Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has traveled to Mexico for a family vacation as his home state struggles with a weather crisis that has left much of Texas without power.
The Pink Stuff has over 24,000 glowing five-star reviews, Tik Tokers love it, professional cleaners swear by it, and I can't live without it!
Feb. 27—Three people are dead after a single-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff near Gainesville around 6 p.m. Thursday. That flight was headed to Daytona Beach, officials said. The FAA said a Cessna 182 crashed into a ravine just north of the intersection of Memorial Park Drive and Atlanta Highway, Daily Post news partner Fox 5 Atlanta reported. Hall County firefighters said there was ...
Lady Gaga's two bulldogs, stolen in a violent abduction that wounded the dog walker, were safely returned on Friday. Koji and Gustav were reunited with the singers' representatives, the Los Angeles Police Department said. They were turned over by a woman, unharmed, hours after the Oscar-winning singer issued a plea on social media to bring them home. On Twitter, Gaga said, quote, "My heart is sick and I am praying my family will be whole again with an act of kindness," and offered to pay US$500,000 for their safe return. A woman who authorities have not publicly identified brought the dogs to the station.It was not immediately clear how she obtained the dogs, or whether she will collect the reward. On Wednesday, Gaga's pet caretaker Ryan Fisher was shot in a residential area in Hollywood, when he was walking the celebrity's three bulldogs. Two were kidnapped, while the third escaped, and was later found by the police. Gaga praised Fisher for risking his life and called him "a hero." Fisher is expected to make a full recovery, his family told celebrity website TMZ on Friday.
Boris Johnson announced plans to lift limits on social contact from 21 June at the earliest
An official report says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the journalist's murder.
Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner at Monteverde & Associates PC, a national securities firm rated Top 50 in the 2018 and 2019 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report and headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating Regal Beloit Corp. ("RBC" or the "Company") (RBC) relating to its proposed merger with Rexnord Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, RBC shareholders will own 61.4% of the combined company, with Rexnord owning the remaining 38.6%.
The Orlando Magic aren't exactly playing their best basketball, but they will get a chance Saturday night to do something on their own court that hasn't happened in almost two months. Give the Utah Jazz back-to-back losses. The last time -- and only time -- that happened to the Jazz was on Jan. 5-6 when they struggled in New York, first losing to the Brooklyn Nets and then to the Knicks.
The coronavirus aid plan passes despite total Republican opposition, but must now go to the Senate.
The Oscar-tipped star of Da 5 Bloods grew up in south London but left Britain behind as a young boy to make it in Hollywood. He talks to Annabel Nugent about awards snubs, historical correctives and why his Trump-supporting character in Spike Lee’s film represents a vulnerability to ‘being lied to’ that some Black voters had to the former president’s message
The world's most famous sea sponge gets a tasteful makeover in a new movie that stays true to its franchise's sweetly demented nature.
Bitcoin mining – the process in which a bitcoin is awarded to a computer that solves a complex series of algorithm – is a deeply energy intensive process A man uses a bitcoin ATM in Hong Kong. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP It’s not just the value of bitcoin that has soared in the last year – so has the huge amount of energy it consumes. The cryptocurrency’s value has dipped recently after passing a high of $50,000 but the energy used to create it has continued to soar during its epic rise, climbing to the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina, according to Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, a tool from researchers at Cambridge University that measures the currency’s energy use. Recent interest from major Wall Street institutions like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs probably culminated in the currency’s rise in value and an endorsement by Tesla’s Elon Musk helped drive its recent high as investors bet the cryptocurrency will become more widely embraced in the near future. interactive While the recent fall has dented Musk’s fortune, bitcoin also poses a threat to the company’s mission toward a “zero-emission future” and poses serious questions for governments and corporations looking to curb their own carbon footprints. Bitcoin mining – the process in which a bitcoin is awarded to a computer that solves a complex series of algorithms – is a deeply energy-intensive process. “Mining” bitcoin involves solving complex math problems in order to create new bitcoins. Miners are rewarded in bitcoin. Earlier in bitcoin’s relatively short history – the currency was created in 2009 – one could mine bitcoin on an average computer. But the way bitcoin mining has been set up by its creator (or creators – no one really knows for sure who created it) is that there is a finite number of bitcoins that can be mined: 21m. The more bitcoin that is mined, the harder the algorithms that must be solved to get a bitcoin become. Now that over 18.5m bitcoin have been mined, the average computer can no longer mine bitcoins. Instead, mining now requires special computer equipment that can handle the intense processing power needed to get bitcoin today. And, of course, these special computers need a lot of electricity to run. The amount of electricity used to mine bitcoin “has historically been more than [electricity used by] entire countries, like Ireland”, said Benjamin Jones, a professor of economics at the University of New Mexico who has researched bitcoin’s environmental impact. “We’re talking about multiple terawatts, dozens of terawatts a year of electricity being used just for bitcoin … That’s a lot of electricity.” Proponents of bitcoin say that mining is increasingly being done with electricity from renewable sources as that type of energy becomes cheaper, and the energy used is far lower than that of other, more wasteful, uses of power. The energy wasted by plugged-in but inactive home devices in the US alone could power