbon ages in new, charred oak barrels, where it acquires its color and flavor, while stored in warehouses. Most bourbons typically age four to eight years before reaching consumers. Beam's continued growth "reflects the strength of our state’s signature bourbon industry," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.
Beam also is “fully leveraging” its capacity at its distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, where it produces Jim Beam, Basil Hayden, Knob Creek and Legent brands. The two Beam distilleries are about 14 miles (22 kilometers) apart in central Kentucky. At another distillery that opened last year at Clermont, the company produces such small-batch brands as Booker’s, Baker’s and Little Book.
The company broadly outlined its Boston plant expansion earlier in the summer, but the announcement Wednesday provided details about production and the use of renewable energy.
Beam Suntory, a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings Limited of Japan, isn't the first maker of bourbon to go green. Last year, spirits giant Diageo opened a carbon-neutral distillery of Bulleit bourbon powered by renewable energy in Lebanon, Kentucky.
Beam's expansion at its Boston distillery comes amid continued rapid growth in the state's $9 billion distilling industry. Kentucky distillers are in the midst of a more than $5 billion capital investment campaign that includes expanding production facilities and warehousing to meet the global thirst for Kentucky bourbon, according to the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. Kentucky is home to 95% of the world’s bourbon production, the association said. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Jim-Beam-outlines-expansion-to-ramp-up-bourbon-17440750.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:39 | en | 0.94211 |
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Terri R. Kurtzberg, Rutgers University - Newark ; Charles Naquin, DePaul University, and Mason Ameri, Rutgers University - Newark
(THE CONVERSATION) The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
People appear to be more willing to lie for personal gain when they use a laptop versus a smartphone, our new peer-reviewed research shows. Given that the two devices have nearly identical technical capabilities – they’re both boxes with electronic brains – this surprised us and highlights the psychological impact of technology.
Our first in a planned series of studies was a version of what economists call the ultimatum game. In the take-it-or-leave-it exercise, one player is told they’ll receive a certain sum of money, some of which they must split with a partner. But they can tell their partner whatever they choose about the total sum and how much of it they’re willing to offer – allowing them to lie and keep more of the kitty for themselves. However, the partner must agree to the offered sum for either of them to get any money.
In our version, we told 137 graduate students to imagine they’d share US$125 with a fellow student, if their randomly assigned partner agreed to the deal. Half of them used a laptop; the rest participated with their smartphone.
While the vast majority of participants fibbed at least a little, laptop users were much more likely to lie – and by a lot more. Eighty-two percent of laptop participants were deceptive, compared with 62% of phone users, and on average claimed the pot was $20 less.
Although this was hypothetical and didn’t involve real money, previous research by us and otherscholars shows that these scenarios are good at predicting actual behavior.
To see if our finding held up in a more real-world scenario, we devised a negotiation experiment in which two people were told to barter over the purchase price of an imaginary semiconductor factory one of them owned. We split 222 students into buyers and sellers. Buyers were confidentially told that the market value of the property was estimated at $21 million.
We then asked buyers to tell sellers what they thought was the fair market value of the property and make an initial offer. Like in the first experiment, about half of the students used their phones and the others negotiated on laptops.
Again, laptop users were more deceptive. On average, they told sellers the fair value was $16.7 million – lowballing it by over $4 million – compared with $18.1 million for phone participants. In both cases, their actual offers were only slightly higher than what they said was the market value.
To find out what’s going on, we asked participants of a separate study about their associations with each device and found a consistent pattern. Phones triggered associations of friends and family, and laptops led to thoughts of work, success and accomplishments – which previous research has shown can trigger unethical behavior.
Why it matters
People’s use of technology in decision-making can subtly yet fundamentally shift the way our brains work.
In past work, we found that people lie more frequently, cooperate less and evaluate others more negatively when they conduct tasks virtually as opposed to in person, with physical tools like pens and paper.
While studies like ours can’t perfectly predict how behavior will play out in real life, these experiments do offer more evidence of the subtle ways technology can alter human behavior.
What still isn’t known
We don’t know whether our findings would hold for other tasks and within the context of existing relationships. Even within our experiments, other factors may be affecting people’s choice to lie, such as different screen sizes or locations.
Our research shows the continued need to assess how technological tools are used in real settings, including the unconscious changes these devices might have on daily decisions and ethical standards.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/lies-are-more-common-on-laptops-than-on-phones-how-devices-may-shape-our-behavior-when-bargaining-with-strangers-187326. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Lies-are-more-common-on-laptops-than-on-phones-17440753.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:46 | en | 0.960533 |
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee police say officers fatally shot a man after their squad car was struck by gunfire.
Officials are searching for two other suspects who fled from the scene of the shooting Tuesday night on the city's north side, police said.
