1654: e-Safety

AIEF Defense Donors

According to the search results, several defense contractors and their employees have financially supported AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and its affiliated organization AIEF (the AIPAC Education Foundation):

- Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, contributed $1,917,820 to political candidates and committees, with $1,007,147 going to Republicans and $884,979 going to Democrats.[1](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=D)[3](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib?cycle=2020&ind=D)

- Northrop Grumman, another major defense contractor, contributed $1,253,089, with $573,905 going to Republicans and $660,990 going to Democrats.[1](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=D)[3](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib?cycle=2020&ind=D)

- General Atomics, a defense technology company, contributed $1,229,004, with $864,690 going to Republicans and $279,617 going to Democrats.[1](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=D)[3](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib?cycle=2020&ind=D)

- The Paul E. Singer Foundation, which manages the assets of billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, a major donor to conservative causes, gave $1.25 million to AIEF in 2019.[2](https://theintercept.com/2023/11/18/aipac-congress-israel-trips-donors/)

- The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, which portrays itself as focused on progressive issues, also gave $1.5 million to AIEF in 2019 while also funding other hawkish, pro-Israel groups.[2](https://theintercept.com/2023/11/18/aipac-congress-israel-trips-donors/)

- Other large donors to AIEF include the Bay Area-based Koret Foundation ($5 million), the Jewish Communal Fund ($3.5 million), and a trust established in the name of real estate tycoon Milton Cooper ($2.475 million).[2](https://theintercept.com/2023/11/18/aipac-congress-israel-trips-donors/)

The search results indicate that AIPAC and its affiliated AIEF organization receive significant financial support from defense contractors and other pro-Israel donors, with the funds used to sponsor trips for members of Congress to Israel.[2](https://theintercept.com/2023/11/18/aipac-congress-israel-trips-donors/)

AIEF Donations to AIPAC

(1)AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE D 10,000,000 CASH (2)american israel public affairs committee M,N,O 35,281,634 CASH (3)AIPAC­AIEF ISRAEL RA P 4,813,704 CASH (4)AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE S 338,123 CASH

Russia warns Europe: if you take our assets, we have a response that will hurt | Reuters

"We also have a prepared answer," Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the Russian upper house of parliament, was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA. "We have a draft law, which we are ready to consider immediately, on retaliatory measures."

"And the Europeans will lose more than we do," Matviyenko, who is a member of Russia's powerful Security Council, said.

Link

SHAC

School Health Advisory Committee in Fredericksburg - Delayed vote on books for 9 year old

The debate is wrong, it's not HEALTH and parents should always be in control of what their kids are being taught

Sadly, parents have been propagandized into believeing it will actually save the kids from 'suicide'

Inside the Crisis at NPR - The New York Times

So it came as a disappointment to some people on NPR’s board last fall when they were presented with new internal data showing their efforts hadn’t moved the needle much with Black and Hispanic podcast listeners.

Black listeners made up roughly 11 percent of NPR’s audience in the second quarter of 2023, unchanged from the same period in 2020, according to the data. The data further showed that the share of Hispanic listeners went up only two percentage points since 2020, to account for 16 percent of the total audience. One 2020 survey, from the Pew Research Center, found that of the people who named NPR as their main source for political and election news, 75 percent were white, more than any other outlet except Fox News.

NPR’s efforts to diversify itself and its audience didn’t always live up to the expectations of the people who worked there. During a round of layoffs last year, NPR cut “Louder Than a Riot,” a hip-hop podcast that examined Black and queer issues. After that decision, the show’s editor, Soraya Shockley, who had previously worked at The Times, grilled Mr. Lansing during an employee question-and-answer session about why the show had no dedicated budget, pointing out the lack of resources supporting content that furthered diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I.

Link

UBI in Texas thwarted

ITM

Adam. I was unaware of this case till just now. Harris County is

trying to deploy a UBI “pilot” program called “Uplift Harris,” but the

Texas AG is challenging it as a vote-buying scheme. Which of course it

is.

The

$500 monthly payments were supposed to start today. But yesterday, the

Texas Supreme Court issued an order that put the program on ice. The

AG argues that Uplift Harris violates the “Gift Clauses” in the Texas

Constitution. It serves no clear public purpose, it exercises no

control over where the money goes, and there’s no way to link a public

benefit to the payouts. What’s more, the funds come from the federal

American Rescue Plan Act, which was designed to respond to immediate

economic hardships caused by COVID in 2021—so it may violate federal law

too.

The

AG also complains about the lottery system used to pick the 1,928 lucky

winners. Unlike a traditional welfare program, recipients don’t have

to show a financial need, an illness, a disability, etc. All you have

to do is to live in a certain area with a low average income, and your

name goes into the hat.

Kamala

Secret Service officer protecting Kamala Harris came to blows with other agents at Joint Base Andrews

Secret Service agent on VP Harris' detail removed from assignment after physical fight while on duty | Fox News

Secret Service agent on VP Harris' detail removed from assignment after physical fight while on duty | Fox News

-----------------------------

Herczeg showed up at the terminal and began acting erratically, grabbing another senior agent’s personal phone and deleting applications on it, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The other agent, a shift leader, was able to recover his phone and then acted as if nothing had happened.

But Herczeg’s bizarre behavior didn’t stop. She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,” a source told RealClearPolitics.

Herczeg also screamed at the special agent in charge (SAIC), rattling off the names of female officers on the vice president’s detail and claiming they would show up and help her and allow her to continue working. At that point, other agents on the scene believed Herczeg was suffering from a mental lapse, and the superior officer, SAIC, approached her to tell her she was relieved from the assignment.

“That’s when she snapped entirely,” one source recounted.

Herczeg then chest-bumped and shoved her superior, then tackled him and punched him. The agents involved in restraining Herczeg were especially concerned because she still had her gun in the holster. They wrestled her to the ground, took the gun from her, cuffed her, and then removed her from the terminal.

Link

The US is now allowed to seize Russian state assets. How would that work? | AP News

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:14

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The big U.S. aid package for Ukraine and other allies that President Joe Biden signed Wednesday also allows the administration to seize Russian state assets located in the U.S. and use them for the benefit of Kyiv.

That could mean another $5 billion in assistance for Ukraine, coming from Russian Central Bank holdings that have already been frozen in the United States. The seizures would be carried out under provisions of the REPO Act, short for the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act, that were incorporated into the aid bill.

But it's not likely the U.S. will seize the assets without agreement from other members of the Group of Seven nations and the European Union.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FREEZING AND SEIZING? The U.S. and its allies immediately froze $300 billion in Russian foreign holdings at the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. That money has been sitting untapped '-- most of it in European Union nations '-- as the war grinds on. But roughly $5 billion of it is located in the U.S.

The frozen assets are immobilized and can't be accessed by Moscow '-- but they still belong to Russia. While governments can generally freeze property without difficulty, turning that property into forfeited assets that can be sold for the benefit of Ukraine requires an extra layer of judicial procedure, including a legal basis and adjudication in a court.

For more than a year, officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of confiscating the money and sending it to Ukraine.

HOW QUICKLY COULD THIS HAPPEN?The new U.S. law requires the president and Treasury Department to start locating Russian assets in the U.S. within 90 days and to report back to Congress within 180 days. A month after that period, the president will be allowed to ''seize, confiscate, transfer, or vest'' any Russian state sovereign assets, including any interest, within U.S. jurisdictions.

But the U.S. wants to keep consulting with global allies and act together, which is likely to slow down the process.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday the issue would be an important topic when leaders of the G7 countries meet in Italy in June, adding that ''the ideal is that we all move together.''

WHAT CAN THE US DO WITH THE MONEY?Biden is given leeway to determine how the money can be spent for the benefit of Ukraine '-- but he must confer with other G7 members before acting.

The legislation states that ''any effort by the United States to confiscate and repurpose Russian sovereign assets'' should be done alongside international allies, including the G7, the 27-member European Union and other nations as part of a coordinated effort.

Policymakers, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have said the U.S. is not likely to act without the support of G7 allies.

Yellen said after the passage of the bill that ''Congress took an important step in that effort with the passage of the REPO Act, and I will continue intensive discussions with our G7 partners in the weeks ahead on a collective path forward,'' Yellen said.

WILL EUROPE ALSO SEIZE RUSSIAN ASSETS? The European Union already has begun to set aside windfall profits generated from frozen Russian central bank assets. The bloc estimates the interest on that money could provide around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) each year.

''The Russians will not be very happy. The amount of money, 3 billion per year, is not extraordinary, but it is not negligible,'' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in March .

Still, some European leaders have expressed hesitation about moving forward with a plan to formally seize Russia's assets in Europe.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said at a Council on Foreign Relations event earlier this month that confiscating Russian assets ''is something that needs to be looked at very carefully'' and could ''start breaking the international legal order.''

WHAT ARE THE RISKS?Critics of the REPO Act say the weaponization of global finance against Russia could harm the U.S. dollar's standing as the world's dominant currency.

To confiscate Russia's assets could prompt nations like China '-- the biggest holder of U.S. Treasuries '-- to determine it is not safe to keep their reserves in U.S. dollars.

The conservative Heritage Foundation has criticized Russian asset seizure for, among other things, undermining the dollar-denominated global finance system, saying ''it would expose an already fragile economy to unintended consequences and risks for which the United States is unprepared.''

Russian authorities have warned that the new law will undermine the global financial system.

Hussein reports on the U.S. Treasury Department for The Associated Press. She covers tax policy, sanctions and any issue that relates to money.

Explaining Washington's REPO Act that could kick-start the confiscation of frozen Russian assets

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:44

Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight.

The U.S. on April 20 became the first nation to adopt legislation green-lighting confiscating frozen Russian assets for Ukraine.President Joe Biden signed the REPO Act alongside a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included $61 billion for Kyiv on April 24, setting the legal basis for liquidating immobilized Russian assets held in the U.S.

Since the West froze around $300 billion belonging to the Russian Central Bank (CBR) at the start of the full-scale invasion, discussions among the G7 countries about what to do with the assets have been divisive.

Some have argued that the liquidated assets should go to Ukraine's reconstruction while others have pointed toward bolstering the country's troubled war effort.

Legal barriers and lobbying from opponents have so far held up the transfer of funds to Ukraine. At the same time, Kyiv's allies struggle to fund the war-torn country. Proponents have cited the assets as a clear solution.

The bill overcomes the main legal concern, Russia's sovereign immunity, by paving the way for the Biden administration to confiscate the assets due to Russia's violation of international law.

However, while the bill shows Washington's support for repurposing Russian assets in response to Moscow's illegal invasion of Ukraine, it does not guarantee confiscation of the assets. This is a decision for President Joe Biden.

''It's a step in the right direction, but not yet a game changer,'' Timothy Ash, a senior strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, told the Kyiv Independent.In his opinion, the dial will only fully move forward once Biden seizes the assets, which could set a precedent for other countries. While the President signed the bill on April 24, he has not yet confirmed he will utilize the assets.

