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Spring Preview: A Few Books We’re Excited For Spring Preview: A Few Books We’re Excited For Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | How to Listen Every season brings its share of books to look forward to, and this spring is no different. On this week’s episode the host Gilbert Cruz and his colleague Joumana Khatib talk about a dozen or so titles that sound interesting in the months ahead. Books discussed on this episode: “Dream Count,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “Sunrise on the Reaping,” by Suzanne Collins “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” by Stephen Graham Jones “Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools,” by Mary Annette Pember “Great Big Beautiful Life,” by Emily Henry “John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,” by Ian Leslie “Yoko: A Biography,” by David Sheff “Searches,” by Vauhini Vara “Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the ******** in America,” by Michael Luo “Rabbit Moon,” by Jennifer Haigh “Mark Twain,” by Ron Chernow “Authority,” by Andrea Long Chu “Spent,” by Alison Bechdel “Fish Tales,” by Nettie Jones We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to *****@*****.tld. Source link #Spring #Preview #Books #Excited Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Cyclone Alfred downgraded as tropical storm hits *********** coast – BBC.com Cyclone Alfred downgraded as tropical storm hits *********** coast – BBC.com Cyclone Alfred downgraded as tropical storm hits *********** coast BBC.comEx-Cyclone Alfred: Body found in floodwaters and troops injured in Australia storm BBC.comRare cyclone weakens to a tropical low weather system as it approaches the *********** east coast The Associated PressA day-by-day breakdown of what to expect from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred ABC News Source link #Cyclone #Alfred #downgraded #tropical #storm #hits #*********** #coast #BBC.com Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

TN Gov. Bill Lee has a bold conservation agenda. These bills would undermine it. TN Gov. Bill Lee has a bold conservation agenda. These bills would undermine it. During his Feb. 10 State of the State address, Gov. Bill Lee outlined a bold conservation strategy. He proposed investments to protect the Duck River alongside legislation to curb Tennessee’s rapid loss of farmland. While I am grateful for Governor Lee’s proposals, I worry that other legislation presently pending in the Tennessee legislature will undermine his efforts. As a native Tennessean, I am grateful for Governor Lee’s conservation mindset. I grew up on a cattle farm in Bon Aqua, Tennessee, and when I’m not working my day job, I raise cows there with my brother on our family farm in the Duck River watershed. Investing millions in the Duck River is the right thing to do The Duck River needs and deserves our protection. It’s one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world, supports a thriving sport fishery, and provides drinking water to more than a quarter-million people. But the river is suffering from growing stressors. Droughts are becoming longer and more severe while industrial and residential water demands are increasing. Water continues to flow at Duck River in Centerville, Tenn., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. During last summer’s drought, water levels in the river plunged to historic lows, putting the river’s health and world-class aquatic ecosystems in jeopardy. At the same time, local utilities are planning to increase dramatically the amount of water they pump from the Duck River to keep pace with Middle Tennessee’s rapid development. Those utilities want permission to pull an additional 22 million gallons of water from the Duck each day, and those threats recently landed the Duck River on a list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers. The rapid growth that is fueling increased water consumption from the Duck is also consuming farmland at alarming rates. Tennessee is losing farmland to development at a rate of ten acres per hour. Opinion: After a 28-day Duck River trip, I know this Tennessee waterway is in trouble It is against that backdrop that Governor Lee proposes investing $100 million in a regional water supply strategy for the Duck River watershed, and his administration is introducing farmland conservation legislation targeted at helping farmers and curbing farmland loss. But those efforts could be undermined by other legislation. These bills would undermine the governor’s efforts A recently introduced bill (HB0895/SB0725) would allow a huge landfill to be built on the banks of the Duck River in Maury County. That proposal would strip away protections for Tennessee scenic rivers, and it would threaten downstream communities with harmful pollution. Another bill (HB0541/SB0670) would remove state law protections for more than 300,000 acres of Tennessee’s wetlands, including wetlands that recharge the groundwater system connected to the Duck River. Wetlands help keep Tennesseans safe and healthy by soaking up floodwaters and acting as natural sponges and filters. Wetlands slowly release water into our surface and groundwater systems, replenishing our springs, streams, rivers, and underground drinking water aquifers. Without abundant wetlands, our springs, streams, and groundwater systems dry up more quickly during drought, and our neighbors and communities suffer more flooding when hard rains come. The upper Duck River watershed is a hotspot for wetlands, and if we destroy those wetlands, we will destroy the groundwater system that recharges the river with healthy flow. Removing legal protections for wetlands will turbocharge farmland loss and make remaining farmland less productive. Farmers should not be forced to suffer losses when crop fields are flooded by runoff from nearby developments, and they should not be forced to worry about their creeks, springs and groundwater wells drying up during drought. I hope that our lawmakers will not undercut Governor Lee’s conservation priorities by stripping protections for Tennessee’s scenic waterways and wetlands. George Nolan is director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Tennessee office. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee bills undercut Gov. Bill Lee’s conservation agenda | Opinion Source link #Gov #Bill #Lee #bold #conservation #agenda #bills #undermine Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

2 Books From Other Shores 2 Books From Other Shores Dear readers, I’m not going to get into the various reasons you might have for wanting to go somewhere else right now — somewhere, let’s say, on the other side of an international border. The fact is that Americans have always been eager tourists and willing expatriates, game to study the histories and decode the customs of neighboring and far-flung places. There are more and less benign versions of this roving impulse, but let’s not get into that either. Also, with due respect to hard-typing globetrotters, travel writing exhausts me. What I’m in the mood for is a scrappy, burrowing cosmopolitanism, books that dig down into the soil of a place and emerge with local dirt under their fingernails. Here are two of those, one a memoir of life in a foreign land, the other an extended excursion into an exotic literature. —A.O. Not long before he died, Origo’s father — an American diplomat married to an Anglo-Irish aristocrat — wrote that he wished his daughter to grow up “free from all this national feeling that makes people so unhappy.” He wanted her “to be a little ‘foreign,’ too, so that, when she grows up, she really will be free to love and marry anyone she likes, without its being difficult.” She was happy to oblige: In 1924, she married an Italian marchese and went to live with him at La Foce, his ancestral estate in a picturesque Tuscan valley. “It has sometimes been pointed out to me,” she begins this memoir (published as she was approaching “the end game,” in her words), “that I have had a very varied and interesting life, have lived in some extremely beautiful places and have met some remarkable people.” Her book both lives up to the implied promise of that opening sentence and wanders happily away from it. “Images and Shadows” narrates a life of privilege and accomplishment in a style that is charmingly casual and digressive and at the same time sharply analytical. A respected biographer (of Lord Byron and the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, among others), Origo might have made an acute novelist of patrician manners in the line of Edith Wharton and Ford Madox Ford. She writes fondly about the remarkable people she met, and with a fine sense of their ridiculousness. For example: Her mother’s second husband was an architect and writer whose “A History of Taste” “would certainly have been a fascinating and entertaining book” had he ever gotten past the first four words, which were “It is very difficult…” This book isn’t. It’s frank yet formal, honest without being intimate. Origo’s natural elegance leads her to understate her toughness, passion and her bravery — not least in assisting anti-Fascist partisans during World War II — qualities that nonetheless saturate this eminently civilized book. Read if you like: Henry James, Bernard Berenson, Tuscan villas, long afternoons drinking tea with your grandmother. Available from: The book ***** at a small-town library; your friend who is obsessed with the idea of moving to Italy. “O Canada: An American’s Notes on ********* Culture,” by Edmund Wilson Nonfiction, 1965 Wilson, perhaps the hardest-working American literary critic of the 20th century, had formidable range. He wrote mighty books about Marxism, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the literature of the Civil War, and innumerable collections of essays, reviews, diaries and letters. An avowed anti-specialist, proud of never holding an academic post or a staff job at a magazine, he liked to master a subject by writing about it. After a visit to Toronto sometime in the 1950s, Wilson got sufficiently interested in Canada to begin the inquiries that would result in this volume, modestly subtitled “An American’s Notes on ********* Culture.” I should note that the book was published in 1965 and so does not include most of what those of us down here might regard as ********* culture. No Neil Young or Joni Mitchell; no Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro (though a little bit of Mavis Gallant); no SCTV or David Cronenberg. Still, “O Canada” is an irresistible deep cut for Canadaphiles, a large but fittingly circumspect fandom. Wilson is a crisp, thorough writer, with a knack for making his own fascination with a subject contagious. So you can learn quite a bit of ********* history here — not a bad thing to be studying just now — without feeling that you’re in school, and you may find yourself eager to hit the library in search of the works of Hugh MacLennan and Marie-Claire Blais. Mostly, though, you’re likely to be swept up by Wilson’s sense that Canada, in spite of its reputation south of the border, is an intensely dramatic country. This was partly because of the Quebecois separatist movement that was gaining momentum at the time, but also because nationalism and national identity were pressing questions for an alert and curious reader. As they still are. Read if you like: Poutine, butter tarts, Rush. Available from: If all else fails, you can borrow my copy. Thank you for being a subscriber Plunge further into books at The New York Times or our reading recommendations. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here. Friendly reminder: check your local library for books! Many libraries allow you to reserve copies online. Source link #Books #Shores Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Syria’s Interim President Calls for Unity Amid Fresh Fighting Syria’s Interim President Calls for Unity Amid Fresh Fighting Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, appealed on Sunday for calm and for unity as he moved to reassure the nation after days of clashes that a monitoring group said had killed hundreds of people. “We must preserve national unity and civil peace,” he said from a mosque in Damascus, according to video that circulated online. “We call on Syrians to be reassured because the country has the fundamentals for survival.” The violence erupted last week between fighters affiliated with Syria’s new government, headed by Mr. al-Shara, and those loyal to the ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad. Scores of civilians have been killed, according to two war monitoring groups, along with combatants on both sides of the conflict. Mr. al-Shara’s remarks on Sunday came as fresh fighting was reported in the countryside of the coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, told state media that government forces were combing the countryside for armed fighters loyal to the deposed Assad regime. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has monitored the Syrian conflict since 2011, said that government forces were attacking with drones, tanks and artillery on Sunday. In other areas, it said, government forces were searching for armed groups affiliated with the deposed regime’s military. The clashes have centered in the coastal provinces, where much of the country’s Alawite religious ********* — which dominated the ruling class and upper ranks of the military under the Assad government, and included the Assad family itself — live. That has raised fears of a renewed sectarian conflict in the country. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Tartus and Latakia provinces since the fighting erupted last week, the observatory said early on Sunday. About 700 civilians were included in that figure, most killed by government forces, it said. The information could not be independently verified. Another monitoring group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, reported earlier that government security forces had killed some 125 civilians. The group had not yet updated its casualty figures on Sunday. It said that men of all ages were among the casualties and that the forces did not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The violence has been the worst since the Assad government was ousted in early December by rebels who became the country’s new leaders. It presents a major test of the new government’s authority and ability to unify the country, which has deep sectarian divisions after more than 13 years of civil war. Source link #Syrias #Interim #President #Calls #Unity #Fresh #Fighting Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

This delightful new adventure game feels like a long-lost PS1 classic This delightful new adventure game feels like a long-lost PS1 classic I always appreciate a video game that feels like a long-lost classic from another time. I’m not talking about games that deliberately chase a retro aesthetic for nostalgia. Rather, I appreciate ones that feel naturally shaped by history, where childhood influences show. That’s the kind of game ****** Heroes is, a good-natured adventure starring colorful cartoon mascots. If you told me it was a remake of a forgotten PS1 game, I might believe you were it not for some of its modern giveaways. A debut project for indie studio Pancake Games, ****** Heroes is an open-world adventure game about an adorable ****** ball on a quest to save its home from corrupted monsters. Its cheery visuals, whimsical music, and clumsy UI make it feel exactly like a game from the era of mascot-driven platformers. Don’t let that bright surface fool you, though: ****** Heroes is a surprisingly tough game powered by some deceptively deep combat hooks. ****** Heroes – Announcement Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games When my adventure begins, everything seems straightforward enough. I get some inscrutable lore to set my journey up and then I’m crawling through the jungle with a sword in hand (or whatever slimes hold things with). I slash monsters in my path and move on to checkpoints. Easy enough! The modern influences quickly seep in. When I get to my first save station, I realize that ****** Heroes is actually molded from the Dark Souls school of thought. I can upgrade stats like attack power and speed when I get to a checkpoint using resources I’ve collected. If I die, I drop everything I’m carrying and need to retrieve it all or lose it. Considering that there’s some imperfect platforming to be done here and there, coupled with clumsy physics, I find myself dying quite a bit. It’s a bit infuriating and certainly a tonal mismatch for what’s otherwise an adorable, kid-friendly game. That frustration begins to ease the more I see the full picture. ****** Heroes is an open-world game in the same vein as Nobody Saves the World. I can go anywhere I choose, tackling bosses and challenge shrines in any order. That freedom helps rewire my brain, as I hunt around for checkpoints and grab as many upgrade points as I can along the way. If I hit a battle arena that’s too tough, I simply keep exploring and come back when I’m stronger. Whitethorn Games Progression isn’t just about leveling up, though, and that’s where ****** Heroes’ hidden weapon comes in. As I explore, special abilities are drip fed to me as random drops. I get simple equippable powers like projectile blasts and whirlwind attacks that I can place in three different button slots. As a twist, each ability can be paired with another to combine them into a new power. Then, I can also add an additional effect on top of that, like fire or poison damage. It’s a system that rewards experimentation, pushing players to find combinations that can mitigate the challenge. And let me tell you, there are some delightfully busted combos out there. My proudest creation came when I paired an attack-buffing circle with a whirlwind and a life steal perk. Activating it would create a circle with a tornado at its center, which would ***** in nearby enemies. That would allow me to bash them all with my increased power and refill my hearts in an instant. To make that even more effective, I equipped a hat that heals me on successive hits. Combat encounters that seemed impossible at first became a snap thanks to my creativity. That’s only one example, too. From flaming fireballs to meteor storms that turn foes into allies, there’s a lot to tool around with. While its weightless combat and sloppy traversal can dampen the fun, I still find myself compelled to pick away at ****** Heroes as a casual Steam Deck game. I discover something new every time I turn it on, whether it’s an unexplored area or an overpowered ability combination. I haven’t even spent time with its co-op play yet, which especially feels like the ideal way to play for parents looking to play with their kids. What really calls to me most, though, is the warm feeling that I’m playing the kind of beloved childhood game that would have been in my PlayStation collection as a kid. You can call that nostalgia, but it’s the simple joy of living in a bubbly cartoon world that really speaks to me. I’m just happy to inch around as a little blob and soak in the whimsy. ****** Heroes is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Source link #delightful #adventure #game #feels #longlost #PS1 #classic Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Nvidia RTX 50 owners get another Hotfix, with 572.75 addressing crashes and clock speeds Nvidia RTX 50 owners get another Hotfix, with 572.75 addressing crashes and clock speeds The launch of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs has been marred with several issues, including shortages, overheating power connectors, and driver instability. While the first two issues are harder to sort, the last one should be fixable via downloadable software updates. In fact, the company has already released several Hotfix versions, with the last one — version 572.65 — being released March 2. However, it seems that some issues (very similar) remain, so we just received another Hotfix update from Team Green. The GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 572.75 tackles two specific problems: the first one is some overclocked RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs refuse to run at maximum frequency after a system reboot, while the second one fixes ****** screen crashes. (Image credit: Future) Nvidia usually releases driver updates monthly; these Hotfixes are released out of schedule for problems that require priority solutions, like an unstable driver that causes BSODs and ****** screens across the wider community of RTX users. Note that these Hotfixes aren’t usually automatically installed, so you’ll have to find, download, and install them yourself. The company says, “To be sure, these Hotfix drivers are beta, optional and provided as-is. They are run through a much abbreviated QA process. The sole reason they exist is to get fixes out to you more quickly.” Nevertheless, they will still be included with the next drop of Game Ready drivers in the Nvidia app. Even if you don’t know that there’s an issue with your RTX GPU (or are not affected), you’ll still get the fix within the next few weeks. Hardware drivers are inherently complicated pieces of software, especially as Nvidia must consider the huge number of configurations that its hardware will encounter in the field. Aside from that, it must also work flawlessly with thousands of apps and game titles, which means that it is next to impossible to test every possible permutation of hardware and software before it releases a driver. The company says, “A GeForce driver is an incredibly complex piece of software. We have an army of software engineers constantly adding features and fixing bugs.” If you’re experiencing a problem with your newly bought RTX 50-series GPU, maybe downloading a Hotfix would be enough to solve it. But since Hotfixes are essentially Beta versions of what’s coming out in the regular driver update, you might run into another bug here and there. If that happens, you should report it to Nvidia’s customer service — that way, it would have a chance of fixing what you’re experiencing before the Hotfix gets a wider release as part of Nvidia’s Game Ready drivers. Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Source link #Nvidia #RTX #owners #Hotfix #addressing #crashes #clock #speeds Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Gwen McCrae, 81, Dies; Singer Helped Open the Dance Floor to Disco Gwen McCrae, 81, Dies; Singer Helped Open the Dance Floor to Disco Gwen McCrae, whose gospel-infused R&B hits of the early 1970s like “Lead Me On” and “Rockin’ Chair” featured bouncing, dance-floor-friendly grooves that helped open the door to disco, died on Feb. 21 in Miami. She was 81. Her former husband and frequent singing partner, George McCrae, said she died in a care facility from complications of a stroke she had in 2012. Though she had her share of nationwide hits, Ms. McCrae was best known on the music scene in the Miami area, where her upbeat R&B fit perfectly with the hot nights and subtropical vibe. She released most of her best-known songs through TK Records, a regional powerhouse founded by Henry Stone that counted other proto-disco acts, like Betty Wright and KC and the Sunshine Band, among its stable. She began performing with Mr. McCrae as a duo. They recorded their own albums, sang backup on others and carved a presence for themselves in the clubs of South Florida. They also performed separately, and Ms. McCrae’s repertoire was not limited to dance songs. On her own, she was the first person to release a version of the ballad “You Were Always on My Mind,” in 1972; sometimes shortened to “Always on My Mind,” it was later recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, ******* Nelson and the **** Shop Boys. “She was an amazing talent,” Harry Wayne Casey, a songwriter at TK Records and the lead singer of KC and the Sunshine Band, said in an interview. “She had one of the most soulful voices I’ve ever heard.” After the worldwide success of Mr. McCrae’s signature hit, “Rock Your Baby,” in 1974, Ms. McCrae recorded her own hit the next year: “Rockin’ Chair,” a sensual, swinging tune that topped the Billboard R&B chart and reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 pop chart. There was some dispute over how the two came to record their respective songs. Ms. McCrae later said that Mr. Casey and Richard Finch had written “Rock Your Baby” for her, but that she had given it to her husband to help his career — and then asked for her own hit song once his went big. But Mr. McCrae had a different spin: Their marriage was on the rocks, he said, and she had given him “Rock Your Baby” in a bid to keep them together. Regardless, their marriage did not last. They divorced a year later. After TK Records closed in 1981, she moved to New York City and signed with Atlantic, where she had a minor hit with “Funky Sensation” in 1981 and recorded two albums. Though her career had begun to slow in the post-disco era, she found a new fan base in Europe, especially in Britain, where the discovery of classic American soul — sometimes called “rare groove” — was underway in the 1980s. She recorded new songs and rerecorded old ones for regional markets, and she found a steady stream of singing gigs over the next few decades. D.J.s and hip-hop artists sampled her songs. She became known as the “queen of rare groove” across Britain and Europe. “When I went overseas, I didn’t know people loved me so much. They really loved my old stuff,” she said in a 1996 interview with a Swedish journalist, adding, “Yeah, I was shocked!” Gwendolyn Patricia Mosley was born on Dec. 21, 1943, in Pensacola, Fla. Her father, Aaron, died when she was young, and she was raised by her mother, Winnie (Lee) Mosley. She began singing gospel songs in church and aspired to make religious singing her career. Even later in her career, when she was belting out disco tracks filled with double entendres, she found it uncomfortable to be too explicit. “I had the worst time singing ‘Damn Right It’s Good,’” she said in the 1996 interview, referring to a song she released in 1976. “I sang like ‘Darn right it’s good, you better knock on wood’; I could not sing ‘Damn right it’s good.’ And I still can hardly say it. It ain’t me!” She met George McCrae in 1963, when he was stationed in Pensacola with the U.S. Navy. They married soon after, and they began singing together once he left the service in 1967. She is survived by two daughters from her marriage to Mr. McCrae, Sophia and Leah; a daughter from a previous relationship, Wanda; a son from a later relationship, Alex; 12 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. Although “Funky Sensation” was her last hit in the United States, Ms. McCrae continued to make music, and to draw a dedicated following for her live performances, both at home and in Europe. In 2004 she released a gospel album, “I’m Not Worried.” Two years later she worked once more with Mr. Stone, recording an album of standards from the TK Records catalog, “Gwen McCrae Sings TK.” Though she claimed Florida as her primary residence, she toured Europe extensively. She finally stopped in 2012, when a stroke after a concert in England left her paralyzed on the left side of her body. Source link #Gwen #McCrae #Dies #Singer #Helped #Open #Dance #Floor #Disco Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

From Bell Labs to Lumon Industries: The Building That Brings ‘Severance’ to Life – The New York Times From Bell Labs to Lumon Industries: The Building That Brings ‘Severance’ to Life – The New York Times From Bell Labs to Lumon Industries: The Building That Brings ‘Severance’ to Life The New York TimesThe real-life Lumon office from Severance is just one hour from New York City — and it’s open to the public The IndependentSeverance Fans Have Descended on the Bell Labs Campus CurbedYou Can Visit the Real-life Lumon Building From ‘Severance’ Travel + LeisureViolent Trouble in Television Paradise Common Edge Source link #Bell #Labs #Lumon #Industries #Building #Brings #Severance #Life #York #Times Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

NYT Crossword: answers for Sunday, March 9 NYT Crossword: answers for Sunday, March 9 The New York Times crossword puzzle can be tough, even if it isn’t the Sunday issue! If you’re stuck, we’re here to help you out with today’s clues and answers. Source link #NYT #Crossword #answers #Sunday #March Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

‘Self-replaceable batteries’ return with the Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N business laptop ‘Self-replaceable batteries’ return with the Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N business laptop Dynabook has introduced the Portégé Z40L-N, a new 14-inch Intel Lunar Lake business laptop featuring a simple user-replaceable battery, a feature that has become rare in modern laptops. The device is designed for professionals who require a durable and portable machine with long-term usability. Weighing under 1kg (approximately 2.2lbs), the Portégé Z40L-N has a magnesium alloy chassis that meets MIL-STD-810H standards for durability. It is built to withstand drops, shocks, and environmental stress, making it suitable for mobile work environments. The laptop runs on Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 processors, based on the Lunar Lake architecture, and includes Neural Processing Units (NPUs) for AI-based tasks. It supports Windows Copilot+ features, including Live Captions, gesture controls, and AI-assisted video call enhancements. Image 1 of 3 (Image credit: Dynabook) (Image credit: Dynabook) (Image credit: Dynabook) One of the key features of the Portégé Z40L-N is its 65Wh replaceable battery. While it may not be the largest in capacity, it addresses concerns over battery degradation, allowing users to replace the unit instead of relying on service repairs or early device replacement. Lunar Lake laptops usually have pretty good battery life, but this “self-replacable battery” doesn’t quite take us back to the era where you had snap-in battery packs that formed part of the device shell, some even offered hot-swap batteries. The Portégé’s battery still looks like it is screwed in, hidden under a small detachable cover. In contrast, Apple’s adoption of sealed batteries in laptops set a trend that other manufacturers followed, enabling slimmer designs, better efficiency, and improved battery optimization. The unibody construction integrated the battery into the device, enhancing structural integrity and extending battery life, but also preventing easy user replacement. This shift gave Apple greater control over service and repair, increasing profits, while other brands adopted similar designs to stay competitive. Although it improved aesthetics and durability, critics argue that sealed batteries reduce user flexibility and contribute to higher repair costs and environmental concerns. Swipe to scroll horizontally Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N Specs CPU • Intel Core Ultra 5 226V • Intel Core Ultra 5 236V (vPro) • Intel Core Ultra 7 258V • Intel Core Ultra 7 268V (vPro) RAM • 16 GB LPDDR5 • 32 GB LPDDR5 Storage PCIe NVMe SSD up to 2 TB Display 14-inch WUXGA (1920×1200), Touch Screen optional Graphics • Intel Arc 130V (Core Ultra 5) • Intel Arc 140V (Core Ultra 7) Webcam • 5MP Webcam + IR Camera • Human Presence Detection Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 7 6GHz Ports • HDMI • 2x USB-C ports Supporting Thunderbolt 4 • 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports • One supporting USB Sleep & Charge • RJ-45 Ethernet LAN port • Headset jack (Mic/Headphone combo port) • microSD Card Slot Battery 65Wh OS Windows 11 Pro Dimensions 312.4 x 224 x 15.9 millimeters Weight Starting under 1kg As for the rest of the features, the Portégé Z40L-N features a 14-inch display with a 1920×1200 resolution and a 5-megapixel infrared camera for Windows Hello facial recognition. Additionally there is a spill-resistant keyboard, Dolby Atmos stereo speakers, and a fingerprint reader. Connectivity options include two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, a microSD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Wireless support includes Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth. Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. The Portégé Z40L-N will be offered in two configurations: one with an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor and 16GB of RAM, starting at $1,699, and another with a Core Ultra 7 258V processor and 32GB of RAM, starting at $2,199. Both versions offer up to 2TB of storage. Dynabook’s decision to reintroduce a user-replaceable battery sets the Portégé Z40L-N apart from many competing ultrabooks, which often use sealed designs. This move could appeal to business users looking for longevity and ease of maintenance without relying on manufacturer service centers. Source link #Selfreplaceable #batteries #return #Dynabook #Portégé #Z40LN #business #laptop Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Laura Sessions Stepp, Who Reported on Teenage Sex, Dies at 73 Laura Sessions Stepp, Who Reported on Teenage Sex, Dies at 73 Laura Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting on teenage sex and “hookup” culture on college campuses explored in strikingly intimate detail how adolescent girls and young women think about relationships, love and bodily autonomy, died on Feb. 24 in Springfield, Va. She was 73. Her husband, Carl Sessions Stepp, said the cause of her death, at a memory-care facility, was from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. In a series of articles for The Washington Post, and later for her best-selling book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both” (2007), Ms. Sessions Stepp immersed herself in the lives of her subjects in the Washington area and at several colleges — going to parties, hanging out in dorms and tagging along on trips to the mall. She earned their trust with a soothing voice accented by her Arkansas roots. But most of all, she listened. “She wasn’t judgmental,” Henry Allen, her editor in The Post’s Style section, said in an interview. “These girls would tell her these amazing things.” In July of 1999, readers of The Post woke up to a startling front-page headline: “Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: *********.” Ms. Sessions Stepp had interviewed several teenagers in Arlington, Va., and discovered that ********* had become a popular way to avoid pregnancy and appear cool. Some of the girls she spoke to were nonchalant: “What’s the big deal? President Clinton did it,” one quipped. Others were more circumspect. “I didn’t really know what it was,” one eighth-grade girl confided about the time a boy had suggested it. “I realized pretty soon that it didn’t make him like me.” Ms. Sessions Stepp’s subsequent articles explored “freak dancing,” the way students “grind” on each other at school dances; “buddysex” among high schoolers; and ******* score cards kept by college women, among them a University of Pennsylvania student who rated her companions and included dates and footnotes. “These women analyze their numbers as if they were comparison shopping for the right size and color of shoes,” Ms. Sessions