Three tactical officers responded to gunshots detected by Shotspotter technology about 9 p.m. and as they arrived, gunshots struck the officers' car and narrowly missed them, according to police.
Officials said the officers fired their weapons in return and their gunfire struck one suspect, a 40-year-old Milwaukee man, several times. Officers attempted life saving measures and the suspect was taken to the hospital where he later died. No one else was hit by gunfire.
The two other suspects fled on foot and were still on the run Wednesday morning.
Police said a handgun used by one of the suspects, which was equipped with a high-capacity drum magazine, was recovered at the scene.
The three male officers involved, ages 30, 34 and 49, are on standard administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by Wauwatosa police. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Milwaukee-police-fatally-shoot-suspect-search-17440751.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:47 | en | 0.988704 |
TikTok may be the platform of choice for catchy videos, but anyone using it to learn about COVID-19, climate change or Russia's invasion of Ukraine is likely to encounter misleading information, according to a research report published Wednesday.
Researchers at NewsGuard searched for content about prominent news topics on TikTok and say they found that nearly 1 in 5 of the videos automatically suggested by the platform contained misinformation.
Searches for information about “mRNA vaccine," for instance, yielded five videos (out of the first 10) that contained misinformation, including baseless claims that the COVID-19 vaccine causes “permanent damage in children's critical organs.”
Researchers looking for information about abortion, the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, climate change or Russia's invasion of Ukraine on TikTok found similarly misleading videos scattered among more accurate clips.
The amount of misinformation — and the ease with which it can be found — is especially troubling given TikTok's popularity with young people, according to Steven Brill, founder of NewsGuard, a firm that monitors misinformation.
TikTok is the second most popular domain in the world, according to online performance and security company Cloudflare, exceeded only by Google.
Brill questioned whether ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is doing enough to stop misinformation or whether it deliberately allows misinformation to proliferate as a way to sow confusion in the U.S. and other Western democracies.
“It's either incompetence or it's something worse,” Brill told The Associated Press.
TikTok released a statement in response to NewsGuard's report noting that its community guidelines prohibit harmful misinformation and that it works to promote authoritative content about important topics like COVID-19.
“We do not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we will remove it from the platform,” the company said.
TikTok has taken other steps that it says are intended to direct users to trustworthy sources. This year, for example, the company created an election center to help U.S. voters find voting places or information about candidates.
The platform removed more than 102 million videos that violated its rules in the first quarter of 2022. Yet only a tiny percentage of those ran afoul of TikTok's rules against misinformation.
Researchers found that TikTok's own search tool seems designed to steer users to false claims in some cases. When researchers typed the words “COVID vaccine" into the search tool, for instance, the tool suggested searches on key words including “COVID vaccine exposed" and "COVID vaccine injury."
When the same search was run on Google, however, that search engine suggested searches relating to more accurate information about vaccine clinics, the different types of vaccines and booster shots.
TikTok's rise in popularity has caught the attention of state officials and federal lawmakers, some of whom have expressed concerns about its data privacy and security.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on social media's impact on the nation's security. TikTok's chief operating officer, Vanessa Pappas, is set to testify alongside representatives from YouTube, Twitter and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook.
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Follow the AP's coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/TikTok-search-results-riddled-with-17440666.php | 2022-09-14T13:18:59 | en | 0.931468 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation at the wholesale level jumped 8.7% in August from a year earlier, a slowdown from July yet still a painfully high level that suggests prices will keep spiking for months to come.
Wednesday's report from the Labor Department also showed that on a month-to-month basis, the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — declined 0.1% from July to August, the second straight monthly decline.
Yet the better readings mostly reflect plunging gas prices and don't necessarily point to a broader slowdown in inflation. A measure that excludes the volatile food and energy categories — so-called core prices — rose 0.4% from July to August and 7.3% in August compared with a year ago.
On Tuesday, the government reported that consumer inflation was rampant across much of the economy in August. Apart from cheaper gas, consumer prices for everything from food and rents to furniture, medical care and new cars got pricier last month.
The worse-than-expected consumer price spikes sent the stock market tumbling to its worst day in more than two years on fears that the Federal Reserve will turn even more aggressive in raising interest rates to fight inflation.
Wednesday's producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can often signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, which is called the personal consumption expenditures price index. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/US-wholesale-inflation-declines-in-August-to-17440715.php | 2022-09-14T13:19:06 | en | 0.964939 |
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University
(THE CONVERSATION) Inflation in the U.S. is surging to near a 40-year high, with prices on food, fuel and pretty much everything seeming to rise more every month.
Smartphones may be an exception.