U.S. President Joe Biden during a news conference on Dec. 12, 2023. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)Russian assets in the U.S. are only a drop in the bucket, totaling approximately $4-5 billion. This barely scratches the surface of Ukraine's $486 billion reconstruction bill or $100 billion annual war costs.The act acknowledges that the majority of the assets are outside Washington's jurisdiction and emphasizes the need for greater transparency in locating Russian assets in the U.S., asserting that financial institutions must submit information on Russian assets to the Treasury.

It also indicates that all Russian state assets, potentially including state companies, are subject to confiscation. This includes the CBR, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian Finance Ministry, and property and financial institutions owned by the Kremlin. Assets under diplomatic immunity cannot be touched.

By Ash's estimation, there are some $320 billion in frozen CBR assets around the world. The total is close to $400 billion when counting assets belonging to Russian individuals, including oligarchs.

The vast majority are in Europe, particularly Belgium, with the Brussels-based company Euroclear holding some $192 billion in Russian assets.

The U.S. bill emphasizes that repurposing the assets should be a multilateral effort alongside the G7 nations, EU, Australia, and other countries where they are located.According to a report from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), the act's wording suggests that Washington won't go ahead without similar decisions from its international allies.

''The REPO Act creates an opportunity for the Biden administration to press Europeans to use the assets of the Russian government to help Ukraine survive economically,'' Ambassador Robert Zoellick told the Atlantic Council.

While Ash doesn't believe the act alone will sway the EU, he does believe the bloc will be forced to follow suit if Biden goes ahead and confiscates the assets.

''The question is, will the Biden administration really push on European leaders to bite the bullet in terms of using or seizing and allocating immobilized Russian assets to Ukraine?'' he said.

Opponents have warned that Western currencies could be destabilized if nations, like China or Saudi Arabia, pull their assets from Western nations out of concern they could become the next targets.To ease these apprehensions, the act carefully mentions that only Russian assets are covered, stressing that the U.S. is only backing this idea due to the unique circumstances of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Ukraine sympathizers fly a Ukrainian flag outside as the Senate works through the weekend on a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill with assistance for Ukraine and Israel at the U.S. Capitol Washington, DC, on Feb. 11, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)If enacted, the bill proposes that the Secretary of State will be responsible for dispersing the liquidated assets with the USAID Administrator. The money could go towards an international fund or body to assist Ukraine in reconstruction efforts, as well as economic and humanitarian assistance.

The EU agreed earlier in March to use the profits generated from Russian assets frozen within the bloc. According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukraine could receive the first billion euros by July with the potential of 3 billion euros by the end of the year.

The G7 nations have also discussed using the assets as collateral for loans to Ukraine. European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis noted that this would be a likely part of the final plan.However, Ash believes the easiest way forward is for all Western leaders to unanimously agree to utilize the assets. But, political inertia is the main barrier.

'' (The act) pushes the process forward. But the fundamental problem still is a lack of political willingness to do it, particularly in Europe.''

Dominic Culverwell Reporter

Dominic is the business reporter for the Kyiv Independent. He has written for a number of publications including the Financial Times, bne IntelliNews, Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Euronews and New Eastern Europe. Previously, Dominic worked with StopFake as a disinformation expert, debunking Russian fake news in Europe. Read more

Behind Israel's 'end game' for Gaza: Theft of offshore gas reserves '' Workers World

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:34

In 1999, British Gas (BG) discovered the existence of natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields, 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, at a depth of 610 meters below the surface. Further exploration by BG through two successful wells '-- Gaza Marine 1 and Gaza Marine 2 '-- determined the field could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (EgyptOil-Gas.com, April 5 , 2018)

Map of the Levant Basin Province.

The Palestinian Authority was ''granted'' the right to exercise sovereignty over its own maritime territory by the Oslo Accords in 1995. Four years later, following the findings of the offshore natural gas, the PA gave the international consortium BG a 25-year, 90% stake in a license to explore, develop any discovered fields, and install the required infrastructure. Since that time Israel has consistently blocked this development.

In 2002, the PA approved BG's proposals to construct a pipeline to a processing facility in Gaza. However, the Israeli state delayed this development, arguing that the pipeline should run to an Israeli-controlled port, and that Palestinians would have to supply Gaza Marine surplus fuel to Israel at far below market price.

When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in Gaza in 2007, Israel established a militarized naval blockade, prohibiting further offshore development. Around the same time, Yam Thetis, an Israeli gas consortium, challenged the awarding of the contract to BG, further delaying the process.

In December 2008, in total contravention of international laws, Israel declared sovereignty over the Gaza Marine area, and BG closed its offices in Tel Aviv.

Royal Dutch Shell bought out BG's interests in the Gaza Marine fields for $52 million in 2016. By March 2018, Royal Dutch Shell backed out of their investment, leaving the PA to search for a replacement company to develop the field. (EgyptOil-Gas.com, April 5, 2018)

U.N. study sights Palestinian natural gas reserves

A 2019 study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) identified existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves in the West Bank and Gaza that could be developed for the benefit of the Palestinian people.

The report cited the Levant Basin Province, comprising 83,000 square kilometers of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, with 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as one of the most important natural gas resources in the world. Despite the fact that this reserve lies under waters bordering occupied Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, Israel has claimed sole access and profits from this find. ( tinyurl.com/2r2mh5ts )

While the estimated volume of natural gas in the Gaza Marine is considerably less than the Levant Basin, its proximity to the shore and lesser depth make it easier and less costly to extract. In 2019, UNCTAD estimated the net value of the Gaza Marine natural gas at $4.592 billion '-- energy and financial resources that could go a long way in addressing poverty in the region.

Yet Israel continued to prevent Palestinians from developing and benefiting from their natural resources, in clear violation of international law that governs who has rights to these resources when a country is occupied.

Gaza Marine importance to global energy

Renewed interest in pursuing development of the Gaza Marine field surfaced in 2022 following the war between Russia and Ukraine, the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, and the sanctions placed on Russia that caused a global energy crisis. Joint meetings were held between Israeli, U.S., Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian Authority officials to discuss the project, which was given the go-ahead by Netanyahu following his reelection. In particular, President Joe Biden and Egyptian government officials pressured Israel to pursue the project. (al-monitor.com, June 19)

On June 18, Israel gave preliminary approval for the development of a gas field off the coast of Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming progress would hinge on ''preserving the State of Israel's security and diplomatic needs'' and coordination with the Palestinian Authority and neighboring Egypt. At the same time, Hamas official Ismail Rudwan told Reuters: ''We reaffirm that our people in Gaza have the rights to their natural resources.'' (June 18)

Two months before Oct. 7, the Pentagon began building a $35.8 million troop facility in Israel's Negev desert, 20 miles from Gaza, allegedly as a radar site to monitor for missile attacks on Israel. The base is part of a ''secret'' U.S. military presence in Israel. (The Intercept, Oct. 27)

Since Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel intends to kill as many Palestinians as possible in order to pressure others to leave the Gaza Strip and move to the Sinai in Egypt. Netanyahu has been adamant in refusing to order a cease-fire to let in aid to stop the horrific genocide being carried out in Gaza.

The people of Gaza are well aware, as their grandparents experienced with the 1948 Nakba, that once Israelis forcefully remove Palestinians from Palestinian land, returning is a near impossibility.

Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians has not stopped the Israeli regime's plans for further oil and gas exploration. On Oct. 29, Israel announced that it awarded 12 licenses for exploring additional offshore natural gas fields to six companies, including British Petroleum and Italian energy giant Eni. These awards show that Israel has no intention of letting the genocide it is carrying out against Gaza's people interfere with its ongoing theft of Palestinian resources.

Indigenous Land Back Movement

In many ways, the struggle of the Palestinian people parallels that of Indigenous tribes and nations in the Western Hemisphere, whose populations were decimated over the course of hundreds of years of white settler colonialism.

For many Indigenous people in the U.S., so-called ''Thanksgiving'' is the Day of Mourning. In 1621, in an act of survival, the Wampanoag signed an agreement with the Pilgrims, but the European settler colonialists broke the treaty and decimated the tribe's population, stealing their land in the process.

Over the course of the next 400 years, Indigenous lands were stolen by the European colonialists. Indigenous people were either killed or pushed off their land and forced to relocate to reservations believed to be on worthless land, often considerable distances from their original homes. Later, when these reservations turned out to be located atop vast reserves of valuable minerals, the land theft would start again.

Centuries-long battles to reclaim the land stolen from Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere have been gaining momentum, along with calls for reparations with the Land Back movement.

From Turtle Island to the Gaza Strip, Indigenous peoples are fighting the settler colonial theft of their lands and resources.

Dozens arrested on USC campus after students at University of Texas detained as Gaza war protests persist

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:41

Police peacefully arrested 93 student protesters at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, hours after police at a Texas university aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide.

While tensions rose between police and protesters at USC earlier in the day, in the evening a few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained one by one without incident.

Police officers encircled the dwindling group, which sat in defiance of an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested.

University of Texas police officers arrest a man at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. APBeyond the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched as helicopters buzzed overhead. The school closed the campus.

While universities struggling to defuse unrest have quickly turned to law enforcement, the arrests in California were in sharp contrast to the chaos that ensued just hours earlier at the University of Texas at Austin.

Hundreds of local and state police '-- including some on horseback and holding batons '-- pushed into protesters, at one point sending some tumbling into the street.

Officers made 34 arrests at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was in the push-and-pull when an officer yanked him backward to the ground, video shows.

The station confirmed that the photographer was arrested. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff.

Texas state troopers in riot gear try to break up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. APDane Urquhart, a third-year Texas student, called the police presence and arrests an ''overreaction,'' adding that the protest ''would have stayed peaceful'' if the officers had not turned out in force.

''Because of all the arrests, I think a lot more (demonstrations) are going to happen,'' Urquhart said.

Police left after hours of efforts to control the crowd, and about 300 demonstrators moved back in to sit on the grass and chant under the school's iconic clock tower.

In a statement Wednesday night, the university's president, Jay Hartzell, said: ''Our rules matter, and they will be enforced. Our University will not be occupied.''

A University of Southern California protester is detained by USC Department of Public Safety officers during a pro-Palestinian occupation at the campus' Alumni Park on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. APNorth of USC, students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, were barricaded inside a building for a third day, and the school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.

Harvard University in Massachusetts had sought to stay ahead of protests this week by limiting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permission for tents and tables.

That didn't stop protesters from setting up a camp with 14 tents Wednesday following a rally against the university's suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

University of Southern California protesters fight with University Public Safety officers as they try to remove tents at the campus' Alumni Park during a pro-Palestinian occupation on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. APStudents protesting the Israel-Hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its monthslong conflict.

Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus, partly prompting a heavier hand from universities.