Stepp wrote in The Post in 2004. “They tell each other that sex is separate from love. And few adults tell them any different.” She was blunt but detached in her newspaper articles, telling fly-on-the-wall stories about provocative topics that didn’t normally surface on the front page of a family newspaper. But that detachment all but disappeared when she expanded on her reporting in “Unhooked.” Now she was worried. “I hope to encourage girls to think hard about whether they’re ‘getting it right,’ whether their ******* and romantic experiences are contributing to — or destroying — their sense of self-worth and strength,” she wrote in the book’s introduction. “Their studied effort to remain uncommitted convinces me only of how strongly they want to be attached.” She ended the book with “A Letter to Mothers and Daughters.” “If you are a woman who came of age during the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, I suspect you believe, as I do, that we have a responsibility to reach out and help other women improve their lives,” she wrote. “This means especially the next generation: our daughters all, moving through adolescence into young adulthood.” Those admonitions didn’t sit well with some critics, who accused her of being a prudish alarmist. “It is the time-honored duty of the adolescent to alarm adults (parents, in particular),” Meghan O’Rourke wrote in Slate, “by having wild and often idiotic fun — e.g., streaking naked across campus, playing drinking games, throwing things out windows, hooking up with an acquaintance or a friend who, in a flush of late-night hormones, suddenly looks kind of hot.” Ms. O’Rourke, noting that she attended college “in the early days of ‘hookup’ culture,” wrote that her “recollection, through the haze of years, was that the whole point of hookups was that they were pleasurable — a little embarrassing, sometimes, but mostly, well, fun.” Kathy Dobie, a journalist who reviewed the book in The Post, wrote that Ms. Sessions Stepp was “conflating what the girls refuse to conflate: love and sexuality.” “‘Unhooked’ can be downright painful to read,” Ms. Dobie wrote. “The author resurrects the ugly, old notion of sex as something a female gives in return for a male’s good behavior, and she imagines the female body as a thing that can be tarnished by too much use.” Ms. Sessions Stepp defended the book in interviews. “I didn’t want to be a scold, I grew up with scolds,” she told The Baltimore Sun. “And I am not saying, ‘Have less sex.’ I am saying, ‘Have more romance.’ Love is a word that I didn’t hear, along with passion, joy, anticipation, and just being goopily in love.” Her voice rising, she added: “I am sick and tired of having to defend what I think is a reasonable middle position. The far right wants you to wait until you are married to have sex. The far left is telling you to have as much sex as you want, the only requirement is protection. These young women are in the middle trying to figure out how to do this.” Laura Elizabeth Sessions was born on July 27, 1951, in Fort Smith, Ark. Her father, Robert Sessions, was a Methodist minister who preached in support of school desegregation, an unpopular position that resulted in a cross being burned in the family’s front yard. Her mother, Martha Rae (Rutledge) Sessions, was a psychologist. In high school, she dated a lot. Boys picked her up on her doorstep, she recalled in an interview with The New York Times after “Unhooked” was published. Some gave her friendship rings, which her father insisted she return. She studied ******* and English at Earlham College, in Richmond, Ind., graduating in 1973. The following year, she earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Her first job was in television news, as a weather reporter. After working at newspapers in Florida and Pennsylvania, she joined The Charlotte Observer in 1979 as an editor overseeing newsroom projects. She led a team of reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1981 for a series of articles about brown lung disease among textile workers. In 1982, Ms. Sessions Stepp joined The Post as an editor, turning to writing four years later. She took a buyout from the newspaper in 2008. In addition to “Unhooked,” she wrote “Our Last Best Shot: Guiding Our Children Through Early Adolescence” (2000), a well-received book that explored the struggles adolescents face with social belonging, identity, learning and independence. “Our Last Best Shot,” published in 2000, explored the struggles adolescents face with belonging, identity, learning and independence.Credit…Riverhead Her marriage to Robert King ended in divorce. She married Carl Stepp, a journalist and longtime journalism professor at the University of Maryland, in 1981, and they shared each other’s surnames. In addition to Mr. Stepp, she is survived by their son, Jeff Stepp; two stepdaughters, Ashli Stepp Calvert and Amber Stepp; three grandchildren; her stepmother, Julia Sessions; and her sisters, Teresa Kramer, Kathy Sessions and Sarah Lundal. Unlike many reporters in Washington, Ms. Sessions Stepp never wanted to cover politicians or other well-known people. “Chronicling the lives of the rich or famous is a sexy beat,” she wrote in Nieman Reports magazine in 2000. “It wins reporters spots on the front page, not to mention dinner party invitations. But it’s not nearly as personally rewarding, in my view, as writing about ordinary people.” Source link #Laura #Sessions #Stepp #Reported #Teenage #Sex #Dies Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Inside the Sean ’Diddy’ Combs Hotline: The Makings of a Mass Tort Inside the Sean ’Diddy’ Combs Hotline: The Makings of a Mass Tort In a room full of cubicles, workers in headsets read from their computer screens, addressing callers who dialed a 1-800 number. They have a script. “Were you or your loved one ********* abused by Sean ‘Love’ Combs, known as Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy?” “If the abuse occurred at a party, please list the name of the party. What kind of party was it?” Their employer, Reciprocity Industries, is a legal services company located in a low-slung building in Billings, Mont., more than 2,000 miles from the Brooklyn jail where Mr. Combs awaits trial on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges. For years, the company has helped seed litigation by fielding complaints from people hurt by natural disasters, weedkillers or abusive clergy. Now it’s the central collection point for ******* assault allegations against Mr. Combs. Some complaints come in through the phone, others arrive online in response to ads promoted on Facebook and Instagram. (A news conference where a backdrop displayed the hotline in large red numbers made headlines last October.) By the company’s count, it has received some 26,000 contacts. It has deemed hundreds of complaints worthy of review. Already, the lead lawyer handling these cases, Tony Buzbee, a high-profile litigator from Houston, has filed nearly 40 lawsuits against Mr. Combs. He says more are coming. In their court filings, Mr. Combs’ accusers describe harrowing abuse. Fifteen plaintiffs say he ****** them. Three say they were minors at the time. The accounts are often similar: a drink at a party, unusual wooziness and a ******* assault. All were initially filed anonymously. “Plaintiff has experienced a significant impact on her personal life,” lawyers said in a suit that accused Mr. Combs of assaulting a woman at a hotel in 2014. The cases against Mr. Combs, who denies assaulting anyone, amount to what’s called a mass tort, in which many people, often drawn by advertising, file claims against a common defendant. This growing area of the law has long been divisive. Lawyers for plaintiffs say the cases foster justice for those who have suffered at the hands of powerful people or institutions, such as former Boy Scouts who were ********* abused. But critics say mass torts, and the advertising often aligned with them, can draw frivolous claims that are haphazardly vetted, and that the sheer volume of cases can overwhelm both the court system and defense teams. It will be months, perhaps years, before settlements, dismissals or verdicts resolve whether Mr. Combs was a serial predator. But his lawyers are already challenging the ways in which many of the cases have been collected. “We have seen a very high volume of very, very dubious cases,” Mark Cuccaro, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, told a judge at a hearing in January. Mr. Combs denies ********* assaulting anyone and has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. His lawyers say the deluge of suits is not evidence of guilt, only proof that some people will seek to feed off financial settlements from a wealthy celebrity. One case was withdrawn last month after the plaintiff, who said she had been ****** by Mr. Combs and the rapper Jay-Z when she was 13, acknowledged having made mistakes in her account in an interview with NBC News. Her allegations have precipitated a contentious legal battle involving private investigators and courts in multiple states. In another Combs case, aspects of an anonymous man’s lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of ***** — including the year — were amended after inconsistencies emerged in his interview with CNN. Mr. Buzbee said those issues should not affect the other cases. “I’ve always said that each case lives or dies on its own merit,” he said in an interview. The increase in mass torts related to ******* abuse has been driven in part by laws established in the #MeToo era that extended new opportunities for plaintiffs who did not bring claims during the typical statute of limitations. Reciprocity Industries, however, did not enter the Combs case because it was approached by people who said they had been abused, according to Andrew Van Arsdale, the lawyer in charge of the company. It entered, he said, after he noted that an explosive lawsuit had been filed by a former girlfriend of Mr. Combs and that the music mogul had settled it the next day. “Predators don’t just do it to one person,” Mr. Van Arsdale said in an interview, “they do it to many, many people.” Within days, he said, his firm had taken out its first social media ad asking people about their interactions with Mr. Combs. The Rise of Mass Torts The legal landscape changed dramatically in 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition against lawyer advertising violated the First Amendment. Soon lawyers’ faces and testimonials were popping up in newspapers and on television. Rules developed by courts and bar associations restrict lawyers, generally, from calling people injured in, say, a car ****** to ask if they can represent them. But advertising a lawyer’s services in a public forum and, in some cases, tailoring the messaging to a particular group of potential plaintiffs is allowed. Rules prohibit false or misleading ads. Disciplinary action for infractions is uncommon, experts say, but court disciplinary bodies do review ads in response to complaints. Advocates for mass-tort reform, often lawyers who represent companies facing litigation, have sought more regulations on the content of ads and the role of third-party investors who help finance some claims with huge numbers of plaintiffs. Spending on mass-tort television advertising has averaged about $190 million per year over the past decade, according to X Ante, a data analysis company. But social media has become the new frontier. “It’s so much easier and faster to reach that many more people,” said Karen Barth Menzies, a lawyer who has been working on mass-tort cases since the 1990s. Unlike class-action lawsuits, in which a small number of plaintiffs represent a larger group of people, often with largely identical complaints, mass torts are filed as many individual lawsuits that typically feature similar, but factually distinct claims against the same defendant. Reciprocity, which Mr. Van Arsdale operates with a friend from high school, a software engineer, does not actually file mass-tort lawsuits. It assists them by collecting and assessing complaints and turning them over to client law firms or to his own law firm, which is a separate company, to litigate. Mr. Van Arsdale has been in the legal advertising business since 2006, viewing his whole career as devoted to getting people access to the justice system. He decided to become a lawyer and passed the bar in 2018. Shortly after, he was asked to join his first ******* abuse case, the mass tort in which the Boy Scouts organization was accused of failing to protect children. Mr. Van Arsdale and his colleagues took out television spots in search of potential plaintiffs. “It took three weeks of ads to even get the first case,” he said. As the calls and cases rolled in, Mr. Van Arsdale hired more staff. Today, Reciprocity employs roughly 70 employees to answer the phones 24/7 and more than 30 others to further develop potential cases. In the Combs case, three potential clients signed up after the first advertisement. “It wasn’t as big as we thought it was going to be,” he said. Then Mr. Combs was indicted, and Mr. Van Arsdale’s law firm took out another round of social media ads. “The world is watching P. Diddy’s case unfold,” one read, alongside an A.I.