bitcoin mining for 1.8 years, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. But environmentalists say that mining is still a cause for concern particularly because miners will go wherever electricity is cheapest and that may mean places that use coal. According to Cambridge, China has the most bitcoin mining of any country by far. While the country has been slowly moving toward renewable energy, about two-thirds of its electricity comes from coal. Since there is no government body or organization that officially tracks where bitcoin is being mined and what type of electricity miners are using, there is no way of knowing whether miners are using electricity that is fueled by renewable energy or fossil fuels. Mining rigs can move from place to place depending on where energy is cheapest, which makes mining particularly hard to track. “The places where you mine [bitcoin] can be moved around and, in some cases, you don’t even know where they are,” said Camilo Mora, a professor of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii. Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finances estimates that bitcoin’s annualised electricity consumption hovers just above 115 terawatt-hours (TWh) while Digiconomist’s closely tracked index puts it closer to 80 TWh. A single transaction of bitcoin has the same carbon footprint as 680,000 Visa transactions or 51,210 hours of watching YouTube, according to the site. A paper from 2018 from the Oak Ridge Institute in Ohio found that one dollar’s worth of bitcoin took 17 megajoules of energy, more than double the amount of energy it took to mine one dollar’s worth of copper, gold and platinum. Another study from the UK published last year said that computer power required to mine Bitcoin quadrupled in 2019 compared with the year before, and that mining has had an influence in prices in some power and utility markets. Bitcoin’s advocates have made it clear that they believe any environmental costs that come with mining bitcoin are worth the broader impacts it could have on society. “Bitcoin would not be able to fulfill its role as a secure, global value transfer and storage system without being costly to maintain,” reads a defense against bitcoin criticism from Ria Bhutoria, director of research at Fidelity Digital Assets. “Computers and smartphones have much larger carbon footprints than typewriters and telegraphs. Sometimes a technology is so revolutionary and important for humanity that society accepts the tradeoffs,” wrote investor Tyler Winklevoss on Twitter. Some have pointed out that there does not have to be a tradeoff between cryptocurrency and the environment. The creators of ethereum, considered the second most popular type of cryptocurrency after bitcoin, have promised to change the currency’s algorithm to make its mining more environmentally friendly. Vitalik Buterin, the computer scientist who invited ethereum, told IEEE Spectrum that mining cryptocurrency can be “a huge waste of resources, even if you don’t believe that pollution and carbon dioxide are an issue”, Buterin said. “There are real consumers – real people – whose need for electricity is being displaced by this stuff.” Currently, ethereum’s mining works similarly to bitcoin where the most powerful computers have an edge in getting the most bitcoin as computers compete to complete a transaction first. Ethereum’s developers are working on changing that system so that miners enter a pool and are randomly selected to complete the transaction and receive an ether in return. This method, called “proof-of-stake”, guarantees that less electricity will be used to mine the currency. But with bitcoin still reigning as the top cryptocurrency and, with endorsements from established companies and investment banks, the currency’s environmental impact is only likely to grow. When it comes to electricity, “the computer doesn’t care. The computer is just getting the electricity to run, but where its electricity comes from makes a huge difference [for the environment],” said Mora.
Conservative gathering in Florida has seven sessions this year focused on voter fraud and election-related issues Ted Cruz speaks at CPAC in Orlando, Florida, on Friday. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Republicans have continued to embrace the myth of a stolen election the annual rightwing conclave of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), underscoring how the party continues to sustain the baseless idea months after Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 race and the deadly assault on the Capitol. This year’s gathering of some of the party’s most fervent supporters has a staggering seven sessions focused on voter fraud and election-related issues. Several have inflammatory titles. “Other culprits, why judges and media refuse to look at the evidence,” was the name of one panel discussion on Friday. “The left pulled the strings, covered it up, and even admits it,” was another. “Failed states (GA, PA, NV, oh my!)” is the title of another scheduled for this weekend. Several speakers on Friday repeated debunked falsehoods about the election. Deroy Murdock, a Fox News contributor, repeated the lie that there were “mysterious late-night ballot dumps” that swung the election for Joe Biden and that there were vehicles with out-of-state license plates unloading ballots in the early hours of the election. Both of those claims have been debunked. Stoking fears about fraud and advocating for stricter voting rules has become commonplace among Republicans in recent years, but in the wake of Trump’s presidency – and his loss to Biden – it has become a common rallying cry in the party. Even so, some observers said the focus on fanning the flames of the conspiracy theory at CPAC was still alarming. “One program on lessons learned from voting in 2020 is appropriate to restore trust for half of America, but not seven!” said Eric Johnson, a former Republican lawmaker in Georgia who advised Kelly Loeffler’s US Senate campaign. “Donald Trump convinced his base – a majority of Republicans, if polls are to be believed – that the election was stolen. Though the CPAC organizers likely know it’s false, they’re using this as a wedge issue to excite the base and sell more tickets,” said Nick Pasternak, who recently left the Republican party after working on several GOP campaigns. He added: “CPAC’s willingness to make the election lie such a big issue this year is a concerning symbol of what many in the party think – and what they’ll do.” Even though dozens