Follow The Post's coverage of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University:Pro-terror radical launched 2-hour anti-Israel tirade at Columbia University event weeks before protests exploded: 'Nothing wrong with being a Hamas fighter'Anti-Israel protesters urge others to break into 'platoons' as Columbia University extends deadline for them to leaveHouse Speaker Mike Johnson demands 'very weak, inept' Columbia prez Minouche Shafik resign ahead of campus visitRep. Elise Stefanik demands federal funds for Columbia University be revoked in wake of anti-Israel protestsAt New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while over 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University.

Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier Wednesday.

Tents erected at the pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment at Columbia University in New York, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. APUniversity President Minouche Shafik had set on Tuesday a midnight deadline to reach an agreement on clearing an encampment, but the school extended negotiations, saying it would continue talks with protesters for another 48 hours.

On a visit to campus Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called on Shafik to resign ''if she cannot bring order to this chaos.''

''If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard,'' he said.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to the media on the Lower Library steps on Columbia University's campus in New York on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. APOn Wednesday evening, a Columbia spokesperson said rumors that the university had threatened to bring in the National Guard were unfounded.

''Our focus is to restore order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will,'' said Ben Chang, Columbia's vice president for communications.

Columbia graduate student Omer Lubaton Granot, who put up pictures of Israeli hostages near the encampment, said he wanted to remind people that there were more than 100 hostages still being held by Hamas.

''I see all the people behind me advocating for human rights,'' he said.

State troopers try to break up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. AP''I don't think they have one word to say about the fact that people their age, that were kidnapped from their homes or from a music festival in Israel, are held by a terror organization.''

Harvard law student Tala Alfoqaha, who is Palestinian, said she and other protesters want more transparency from the university.

''My hope is that the Harvard administration listens to what its students have been asking for all year, which is divestment, disclosure and dropping any sort of charges against students,'' she said.

Police first tried to clear the encampment at Columbia last week, when they arrested more than 100 protesters.

The move backfired, acting as an inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and motivating protesters at Columbia to regroup.

On Wednesday about 60 tents remained at the Columbia encampment, which appeared calm. Security remained tight around campus, with identification required and police setting up metal barricades.

Police officers encircled the dwindling group, which sat in defiance of an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested. APColumbia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students would remain at the encampment and they would make it welcoming, banning discriminatory or harassing language.

On the University of Minnesota campus, a few dozen students rallied a day after nine protesters were arrested when police took down an encampment in front of the library.

US Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose daughter was among the demonstrators arrested at Columbia last week, attended a protest later in the day.

A group of more than 80 professors and assistant professors signed a letter Wednesday calling on the university's president and other administrators to drop any charges and to allow future encampments without what they described as police retaliation.

They wrote that they were ''horrified that the administration would permit such a clear violation of our students' rights to freely speak out against genocide and ongoing occupation of Palestine.''

Secret Service officer protecting Kamala Harris came to blows with other agents at Joint Base Andrews

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:38

A Secret Service agent tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris brawled with several other agents on Monday morning, the agency confirmed.

The altercation took place around 9 a.m. near Joint Base Andrews on the outskirts of Washington, DC, prior to Harris' arrival.

The agent in question, whose identity has not been revealed, was immediately ''removed from their assignment,'' the Secret Service told The Post.

''A US Secret Service special agent supporting the Vice President's departure from Joint Base Andrews began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing,'' Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the US Secret Service, said to The Post.

Vice President Kamala Harris was not on the scene when the skirmish took place. AP''The US Secret Service takes the safety and health of our employees very seriously.''

Medical personnel were called to the scene, per Guglielmi. The agent had been at Joint Base Andrews to support Harris' planned departure, but ultimately the scuffle did not delay her travel.

Guglielmi added that because it was a ''medical matter,'' the department would not ''disclose any further details.''

Harris traveled to New York City, where she was scheduled to tape an interview on ''The Drew Barrymore Show.''

The agent who instigated the fight was armed and grew aggressive with others, the Washington Examiner reported. A detail shift supervisor and special agent in charge pushed him to cool off, but then a fight broke out, according to the report.

That agent acted ''erratically'' when he arrived and eventually got on top of the special agent in charge of the vice president, then began punching him, RealClearPolitics reported.

Afterward, the unnamed agent was reportedly handcuffed and received medical attention.

Secret Service agents often work under tense circumstances that can take a toll on their mental health. Getty Images BREAKING: Sources within the Secret Service community tell me the agent assigned to VP Kamala Harris was armed during the fight '' that the gun was secured in the agent's holster until other agents physically restrained the agent and took the gun from the agent's possession. I'm'... https://t.co/kxLLOlFy4b

'-- Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) April 24, 2024Following the blow-up, some questioned the hiring process behind that agent, including any assessment of that individual's background, according to RealClearPolitics.

There had also apparently been longstanding concerns about the agent in question prior to Monday's incident, per the report.

Harris was notified about the situation, according to Guglielmi.

Panic breaks out on AirAsia flight from Perth to Jakarta with passengers crying and unable to breathe after power outage | Daily Mail Online

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AirAsia flight QZ533 hit by power outagePassengers crying and struggling to breatheREAD MORE: Irate passenger blasts Jetstar over its handling of aborted flightBy Nathan Schmidt For Nca Newswire

Published: 19:12 EDT, 24 April 2024 | Updated: 19:38 EDT, 24 April 2024

Panic has broken out on-board an outward bound aeroplane on Anzac Day after the aircraft lost power before takeoff in Perth.

AirAsia flight QZ533 was due to depart Western Australia about 3am on Thursday when passengers reported a power failure while still on the tarmac.

A passenger told Nine News people began crying and struggling to breathe on board the plane bound for Jakarta, Indonesia.

The passenger claimed 17 passengers were offloaded and that they had been stranded without any help from airline staff.

AirAsia flight QZ533 was due to depart Western Australia about 3am on Thursday when passengers reported a power failure while still on the tarmac

The aeroplane had left Australia and was over the Indian Ocean shortly before 8am, according to flight tracking service Flight Aware

A spokesperson for Perth airport confirmed the passengers had voluntarily disembarked the plane following 'technical issues'.

'We had been advised of a technical issue at the airport as the aircraft departed just before 3am,' the spokesperson said.

'It is due to land shortly. We're not aware of what the issue was and we cannot comment on the airline (AirtAsia) specifically'.

The aeroplane had left Australia and was over the Indian Ocean shortly before 8am, according to flight tracking service Flight Aware.

It had departed an hour late according to Flight Aware, and was scheduled to arrive at Jakarta airport more than an hour and a half late.

AirAsia has been contacted for comment.

More to come

Inside the Crisis at NPR - The New York Times

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Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:05

U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic NPR employees tuned in for a pivotal meeting late last year for a long-awaited update on the future of the public radio network.

After many tumultuous months, marked by layoffs, financial turbulence and internal strife, they signed in to Zoom hoping to hear some good news from NPR's leaders. What they got instead was a stark preview of the continued challenges ahead.

''We are slipping in our ability to impact America, not just in broadcast, but also in the growing world of on-demand audio,'' Daphne Kwon, NPR's chief financial officer, told the group, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

For the past two weeks, turmoil has engulfed NPR after a senior editor assailed what he described as an extreme liberal bias inside the organization that has bled into its news coverage. The editor, Uri Berliner, said NPR's leaders had placed race and identity as ''paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace'' '-- at the expense of diverse political viewpoints, and at the risk of losing its audience.

The accusations, leveled in an essay published in an online publication, The Free Press, led to a deluge of criticism from conservatives, including former President Donald J. Trump, who called for the network's public funding to be pulled. The essay also generated vociferous pushback internally, with many journalists defending their work and saying Mr. Berliner's essay distorted basic facts about NPR's coverage.

But NPR's troubles extend far beyond concerns about its journalism. Internal documents reviewed by The Times and interviews with more than two dozen current and former public radio executives show how profoundly the nonprofit is struggling to succeed in the fast-changing media industry. It is grappling with a declining audience and falling revenue '-- and internal conflict about how to fix it.

NPR's traditional broadcast audience, still the bulk of its listenership, is in long-term decline that accelerated when the pandemic interrupted long car commutes for millions of people. The network has begun to sign up digital subscribers who pay for ad-free podcasts, but that business has lagged far behind that of its competitors.

While NPR still has an audience of about 42 million who listen every week, many of them digitally, that is down from an estimated 60 million in 2020, according to an internal March audience report, a faster falloff than for broadcast radio, which is also in a long-term decline.

Image Multiple challenges raise questions about the long-term vitality of NPR, one of the country's most storied and far-reaching media organizations. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times A yearslong push to diversify NPR's staff, in part to lure listeners beyond its aging and predominantly white audience, hasn't generated the listenership boost some executives had hoped for. But the effort, which NPR's former chief executive called its ''North Star,'' had been a point of contention within the organization long before Mr. Berliner published his essay this month.

Making matters more complicated: NPR's unusual leadership structure. NPR's reach is the result of its hundreds of member stations around the country, many of which both pay NPR for its shows and produce their own. But the leaders of those member stations '-- who control NPR's board '-- often have conflicting priorities and compete with the network for donors, making changes more difficult.

Together, the challenges raise questions about the long-term vitality of NPR, one of the country's most storied and far-reaching media organizations. More than 98 percent of the U.S. population lives within listening range of at least one of the more than 1,000 public radio stations that carry NPR programming, including longtime staples like ''Morning Edition'' and ''All Things Considered.'' Legions of die-hard listeners proudly carry tote bags emblazoned with the nonprofit's three signature letters.

''I believe that public radio has five to seven years to reimagine itself before it's simply unsustainable,'' said Eric Nuzum, a former NPR executive and co-founder of the audio consulting and production company Magnificent Noise. ''And they can't take two or three years of that time debating a business model.''

An NPR spokeswoman, Isabel Lara, said in emails to The Times that the organization had confidence in many of its recent initiatives, including its podcast subscription business, its push to diversify its staff and its efforts to reach listeners digitally. Ms. Lara said three of NPR's podcasts '-- ''Up First,'' ''Fresh Air'' and ''Wait Wait '... Don't Tell Me!'' '-- were in Apple's top 10 subscriber podcasts.

''Our focus on the North Star has led to increased diversity in our content: the voices on the air, the sources our journalists go to, the broader range of topics and issues discussed in our shows,'' Ms. Lara said. ''We want to reach people where they are.''

The organization is now led by Katherine Maher, who started as NPR's chief executive last month after leading the Wikimedia Foundation, which supports the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Ms. Maher had no professional experience in the news industry. In a January news release announcing her hire, NPR's board said Ms. Maher would help the network ''reach audiences on new and existing platforms.''

Ms. Maher was criticized this month for social media posts she published before joining NPR, including one from 2018 that called Mr. Trump a racist and expressed support for numerous progressive causes, including Black Lives Matter. NPR has said that she wrote those posts as a private citizen expressing her free speech rights, and that she oversees the organization's business, not its editorial product.