-generated image of Mr. Combs in jail. “If you’ve been silenced, now is the time to find your voice.” The contacts began to flow in much more quickly. About a week later, Mr. Van Arsdale said, Mr. Buzbee reached out. Years earlier, he said, Reciprocity had helped Mr. Buzbee with advertising on another mass-tort case. A hard-charging lawyer, Mr. Buzbee built his career filing lawsuits on behalf of oil and gas workers and won some eye-popping verdicts. More recently, he secured settlements for more than two dozen women who accused the football player Deshaun Watson of ******* misconduct in massage appointments. “We started talking about Diddy,” Mr. Van Arsdale recalled of their conversation in September. “I said, ‘Well, we’ve got some cases — I think this is real.’ He said, ‘Well, let’s go, I’d love to work on those.’” His Profile Is Big, Like Texas It takes three elevators to reach Mr. Buzbee’s ********** office on the 75th floor of the tallest building in Texas. Inside, sharks are the decorative motif: a silver sculpture of one, shark-shaped doorknobs and a shark tattoo on Mr. Buzbee’s right forearm. In Houston, where he ran for mayor in 2019, Mr. Buzbee is a well-known figure, largely because of his work, but also because of his penchant for spectacle. A former Marine captain, Mr. Buzbee caused a stir in 2017 by parking a World War II-era tank outside his home in the city. On his ranch in northeast Texas, he keeps hundreds of animals, including zebras and camels that draw the attention of passing drivers. His clients have included former Gov. Rick Perry, who later served as the best man when he married several years ago. When disaster strikes, Mr. Buzbee often enters the legal fray. He filed suits after Hurricane Harvey, after a deadly crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival and after the fatal implosion of the Titan submersible, in which he represents the family of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a maritime expert who died in the disaster. “I get a lot of calls from people that have worked their cases up to a point where they need somebody to come try them, like they can’t do that part of it,” he said. “And that’s the part I do the best.” Colleagues describe Mr. Buzbee as an unrelenting litigator who, as a businessman, can choose to accept only cases he believes in. “Tony gets to say ‘no’ anytime he wants,” said Chad Pinkerton, who once worked at Mr. Buzbee’s firm. Six days after Mr. Buzbee and Mr. Van Arsdale agreed to work together on the Combs cases, they held a news conference at which Mr. Buzbee announced they had 120 clients who intended to sue the music mogul, speaking in front of the sign featuring Reciprocity’s 1-800 number. “The biggest secret in the entertainment industry that really wasn’t a secret at all has finally been revealed to the world,” Mr. Buzbee told those gathered. Within 24 hours, the hotline received roughly 12,000 calls. “It broke our systems,” Mr. Van Arsdale said. Lawyers for Mr. Combs have called the news conference a “publicity stunt” and Mr. Buzbee a “1-800 attorney.” “Sean Combs has never ********* assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor,” they said in a statement. “No number of lawsuits, sensationalized allegations, or media theatrics will change that reality.” In Montana, at the Call Center Complaints about Sean Combs to Reciprocity Industries often start with calls to the room filled with cubicles, known as “the floor.” From there, they progress through a system that Mr. Van Arsdale said ferrets out false claims. “You’re going to have scam artists out there, right?” he said in an interview. “You’re going to have crank callers and that’s just part of it, right? But you need to have the proper processes and procedures in place to try to stomp them out.” A questionnaire from a call is reviewed by a second employee, who decides whether to pass it on to “litigation support.” There, staffers gather more information and test whether an account is consistent, Mr. Van Arsdale said. People who respond to social media ads online are called by agents who walk them through the questionnaire. Some contacts have come in through an Arizona law firm that is behind a website urging users to “see if you qualify” to join the Combs litigation. The firm is paid a referral fee for successful claims, Mr. Van Arsdale said. Claims that survive the weed-out process are sent to Mr. Van Arsdale’s law firm, which is about a 15-minute drive away. There, lawyers seek further corroboration, including witness testimony and police or medical records, he said. All of the more than 26,000 contacts related to the Combs cases are organized in a database. More than 600 came to be viewed as potential cases, Mr. Van Arsdale said. Others, he said, were often found to be from pranksters, or people who viewed themselves as witnesses or who had called to complain about something else. Some 200 files were sent on to Mr. Buzbee’s firm, where Mr. Buzbee said he has lawyers and former police personnel who continue to vet the claims. As is typical in mass-tort cases, the lawyers handling the Combs lawsuits would collect a portion of any money awarded in a verdict or settlement, typically 40 percent, Mr. Van Arsdale said. Reciprocity charges fees to the law firms that hire it, and uses that income to support its outreach. In the Boy Scouts case, Mr. Van Arsdale and co-counsels represent roughly 11,000 plaintiffs with accounts of ******* abuse. Several years ago, one of the institution’s insurance carriers, Century Indemnity Company, described Reciprocity in court papers as a “claims aggregator” and questioned its scrutiny of claims, its use of financial incentives and the accuracy of the ads it was using. As evidence, it submitted an affidavit by a former Reciprocity employee who said she had been paid weekly bonuses based on how many claimants she signed up — to start, $200 if she signed up 20. Experts say the payment of such incentives is an ethical gray area, though they were not aware of any specific prohibition. Mr. Van Arsdale said other call centers use incentives but that he got rid of them at his company because they had become a “distraction.” “The same kind of rigorous vetting process that we have and exists today existed then,” he said. An Accuser Becomes a Defendant The woman who accused Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, and Mr. Combs of raping her when she was 13 first gave her account to Reciprocity last fall after responding to a Facebook ad, according to Mr. Van Arsdale. In her subsequent lawsuit, she described being driven to a party after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where she was given a drink, felt woozy and ended up in a bedroom. She said Mr. Combs and “Celebrity A,” later identified in court papers as Mr. Carter, took turns assaulting her there. But some details of her account later unraveled. After escaping the house, the suit says, the teenager ran to a gas station, where she called her father to pick her up. Her father, though, who lived in Rochester, N.Y., a five-hour drive from Manhattan, told NBC News he did not recall such a trip. In the NBC interview, the woman had identified a musician she said she had spoken to at the party. But the musician had actually been on tour that night in the Midwest. At a news conference, Mr. Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the suit made “a mockery” of the justice system. Mr. Carter accused Mr. Buzbee of trying to blackmail him. He said that weeks earlier, when the court filing had only identified him as “Celebrity A,” the lawyer sent him a letter suggesting they resolve the matter through “confidential mediation.” Mr. Buzbee said such mediation efforts are standard practice and insisted the complaint had been vetted properly by his lawyers and a retired police detective. He called it “outrageous” to expect someone victimized as a minor to have “perfect recall” more than two decades later. In February, Mr. Buzbee withdrew the woman’s suit, but the court battle has only grown more bitter. Last week, Mr. Carter sued the woman and two of her lawyers, Mr. Buzbee and David Fortney. In court papers submitted by Mr. Carter, a private investigator said she had visited the woman on her front porch in Alabama, where she said the woman admitted her ***** claim against Mr. Carter was false. As for the vetting, court papers filed by Mr. Carter’s lawyers say a public record search would have shown that the woman had a “legally-documented history of mental health issues.” Mr. Buzbee has disputed that his client recanted, and in a recent affidavit, the woman said she stood by her account. She said one reason she had decided to dismiss the lawsuit was because she was “frightened by the reaction of Jay-Z and his supporters” and was concerned she would eventually have to be named. In an email, Mr. Buzbee declined to comment on his client’s mental state, saying it had “nothing to do with her ability to state truth.” Mr. Carter’s complaint has been embraced by Mr. Combs, whose lawyers said the suit was “just the first of many that will not hold up in a court of law.” But the more than 50 lawsuits accusing Mr. Combs of ******* abuse extend beyond those vetted and filed by Mr. Buzbee. More than a dozen other lawyers represent clients who say they were victimized by Mr. Combs, and most of those plaintiffs have sued under their own names. “It validates their own story to hear that they weren’t the only ones,” said Michelle Caiola, a lawyer representing two of those plaintiffs. Last month, Mr. Buzbee filed seven more lawsuits from anonymous plaintiffs who accused Mr. Combs of ******* abuse or violence. One man said he was ****** in a hotel room when he was 14 years old. Mr. Van Arsdale said the ads surrounding the Combs case, having run their course, have been pulled, but the hotline still gets calls. More recently, the law firm had an ad campaign addressed toward people who feel they were harmed by three brothers who have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges in New York. “If you or a loved one at any time experienced inappropriate behavior by Oren, Tal or Alon Alexander,” one Instagram ad read, “you may be entitled to significant compensation.” Joe Coscarelli and Ben Sisario contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research. Source link #Sean #Diddy #Combs #Hotline #Makings #Mass #Tort Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

