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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:07:35 GMT -8
Yesterday, a clown held the door open for me. It was such a nice jester.
While the Media Show Shot After Shot of Previous Guy's Airplane Sitting on the Ground, Let's Look At Some Actual News
Russian investigators have detained a woman in the hunt for the killers of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a blast at a St Petersburg cafe.
In video released by authorities - most likely recorded under duress - Darya Trepova is heard admitting she handed over a statuette that later blew up.
But in the footage released, she does not say she knew there would be an explosion, nor admit any further role.
More than 30 people were wounded in the bombing in Russia's second city.
Tatarsky had been attending a patriotic meeting with supporters in the cafe as a guest speaker.
A video circulating on social media showed a young woman in a brown coat apparently entering the cafe with a cardboard box.
Images showed the box being placed on a table in the cafe before the woman sat down. Another video showed a statue being handed to Tatarsky.
In a brief excerpt of her interrogation released by the ministry, Darya Trepova, 26, appeared under duress as she sighed repeatedly.
When her interrogator asked if she knew why she was detained, she replied: "I would say for being at the scene of Vladlen Tatarsky's murder... I brought the statuette there which blew up."
Asked who gave it to her she responded: "Can I tell you later please?"
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:09:50 GMT -8
What's $300 Million to a REALLY, REALLY Rich Guy?
Trump was depending on a cash infusion from a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) that’s currently under the microscope of federal investigators. And those investigations appear to be threatening the whole enterprise. Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the SPAC in question, still hasn’t received permission to merge with Trump’s media company, and until it does, the future of his upstart Twitter knockoff will remain uncertain.
That deal has been waylaid by two intensifying federal investigations. One is focused on whether preliminary merger discussions between Digital World and Trump Media violated federal securities laws. The other investigation is looking at whether a group of early investors in Digital World — who were brought into the deal by [former Digital World Acquisition Corp. CEO Patrick] Orlando — engaged in improper trading.
If the merger is not completed in the next six months, Digital World — established as a special purpose acquisition corporation — will have to return the $300 million it raised from investors in 2021 through an initial public offering. But it is not clear that the investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors in Manhattan will be completed in time to permit the S.E.C. to approve the merger as required.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:12:11 GMT -8
If You Can't Trust Rupert, Who Can You Trust? (Psst! You Can't Trust Rupert.)
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:14:27 GMT -8
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Criminal! Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!
Interestingly, in this survey, Stormy Daniels ranks highest of the charges, which might be familiarity. Or, it might be clarity, since it’s very easy to understand.
What I found remarkable is that lawyers think the Mar-a-Lago documents case is the strongest open and shut one; Georgia/Jan. 6 are more “serious” and the public thinks those are bad but, well, the Stormy Daniels thing is just wrong.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:16:37 GMT -8
It Seems Pretty Close to 50-50 in Elections
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:18:00 GMT -8
They Can't Live With Him. They Can't Live Without Him. It Sucks to Be the QOP.
The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee.
In the days leading up to the indictment of the former president, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced two days ago, a succession of polls showed that Trump has significantly increased his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his closest competitor in the race for the Republican nomination.
Yet recent surveys have also signaled that this criminal charge—and other potential indictments from ongoing investigations—could deepen the doubts about Trump among the suburban swing voters who decisively rejected him in the 2020 presidential race, and powered surprisingly strong performances by Democrats in the 2018 and 2022 midterms.
“It is definitely a conundrum that this potentially helps him in the primary yet sinks the party’s chances to win the general,” says Mike DuHaime, a GOP strategist who advises former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a potential candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. “This better positions [in the primary] our worst candidate for the general election.”
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:19:38 GMT -8
Another Noose Tightens
The Justice Department has gathered new evidence in its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s removal of classified documents from the White House that may point to possible obstruction, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Sources familiar with the matter told the newspaper investigators are homing in on whether Trump attempted to impede the government’s efforts to recover sensitive documents from his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, or if he directed anyone to do so on his behalf.
The Post reported federal investigators have gathered evidence that Trump might have sifted through boxes of documents after he received a subpoena to return them, possibly to keep some of the files despite the order.
As part of the probe, the government has also obtained the emails and text messages of Molly Michael, a former assistant who worked for Trump in the White House and at Mar-a-Lago during the documents episode.
Any case would hinge on investigators proving Trump intended to impede or obstruct the subpoena, which could prove difficult. The Post added the government has evidence the former president asked his lawyers for advice on how to keep the records he had in his possession, which could demonstrate his intent to do so.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:20:49 GMT -8
Putin's NATO Nightmare Continues
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday, prompting a warning from Russia that it would bolster its defenses near their joint border if NATO deploys any troops in its new member.