Image NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, has come under criticism for social media posts she wrote years ago. Credit... Oliver Hardt/Sportsfile for Web Summit, via Getty Images In a statement, Ms. Maher said NPR was not alone in facing a challenging media environment and pledged to use its distinctions to its advantage.

''Its differences '-- as a broadcaster, a nonprofit, a federated network '-- serve both as unique challenges and remarkable differentiators,'' Ms. Maher said. ''The obstacles we face are real, but the quality of the programming and the integrity of the mission are also indisputable. They offer a strong basis from which to build our future.''

First Expansion, Then DeclinesNPR sprang up in Washington in 1970 as an alternative to commercial media, less than three years after former President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a taxpayer-funded organization that partly funds both a nonprofit radio network, NPR, and a nonprofit TV network, PBS.

The founding documents of NPR stipulated that its board of directors would include many representatives from member stations, along with the general public. The goal was to ensure that the board always had the best interests of its local stations at heart.

A network of 88 charter stations banded together to bring listeners across the United States stories including the Senate hearings on the Vietnam War. NPR began making ''newsmagazines'' for member stations '-- starting in 1971 with the first broadcast of ''All Things Considered'' '-- and received grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Before long, NPR exploded. By 1983, it had nearly 300 stations and about eight million listeners. Today, more than 1,000 people work at NPR, and its audience of millions makes it one of the most influential media companies in the world.

But that growth has reversed course in recent years.

''News fatigue, digital transformation and increased competition continue to drive audience declines across platforms,'' the report said.

Conflicting PrioritiesTo some degree, those recent declines have been balanced out by the emergence of a relative bright spot: the rise of podcasting.

Public radio podcasts, with their distinct blend of reporting and narrative, quickly won over millions of listeners and pioneered a new format. ''Serial,'' a gritty whodunit from the makers of the public radio show ''This American Life,'' became a breakout hit, leading to spinoffs and illustrating the promise of podcasting for nonprofit radio organizations.

Today, NPR is the fourth most popular podcast publisher globally, according to Podtrac, with nearly 113 million downloads in March alone. But it also faces many new competitors, including The Times, which bought ''Serial'' in 2020 to bolster its own growing audio business.

Corporate sponsorships '-- public radio speak for advertisements '-- grew nearly 70 percent in the five years before 2022, according to filings from NPR, generating more than $135 million that year. The vast majority of that growth comes from podcasting, which allows NPR to tap into a younger and expanding audience.

But that business took a major hit last year in an uncertain advertising market. In 2023, NPR generated $101 million in corporate sponsorship revenue, a decrease of about 25 percent from the previous year.

The growth of NPR's podcast business has also led to tension with its member stations. If local advertisers can reach public radio listeners directly through a podcast, why would they pay for a sponsorship on a member station? In 2022, a group of executives at member stations sent a letter to NPR's chief executive at the time, John Lansing, expressing concern that the organization's growing portfolio had ''caused distress on local stations' sponsorship revenue.''

Image The former NPR chief executive John Lansing. Credit... Jason Andrew for The New York Times ''If unaddressed, it will continue to impact the health of stations in an increasing way,'' said the letter, which was signed by executives at many of the biggest NPR stations.

Adoption of NPR's podcast subscription bundle, NPR+, has also lagged behind competitors' subscription businesses. According to internal documents obtained by The Times, about 51,000 people subscribed to NPR+ as of early March, and the product has generated about $1.7 million in revenue since it was introduced in November 2022. Users can pay $8 monthly for a bundle of podcast extras or subscribe to individual shows for $2.99 per month.

In late 2022, NPR began selling fewer sponsorships, part of an overall downturn in the ad market. So, for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Lansing and his team planned for NPR's revenue to remain flat in 2023. He wasn't prepared for what happened next. When January arrived, the ''bottom just fell out'' of the digital ad market, he said in an interview. Sponsorships fell $34 million compared with the previous year.

''That's 10 percent of our revenue, and you can't go back and get it,'' Mr. Lansing said. ''It's like an airplane that takes off with half the seats sold '-- once it's gone, it's gone. ''

The scope of the shortfall became apparent early in 2023, when NPR's leadership decided to cut about 100 positions to help make up for a $30 million budget deficit.

An Uncertain Future Image NPR is grappling with declining audiences and falling revenue '-- and internal conflict about how to fix it. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times In May 2022, the board met to discuss taking a big step: an ambitious membership effort that it hoped would be a big part of NPR's future.

The nonprofit was planning to create the NPR Network, a service that would allow listeners across the United States to donate directly to NPR. In doing so, the board was wading into an issue that had generated tensions between NPR and its member stations for decades: fund-raising.

For years, NPR's rules restricted the ways it could ask listeners for money directly. Those solicitations were supposed to be done with participation from local member stations.

Now, the board planned to suspend that rule so that NPR could ask avid public radio listeners to donate directly to the NPR Network.

There was some initial disagreement on the board over the NPR Network, according to people familiar with the meeting. Some of the directors said NPR needed to do a better job of reaching listeners directly. Others urged caution, warning that the proposal could interfere with fund-raising efforts at local stations.

After much back and forth, the board held a special session in June for a formal vote on whether to remove the rule. Ultimately, the board voted to suspend the rule, but agreed to revisit the decision in the coming years, setting up yet another debate.

Image The network still has an estimated audience of about 42 million who listen every week, many of them digitally '-- but that represents a large drop, from 60 million in 2020. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times Like many companies that committed themselves to confronting racial inequality in recent years, NPR put an ambitious action plan in place. Its commitment to diversity '-- which Mr. Lansing called NPR's ''North Star'' '-- would be not only a moral imperative but a foundation of its business strategy.

NPR's leaders redoubled their efforts to diversify their audience and work force and closely tracked metrics for each. They added podcasts aimed at people of color and younger listeners. They promoted people of color to high-profile reporting and hosting jobs. All of these moves were meant to ensure the nation's public radio network would remain competitive as the country's population continued to grow more diverse.

So it came as a disappointment to some people on NPR's board last fall when they were presented with new internal data showing their efforts hadn't moved the needle much with Black and Hispanic podcast listeners.

Black listeners made up roughly 11 percent of NPR's audience in the second quarter of 2023, unchanged from the same period in 2020, according to the data. The data further showed that the share of Hispanic listeners went up only two percentage points since 2020, to account for 16 percent of the total audience. One 2020 survey, from the Pew Research Center, found that of the people who named NPR as their main source for political and election news, 75 percent were white, more than any other outlet except Fox News.

NPR's efforts to diversify itself and its audience didn't always live up to the expectations of the people who worked there. During a round of layoffs last year, NPR cut ''Louder Than a Riot,'' a hip-hop podcast that examined Black and queer issues. After that decision, the show's editor, Soraya Shockley, who had previously worked at The Times, grilled Mr. Lansing during an employee question-and-answer session about why the show had no dedicated budget, pointing out the lack of resources supporting content that furthered diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I.

''How are we supposed to support diverse programming '-- actually commit to D.E.I., and make it not a folly '-- when this company seems scared to talk about money when it is not a $30 million deficit?'' Shockley asked. In a statement, NPR said the second season of ''Louder Than a Riot'' had comparable marketing support to other podcasts at the network; Shockley said they were never shown a marketing budget.

Later on the call, after Mr. Lansing urged employees to be more mindful of ''civility'' in their questions, an NPR employee wrote in an instant-messaging chat accompanying the conversation that the word ''civility'' is often used as a cudgel against people of color, calling the language choice ''racist.''

After the meeting, Shockley filed a human resources complaint against Mr. Lansing, saying his remarks about civility amounted to ''dog-whistle racism,'' according to a person with knowledge of the exchange. The complaint against Mr. Lansing was referred to an outside law firm, which did not recommend any punitive action.

Mr. Lansing, who announced his retirement last fall, declined to comment on the interaction.

Still, some critics of NPR believe NPR's ''North Star'' strategy has failed for a completely different reason: It has not taken ideological diversity into account. Tim Eby, who was the general manager of St. Louis Public Radio until 2020, said in an interview that while it made sense for NPR to seek an audience that looked more like the country, he wasn't sure its approach was the right one. And its story selection has on occasion left it open to criticism that its focus on race and identity has affected its news judgment. There have been stories, for instance, on how to ''decolonize your bookshelf'' and ''thin privilege.''

''The demographics of the country being what they are, it goes without saying that if you want to have a sustainable business going forward, you have to reach new audiences,'' he said. ''I think the question is how you're doing that. I think they've overcompensated on attempts to reach audiences that are not going to listen,'' he added.

(Mr. Eby has a personal stake in the debate. An anonymous post on the Medium website accused him of presiding over a workplace that was unfair to employees of minority groups. The station replaced him. He has denied those claims and is suing for defamation.)

Mr. Berliner's criticism this month of NPR's North Star strategy hasn't swayed the network's leaders. In a statement, NPR said it was committed to a more diverse staff and on-air voices. The network pointed to its large audiences on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube as bright spots.

Many employees also pushed back against the claims in Mr. Berliner's essay, both in public and internally. The staff of ''Morning Edition'' set aside more than a half-hour of one daily meeting to discuss his remarks.

Bill Siemering, an early leader at NPR who wrote a statement of purposes in 1970 that the nonprofit continues to use, said in an interview that NPR's mission was as important today as when he first put pen to paper.

''There's a place in society for a independent source of information that reflects the culture in a meaningful way where all the voices are heard, and where there is intentional programming to help solve some of the most critical problems facing America,'' Mr. Siemering said.

A correction was made onApril 24, 2024

:

An earlier version of this article misidentified Soraya Shockley's role on the show ''Louder Than a Riot.'' Shockley was the editor, not a senior producer.

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Why You Can't Get a Restaurant Reservation | The New Yorker

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Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:58

Alex Eisler, a sophomore at Brown University who studies applied math and computer science, regularly uses fake phone numbers and e-mail addresses to make reservations. When he calls Polo Bar, he told me, ''Sometimes they recognize my voice, so I have to do different accents. I have to act like a girl sometimes.'' He switched into a bad falsetto: ''I'm, like, 'Hiiii, is it possible to book a reservation?' I have a few Resy accounts that have female names.'' His recent sales on Appointment Trader, where his screen name is GloriousSeed75, include a lunch table at Maison Close, which he sold for eight hundred and fifty-five dollars, and a reservation at Carbone, the Village red-sauce place frequented by the Rolex-and-Herm¨s crowd, which fetched a thousand and fifty dollars. Last year, he made seventy thousand dollars reselling reservations.

Another reseller, PerceptiveWash44, told me that he makes reservations while watching TV. He was standing outside the break room at the West Coast hotel where he works as a concierge. ''It's, like, some people play Candy Crush on their phone. I play 'Dinner Reservations,' '' he said. ''It's just a way to pass the time.'' Last year, he made eighty thousand dollars reselling reservations. He's good at anticipating what spots will be most in demand, and his profile on the site ranks him as having a ''99% Positive Sales History'' over his last two hundred transactions. It also notes that he made almost two thousand reservations that never sold'--a restaurateur's nightmare.