Apple, for example, recently announced its new versions of the iPhone and other gadgets, and turned a lot of heads when it said it wouldn’t charge more despite higher costs to make the devices.
This is puzzling because companies typically raise prices in line with inflation – or at least enough to cover the increased costs of making their products.
Consumer price data tells an even more befuddling story. The latest consumer price index data suggests smartphone prices are actually down 20.4% in August from a year ago, according to an index released on Sept. 13, 2022. That’s the biggest drop of any detailed expenditure item the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks, and contrasts with the overall 8.3% increase in prices.
What’s going on?
As an economist teaching business school students, I enjoy exploring and explaining these economic puzzles. I believe there are two basic explanations – one for the data and another for Apple.
Why consumer prices on smartphones fell
The story behind the consumer price index data is easier to explain, if a bit technical.
The 20% drop over the past year isn’t unusual for smartphones. In fact, according to the index, they almost always go down from month to month. Since the end of 2019, smartphone prices have come down a whopping 40%.
And though smartphones are showing the biggest drop in the index, tech gear more broadly – from computers to smartwatches – also tend to fall over time. In the previous 12 months, what the government calls information technology commodities are down 8.8%.
Part of the reason for their steady decline is found buried in the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. The consumer price index tries to measure a constant quality of goods and services in the economy. This means it seeks to track the price changes of the exact same set of goods and services each month. It’s comparing the price today with the price of the exact same thing a month or year ago.
For most goods, it’s not really an issue because their quality doesn’t change much over relatively small periods of time. For example, an apple you bite into today is pretty much the same as an apple you ate a year ago.
Smartphones and other technology-heavy gadgets are different. Because smartphones are constantly improving in quality – with the latest updates of an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy awaited breathlessly every year – it is more difficult to ensure you’re comparing prices of products of the exact same quality.
For rapidly improving items, the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses what are called “hedonic regression models” to estimate these changes in quality over time. Hedonic models measure the same amount of satisfaction. While this sounds complicated, the goal is simple: to figure out how much each new smartphone feature changes the price.
As a consumer, you are essentially doing this whenever you decide whether it is worth paying the extra money for that marginally better camera or extended battery life when buying a new phone.
And so, the 20.4% drop doesn’t mean you’re going to pay less for a new smartphone. But it does suggest you’re getting 20% more bang for your buck versus the same phone a year earlier. Whether it’s worth it is another question.
Why Apple kept prices flat
That brings us to why Apple didn’t change its prices, even as the quality of the iPhone improved and supply chain costs went up.
Beyond the quality issues, one of the main ways supply chain problems are affecting phones is in the shortage of computer chips. If there is any product dependent on computer chips, it is smartphones. The shortage has resulted in delays to produce cars, trucks and many other consumer items.
The shortage has also increased the price of semiconductor parts. The U.S. government’s producer price index shows the price of semiconductor parts like chips and wafers steadily rising since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, after falling for years. Chip prices are likely going up 20% in the next year.
For these and other reasons, analysts were expecting Apple to increase its prices.
Instead, Apple released its latest iPhone models at the same prices as the last two models, or US$799 for the iPhone 14 and $999 for the pro version. Keeping prices constant during inflationary times means iPhones are getting relatively cheaper.
So why isn’t Apple increasing prices? Is it just being kind to its customers, who have fueled tremendous profits for the company over the past decade?
Probably not.
With a gross profit margin of over 40% – meaning that’s how much it makes over the cost of producing all its products and services – Apple can probably afford to absorb increased chip and other component costs.
My best guess, since the smartphone market is fairly competitive, is that Apple is keeping prices the same to build market share in the U.S. – beyond the record 50% it recently hit – so the iPhone remains one of the best-selling smartphones.
So while the cost of almost everything we buy is rising, you can take some comfort in knowing at least one item is getting both better over time and not succumbing to an inflationary price spiral.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/why-apple-can-hold-the-line-on-iphone-prices-as-smartphones-defy-soaring-inflation-and-keep-getting-relatively-cheaper-190590. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Why-Apple-can-hold-the-line-on-iPhone-prices-as-17440756.php | 2022-09-14T13:19:07 | en | 0.944413 |
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WFO RENO Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Wednesday, September 14, 2022
_____
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
Special Weather Statement
National Weather Service RENO NV
558 AM PDT Wed Sep 14 2022
...Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality Impacts...
* Smoke from the Mosquito wildfire continues to produce unhealthy
to hazardous air quality across the region. The latest
observations indicate the worst conditions to be concentrated
near Truckee and extending into Reno, Sparks, and the North
Valleys. Visibility of 2-3 miles due to thick smoke is in place
mainly along and north of I-80. Motorists should exercise
caution for the morning commute.