“This is a historic week,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. “From tomorrow, Finland will be a full member of the alliance.” He said that he hopes Sweden will be able to join NATO in coming months.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:25:49 GMT -8
Dear Abby: Why Aren't You Also Suing the Parents of the Kid Who Did the Shooting.
A first-grade Virginia teacher who was shot and seriously wounded by her 6-year-old student filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting that the boy had a gun and was in a “violent mood.”
Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia was shot in the hand and chest on Jan. 6 as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and has had four surgeries since the shooting.
The shooting rattled the military shipbuilding community and sent shock waves around the country, with many wondering how a child so young could get access to a gun and shoot his teacher.
The lawsuit names the Newport News School Board and several school district officials, including former Superintendent George Parker III, as defendants.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:28:03 GMT -8
I'm Really Happy to See My Taxes Used For This
The U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) is funding a 6-year, up to $300 million project to build a massive Alzheimer's research database that can track the health of Americans for decades and enable researchers to gain new insights on the brain-wasting disease.
The NIA, part of the government's National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims to build a data platform capable of housing long-term health information on 70% to 90% of the U.S. population, officials told Reuters of the grant, which had not been previously reported.
The platform will draw on data from medical records, insurance claims, pharmacies, mobile devices, sensors and various government agencies, they said.
"Real-world data is what we need to make a lot of decisions about the effectiveness of medications and looking really at a much broader population than most clinical trials can cover," Dr. Nina Silverberg, director of the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers program, said in an interview.
Tracking patients before and after they develop Alzheimer’s symptoms is seen as integral to making advances against the disease, which can start some 20 years before memory issues develop.
Alzheimer's research has been galvanized by Leqembi, a new treatment from Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen Inc that slows advance of the disease in early-stage patients.
The database could help identify healthy people at risk for Alzheimer's, which affects about 6 million Americans, for future drug trials. It also aims to address chronic underrepresentation of people of color and different ethnicities in Alzheimer’s clinical trials and could help increase enrollment from outside of urban academic medical centers.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:30:02 GMT -8
It's Not Just TikTok
Analytics firm Apptopia estimates that another three of the top 10 free mobile apps in the US are also owned by Chinese firms. Two of them are also among the most downloaded in the UK.
So what are these apps and what makes Chinese ones so successful?
CapCut
Video editing app CapCut is often pitched as a companion editor for TikTok content creators and it was downloaded 13 million times in February alone, according to Sensor Tower.
The video editing tool is optimised for mobile editing on the go and offers a range of features designed to make your videos go viral, like adding popular songs, filters and special effects.
CapCut is also owned by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.
Shein
Shein is a global fashion brand was founded in 2012 and now boats a nearly $15 billion valuation, according to Forbes.
It was founded by Chinese billionaire Chris Xu and is headquartered in Singapore.
A quick search of the #Shein hashtag on TikTok and Instagram will surface hundreds of videos from popular influencers boasting of their recent #Sheinhaul. It uses social media to target GenZ users with hundreds of new products daily at low-cost prices.
Temu
It's been less than a year since this shopping app debuted in the US but it quickly outpaced Amazon and Walmart.
The online superstore sells everything from apparel to electronics and allows consumers to bypass warehouse stores and buy directly from the Chinese manufacturer.
The prices are so low that many Americans were searching "is Temu legit" after the company ran an ad during this year's Super Bowl.
The company is headquartered in Boston, MA, but it is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, a Chinese-owned online retail giant that specialises in direct-to-consumer products.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:33:06 GMT -8
These Folks Were Granted Immunity, and Didn't Have to Testify
Throughout history, brilliant minds have tried to figure out the secret behind living longer. Much of the research has credited diet and exercise, but a group of scientists expanded on previous data to suggest another theory.
Researchers from Boston University and Tufts Medical Center found people who live to be 100 years old or older – called centenarians – may have a unique composition of immune cells that’s highly protective against illnesses, according to a study published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Lancet eBiomedicine.
“Our data support the hypothesis that centenarians have protective factors that enable (them) to recover from disease and reach extreme old ages,” said lead author Tanya Karagiannis, a senior bioinformatician at the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science, and Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center.
People with normal immune systems are exposed to infections, recover from them, and learn to adapt from future infections. While the immune system’s ability to respond to infections declines with age, scientists hypothesized this may be different for centenarians.
Researchers analyzed immune cells circulating in the blood taken from seven centenarian participants in North America and identified immune-specific patterns of aging and extreme human longevity.
They compared this information with other publicly available data that looked at immune cells from people ranging across the human lifespan and found centenarians’ immune profile did not follow trends associated with natural aging.
The findings “provide support to the hypothesis that centenarians are enriched with protective factors that increase their ability to recover from infections,” said senior author Paola Sebastiani, director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science, and Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center.