Some resellers use bots'--basically, computers that are faster at hitting the refresh button than you are. Several bots might be simultaneously checking the app, ten or even a hundred times per second, twenty-four hours a day, until one finds the eight-o'clock table at Bangkok Supper Club that it's been programmed to grab. Instead of using a keyboard or mouse, the bot programmatically executes the reservation app's underlying code. Some resellers subscribe to such sites as Resy Sniper (fifty bucks a month), which uses custom-built bots to snag tough reservations; some use open-source code posted on GitHub or write their own.

In addition to hotel concierges, restaurant employees (ma®tre d's, hosts, line cooks) also sell tables on Appointment Trader, risking their jobs for quick cash. Frey explained, ''You're essentially, virtually, greasing the palm'--without ever meeting the guy.''

The origin of the restaurant reservation is murkier than the origin of the restaurant. As Rebecca L. Spang writes in ''The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture,'' in the eighteenth century, dining out in Paris or London meant going to a tavern where dinner was served at a common table, until the food ran out'--first come, first served. In the U.S., reservations began to be more common sometime after the turn of the century, when it became popular to dine out for special occasions: Christmas, New Year's Eve, Election Night. More commonly, wealthy men ''reserved'' private rooms at restaurants to entertain guests. (In New York, people vied to host the most elaborate private dinners: at one, the center of a huge table at Delmonico's was removed and replaced with a water tank, for a centerpiece of four swans on loan from Prospect Park.)

In the twentieth century, the growth of the middle class, suburbanization, and the advent of the newspaper restaurant review made telephone reservations the norm'--until the Internet changed everything. In the late nineties, after movies, rental cars, hotels, and airlines had moved advance booking online, Web sites like Savvydiner.com started brokering restaurant reservations. Diners would click a button, prompting a Savvydiner employee to telephone a restaurant's ma®tre d', who scrawled the name in his book, next to all the other people who weren't yet precipitating the end of an era.

By 1999, a crop of new Web sites'--RSVIP.com, Reservemytable.com, Foodline.com, OpenTable.com'--were competing to automate the process. Tavern on the Green's owner, Warner LeRoy, started taking reservations on the restaurant's Web site. Other restaurateurs were skeptical. OpenTable charged restaurants a monthly fee, plus a dollar for every guest seated. Asked by a reporter what he thought about online reservations, the director of operations at Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe scoffed, ''There is no substitute for a kind, human voice on the phone.'' But Meyer became an early investor in OpenTable, and, later, in Resy. Last year, he invested in an A.I.-powered reservation platform called SevenRooms, which most people haven't heard about because it's been designed for diners not to know it exists.

To be clear: every night in New York, there are hundreds of perfectly good seven-thirty tables available at perfectly good restaurants. For a lot of diners, though, the pleasure is in the scarcity; and the smaller, noisier, and more crowded a restaurant is, the better. Some restaurateurs claim to hate the buzz that comes with being popular. Ariel Arce, who operates Roscioli, told me, ''If it's a room full of people who just flock there for a reservation, the vibe ain't gonna be very fun.'' Roni Mazumdar, who owns the Unapologetic Foods group (Semma, Dhamaka, Adda Indian Canteen), told me, ''We only value one thing: those who care about us. How do we know you care about us? When you show up and you are cordial to the staff.'' He showed me an e-mail with the subject line ''Urgent VVIP Request,'' from a high-end concierge service that also brokers yacht sales (mission statement: ''Dedicated to understanding everything you want and giving you more than you imagined''), demanding a five-top for an extremely powerful person, who ''represents Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Rock, Katherine Heigl and Tony Hawk.'' Mazumdar's team sent a reply saying that the client could try to reserve through Resy.

In 2022, Justin and Hailey Bieber were politely turned away by Carbone when they showed up without a reservation. In February, Hailey and her entourage had dinner at 4 Charles, after a private reservationist named Nicky DiMaggio secured them a table. DiMaggio, who charges between five hundred and a thousand dollars per reservation, owns a sanitation business with more than forty garbage trucks. He got into the reservation game when he was a teen-ager, after his cousin got him a reservation at Rao's, the impregnable mob-flavored restaurant in East Harlem. He usually works with referrals. ''My client list is, like, the N.B.A., Megan Fox,'' he told me. (DiMaggio also claims that he has worked with reps for Serena Williams, a son of Italy's Vice-President, a manager at a Rolex store, and a lot of Goldman Sachs guys.) DiMaggio, who is thirty-three, books the tables in his own name (to protect his clients' privacy, he says). Last year, he made more than a thousand reservations at the city's trendiest restaurants; he claims to have cozied up to the owners and managers, who set aside tables for him. In reality, he has used Appointment Trader, just like everyone else.

In Bret Easton Ellis's novel ''American Psycho,'' the sociopathic Wall Street protagonist is obsessed with a fictional restaurant called Dorsia'--a place so exclusive as to be almost mythical. A new, members-only app by the same name promises to deliver what the status-mad bros in the novel cannot secure for themselves: a tough table. Aspiring users download the app and allow it to scan their contacts (''The fastest way to get in is with your network,'' the site declares), and then answer a few questions: employer, job title, Instagram handle, LinkedIn URL. Dorsia is trying to figure out if you are the kind of person who will shell out.

If you pass muster (I only did, I think, because I had saved the numbers of a lot of chefs in my contacts while reporting this piece), you can log on to Dorsia and search for the solidly booked restaurant of your choice. (You enter your credit-card information immediately, of course.) The first reservation I spotted was an eight-o'clock Saturday two-top at Carbone; there was also a slew of prime-time tables at Le Gratin, one of Daniel Boulud's offshoots. Then I read the fine print: the table at Carbone would cost me a thousand dollars'--not as a booking fee but as a prepayment for the meal. For two of us to get our money's worth, we'd have to down three plates of Calamari Marco, three orders of lobster ravioli, two veal Marsalas, a funghi trifolati, and two bottles of Barolo Gramolere.

Restaurants that utilize Dorsia see it as a way to collect data about their customers, and also to increase revenue by guaranteeing that those customers are big spenders. Other minimum prepayments listed on the app: two hundred and eighty-five dollars per person at Le Pavillon, Boulud's midtown seafood palace; two hundred and thirty-five at Marea, on Central Park South; and three hundred at Torrisi (on a Monday), a sister restaurant to Carbone. This summer, as Dorsia's members go on vacation, the app promises to be ready with tables at the chicest restaurants in Ibiza, in Mykonos, and along the French Riviera and the Amalfi Coast.

In promotional materials for restaurateurs considering listing their tables on the app, Dorsia claims that it saves twenty minutes per party (no waiting for the check) and so helps turn tables faster'--a key to restaurant solvency. (Gabriel Stulman, of Sailor, which is not on Dorsia, told me that he needs to turn his tables three times a night to make money.) Still, several restaurateurs who have opted out told me that they find the colossal-prepay concept unseemly, in part because it encourages binge eating. ''It's psychotic,'' one owner said. ''We don't want to put people in that situation.''

Dorsia understands that, like the N.S.A. and TikTok, successful restaurants know more about us than we want to imagine. How many times have you eaten there? Are you a friendly regular, an asshole neighbor, an expense-account out-of-towner? Do you prefer a cocktail or the house white? Do you linger after coffee? In the old days, much of that information'--and your wife's birthday, your secretary's name'--lived inside a ma®tre d's head. Many restaurants have always kept handwritten notes on their guests, relying on abbreviations: ''H.S.M.'' (heavyset man), ''eagle'' (bald guest), ''o-o'' (wears glasses), ''l.o.l.'' (little old lady). These days, guest notes are ''data,'' which tech platforms help restaurants keep track of. Oenophiles might be labelled ''W.W.'' (wine whale), or, simply, ''drops coin.'' If you got a surprise appetizer on the house, you might have been marked down with ''S.F.N.'' (something for nothing), or ''N.P.R.'' (nice people get rewards). Did you sit for hours over a bowl of soup, tip poorly, get wasted, or shush the young family sitting at the next table? You might be demoted to ''P.N.G.'' (persona non grata) or ''D.N.S.'' (do not serve) status.

Resy has a data-driven feature called Notify, which puts diners on a waiting list for a restaurant. (OpenTable and SevenRooms added similar features to compete.) Using it is a little like buying a fistful of lottery tickets. Diners add themselves to lots of restaurants' Notify lists for a certain night with the hope of scoring just one. The moment a host decides that a table is a no-show, or if there's a cancellation, a push notification'--''New Table Alert'''--is sent to everyone on the Notify list for that night. The table goes to whoever claims it first on the app. Curious, I added my name to the Notify list at every fully booked restaurant in my neighborhood, over a six-week period. I didn't get a single e-mail or notification.

I thought I just had bad luck, until a conversation with Resy's C.E.O., Pablo Rivero, clarified things. Over dinner at Txikito, a buzzy Basque restaurant in Chelsea, he explained that I would likely always be near the bottom of the Notify queue. After American Express acquired Resy, in 2019, anyone with a fancy Amex card'--Centurion, Platinum, Reserve, or Aspire'--has an advantage. If you have one of these cards (Centurion: ten-thousand-dollar initiation fee, five thousand dollars per year), Rivero said, ''You will get a Resy notification before other people do.'' (He also said, somewhat puzzlingly, ''What we are trying to do is, honestly, democratize dining a bit more.'')

Some restaurants sort their virtual waiting lists themselves, without help from Amex. These managers cherry-pick V.I.P.s and regulars from their Notify queues. SevenRooms, Resy's newest competitor, has a tool that has largely automated that process: an algorithm picks which diners get priority push notifications about late openings. The criteria include how often a diner visits, how big his or her tabs are, how much wine and dessert are ordered, and tip size.

Joel Montaniel, SevenRooms' C.E.O., told me, ''It's the system that's automatically tagging and segmenting people, because we know the human mind is generally limited, and not every customer is going to get caught and tagged appropriately.'' (Restaurateurs can also input guest notes manually.) SevenRooms scans customers' bills, tracks referrals, and monitors guests' online reviews; people who frequently cancel or no-show can be required to provide a credit-card deposit. In January, the percentage of restaurants on Resy that charged cancellation fees had grown more than fourfold from pre-pandemic levels.

Restaurants also want to know about your guests. Debby Soo, the C.E.O. of OpenTable, told me, ''It's not just the person who booked. If there are four people, they want to know all four of those people.'' Diner profiles and guest notes are useful for deciding who lands a table and also where to seat people'--Siberia or a cozy booth? (A new startup, Tablz, offers diners the opportunity to pay between five and a hundred dollars to reserve their favorite tables at select New York restaurants.)