* As we have come to expect, another wave of smoke is forecast to
push into the region this afternoon and evening with the latest
smoke modeling concentrating the densest smoke plume for this
afternoon across the Tahoe Basin into eastern Sierra/Nevada
counties and through Reno/Sparks/North Valleys. There is some
potential for more widespread coverage extending to near Pyramid
Lake with drainage flows seeping through the Carson Valley and
across Lyon and Mineral counties this evening. Expect additional
reductions to air quality and visibility.
* For the latest air quality info, please continue to visit:
fire.airnow.gov. You can also refer to your local Air Quality
Management Division or the latest Smoke Outlook Statements from
the US Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program
which are also available via: fire.airnow.gov.
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather | https://www.expressnews.com/weather/article/CA-WFO-RENO-Warnings-Watches-and-Advisories-17440749.php | 2022-09-14T13:19:26 | en | 0.913879 |
Apple adopts a 3nm process for its A17 chip
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Exactly a week ago, Apple debuted the iPhone 14 lineup at its “Far Out” event. And while we are still waiting for the first units to arrive, the Cupertino company is already looking forward to the next iPhone, which could be the first smartphone to be powered by a 3nm processor.
2022 marks the first year when a performance gap between the standard models and the “Pro” ones has been introduced. The latter use the company’s latest A16 chip, while the former - last year’s A15.
The reason why the divide between the A16 and A15 chips is not all that significant is the fact that both SoCs are manufactured through the same 5nm process. The A16 uses a more refined process and is sometimes marketed as being “4nm”, but in truth both chipsets have the same technology node.
The 3nm process will likely be adopted in the second half of 2023, just in time for the iPhone 15 lineup. The A17 will, by extension, be the first 3nm SoC in a smartphone. Thus, it makes sense to expect a more noticeable gap in raw performance between the A17 and A16, in comparison to the one between the A16 and A15.
If Apple adheres to its new strategy of using the newest chipset only for its “Pro” iPhones, it is very much possible for us to see a very noticeable chasm between the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro.
2022 marks the first year when a performance gap between the standard models and the “Pro” ones has been introduced. The latter use the company’s latest A16 chip, while the former - last year’s A15.
Most benchmarks indicate that the A16 is, in fact, more powerful, but the performance bump is rather incremental. Apple itself asserted that the main benefits of the A16 over the A15 will be in their relative power efficiency.
The reason why the divide between the A16 and A15 chips is not all that significant is the fact that both SoCs are manufactured through the same 5nm process. The A16 uses a more refined process and is sometimes marketed as being “4nm”, but in truth both chipsets have the same technology node.
Next year, this could all change. According to an article by NikkeyAsia, the latest 3nm chipmaking process of TSMC will be first used in Apple’s A17 chip and the M3 processors at the heart of future MacBooks.
The 3nm process will likely be adopted in the second half of 2023, just in time for the iPhone 15 lineup. The A17 will, by extension, be the first 3nm SoC in a smartphone. Thus, it makes sense to expect a more noticeable gap in raw performance between the A17 and A16, in comparison to the one between the A16 and A15.
If Apple adheres to its new strategy of using the newest chipset only for its “Pro” iPhones, it is very much possible for us to see a very noticeable chasm between the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro.
Loading Comments... | https://www.phonearena.com/news/Apple-adopts-a-3nm-process-for-its-A17-chip_id142522 | 2022-09-14T13:19:28 | en | 0.955081 |
What will the Dynamic Island be used for? Apparently, for games
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Love it or hate it, Apple has established itself as an undisputed trendsetter in the smartphone world. The Cupertino company is not quick to change and implements innovation at its own pace and on its own terms- case in point, the (in)famous notch.
While Android manufacturers have been trying to produce the holy grail - a smartphone with a seamless edge to edge display - by making cutout smaller and smaller every year, Apple had dogmatically stuck to its notch for almost half a decade.
The Dynamic Island throws the notion of making the typical cutouts as small as possible into the waste bin, and instead blends software and hardware seamlessly to make the most out of the dead pixel space. Whether that approach sticks, remains up for debate. However, third-party developers are already making clever use of Apple’s Dynamic Island.
The game is still under development, but it is an interesting take on how developers can interact with the Dynamic Island. It should be noted that whether the new feature is able to reach its full potential largely depends on third-party developers finding unique uses for the Dynamic Island. Only then can the trap of it becoming little more than an interesting gimmick can be avoided.
While Android manufacturers have been trying to produce the holy grail - a smartphone with a seamless edge to edge display - by making cutout smaller and smaller every year, Apple had dogmatically stuck to its notch for almost half a decade.