It's unclear if this unique immunological ability is genetic, naturally occurring, or a confluence of outside factors, said senior author Stefano Monti, associate professor of medicine, biostatistics, and bioinformatics at Boston University's school of medicine.
"The answer to what makes you live longer is a very complex one," he said. "There's multiple factors, there's the genetics – what you inherit from a parent, there's lifestyle, there's luck."
Study authors hope the report's findings build on existing research that could help develop therapeutics for the world’s aging population.
“Centenarians, and their exceptional longevity, provide a ‘blueprint’ for how we might live more productive, healthful lives,” said senior author George J. Murphy, associate professor of medicine at Boston University’s school of medicine.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:34:45 GMT -8
Being in the Hospital Already Sucks, Without This
Apowerful Senate Republican is demanding answers from a private-equity backed hospital in southeast Iowa amid revelations that a male nurse practitioner at the facility sexually assaulted nine female patients there in 2021 and 2022.
The facility, Ottumwa Regional Health Center, is part of Lifepoint Health Inc., a hospital system headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee, and owned by Apollo Global Management, the huge private-equity firm in New York co-founded by Leon Black.
The incidents at the Ottumwa facility came to light late last year after the overdose death in the hospital of Devin Caraccio, 27, a certified nurse practitioner who was a contract employee at the hospital, according to its spokeswoman. After he died on the job in October, the Ottumwa police accessed his cellphone, finding photo and video evidence that he had assaulted the patients, according to a police department investigator, Jeremy Tosh.
The police department said in a statement in December that “It is suspected that all of the victims were asleep, or in a state of unconsciousness when the assaults took place.” Two of the victims have not yet been identified; two were under 18, Tosh said in an interview last week.
Eight-term Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa sent a letter this month to the hospital, Lifepoint Health and Apollo’s chief executive, Marc Rowan. In it, he asked whether financial practices had reduced money for patient care and may have facilitated the sexual assault.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:37:45 GMT -8
Lawyers Always Tell Their Clients Not To Grant TV Interviews. Should They Listen to Their Own Advice.
According to a new Rolling Stone report, some of Donald Trump’s lawyers have raised concerns about Joe Tacopina, the attorney co-leading the former president’s defense in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office case.
Trump was indicted last week by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over his role in a 2016 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for the porn star’s silence on an alleged affair. In the lead-up to the indictment, Trump indicated he was aware charges were looming, and Tacopina made a spate of sometimes contentious media appearances to discuss the case.
Citing a source familiar with the matter and another person close to Trump, Rolling Stone reported that Trump’s other current lawyers had privately described Tacopina as “dumb” and a “loudmouth.” Trump’s attorneys and advisers have warned the former president to be wary of Tacopina and that he can’t trust his loyalty, the sources said. Another source familiar with the matter called him “such a frickin’ idiot,” Rolling Stone reported.
In a statement, Tacopina told the magazine: “When anonymous sources make comments criticizing others, it reveals jealousy and cowardice. Anyone who takes a look at my track record of trial success and the results I have achieved for my clients couldn’t seriously criticize my work or my intelligence.”
Tacopina has a record of representing cops and high-profile clients, including rapper Meek Mill and baseball player Alex Rodriguez. He’s also spent more than a decade as a top executive across several Italian soccer clubs and worked as a pundit in American media.
During appearances on CNN in 2018 as a legal commentator, Tacopina made comments about Trump and the Daniels hush money payment that conflict with the defense he’s presented since taking on Trump as a client.
In those appearances, he suggested he believed that Trump did have an affair with Daniels and that the payment “could be looked as an in-kind contribution at the time of the election,” which could be “a real problem.”
But now, Tacopina has reversed course, characterizing the payment to Daniels as “extortion,” denying Trump had the affair and dismissing the possibility of campaign finance violations.
When Lawyers Listen to their Own Advice, Do They Bill Themselves?
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 3, 2023 8:43:46 GMT -8
She Also Taunted Her By Pointing At Her Ring Finger in Clark's Face. "I've Got a Championship Ring and You Don't"
LSU’s Angel Reese used the hand-waving “you can’t see me” taunt at Iowa’s Caitlin Clark toward the end of the Tigers’ NCAA women’s championship game victory Sunday. The mockery, made famous by John Cena and employed earlier by Clark during March Madness, prompted a stir on social media and questions from the press.
Reese, named the most outstanding player in the Final Four, also taunted Clark by pointing to her own finger that was about to receive a championship ring. The LSU hoopster wasn’t apologizing for any of it.
Told by a journalist that Twitter was “awash with outrage” at the news conference, Reese replied:
“All year, I was critiqued about who I was. ... I don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit the box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too ’hood. I’m too ghetto. Y’all told me that all year. But when other people do it, y’all don’t say nothing.”
“So, this is for the girls that look like me,” she continued. “For those that want to speak up for what they believe in.”
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