At Polo Bar, Leventhal had talked a lot about the challenge that restaurants face in deciding who to let in the door: ''We need restaurants to be democratic,'' he said (a sentiment I heard over and over). ''But they can't be'--in order for them to be sustainable. The margins are so thin, and there's not enough room for everyone.'' That's why restaurants like to identify and reward V.I.P. and regular customers. If a restaurant deems you important enough'--and decides to label you as a ''V.I.P.,'' ''P.P.X.,'' (personne particuli¨rement extraordinaire), ''reg,'' ''$$$$'' or ''soi'' (short for soign(C)) on its in-house system'--you might notice a little gold-and-black crown emoji and more available tables next time you sign in to Resy.

''Good operators know the best practice is saying yes, but how do you say yes while maximizing revenue?'' Leventhal said. ''It's about saying yes to the person who's going to spend the most money over the long haul.''

Moudime, the Polo Bar ma®tre d', agreed'--to a point. ''Check average is good. But it's not everything,'' she said. ''You've got your big wine spenders, but do they come every night? No. Does a celebrity come every night? No! A restaurant works by an everyday person coming regularly.''

Your Resy, OpenTable, and SevenRooms profiles follow you around town, like Uber reviews, or chlamydia. If you ordered a bottle of 1968 Mastroberardino Taurasi at Carbone, the staff at Major Food Group's dozens of affiliated restaurants'--Dirty French, ZZ's Club'--can find out and fuss over you accordingly.

Guest data is not shared between restaurants with different owners, but platforms like SevenRooms and Blackbird want to change that. SevenRooms' Montaniel envisions partnerships between restaurant groups to ''make the world a private member club for everyone.'' Leventhal's solution, at Blackbird, is to reward diners with something like frequent-flier points, which can be redeemed for cocktails and appetizers at any participating restaurant. (Blackbird's slogan: ''Be a regular, everywhere.'') The company, which uses blockchain technology, charges a fee to participating restaurants and some member diners, and publishes an insiderish newsletter called ''The Supersonic.''

The desire to amass data on diners is one reason that restaurateurs hate the resale sites. When you buy a reservation from Cita or Appointment Trader, you have to give the ma®tre d' a fake name to claim your table. How does Polo Bar know to give you a complimentary Martini, or what your water preference or food allergies might be, when they don't even know your real name? (In January, 4 Charles e-mailed one diner whom it suspected of dealing in bot-acquired reservations, ''We will require photo I.D.'')

This kind of protocol risks making diners feel like they're in a T.S.A.-screening line. Restaurants don't like it either. ''It's bad for business,'' Eric Ripert, at Le Bernardin, told me. ''Every day, we spend hours trying to track down the bots and the fake reservations. Last week, we caught eight fake reservations.'' Unusual e-mail addresses and disconnected phone lines are a dead giveaway; reservationists always call or text to confirm. He went on, ''If you have tables that are no-shows, the profit of the night is done. So, we cannot lose reservations!''

According to the market-research firm IBISWorld, over the last decade, profit margins at American restaurants have languished at around four per cent. Gitnux, another research firm, reported that high-end restaurants may only see margins of two per cent. Ripert laughed and said, ''Clients shouldn't know we have slim margins. They should come here, have an experience, and leave very happy.'' Other restaurateurs told me they wished their diners understood that every minute a restaurant is open is money earned or money lost; four out of five restaurants close within five years. ''We're constantly bleeding money,'' Jenn Saesue, of the perennially booked Bangkok Supper Club, told me. ''I basically have a small army,'' she said, of her hundred and twenty-eight employees. ''These people are relying on us.''

When resellers offer reservations online, they're gambling that people will buy them: three hundred and twenty dollars for a four-o'clock Monday table at Via Carota (risky); four hundred and eighty bucks for a table at Semma on a Friday night (an almost sure bet). When the reservations go unsold, it's the restaurant that loses.

Appointment Trader's Jonas Frey told me that he penalizes resellers when they have unsold listings by withholding access to the site. A nightmare reseller, he said, could be a ''script kiddie,'' who uses an army of bots to ''book a thousand reservations with the hopes of selling fifty of them.''

A few hot New York restaurants have stuck with the old-school reservation protocol. At Eulalie, in Tribeca, a woman answers the phone and writes your name in a reservation book'--no e-mail, no OpenTable. The best way into Frog Club is to write to a secret e-mail address. But it is rare these days to find a happening restaurant that does not take reservations at all. Lucali, the thin-crust-pizza place in Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens, might be the most famous: Jay-Z once called the pies the best in Brooklyn. Mark Iacono, who runs the place, told me, ''It's first come, first served. People start lining up at two o'clock.'' By four o'clock, there's a line around the block to book tables for that evening; the first seating is at five. I stopped by on a chilly afternoon in March, at 2 P.M., and found a half-dozen people waiting. At the head of the line, a cannabis-company executive named Ben Zachs said, ''I'm first! I got here at 12:37 P.M. Today's my wife's birthday, and this is her favorite restaurant.''

Second in line was a woman named Alex, who had on pink sneakers and socks, and third was Tim Kimura, who wore an eye patch and a black shemagh. Gigi Principe, an aspiring actress who likes to bake, was fifth. She said that she hoped to be first in line at Lucali's one day. ''If it's a Saturday, that's baller's gold,'' she said. The line grew. A man named Baron Tremayne Caple, who had on a dirty pink hoodie, had rushed over to Lucali after cleaning someone's office that morning.

At 4:05 P.M., the restaurant's host, Alex Perez-Cuomo, stepped outside and started writing names and numbers in a notebook. ''Cash only! B.Y.O.B.!'' she yelled. ''You have the table for an hour. I need you all here to be seated.'' Inside, Iacono sat by the window, in a white T-shirt, watching the line. ''It's just easier,'' he said. ''And the line's become a thing'--it's become part of the experience.'' By four-forty, a hundred and fifty covers had been accounted for, and only a few ten-o'clock tables were left.

By five o'clock, the restaurant was jammed with its first wave of customers, who were excitedly considering what toppings to order'--mushrooms, sweet peppers, pepperoni. The man with the eye patch, Kimura, wasn't among them. Neither was Alex or Gigi Principe. It turned out that they were all employees of the same line-sitting company, called Same Ole Line Dudes. ''I've been called here to wait at least a hundred times,'' Kimura had told me. The going rate for an afternoon in line at Lucali is fifty-five dollars, a percentage of which goes to the company. Baron Tremayne Caple wasn't ordering pizza either. His table had gone, for a hundred and twenty dollars, to a person named Robin, who'd hired him on TaskRabbit. '...

The End of an Era: Women Who Code Closing - Women Who Code

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Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:48

Women Who Code started as a community group in 2011 by a small team of engineers in San Francisco who were seeking connection and support for navigating the tech industry. The movement grew, city by city, fueled by passionate volunteers that were inspired by the mission and vision. In 2013, Women Who Code, Inc., was registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in California and moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia in 2018.

As a community, we are powerful. For more than a decade, Women Who Code has created a sense of belonging in tech and support for our community, thanks to the dedication and commitment of our members, volunteers, and staff. We have brought together a vibrant community of over 360,000 technologists who deeply care about building an industry that is more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. Today, more than 1,000 volunteers lead local and digital communities, members in 145 countries worldwide give technical talks daily to share knowledge and mentor each other, and a close-knit globally distributed team at WWCode HQ drives the day to day operations.

Together, we've delivered more than 20 thousand community-led events, awarded more than $3.5 million in scholarships, held developer conferences and technical summits in tech hubs around the world, logged more than one million high-skilled, leadership-building volunteer hours, given away more than $2.5 million in conference tickets for broader industry engagement, and shared more than 14,000 job opportunities. Even more than these trackable outputs, we've come together to support each other, navigate the industry as a powerful force, share both technical protips and strategies for rising in our careers, and break barriers.

It is with profound sadness that, today, on April 18, 2024, we are announcing the difficult decision to close Women Who Code, following a vote by the Board of Directors to dissolve the organization. This decision has not been made lightly. It only comes after careful consideration of all options and is due to factors that have materially impacted our funding sources - funds that were critical to continuing our programming and delivering on our mission. We understand that this news will come as a disappointment to many, and we want to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you who have been a part of our journey.

While so much has been accomplished, our mission is not complete and our vision of a tech industry where diverse women and historically excluded people thrive at every level is not fulfilled.

Despite our collective efforts, the challenges we face as an organization have become insurmountable. We are deeply saddened by the difficult decision to dissolve the entity, but we hope that this work carries on beyond our end. The collective efforts of tech company leaders and supporters are needed more than ever to welcome women into tech, keep them, and ensure they are given the opportunity to thrive.

To the women in technology, if you have been inspired, made a career connection, leveled up your technical skills, or expanded your network through this movement, we encourage you to keep paying that forward. The world needs women and diverse perspectives at the helm of tech as a critical force that shapes our world every day. Please, keep going.

As we embark on the process of winding down operations, we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and fulfilling any remaining obligations to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, we will not be able to continue offering any program services, and will be canceling all upcoming events.

Although this chapter is coming to a close, we believe that the spirit of our community will endure and hope that the relationships and experiences gained through involvement with Women Who Code will continue to inspire you in your future endeavors.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the entire Team Teal at Women Who Code, we extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been a part of the movement '' our members, volunteers, partners, team, allies, and supporters '' and encourage you to continue to seek support from other like-minded organizations who authentically support the careers of women in the tech industry and keep inspiring each other as you navigate the industry. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the mission, and work alongside such passionate individuals.

Thank you for your understanding and support during this challenging time.

Team Teal @ Women Who Code

Stop the Mideast Money Fueling Campus Anti-Semitism | City Journal

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Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:07

Combating the anti-Semitism radiating from U.S. college campuses will require work on many fronts. Some of the drivers could take enormous effort to uproot'--for example, the DEI culture that has reshaped K''12 and postsecondary institutions. A less frequently discussed factor is easier to address: U.S. universities should stop letting foreign entities shape campus intellectual life.

Centers dedicated to the study of the Middle East, many receiving lavish foreign financial support, do more to promote anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas narratives than virtually any other force on campus. Even a small number of biased faculty can have an outsize influence because the dominant intersectional ideologies leave students primed to embrace anti-Semitic attitudes.

In effect, U.S. campuses have been importing anti-Semitic propaganda for almost 50 years. As the New York Times reported in 1978, ''Oil wealth from the Middle East is starting to flow onto college and university campuses throughout the country, bringing a bonanza of endowed chairs and new programs.'' That initial flood of money'--and specific concerns about gifts to Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies'--led to the establishment of foreign gift-reporting requirements in 1986. To this day, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to report foreign gifts above $250,000.