of judges across the country, including several appointed by Donald Trump, rejected claims of fraud after the election, Murdock and other speakers at CPAC accused judges of being unwilling to examine evidence of fraud. Hans von Spakovsky, a well-known conservative who has agitated for more restrictive voting policies for years, claimed that judges were reluctant to look at evidence because they feared they would be attacked. “When it becomes an extraordinary election contest, one with national implications and one in which they risk being attacked by one of the political parties, the news media, their reluctance gets even greater,” he said. Pressed whether judges were afraid to look at the evidence, Von Spakovsky added: “I think in some cases that is true, in other cases they might have had valid procedural grounds, but it sure didn’t look like it to me.” Asked how much evidence of fraud there was now, Murdock falsely said: “It may be shredded by now.” Jesse Binnall, an attorney who represented the Trump campaign in Nevada, complained about the short deadline lawyers had to put together a case after the election and claimed judges were pressured by media reporting that noted voter fraud was not a widespread problem. “Right or wrong, they never tried to dig into the facts about voter fraud,” he said. “Our legs were cut off before we even walked into the courthouse.” Litigants in American courts have to meet procedural thresholds to advance their case, something that prevents courts from having to hear frivolous claims. Again and again, Trump and his allies failed to convince courts that they cleared those bars. “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption,” Matthew Braun, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, wrote in December as he tossed out an effort from Trump and his allies to block certification of the election results there. “Instead, this court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations … unsupported by the evidence.” The comments at CPAC underscore how Republicans continue to stoke uncertainty about the election – even after judges and Republican and Democratic elected officials alike repeatedly examined allegations of wrongdoing and did not find fraud, they continue to insist that there is unexamined evidence. In state legislatures across the country, are pushing new restrictions on voting. There are at least 253 pending bills to restrict voting across the United States, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. In his remarks on Friday, Von Spakovsky expressed support for efforts to restrict voting by mail and said HR1, the bill pending in Congress that would require automatic and same-day registration, among other reforms, “the most anti-democratic bill I’ve ever seen during my 20 years in Washington”. Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia, said the focus on elections was a way to gin up support among the party’s faithful base, which remains largely loyal to Trump and his allies. “I would not equate ‘the party’ with CPAC so I wouldn’t put much stock in it from that perspective,” he said. “CPAC exists to make money and so it’s no surprise to me the organizers have jumped on to this issue as a way to drive engagement of their target market.”
New reports of Ebola in Guinea are causing anxiety given the history of the west Africa outbreak of 2014-2016. This was the largest Ebola outbreak reported to date—28,000 cases were recorded, including 11,000 deaths. It originated in Guinea and then spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
SpongeBob (Tom Kenny), the lovable and highly merchandisable naïf from Bikini Bottom, has a problem: His pet sea snail, Gary, has been stolen by the vain King Poseidon (Matt Berry) for use in his daily skincare routine. Those who have absorbed too many episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants (or even just the first SpongeBob SquarePants Movie) may recall that the series already has a King Neptune. But never mind, there’s plenty of room at the bottom of the ocean for both the Greek and the Roman gods. It’s not as though this decades-spanning, multi-billion-dollar property has ever put a premium on logic: The silliness is an important part of its cross-generational appeal.
The movie is up for two awards next week despite its troubling and misleading depictions of autism and restraint. This isn’t a cry for the singer’s cancellation, says Helen Brown. But it’s time to stop the stereotypes for good
The New York Knicks, winners of five of their past seven games, will look to continue their ascent on Saturday when they host the slumping Indiana Pacers. New York set season highs in points, field-goal percentage (58.6 percent) and 3-pointers (19) in a 140-121 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Thursday. "It was good, it was cooking," said Knicks forward Julius Randle, who collected 21 points and 14 rebounds.
Quarantine fun for the whole family—games start at just $15.
Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner at Monteverde & Associates PC, a national securities firm rated Top 50 in the 2018 and 2019 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report and headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating Forterra, Inc. ("FRTA" or the "Company") (FRTA) relating to its proposed acquisition by Quikrete Holdings, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, FRTA shareholders will receive $24.00 in cash per share.
Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner at Monteverde & Associates PC, a national securities firm rated Top 50 in the 2018 and 2019 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report and headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp. ("SFTW" or the "Company") (SFTW) relating to its proposed merger with BlackSky Holdings, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, SFTW will merge into BlackSky, with BlackSky emerging as a publicly traded company.
Ibrahimovic in an interview on Thursday said sportspeople like four-time NBA champion James, who has been one of the NBA's leading voices against racial injustice and police brutality, should avoid making the mistake of getting involved in political matters and instead focus on only sports. James also pointed to comments made by Ibrahimovic in 2018 when the Swedish forward claimed "undercover racism" had caused the media to treat him differently from players that had traditional surnames like Andersson or Svensson.
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