US Secret Service shoots ‘armed’ man near White House US Secret Service shoots ‘armed’ man near White House The US Secret Service has shot an armed man outside the White House after a confrontation, and the man is now in an area hospital, it says. US President Donald Trump was not in the residence at the time, as he is spending the weekend at his Florida residence. Secret Service officials received a tip on Saturday from local authorities that a suicidal person may be travelling to Washington DC from Indiana and the person’s car was found a block from the White House, it said in a statement. The man brandished a firearm as officers approached him and shots were fired shortly after midnight local time. He was taken to an area hospital and his condition was not known. Source link #Secret #Service #shoots #armed #man #White #House Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Mario Day deals include a Switch OLED that comes with Super Mario Bros. Wonder for $349 Mario Day deals include a Switch OLED that comes with Super Mario Bros. Wonder for $349 Mario Day, otherwise called Mar10 Day or just March 10, is nearly here. This is a yearly celebration to commemorate Nintendo’s iconic plumber. It’s not his birthday or anything, but rather a totally random day that sort of looks like his name when spelled a specific way. It’s just like how Star Wars Day falls on May 4. Nintendo This comes with the console, game and three months of Nintendo Switch Online. $349 at Walmart The main feature of Mar10 Day is deals, on both Nintendo consoles and Mario-themed games. Walmart is selling a Nintendo Switch OLED bundle for $349 that comes with a digital download code for the fantastic Super Mario Bros. Wonder and a three-month subscription to Nintendo Switch Online. That’s a savings of nearly $70. GameStop is also selling just about every notable Mario game for $20 off, making them $40. This even includes the recently-released Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, which is a great port of a 3DS classic. To view this content, you’ll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the “Content and social-media partners” setting to do so. Gamers can pick up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario 3D World Plus Bowser’s Fury, Super Mario Odyssey and Princess Peach: Showtime, all for $40. The remake of the very first Mario Vs. Donkey Kong is down to just $30. To view this content, you’ll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the “Content and social-media partners” setting to do so. There’s one last little goodie here for Nintendo fans. The company’s famous (or infamous) alarm clock, Alarmo, is now available for purchase from both Walmart and Target, in addition to pre-existing availability on the Nintendo online store. Source link #Mario #Day #deals #include #Switch #OLED #Super #Mario #Bros Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Netgear Orbi 870 Wi-Fi 7 mesh router review: Solid performance can’t mask high price and feature regression Netgear Orbi 870 Wi-Fi 7 mesh router review: Solid performance can’t mask high price and feature regression Why you can trust Tom’s Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. Netgear has long maintained its line of Orbi routers, dating way back to the Wi-Fi 5 days. Its most recent Orbi routers leverage the current Wi-Fi 7 standard, and we’ve already looked at the flagship Orbi 970 and the entry-level Orbi 770. Now, Netgear is completing the range with the mid-level Orbi 870, which is the subject of our review today. Unlike other cheaper mesh routers, the Orbi 870 is a complete, tri-band solution. However, there are some hardware downgrades compared to the Orbi 970 that you’ll need to keep in mind. While the Orbi 970 router offers a 10 Gbps WAN port and one 10 Gbps LAN port, the Orbi 870 router only provides a 10 Gbps WAN – the four LAN ports are limited to 2.5 Gbps. Priced at $549, $999, and $1,299 for one-, two-, and three-node systems, respectively, the Orbi 870 isn’t cheap. It does offer consistent performance but is not good enough to make our list of best Wi-Fi routers. Design of the Netgear Orbi 870 Netgear’s Orbi routers traditionally have come in white, but in recent years, the company has offered a ****** Edition. Our review unit was the ****** Edition, with a router and two satellites. The Orbi 870 ****** Edition is exclusively active on Netgear.com, while the standard white versions are available on Netgear.com and various retail partners. While some manufacturers use an identical port setup for the main router and satellite nodes, the Orbi 870 differs. The Orbi 870 router has a single 10 Gbps WAN port and four 2.5 Gbps LAN ports. On the other hand, the two Orbi 870 satellites from our review sample only have four 2.5 Gbps ports. Image 1 of 3 (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) While I have nothing against 2.5 Gbps ports, I would have liked to have seen at least one 5 Gbps LAN port on the router and the satellites. If Amazon can do it with the cheaper Eero 7 Pro, Netgear can oblige on the Orbi 870. It’s disappointing for a modern, Wi-Fi 7 mesh router with an as-tested price of $1,299 to drop the ball with only 2.5 Gbps wired connectivity. In addition to the WAN and LAN ports on the back of each node, there’s also a pin-hole reset button and a sync button. You won’t find a USB port here, as you might see on competitive offerings in the Asus ZenWiFi mesh router family. Each node is quite large, measuring 5.78 x 4.43 inches with a height of 10.64 inches. Given the size, these wireless units will stick out like a sore thumb in your home or office. If you plan on placing a unit on a bookshelf, check your shelf clearance before purchasing one. Besides the step backward on the port front compared to the Orbi 970, the Orbi 870 also has some downgrades on the wireless front. The 2.4 GHz band uses a 2×2 setup with a maximum speed of 688 Mbps compared to 4×4 and 1,147 Mbps for the Orbi 970. Likewise, the Orbi 970 has two 5 GHz wireless bands (4×4 8,647 Mbps band for a dedicated backhaul and a 4×4 5,765 Mbps band for client traffic) compared to just one for the Orbi 870. The Orbi 870 also uses a slower quad-core processor than its more expensive sibling (1.5 GHz versus 2.2 GHz) and has fewer internal antennas (8 versus 12). A single Orbi 870 router or satellite covers 3,000 square feet. As configured with a router and two satellites, our review unit covers 9,000 square feet. Netgear Orbi 870 Specifications Swipe to scroll horizontally Wi-Fi Standard Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) Wi-Fi Bands 2.4 GHz: 2×2 (Tx/Rx), up to 688 Mbps 5 GHz: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 8,647 Mbps 6 GHz: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 11,530 Mbps CPU 1.5 GHz quad-core processor Memory 2GB RAM, 4GB Flash Coverage 9,000 square feet as tested (one router, two satellites) Ports 1x 10G for WAN, 4x 2.5G for LAN (router), 4x 2.5G for LAN (satellites) Setting up the Netgear Orbi 870 The Netgear Orbi 870 supports setup via a web browser or a smartphone app (Android and iOS). I opted to go the app route for setup since I already have the Orbi app installed on my iPhone. The first step of the process was to scan the QR code on the front of the Orbi 870 router, which identified the unit’s configuration and asked me to join it wirelessly. I then breezed through the mundane tasks of naming the wireless SSID and creating a password. After tapping through the various options as quickly as possible, I made an admin login and password to use when logging in to the GUI. Once I had completed these steps, the setup program asked that I plug in the two satellites, which would take several minutes to configure. From start to finish, the network was fully up and running in less than 10 minutes. Netgear Orbi 870 Software As I’ve mentioned in previous Orbi reviews, the desktop browser interface hasn’t changed much in the many years since the first Orbi routers debuted. Netgear adheres to the adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” With that said, two primary tabs remain on the web GUI’s left-side: Basic and Advanced. As expected, Basic provides quick and easy controls over your internet connection and wireless settings. You’ll also find a list of connected clients (wired and wireless) and controls for adding a guest network or an additional Orbi satellite. Image 1 of 4 (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) The Advanced tab is available for power users wanting more network control. You can configure wireless bands for your guest and IoT networks, configure DNS settings, backup your router settings for transferring to another network, perform firmware updates, and more. While you’ll have more control over your network than what you’d find in something like Amazon’s Eero 7 family, it pales compared to the Asus ZenWiFi mesh routers running AsusWRT 5.0. For the $1,299 MSRP of the Orbi 870 (as tested), it’d be nice to have more control over custom SSIDs, and even support for smartphone tethering/internet sharing in the case of an ISP outage or Time Machine backup support. Of course, you’d need USB ports for those latter two features, which should be included at this price point. As I mentioned earlier, Netgear also has an Orbi smartphone app. You can use this instead of or in addition to the browser-based GUI. Most configuration options present via the web GUI also apply to the Orbi app. Orbi 870 routers come standard with a 30-day trial of Netgear Armor. Netgear Armor supports up to 50 connected devices and includes virus/malware protection, VPN access, data breach monitoring, and ad/tracker blocking. Interestingly, the flagship Orbi 970 comes with a year of Netgear Armor, compared to the relatively short trial ******* for the Orbi 870 and Orbi 770. If you’d like to continue the subscription after the trial ******* ends, it costs $99.99/year. Performance of the Netgear Orbi 870 As is always the case with our router testing, our client system is a Windows 11 SFF desktop with an MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 7600, 32GB of DDR5, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and an MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 PCIe adapter. The case has an integrated handle for easily toting it around for distance testing. The iPerf3 throughput and ping tests are conducted with a Windows 11 server equipped with a 10 Gbps wired network card connected to a 2.5 Gbps LAN port on the Orbi 870 router. Wireless tests are performed at 6-foot and 25-foot distances. All wireless tests are first run with the network free of added traffic from other connected clients. Tests are then performed to simulate traffic from additional users accessing the network (for our testing, we use six clients streaming 4K video from YouTube). Image 1 of 12 (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) I will say this about the Orbi 870: it was consistent in performance on the 6 GHz and 5 GHz bands at 6-foot and 25-foot distances with and without added traffic on the network. In our uncongested iPerf3 tests, the Orbi 870 hit 2,257 Mbps at 6 feet (which is the upper limit of the 2.5 Gbps port taking into consideration overhead) and 1,011 Mbps at 25 feet. With congested traffic, performance fell to 1,807 Mbps and 888 Mbps respectively. This performance put the Orbi 870 in second place behind the Asus ZenWiFi BT10 and ahead of the third-place Orbi 770. Switching to the 5 GHz band, the Orbi 870 shot to the top of the class in throughput performance with uncongested and congested traffic. The Orbi 870 managed to achieve 1,637 Mbps at 6 feet with no traffic and 1,317 Mbps with traffic. Stretched to 25 feet, the Orbi 870 managed 801 