Unfortunately, weak enforcement by the Department of Education allowed many universities to ignore the requirement. That changed in 2019, when Secretary Betsy DeVos initiated noncompliance investigations at several top schools. In 2023 congressional testimony, Paul Moore, chief investigative council at the Department of Education during the Trump administration, described the sea change that followed: ''enhanced enforcement . . . produced dramatic results,'' including the ''disclosure of more than $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign gifts and contributions.'' The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which analyzed the updated disclosures for 2014''19, found that over $2.7 billion in gifts came from Qatari sources, $1.2 billion from Chinese entities, and over $1 billion originated in Saudi Arabia.

The Biden administration, pressured by the higher-education lobby, closed outstanding Section 117 investigations in August 2022. Later the same year, the Department of Education moved enforcement from the Office of the General Council to the Office of Federal Student Aid. Disclosures have dwindled since.

Foreign entities invest in U.S. universities for many reasons, including to gain access to sensitive technology and to exert influence over cutting-edge researchers. When it comes to shaping the campus marketplace of ideas, gifts to Middle East studies centers have paid off. A 2022 report by the National Association of Scholars, Hijacked, looked at more than 50 such centers and concluded that they produce ''biased material that promotes the political interests of the donors.'' A 2020 Education Department study noted that Saudi Arabia has advanced ''Islamic ideology . . . through multimillion-dollar donations to elite Western institutions'' since 9/11.

These centers are ground zero for Jew-hatred in the academy today. An AMCHA Initiative study of anti-Zionist and BDS-supporting faculty found that 70 percent are associated with ethnic, gender, or Middle East studies departments. (These departments sponsor almost 90 percent of events containing anti-Zionist or pro-BDS rhetoric.) Through their research, teaching, and the speakers they host, the centers demonize Israel and make anti-Semitic attitudes seem permissible, even respectable, to impressionable students.

The presence of anti-Zionist faculty, in turn, is associated with significantly higher levels of student-on-student harassment involving Jews, including ''incidents that target Jewish students for harm.'' The NCRI study reached the same conclusion, finding ''a correlation between the existence of undocumented funding and incidents of targeted anti-Semitism.''

What can be done? The recent success in closing Confucius Institutes'--funded by the Chinese government to spread propaganda on American campuses'--proves that public and political pressure can force colleges to reject foreign money. Universities should refuse all gifts from entities with interests antithetical to this country's, especially gifts related to academic programs. Programs built on foreign donations should be dismantled unless they are obviously worth supporting from the general fund. State lawmakers can pass legislation to forbid, or at least carefully scrutinize, partnerships and contracts at public institutions with countries of concern.

Federal policymakers can also act. The next administration should aggressively enforce foreign gift-reporting requirements. And Congress should consider new legislation that would lower the reporting threshold for foreign gifts and prohibit certain partnerships with entities of concern.

Jonathan Pidluzny directs the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the America First Policy Institute.

Photo: Jason Alden/Bloomberg Creative Photos via Getty Images

DonateCity Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).

DEI Official At UCLA School of Medicine Massively Plagiarized Her Dissertation On DEI | The Daily Wire

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Tue, 23 Apr 2024 12:29

Recent headlines about UCLA School of Medicine suggest that the institution has lost its focus. Instead of brushing up on organic chemistry, its students were subjected to lessons on ''Indigenous womxn'' and ''two-spirits.'' Future doctors had to take a class on ''structural racism'' and were led in a ''Free Palestine'' chant by a Hamas-praising guest speaker. The school made plans to segregate students by race for courses on left-wing ideology, and two of its psychiatry residents championed ''revolutionary suicide.''

Why has the school charted this course? One reason is its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology. UCLA has a DEI program called ''Cultural North Star,'' and at the medical school, it is led by Natalie J. Perry. Her official biography says her job is to ''embed our aspirational Cultural North Stars [sic] value [sic] in our organizational DNA.'' UCLA honored Perry last month for teaching students to ''do what's right,'' saying her ''empathy and radical listening'' are to thank for her ''success as an educator and a leader.''

According to a Daily Wire and City Journal investigation, however, Perry's academic career is based on fraud. Perry has published a single paper, a 2014 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Virginia about how colleges should create larger DEI programs. An analysis of the paper found it ridden with the worst sort of plagiarism, reproducing large swaths of text directly from several other authors, without citations. The scale of the plagiarism suggests that Perry lacks both ethics and competence and raises questions about academic programs that push DEI.

Perry's dissertation lifted passages from ten other papers. In key portions of her text, she copied almost every paragraph from other sources without attribution. She fails even to mention at least four of the ten plagiarized papers anywhere in her dissertation.

Let's review some examples.

The first three pages of Perry's paper, ''Faculty Perceptions of Diversity at a Highly Selective Research-Intensive University,'' suggest that she did not even bother to read beyond the first page of papers from which she stole. Her dissertation's second sentence reproduces verbatim part of a sentence on the first page of a paper by Adrianna Kezar, Peter Eckel, Melissa Contreras-McGavin, and Stephen John Quaye. Her third paragraph, without citation, lifts more than 100 words from the first page of a paper by Angela Locks, Sylvia Hurtado, Nicholas Bowman, and Leticia Oseguera.

Each colored portion of the below text was taken from a different author:

In some cases when Perry did include parenthetical citations, she wasn't citing the papers whose text she had lifted. Instead, she simply reproduced the citations included in those stolen excerpts.

Take the above paragraph, which ends with ''(Bernard, 2005; Bollag, 2005; Munoz, Jasis, Young, and McLaren, 2004; Williams, Nakashima, Kich, and Reginald, 1996).'' Perry was not synthesizing those authors. Instead, the citation was part of Adalberto Aguirre and Ruben Martinez's paper, which she copied without attribution.

A core part of Perry's dissertation involved summarizing work done by professors Robert Quinn and John Rohrbaugh. Instead of citing them directly, however, Perry cribbed summaries from other academics. Perry copied and pasted almost all of a nearly thousand-word passage from a paper by Chad Hartnell, Amy Yi Ou, and Angelo Kinicki, without quoting or crediting the authors.

The rest of Perry's analysis of Quinn and Rohrbaugh's work is largely copied, unquoted and unattributed, from a 2003 paper by John Smart. Below are pages 13 and 14 of Perry's paper, outlining its ''Theoretical Framework,'' with the italicized text coming directly from Smart:

In a section titled ''Positioning Diversity Leadership in Higher Education,'' Perry copies almost every sentence from one of several other papers. In no case does she credit the actual source:

Finally, in a section on organizational culture, Perry duplicates language from a variety of other authors:

Perry presented her paper as ''qualitative'' research because she chatted with what appear to be ten of her colleagues at the University of Virginia who sat on the faculty-retention taskforce and counted their musing as ''data.'' But when the paper gets to this section, where plagiarism wasn't possible, Perry includes the following jumbled passage that includes a glaring spelling error:

The positionality of the participants informed the perspective on the origins of the commission. /in response to the needs of the varios [sic] stakeholders within the university, the commission addressed issues of diversity on the faculty, undergraduate, graduate, and university level.

The section of original text suggests that her plagiarism could be used to mask glaring academic deficiencies. Moreover, Perry in her references section fails to list some of the papers that she cites parenthetically in the body of the dissertation'--a telltale sign that she had simply copied those citations from somewhere else. A legitimate academic field never would have found this dissertation plausible.

Perry and UCLA did not return requests for comment.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban recently argued that DEI policies don't necessarily lower an organization's expectations. But for Harvard, UVA, and UCLA Medical School'--where Perry earned her master's, Ph.D., and DEI position, respectively'--this is evidently not the case. These institutions have dramatically lowered expectations for favored groups and pushed a cohort of ''scholars'' through the system without enforcing basic standards of academic integrity.

Ultimately, Natalie Perry is to blame for her misconduct. But these institutions of higher learning share some fault for permitting such shoddiness to stand unchallenged.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America's Cultural Revolution. Luke Rosiak is an investigative reporter for The Daily Wire and author of Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education.

Nationwide health alert issued for ground beef over potential E. coli risk | The Hill

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Tue, 23 Apr 2024 12:28

E. coli O157:H7 is a particular strain of Escherichia coli that is known to cause severe intestinal infection in humans.A nationwide health alert has been issued for Greater Omaha ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.The impacted raw ground beef items were produced and packaged on March 28, 2024, with a ''Use/Freeze by'' date of April 22, 2024, and ''EST.960A'' inside the USDA mark of inspection.(WTAJ) '' A nationwide health alert has been issued for Greater Omaha ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a particular strain of Escherichia coli that is known to cause severe intestinal infection in humans.

The impacted raw ground beef items were produced and packaged on March 28, 2024, with a ''Use/Freeze by'' date of April 22, 2024, and ''EST.960A'' inside the USDA mark of inspection.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the ground beef was shipped to restaurants and retail locations throughout the country.

The FSIS has issued a health alert for the following products:

Product descriptionCase/product labelLot codeCase code10-lb. ground beef chubGROUND BEEF 85 FINE GRIND 10#/625, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 332630855-lb. ground beef chubGROUND BEEF GOHERFGB RIB BRISKET CHUCKCRAFT BURGER 5LB26665005-lb. ground beef chubGreater Omaha 100% ALLNATURAL 5 LBS.GOURMET BLENDRIB BRISKET CHUCK5-lb. ground beef chubGROUND BEEF GOHERFGB 81 FINE GRIND 5#/12EXACT WEIGHT266635814-pack 8-oz ground beefpattiesGROUND BEEF GOANGGB Patty 8OZ HomestyleRib/Brisket/CH347168004-pack 8-oz ground beefpattiesLOT 34 Ground Beef GBGOANG 75 PATTY PUCK8 OZ347280754-pack 7-oz ground beefpattiesLOT 34 GROUND BEEFGOANG Rib/Brisket/Chuck7OZ HOMESTYLE347167006-oz ground beef pattiesLOT 34 GROUND BEEFGOANG GB PATTY 6 OZHOMESTYLERIB/BRISKET/CHUCK347166005-lb. ground beef chubGROUND BEEF GOHERFGB 81 FINE GRIND 5LBEXACT WEIGHT26635816-pack 5.33-oz ground beef pattiesGround Beef GOHERF RIBBRISKET CHUCK 5.33ozHOMESTYLE276165004-pack 8-oz ground beefpattiesLOT 27 Ground BeefGOHERF Homestyle GBPATTYRIB/BRISKET/CHUCK 8OZ2761680010-lb. ground beef chubGROUND BEEF 73 FINEGRIND 10#/6372630734-pack 8-oz ground beefpattiesLOT 51 Ground Beef GBGOANG 75 PATTY PUCK8OZ51728075The labels for these products can be found on the FSIS website.

Because the affected products are no longer for sale, the FSIS said a recall was not requested. Instead, the agency has issued a health alert in case consumers have any of the ground beef in their freezer.

If you have any of the beef products listed above, the FSIS advises against consuming them. Instead, they should be thrown away or returned to wherever you purchased them.

There have been no confirmed reports of illness connected to this health alert, but if you are feeling unwell after consuming the ground beef, you should contact a health care provider.