It is only now, 5 years after the iPhone X introduced the notch for the first time, that Apple is transitioning to its new signature design element - the Dynamic Island. And in typical Apple fashion the new “feature” is reserved only for the company’s most premium smartphones - the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The Dynamic Island throws the notion of making the typical cutouts as small as possible into the waste bin, and instead blends software and hardware seamlessly to make the most out of the dead pixel space. Whether that approach sticks, remains up for debate. However, third-party developers are already making clever use of Apple’s Dynamic Island.
One such example comes in the form of “Hit the (Dynamic) Island”, a new game by Kriss Smolka, the name behind apps like HabitMinder and WaterMinder. Smolka first showcased his new creation by publishing a video on Twitter. The tweet was subsequently covered by MacRumors in a dedicated article.
Who has an iPhone 14 Pro right now? Need to test this on device asap!
— Kriss Smolka (@ksmolka) September 13, 2022
️ Hit The Island - our game concept for iPhone 14 Pro, still laggy but it’s turning out nice :) #iPhone14Pro#iOS16pic.twitter.com/kWLU77gk6d
The game is still under development, but it is an interesting take on how developers can interact with the Dynamic Island. It should be noted that whether the new feature is able to reach its full potential largely depends on third-party developers finding unique uses for the Dynamic Island. Only then can the trap of it becoming little more than an interesting gimmick can be avoided.
Loading Comments... | https://www.phonearena.com/news/What-will-the-Dynamic-Island-be-used-for-Apparently-for-games_id142524 | 2022-09-14T13:19:28 | en | 0.944741 |
Google fined $4 billion for imposing its Search app and Chrome browser on Android phones
Google has lost its appeal before the EU General Court which only diminished the European Commission's antitrust fine from €4.34 billion to €4.1 billion, reports Bloomberg. Unless it appeals before the high Court of Justice again, Google will have to pay $240 million less than the original fine as the Court didn't find sufficient evidence that it has been paying phone makers and carriers serious money to install Google Search on the Android phones in their portfolio.
What the Court did uphold, however, was that Google was guilty in the major count of blackmailing Android manufacturers into pre-installing its Chrome browser and integrating its search engine on a system level in order to allow access to its Play Store where all certified Android apps reside. According to the filing, Google also tried to prevent device makers from creating and spreading Android forks of their own.
For all of those infringements that contradict the European Commission's antitrust laws, Google was fined €4.34 billion four years ago and, while its appeal wasn't entirely fruitless, as it got the sum reduced somewhat, dragging this along with another procedural move before the High Court may not do anything to help Google wiggle out of payment.
"We are disappointed that the court did not annul the decision in full. Android has created more choice for everyone, not less, and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world," Google commented in a press statement.
The European Union has some of the most stringent antitrust and tax evasion policies and their implementation by the European Commission has put many a Silicon Valley giant in hot waters recently. Apple, for instance, just finished paying off its $15 billion tax evasion fine this year which will sit in an escrow until the outcome of the lawsuit against it becomes clear.
Seeing how Google fared against Europe's antitrust regulators, it may now be acutely aware that it may ultimately have to pay, too, not to mention the European Commission's other pressures imposed against it, like the requirement for a common USB-C charging plug that may appear as soon as the iPhone 15. Apple already transitioned the AirPods Pro 2 case to the USB-C standard last week, just as rumored, and the next iPhone may have to follow suit.
Loading Comments... | https://www.phonearena.com/news/google-4-billion-antitrust-android-search-fine_id142525 | 2022-09-14T13:19:30 | en | 0.968245 |
Google might be working on a mysterious 'small-screen' Pixel flagship
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Even though the death of compact handsets has been widely anticipated for longer than we can remember right now, a few important companies continue to swim against a current recently joined by Apple (among others) by regularly releasing smaller-than-average models.
Either way, we'll surely keep our eyes peeled and ears to the ground for any and all future developments on the Pixel "Neila" rumor front.
Of course, said screen size average has gradually increased in the last few years as bezels have slowly moved closer and closer to complete extinction, which means we don't really know what to expect from a newly rumored "small" Pixel flagship in that department.
As a matter of fact, we have no idea what to expect in any department from a device purportedly codenamed "neila" that no other leaker or tipster has even vaguely alluded to ahead of Digital Chat Station's latest Weibo post.
But because this has proven a fairly reliable source of inside information on a number of different products in the past, we're going to treat the otherwise wild-sounding fresh rumor with a healthy dose of (skeptical) seriousness.
After all, who's to say Google is not working on a "small-screen flagship machine" with a flat panel, centered hole punch, and "family-style" rear design... whatever that last part is supposed to mean?