Mbps with no traffic, and 727 Mbps with traffic. Things weren’t as performant on the 2.4 GHz band, but the Orbi 870 was still competitive. The cheaper Orbi 770 was the outlier, with 158 Mbps at 6 feet and 92 Mbps at 25 feet without additional client traffic, putting it well ahead of the others. The Orbi 870 slipped into third place with 119 Mbps at 6 feet and 46 Mbps at 25 feet. With plenty of video streams coursing through the network, the Orbi 870 dropped to 64 Mbps at close range and 43 Mbps at long range. Once again, the Orbi 770 bested all competitors. Bottom Line The Netgear Orbi 870, like its Orbi 770 and Orbi 970 siblings, is a consistent wireless performer. It was among the fastest in our 6 GHz band throughput tests and the first-place competitor in 5 GHz tests. Its 2.4 GHz performance could be better, but that band will likely be relegated to lower-priority smart home/IoT devices that don’t need a lot of bandwidth. In other words, the Orbi 870 delivers good wireless performance where it matters the most. The main issue with the Orbi 870 and the Orbi family in general is regarding bang for your buck. With an as-tested price of $1,299 for a three-node system, the Orbi 870 is a hard sell, even given its performance chops. Although it features a 10 Gbps WAN port, you won’t find 10 Gbps or even 5 Gbps LAN ports on the router or satellites. In addition, there are no USB ports for hooking up an external hard drive or thumb drive. If you want the whole software/protection suite Netgear offers, Netgear Armor costs $99/year while Netgear Armor Plus costs $149/year. You’ll need to factor that added cost into your budget once the 30-day free trial expires. Asus’ ZenWiFi BT10 offers similar performance at the same $1,299 price. You’ll also get a 10 Gbps WAN port, a 10 Gbps LAN port, USB ports, and the highly configurable and superior functionality of the AsusWRT 5.0 software stack. The ZenWiFi BT8 is cheaper still, coming in at $729 for a three-node system. The TP-Link Deco BE65 Pro is also worth considering, as it can easily be purchased for less than $500. Source link #Netgear #Orbi #WiFi #mesh #router #review #Solid #performance #mask #high #price #feature #regression Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Julia Fox and Others Try Nearly Nude Looks at Oscars and Vanity Fair Julia Fox and Others Try Nearly Nude Looks at Oscars and Vanity Fair About a month after Bianca Censori caused a commotion for posing on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards in a completely sheer minidress, another woman with ties to Ye arrived in a similarly nearly naked look to Vanity Fair’s Oscars after-party on Sunday. This time, it was Julia Fox, who previously dated the rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West. Ms. Fox’s sheer garment of choice, by the Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu, was a maxi dress that involved some ruching to give it a bit more shape. Strands of Ms. Fox’s wavy hair extensions were strategically placed underneath the dress, covering the necessary areas. It was a look that drew a great deal of attention and one that invited numerous comparisons to Ms. Censori, whose outfit reveal at the Grammys was bold enough that some falsely said it had led to her and Ye, her husband, being asked to leave. On Sunday night, Ms. Fox was not the only one at the Vanity Fair party in a provocative look. Historically, Vanity Fair’s annual event has allowed celebrities the freedom to be a little more risqué and experimental in their fashion choices after the comparatively conservative red carpet at the Oscars. In 2023, Emily Ratajkowski wore a long-sleeved, see-through chain mail gown by Feben. Hunter Schafer’s Ann Demeulemeester look from 2023 consisted of a single leather feather for a bandeau top and a silky slip skirt. In 2024, Vanessa Hudgens revealed her baby bump in a sheer ****** Alberta Ferretti dress with a cape. This year, though, naked dressing seemed to particularly thrive at the event. Zoë Kravitz wore a satin long-sleeved gown by Saint Laurent that exposed her bottom through a bead-embellished mesh cutout on the back of the dress. Olivia Wilde also opted for a barely-there get-up, wearing a frilled peignoir-style dress from Chloé that she styled with a pair of matching briefs and a clutch bag. Kendall Jenner and Ms. Ratajkowski both arrived in ****** lacy dresses: Ms. Jenner in vintage Mugler and Ms. Ratajkowski in Ludovic de Saint Sernin. And Megan Thee Stallion wore a moss-green ensemble with a long skirt and feathers around the bodice but no top, requiring her to wear matching green pasties. A few men also participated in the trend, at least to some extent. The actress Elizabeth Hurley showed up to the Vanity Fair party in a sheer, crystal-studded number with her son Damian Hurley, who revealed his bare chest underneath a silvery suit. The actor Jeremy Pope wore a ****** jumpsuit that exposed a large portion of his upper body, and the actor Michael Urie wore a skin-baring suit. The trend was present at the Oscars main event as well. Doja Cat swapped her strapless leopard-print Balmain dress for a nude slip covered in more than a million cascading Swarovski crystals for her performance of “Diamonds Are Forever” during a tribute to the music of the James Bond film franchise. In Doja Cat’s case, nearly nude dressing is a consistent theme. At last year’s Met Gala, she wore a wet, white T-shirt gown. And at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2023, she opted for a Monse dress made of cobweb-like fabric that bared her nipples and thong, perhaps her most naked look thus far. Source link #Julia #Fox #Nude #Oscars #Vanity #Fair Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Democrat’s No-Nonsense Hand Gesture At Conservative CNN Pundit Has People Fired Up. Here’s Why. Democrat’s No-Nonsense Hand Gesture At Conservative CNN Pundit Has People Fired Up. Here’s Why. Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.) found quite the effective way to prevent conservative commentator Scott Jennings from interrupting her during a joint appearance on CNN on Thursday — and the moment is resonating with many people. During one point in a segment of “NewsNight with Abby Phillip,” Strickland discussed President Donald Trump, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk and the mass layoffs and dismantling of federal agencies that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has directed since Trump took office in January. “All these random cuts they’re making, all these departments that they don’t even hardly know very well, are hurting the American people,” Strickland said. “How is putting veterans out of work lowering the cost of living?” Jennings then tried to interject, but the congresswoman wasn’t having it. She quickly held up her index finger in a gesture to silence Jennings — and it worked. The conservative pundit stopped talking and Strickland continued on with her remarks without missing a beat. (Catch the moment at the 2:20 mark in the video below.) It was a brief moment, but its significance was loud and clear for many on X, formerly Twitter, who celebrated the gesture. “With one motion, she says ‘oh I’m not done,’” one X user wrote. “That finger, displayed for a millisecond, had Jennings shook,” wrote another. Others reveled in the fact that Jennings — a staunch defender of Trump who is known to engage in contentious debates on CNN — appeared “dumbfounded” and said it was empowering to watch a woman silence him the way she did. Kari J. Winter, professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo, told HuffPost that she believes people are celebrating this moment between Strickland and Jennings because “we’re living in a moment where aggression from MAGA folks is so extreme and constant … and a lot of times Democrats look like deer caught in the ***********.” Winter ― whose expertise includes gender, feminism, race, class, slavery, politics of food and literature ― said that Democrats are often “not responding forcefully” and that Strickland delivered a “perfect gesture” toward Jennings in that moment. “There was so much strength behind it,” she said, adding that Strickland used her finger to “maintain the floor when a man — and a very aggressive man — was trying to take the floor away from her.” “She needed to finish making the point that she was making,” Winter continued. “I think that was a beautiful, powerful moment, and I would like to see that emulated much more in the country right now.” People against the MAGA movement appreciate seeing folks firmly stand up to right-wingers. “We really need to see more of it,” Winter said about gestures like Strickland’s on CNN. “I really hope that people will realize that the time for courage and strength is now. And too many people are allowing themselves to be intimidated and silenced.” She then said that— as was the case with Strickland, who is ****** and Korean American — “so often it is ****** women and women of color who are taking the lead in exemplifying strength and courage.” Winter emphasized that Strickland’s gesture wasn’t “aggressive,” and that it was an example of a woman being “assertive” and asserting her right to occupy her own space, and to use her voice. Karen Beckwith, a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, said that Strickland — a former mayor and city councilmember — is an experienced elected official who knows how to “hold her own in the face of continued interruption and contentious discussion.” Beckwith, whose expertise includes gender, politics and political movements, told HuffPost that the exchange on CNN reminded her of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 vice presidential debate with former Vice President Mike Pence, in which Harris was “continually interrupted by him.” She recalled the moment Harris told Pence: “If you don’t mind letting me finish, we can then have a conversation, OK?” Beckwith said that Harris speaking directly to Pence in a civil tone was an effective technique to “hold the floor.” The moment highlighted the frequency in which “men interrupt and try to silence women, setting the issue of uncivil interruption firmly on the political agenda,” she added. Women deserve the right to stand firm — and the space to speak their minds. While political panels on cable news networks are known to get testy, with people often interrupting each other, Winter pointed out research has shown that women are more likely to be interrupted than men. “There has been research going back at least ’til the 1990s that show that men interrupt women a lot more than women interrupt men,” she said. “So there’s that very strong gender dynamic right now.” Jackie Vernon-Thompson, founder and CEO of the From the Inside-Out School of Etiquette, explained to HuffPost that she would generally recommend anyone — regardless of gender — to respond to interruptions “subtly and gracefully.” But, she added, that there are “times a woman must stand firmly and gesture to someone that such behavior towards her is not acceptable.” Vernon-Thompson said that Strickland’s gesture to Jennings as he tried to interrupt her conveyed, “Not today, sir!” “It tickled me a bit,” she said. Winter said that women being intentional about taking up space in political debates and conversations, like Strickland did on CNN on Thursday, is “an inspiring and powerful thing that we need to do.” She emphasized that Strickland is an “eloquent” elected official who “has a lot of substantial things to say.” “She’s an elected representative,” Winter said, “she deserves the space to say her piece.” Related… Source link #Democrats #NoNonsense #Hand #Gesture #Conservative #CNN #Pundit #People #Fired #Heres Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Merle Oberon, a Hollywood Star With a Career-Ending Secret Merle