E. coli, a potentially deadly bacterium, can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Symptoms typically set in within three to four days after consuming an affected food, and can last about a week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Severe cases of E. coli are most common in children younger than 5 years old and in older adults, but any person experiencing these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately.

In some serious cases, a patient may develop kidney failure, the CDC notes.

If you have questions about the health alert, FSIS says to contact Gina Adami, Greater Omaha Packing Co., Inc. Representative, at 402-575-4702 or gadami@gmail.com.

If you have food safety questions, you can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov. You can go online to the Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Congress Passes New Iran Oil Sanctions But Biden Unlikely To Enforce Them | ZeroHedge

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Tue, 23 Apr 2024 12:25

Over the weekend, as part of the $95 billion package providing funding for aiding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan which passed by a vote of 360-58 on Saturday, the US House also passed new sanctions on Iran's oil sector set to become part of a foreign-aid package, putting the measure on track to pass the Senate within days.

The legislation, as Bloomberg reports, would broaden sanctions against Iran to include foreign ports, vessels, and refineries that knowingly process or ship Iranian crude in violation of existing US sanctions. It would also would expand so-called secondary sanctions to cover all transactions between Chinese financial institutions and sanctioned Iranian banks used to purchase petroleum and oil-derived products.

About 80% of Iran's roughly 1.5 million barrels of daily oil exports are shipped to independent refineries in China known as ''teapots,'' according to a summary of similar legislation.

Yet while the sanctions could impact Iranian petroleum exports - and add as much as $8.40 to the price of a barrel of crude - they also include presidential waiver authorities, according to ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm.

"President Joe Biden might opt to invoke these authorities, vitiating the sanctions' price impact; a second Trump Administration might not," ClearView wrote in a note to clients.

Amrita Sen, founder and research director of Energy Aspects, agreed and told Bloomberg Television in an interview that Biden's Administration is unlikely to ''strongly enforce'' the restrictions in an election year.

''I think all sanctions are sanctions on paper, with anything that remotely causes oil prices to go up, I don't believe they will enforce it strongly,'' the research analyst told Bloomberg.

''What I really want to highlight is this is a US election year, so let's not kid ourselves,'' the analyst noted.

By not kidding ourselves, he meant that when it comes to democratic, liberal ideals, it's all bullshit when they conflict with self-serving interests of the demented deep state puppet roaming the halls of the White House.

Moreover, China is buying most of Iran's crude oil exports, and the majority of buyers in the world's top crude oil importer are the independent refiners, the so-called 'teapots' in the Shandong province, which are not connected with the U.S. financial system in any way.

Therefore, the U.S. doesn't have any means to enforce sanctions on China's independent refiners for buying Iranian crude oil, Sen told Bloomberg. The teapots will continue to import Iran's crude, while any new restrictions could take up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil off the market, she added.

Crude oil exports from Iran hit the highest level in six years during the first quarter of the year, data from Goldman recently showed.

Iran is producing record amounts of oil, enabling it to pay for missiles, drones and whatnot, as Biden refuses to enforce Trump's sanctions against Iran oil exports afraid an oil price spike would further crush his approval rating pic.twitter.com/eeX0OnwYBA

'-- zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 15, 2024The daily average over the period stood at 1.56 million barrels, almost all of which was sent to China, earning the Islamic Republic some $35 billion.

"The Iranians have mastered the art of sanctions circumvention,'' Fernando Ferreira, head of geopolitical risk service at Rapidan Energy Group, told the FT. ''If the Biden administration is really going to have an impact, it has to shift the focus to China."

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TikTok will sue if US bans app '' Bloomberg '-- RT World News

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Tue, 23 Apr 2024 03:17

A bill that would force China's ByteDance to divest ownership of the popular app has been passed by the House of Representatives

TikTok is reportedly planning to legally challenge the US government if it passes a law that would require the app's Chinese parent company to divest its ownership or face a complete ban of the platform, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Over the weekend, the US House of Representatives tied the bill that could see TikTok banned to an emergency bill providing aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The legislation ultimately passed by a vote of 360 to 58. If approved by the Senate, the app's Chinese owner ByteDance would have nine months to sell its business or have it barred from US app stores.

''This is an unprecedented deal worked out between the Republican speaker and President Biden,'' Michael Beckerman, TikTok's head of public policy for the Americas, told the company's US staff in a memo seen by Bloomberg.

''At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,'' he reportedly wrote.

Beckerman had previously insisted that the divest-or-ban demands on TikTok were a violation of the First Amendment rights of the app's 170 million users in the US and that such legislation, if passed, would have ''devastating consequences'' for the nearly 7 million businesses using the platform.

''This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,'' the executive said in Saturday's memo, vowing to ''continue to fight.''

China has also blasted the efforts to ban TikTok in the US, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin arguing that such a step would violate international trade rules.

''[The bill] runs contrary to the principles of fair competition and international economic and trade rules,'' Wang said last month, accusing the US of ''bullying behavior'' and of ''leveraging state power'' against ByteDance.

''When someone sees a good thing another person has and tries to take it for themselves, this is entirely the logic of a bandit,'' he said.

A number of American lawmakers have insisted for years that TikTok poses a ''national security threat'' due to its Chinese ownership, and have insisted on forcing it to sever ties with its parent company ByteDance.

However, some in the US Congress have opposed the legislation targeting the Chinese app, with Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky arguing that the ''cure'' presented in the bill is ''worse than the disease,'' as it would give the White House the power to ban other websites and apps.

Billionaire and owner of X (formerly Twitter) Elon Musk has warned that the bill is ''about censorship and government control,'' while the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has denounced the legislation as ''violating the free speech rights of millions of Americans'' who use the platform daily.

Is Adding Video the Future of a Successful Podcasting Strategy | Audio and Video Podcasting with Rob Greenlee

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Mon, 22 Apr 2024 19:43

By Rob Greenlee, Founder of Spoken Life Media and 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame Inductee

In this article, I will do a deep and detailed exploration of the evolving landscape of on-demand and live video in the podcasting market. I also explore various facets of this re-merging audio and video plus LIVE media in a podcast medium most recently seen as an audio-only medium.

Engagement and Personal Connection: Video podcasts foster a more intimate and engaging viewer experience. By incorporating visual elements, audiences can see the hosts' and guests' emotions, gestures, and nuances, creating a deeper connection and understanding. This visual layer enriches the storytelling, making the content more relatable and memorable.

Expanding Audience Reach: The dual optional nature of video and audio podcasts caters to audiences that are flexible in their media consumption as they prefer to have an option to consume the video version is different consumption methods like on a big screen TV for video and while at the gym or bus consume the audio version. Some people prefer the convenience of audio podcasts during commutes or while multitasking. In contrast, others significantly engage more with visual content when relaxed or needing a more immersive video experience. This flexibility in consumption ensures that content creators can reach a wider audience, accommodating various lifestyles and preferences.

Content Versatility and Repurposing: One of video podcasts' most significant benefits is their adaptability. A single episode can be transformed into multiple content forms, such as full-length records plus Live and short videos for platforms like YouTube, Twitter X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, audio-only versions for most of the podcast consumption app platforms, and some of those same apps make a full video version available if they support video files linked from an RSS feed, like an MP3 file on the audio version. This distribution versatility maximizes getting your content in front of the most potential audience if you make evergreen content appealing to an audience beyond a short period of time, offering creators more opportunities to connect with different audience segments.

Enhanced Monetization Potential: The incorporation of video significantly broadens the reach and monetization scope for creators. It allows for more dynamic advertising models, including video ads, sponsored content, and visual product placements, which might be less impactful in audio-only formats. Audiences' increasingly diverse consumption patterns present audio and visual monetization opportunities. This diversification of revenue streams can be crucial for the sustainability and growth of content creators.

Personalization and Complexity in Storytelling: Video podcasts and audio offer a rich platform for storytelling. Creators can utilize visual aids, on-screen graphics, and other visual elements to convey complex information in an accessible and engaging manner. This enhanced storytelling capability is precious in educational, technical, or narrative-driven content, where visual elements can clarify and enrich the subject matter.

Synergy with Social Media Trends: The rise of social media platforms prioritizing short- and long-form video content has further propelled the popularity of live videos and video podcasts. These platforms offer an ideal stage for video podcasts to flourish, providing content creators access to large, engaged, interactive communities and the opportunity to tap into viral trends.

Technological Evolution Supporting Quality and Accessibility: Video streaming and the widespread availability of ubiquitous high-speed wireless internet have democratized the production and consumption of high-resolution video content. The technological strides have made it easier for creators to produce and distribute video podcasts, ensuring a professional and accessible viewing experience for audiences worldwide. We are also seeing innovations in RSS around the Podcasting 2.0 project namespace to expand the abilities of that open download distribution method vs proprietary HLS streaming. We must be open to utilizing this HLS streaming technology outsidemassive big tech platforms like YouTube.

Meeting New Audiences Expectations: Publishing content in audio and video versions that fit with younger and even older audiences. The younger demographics strongly prefer video-based content and can increasingly consume it on mobile in vertical and landscape formats. Video podcasts align perfectly with these evolving expectations, offering a format that resonates with the visual-centric consumption habits of modern viewers. These short mobile videos increasingly display synchronized text transcriptions on screen for mute consumption in many languages via AI transcription and translation technology.

Interactivity and Community Building: Video show podcasts can enable compelling interactive experiences. Formats like live streaming with real-time audience interaction, Q&As, and polls directly engage viewers and foster loyalty and community around and outside the videos. This interactivity enhances the viewer experience and builds a more substantial relationship with the show host and other audience members.

Brand Identity and Visual Impact: Independently produced video and audio shows are a powerful brand-building tool for individual creators and companies of all sizes. The visual element of these podcast shows helps forge a distinct and memorable brand, product, services, customer education, connection, and support relationships, setting this media opportunity in the vast media landscape.

The fusion of audio and video in the form of audio/video podcasts is not just a trend but a significant re-emerging shift in content consumption. This back to the future evolution is a response to technological advancements and changing audience preferences, positioning video podcasts as an integral and future-forward component in content strategies worldwide. The article will delve into these aspects, providing insights, examples, and expert opinions to offer a comprehensive understanding of the impact and potential of video podcasts in the current media ecosystem.

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The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings ''do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.''

WASHINGTON '-- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.

The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings ''do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.'' Officials added that they're continuing to study the issue.

''To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,'' the FDA said in a statement.

The announcement comes nearly a month after an avian influenza virus that has sickened millions of wild and commercial birds in recent years was detected in U.S. dairy cows in at least eight states. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says nearly 33 herds have been affected to date.

FDA officials didn't indicate how many samples they tested or where they were obtained.

The lab test they used would have detected viral genetic material even after live virus was killed by pasteurization, or heat treatment, said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University

''There is no evidence to date that this is infectious virus and the FDA is following up on that,'' Jaykus said.

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