Just because the iPhone 12 mini and 13 mini didn't work for Apple, that doesn't necessarily mean a prospective Pixel 7 mini or Pixel 8 mini variant of sorts wouldn't find an audience. Big G, remember, released a single Pixel 5 model with a 6-inch screen back in 2020, and by today's standards, that's a pretty compact handset with nearly invisible bezels.
The same more or less goes for this year's 6.1-inch Pixel 6a, which is however most definitely not a flagship in the traditional sense of the word. It remains to be seen if Google will stay around the 6-inch mark to give the likes of the 5.9-inch Asus Zenfone 9 a run for the money in the near future or perhaps go back to the 5.5-inch roots of 2018's Pixel 3 in this rumored bid for the modern title of best small phone on the market today.
Like the mythical Pixel Ultra super-flagship and Apple Watch-rivaling Pixel Watch, this Pixel Mini project could of course never come to fruition or get delayed year after year until the search giant finally deems the mobile industry ready to welcome such a risky product with open arms.
Loading Comments... | https://www.phonearena.com/news/google-small-screen-pixel-flagship-rumor_id142518 | 2022-09-14T13:19:36 | en | 0.952545 |
Samsung has to make more of the 'brightest' iPhone 14 Pro Max displays now as others can't
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The iPhone 14 Pro Max and the iPhone 14 Pro carry the most advanced displays Apple has ever put in a phone and it seems that only Samsung can make those in sufficient quantities now.
It has apparently ordered more display making tools and equipment for its factory in Vietnam where it laminates the iPhone 14 Pro panels, as it expects increased orders from Apple, reports Korean media The Elec.
The shipments increase, however, is not because of some change in Apple's initial sales forecast for its first phones with Dynamic Island displays - there is no time for that - but rather because it turned out that its other screen suppliers (nudge, wink, LG) simply can't make the iPhone 14 Pro displays with the expected yields.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max screen is the "brightest" in a phone, referring to the oft-abused peak brightness metric. It is benefiting from Samsung's latest M12 OLED display generation technology that made a cameo on the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
LG also provides displays with its latest RS-L LTPO OLED technology for the iPhone 14 Pro Max, but it doesn't have Samsung's experience with laser-cutting punch holes for all the Face ID paraphernalia in the Dynamic Island area on this tech, so it may have been a misjudgment by Apple to expect the same output with the needed quality as it did from Samsung.
While LG's RS-L panels go to both the Pro model and the lowly iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus version, Samsung provides its OLED display technology of the latest, 12th generation, only to the Pro models of Apple's 2022 iPhone series.
Research firm Omdia breaks down the iPhone 14 series display specs and OLED technologies
As usual, Samsung's M12 panels bring to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max brighter panels with less power consumption and better color credibility compared to the previous generation, M11 screens, that are used for the iPhone 13 series.
As a result of the orders increase, Samsung will have to produce 19 million more OLED panels for Apple than originally requested.
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Samsung is deeply discounting Galaxy screen repairs in addition to actual phones now
Kicked off just a couple of days ago, Samsung's big fall Discover event has made plenty of headlines since then thanks to awesome new deals on devices as diverse as the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Tab S8 family, Z Fold 3, and the Galaxy Watch 4 duo.
But from an existing Galaxy user perspective, the best special offer available through September 26 may not consist of a discount on a new product purchase at all. Instead, if you own a Galaxy S, Note, Flip, or Fold-series phone with a cracked screen and don't want to trade that in for the chance to save $200 or $300 on a new member of the same family, now's probably the time to get an authorized repair.
That's because damaged front display replacements are down to a flat $99 for "series 9 and up" Galaxy S and Note models, as well as "most" A-series mid-rangers, while the same kind of repair will set you back $249 for "all" Galaxy Flip and Fold devices, including the hot new Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4.
Although 250 bucks may still sound like a high price to pay to fix what's certainly a very common issue, Z Fold 2, Z Fold 3, and Z Fold 4 "inner" screen repairs would normally cost an even higher $350 or so a pop. Meanwhile, cracking the beautiful display of the S21 Ultra or S22 Ultra can result in a charge of around two Benjamins outside of this promotion, which verifies Samsung's claim that you can save 50 percent on many screen replacements right now.
The campaign's terms and conditions, mind you, make it clear that uBreakiFix and Asurion Tech Repair & Solutions will replace your phone's cracked display in their stores across the US as long as you book an appointment online while also specifying that water damage and other problems are not covered and your battery will not be replaced as part of this hot new deal.
Still, the list of eligible devices alone makes the promo well worth taking into consideration for many people, including a whole bunch of oldies you may have gotten very close to giving up on entirely, like the Galaxy S9, S9+, Note 9, S10, S10+, S10 Lite, Note 10, Note 10+, Note 10 Lite, OG Fold, A01, A11, A20, A50, A51, A71, and A21.
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arts
William Klein, photographer who brought high fashion into the streets, has died aged 96
Published 14th September 2022
Credit: Marc Gantier/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
William Klein, photographer who brought high fashion into the streets, has died aged 96
This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper, an editorial partner of CNN Style.
The photographer, filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist William Klein has died aged 96, according to the International Center of Photography, where a retrospective of his work is currently on show. In a statement, the ICP said he passed away on Saturday in Paris. No cause of death was given.
Klein was best known for his photography, which encompassed and intertwined a wide array of subjects including candid street photography, kinetic fashion shoots and high-contrast abstract work. He also maintained robust filmmaking and painting practices.
Klein was born in New York City in 1926, and lived there until the age of 20, when he was sent to Europe by the US Army to help with reconstruction efforts following World War II. He obtained his first camera --which he won in a card game --during this trip, and eventually settled in Paris, where he studied painting and sculpture at the Sorbonne and worked in the studio of the renowned Modernist painter Fernand Léger.
It was in Europe that Klein began to seriously pursue his great love, photography, and he soon started transposing the abstract forms of his paintings and sculptural studies to shadowy, geometric photographs of objects in motion, as seen in compositions such as 1952's "Moving Diamonds, Mural Project, Paris" or "Turning Black Egg."
"The photography was a way out of the ABCs of abstract painting from that period in Paris," Klein told Interview magazine in 2013. "I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger."
Klein's experimentation soon won him a fan back in his hometown: Alexander Lieberman, an art director at Vogue, who helped bring Klein's kineticism to the glossy realm of high fashion. Klein found inspiration in the brash, busy chaos of the New York streets where he spent his youth, and would spend days wandering the city, taking photographs of strangers and talking with them about their lives, as immortalized in his iconic 1956 photobook "Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels."
He soon began to shoot his editorials on the street, too, placing models amid crowds and taxicabs and photographing them in striking, quasi-surreal scenes of clutter and poise. In an age still dominated by the stylized studio shoots of photographers like Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, Klein's decision to bring fashion photography down to the bustling friction of the street was considered revolutionary.
"The first thing that people photograph or digest in New York is Broadway and Times Square -- it's the most beautiful thing in New York, and in America," Klein said of the film in an interview with Aperture. "But what is it, what are people actually seeing? They are seeing the spectacle of advertising; it's buy this, buy that. It's beautiful, but it's made up of sales pitches, and people are fascinated and seduced by advertising."
His desire to capture life as it really occurred would persist throughout his films as they grew to encompass subjects such as the Black Panther activist Eldridge Cleaver's flight from America and the 1981 French Open tennis tournament.
Klein's wide-ranging talents won him acclaim in the worlds of fashion, film and fine art, and he received numerous honors including the Medal of the Century from the Royal Photographic Society in London in 1999 and the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007, as well as countless museum exhibitions and acquisitions. (A major exhibition of his a at the International Center of Photography that was scheduled to close on Monday has been extended until Thursday.)
Despite his accomplishments across so many media, Klein always returned to photography and remained an active photographer well into his later years.
"I have a special relationship with God," Klein told Interview of his approach to his favored discipline. "And when I take the right photograph, God gives me a little bing! in the camera. And then I know I'm on the right track." | https://www.cnn.com/style/article/william-klein-fashion-photographer-death-tan/index.html | 2022-09-14T13:19:54 | en | 0.986363 |
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Freight railroad workers threaten to strike. What legal probes may mean for Donald Trump's political future. A far-right party is expected to play a central role in Sweden's next coalition government.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Freight railroad workers threaten to strike. What legal probes may mean for Donald Trump's political future. A far-right party is expected to play a central role in Sweden's next coalition government.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.kunm.org/2022-09-14/news-brief-looming-rail-strike-trumps-political-future-swedens-far-right-party | 2022-09-14T13:20:35 | en | 0.928124 |
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BOSTON — A package exploded on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston late Tuesday, and the college said a staff member suffered minor injuries.
Authorities said another suspicious package was found near a prominent art museum and the FBI was assisting with the investigation.
The parcel that blew up was one of two that were reported to police early in the evening. Boston's bomb squad neutralized a second package near the city's Museum of Fine Arts, which is on the outskirts of the Northeastern campus.
NBC Boston reported that the package that exploded went off as it was being opened near the university's Holmes Hall, which is home to the university's creative writing program and its women's, gender and sexuality studies program. It said the FBI was assisting the investigation.
Authorities declined to elaborate, but Northeastern spokesperson Shannon Nargi said in a statement that an unidentified university staff member suffered minor injuries to his hand in the explosion. Felipe Colon, a Boston police superintendent, later described the victim as a 45-year-old man.
Police converged on the campus shortly before 7:30 p.m., and the university asked students who had gathered for an evening journalism class at the hall to evacuate the building.
Northeastern is a private university in downtown Boston with about 16,000 undergraduate students. WCVB-TV said one of its reporters, Mike Beaudet, was teaching a class there at the time. Beaudet told the station his class was moved outside but that neither he nor his students heard an explosion.
Michael Davis, chief of Northeastern's police force, told reporters the campus was secure. Boston police didn't say whether any other suspicious packages were found.
"We're monitoring the situation at Northeastern and we're ready to work with the university and our law enforcement partners on any prosecutions that may develop," Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said, promising "a comprehensive investigation to determine exactly what occurred here."
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both on the other side of the Charles River separating Boston from Cambridge, said they were increasing patrols on their campuses as a precaution and urging students and faculty to report anything suspicious.
Tuesday's explosion marked one of the first big scares in Boston since 2013, when two bombs planted near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three spectators and wounded more than 260 others.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.kunm.org/npr-news/2022-09-14/a-person-is-injured-after-a-package-explodes-at-northeastern-university-in-boston | 2022-09-14T13:20:43 | en | 0.981436 |
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A teenage human trafficking victim who was initially charged with first-degree murder after she stabbed her accused rapist to death was sentenced Tuesday in an Iowa court to five years of closely supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to the man's family.
Pieper Lewis, 17, was sentenced Tuesday after she pleaded last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks of Des Moines. Both charges were punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Polk County District judge David M. Porter on Tuesday deferred those prison sentences, meaning that if Lewis violates any portion of her probation, she could be sent to prison to serve that 20-year term.
As for being required to pay the estate of her rapist, "this court is presented with no other option," Porter said, noting the restitution is mandatory under Iowa law that has been upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court.
Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.
Lewis said one of those men was Brooks and that he had raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. She recounted being forced at knifepoint by the 28-year-old man to go with Brooks to his apartment for sex. She told officials that after Brooks had raped her yet again, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed Brooks in a fit of rage.
Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked. But prosecutors have argued that Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and not an immediate danger to Lewis.
Iowa is not among the dozens of states that have a so-called safe harbor law that gives trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity.
Lewis, who earned her GED while being held in juvenile detention, acknowledged in a statement prior to her sentencing that she struggled with the structure of her detention, including "why I was treated like fragile glass" or wasn't allowed to communicate with her friends or family.
"My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames," she read from a statement she had prepared. "Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow."
"I am a survivor," she added.
The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Lewis agreed to have her name used previously in stories about her case.
Prosecutors took issue with Lewis calling herself a victim in the case and said she failed to take responsibility for stabbing Brooks and "leaving his kids without a father."
The judge peppered Lewis with repeated requests to explain what poor choices she made that led up to Brooks' stabbing and expressed concern that she sometimes did not want to follow rules set for her in juvenile lockup.
"The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I'm sure of it," Porter said. He later added, "This is the second chance that you've asked for. You don't get a third."
Karl Schilling with the Iowa Organization for Victim Assistance said a bill to create a safe harbor law for trafficking victims passed the Iowa House earlier this year, but stalled in the Senate under concerns from law enforcement groups that it was too broad.
"There was a working group established to iron out the issues," Shilling said. "Hopefully it will be taken up again next year."
Iowa does have an affirmative defense law that gives some leeway to victims of crime if the victim committed the violation "under compulsion by another's threat of serious injury, provided that the defendant reasonably believed that such injury was imminent."
Prosecutors argued Tuesday that Lewis waived that affirmative defense when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and willful injury.
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Citation
Sakran JV, Lunardi N. Adv. Surg. 2022; 56(1): 49-67.
Copyright
(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)
DOI
10.1016/j.yasu.2022.03.001
PMID
36096577
Abstract
Firearms injury is a major cause of American morbidity and mortality. Although the firearm is a common vector, the intentions with which it is used represent a wide array of social ills-suicide, community violence, domestic violence, mass shootings, legal intervention, and unintended injury. The political and social underpinnings of this epidemic are inseparable from its prevention measures. Surgeons have an important role in firearm policy, research, prehospital and hospital advances, trauma survivor networks, and hospital-based violence prevention programs. It is only through interdisciplinary, multilevel, evidence-based prevention measures that the tides will turn on American firearm injury.
Language: en
Keywords
Homicide; Prevention; Suicide; Firearm injury; Firearm policy; Hospital-based violence prevention programs; Prehospital care; Trauma systems | https://www.safetylit.org/citations/index.php?fuseaction=citations.viewdetails&citationIds%5B%5D=citjournalarticle_729718_7 | 2022-09-14T13:21:28 | en | 0.874335 |
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