Oberon, a Hollywood Star With a Career-Ending Secret The Academy Awards always bring with them a series of firsts. First ****** man to win for best costume design (Paul Tazewell). First openly trans person to be nominated for an Oscar (Karla Sofía Gascón). First Latvian film to win an Oscar (“Flow”). But one first that’s often overlooked is Merle Oberon’s. In 1936, Merle became the first Asian actress to be nominated for an Oscar for her role in “The Dark Angel.” There was, however, no barrage of splashy news headlines to follow. This was because Merle wasn’t widely known to be a person of color: Years before, as she was beginning her career, she decided to pass as white, hiding her South Asian identity to make it in an industry that was resistant to anything else. “The inspiring thing about Merle is that she succeeded in a system that was stacked against her at every turn,” said Padma Lakshmi, the host of the Hulu documentary series “Taste the Nation.” “That subterfuge that she engaged in regarding her identity was a necessary tactic that she needed to employ.” In February, when Mindy Kaling received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, many news publications reported that she was the first South Asian woman to be given the honor — but 65 years prior, Merle was awarded a star. In 2023, ahead of Michelle Yeoh becoming the Academy’s first Asian best actress winner, some articles incorrectly stated that she was also the first person of Asian descent to be nominated. Now the subject of the new biography “Love, Queenie,” by Mayukh Sen, and on the heels of the 97th Academy Awards, Merle and her legacy are still relevant: Almost 90 years ago, she secretly paved a path in Hollywood that has remained largely invisible to the public. What can her story tell us about representation and the film industry today? Dark Beginnings Originally named Estelle Merle Thompson, Merle was born under dark circumstances in Bombay, India. Her mother, Constance Selby, was only 14 when she gave birth to Merle in 1911. Constance had been ****** by her stepfather, so Charlotte Selby, Constance’s mother, raised Merle as her own. Merle grew up believing that Charlotte (her grandmother) was her mother and that Constance (her mother) was her sister. Life in India was less than pleasant. Charlotte and Merle moved to what was then known as Calcutta, modern-day Kolkata, and were living in poverty. Because her birth father was white, Merle was considered Anglo Indian, an identity that subjected her to daily prejudice in school. The year Merle was born, the census recorded around 100,000 Anglo Indians out of a population of over 315 million. “Theirs was a community that the ruling class preferred not to acknowledge: Anglo-Indians were breathing evidence of Britain’s imperial malfeasance,” Mr. Sen writes in his book. But she found hope in at least one place: the movies. Growing up, she watched films at the theaters and developed aspirations of one day being in them herself. So, in 1929, when an opportunity to move to England and build a new life presented itself, Merle leaped. She pretended to be the wife of an English jockey she was romantically involved with in Calcutta; he paid for her to come to England, and Charlotte, who was darker-skinned, pretended to be Merle’s servant. This gut-wrenching ruse was the gateway to a new life. In London, Merle came to know Alexander Korda, a studio executive who helped invent her back story: She was the daughter of two European parents, and her birthplace had been the just-exotic-enough island of Tasmania. As Merle acted in films, including “Men of Tomorrow” and “Wedding Rehearsal,” her profile rose, and the British press grew smitten with the rising star. In 1934, with Hollywood ambitions, Merle arrived in the United States to star in “Folies Bergère de Paris,” her first American film. Though she wasn’t starting from scratch, she faced a new set of prejudices and challenges. Speculations about her race abounded — Mr. Sen notes in his book that a 1935 article in The Washington Post referred to Merle’s “parentage” as “one-half Indian (Hindu, not Dakota).” The rumors had the potential to tear down her career and her existence in the country altogether. “In the decades leading up to Oberon’s arrival in Hollywood, the United States had passed a series of increasingly strict anti-Asian immigration laws,” said Vivek Bald, a documentary filmmaker and the author of “Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America.” The Immigration Act of 1917 created an “Asiatic Barred Zone,” banning the entry of people from most Asian countries. Around the same time, immigrants from many European countries were coming to the United States in large numbers. “That ******* — the late 19th and early 20th century — is now celebrated as a kind of golden age of immigration,” Mr. Bald said. “But for Asians, it was an age of immigrant exclusion.” Merle’s cover story was more than just a personal branding ploy. It was also her passport. Hollywood was exclusionary in its own ways, too. It had begun enforcing the Hays Code, which restricted or banned the portrayal of interracial romance, nudity and other subjects viewed as obscene in movies. This climate made it difficult, often impossible, for many performers of color to be cast, and Merle had to “move very cautiously in those early days,” Mr. Sen said. Merle was just one of several actresses — Carol Channing, Raquel Welch, among others — for whom success also meant not being able to publicly embrace their heritage or hiding it altogether. A ‘Quiet Milestone’ Soon after moving to America, Merle came to know Samuel Goldwyn, a film producer who had plans to remake “The Dark Angel,” a silent film from 1925. He would, also, remake Merle in the process. Merle won the lead role as Kitty, one corner of a love triangle in the saga set in World War I-era England. Goldwyn made “a concerted effort to align her with whiteness,” Mr. Sen said. Crew members forced Merle to undergo skin-bleaching treatments in order to appear lighter on camera. The film came out in 1935, and the reviews were glowing. The following year, Merle was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. This, however, would be a “quiet milestone,” Mr. Sen said. Merle couldn’t tear down the facade she had built then, or even decades later, as immigration restrictions eased up. Merle didn’t win. The award instead went to Bette Davis for her portrayal of a blonde actress in “Dangerous.” In the following years, Merle’s career declined. “This coincided with the popularity of color technology in American cinema,” Mr. Sen said. Because of how her skin appeared onscreen, he continued, “Merle, in fact, lost out on certain roles after she underwent color tests.” In 1979, at age 68, Merle died of a stroke. Even after her death, her appearance — which many viewed as unconventionally attractive — remained a topic of conversation. Merle was stunning, but she did not look like Katharine Hepburn. “A diminutive 5 feet 2 inches tall, Miss Oberon was of an almost exotic beauty, with perfect skin, dark hair and a slight ****** to her eyes that was further accentuated by makeup,” reads her obituary in The Times. Her South Asian heritage wasn’t publicly confirmed until 1983, with the publication of Charles Higham and Roy Moseley’s biography “Princess Merle.” An Uphill Battle As Merle was building her acting career during the 1930s, “the United States went through a kind of ‘India craze,’” Mr. Bald said. Even though immigration from India was heavily restricted, Americans became more interested in yoga, Eastern religions and Indian-inspired interior décor, such as wood carvings and tiger skins. “India and Indians were simultaneously vilified and desired,” Mr. Bald said. As such, Hollywood films of that era that depicted Indian people or their culture were filled with stereotypes, or they glorified British rule. Today the film industry is more accepting of South Asian people. “We have a rapidly growing number of South Asian American writers, directors, producers and actors working both in Hollywood and at a grass roots level, who are challenging previous narratives and creating complex, multifaceted South Asian stories,” Mr. Bald said. Consider, for example, Simone Ashley, the star of “Bridgerton”; Poorna Jagannathan, the actress in “Never Have I Ever”; and Mira Nair, the filmmaker behind “The Namesake” and “Mississippi Masala.” But still, it remains an uphill battle. Many roles for South Asian actors are limited to those that are one-dimensional or solely about their race. And in many ways, the tropes present in Merle’s time still persist. They “may have shifted and taken on new forms, but mainstream films and television have recycled them,” Mr. Bald said, citing the depiction of the terrorist or the model ********* figure in more recent years. What stands out looking back at Merle’s oeuvre is that she was a woman of South Asian descent who starred in roles that did not center her identity. “Here was a South Asian woman playing Anne Boleyn and Cathy from ‘Wuthering Heights,’ two roles that are canonically white,” Mr. Sen said. “You can draw a direct line between Merle’s strides and those of South Asian performers like Dev Patel playing David Copperfield.” He added: “Her career is a statement of refusal against this notion that your racial background should determine and limit the roles that were available to you.” This story is part of a series on how Asian Americans are shaping American popular culture. The series is funded through a grant from The Asian American Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection and focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of this series. Source link #Merle #Oberon #Hollywood #Star #CareerEnding #Secret Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone – The New York Times Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone – The New York Times Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone The New York TimesActor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa died of natural causes one week apart BBC.comGene Hackman’s cause of death was heart disease, wife died of hantavirus days earlier, officials say CBS NewsInvestigators shared key update on the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife. Here’s what we learned CNN Source link #Gene #Hackman #Lost #Wife #Caregiver #Spent #Days #York #Times Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

No, printing your Social Security record won’t protect you — but doing this will No, printing your Social Security record won’t protect you — but doing this will The government has access to the back door of your financial accounts, so protecting your Social Security account won’t do much. – Getty Images/iStockphoto I have a work record that goes back to 1989, when my mom helped me file my first tax return and listed my occupation at age 17 as “waitress.” The money I made that summer after I graduated high school — also when I learned all of the high-level executive-function skills that turned me into a reporter eventually — is still listed on my Social Security statement, the original of which is probably sitting in a box in my closet. It’s a lovely souvenir of all the grease stains, burned fingertips and mild ******* harassment I suffered, but it means literally nothing for my future ability to collect Social Security when I am of age. In my ensuing 141 quarters of work, I have made far more, and Social Security only counts the highest earnings when it calculates my benefit when I claim it. I’m still nine years away from my minimum age to apply, and 17 years away from the maximum age of 70. I haven’t earned all that would count toward the algorithm that controls how much of a monthly check I get. (At least, I hope my earnings continue to increase.) This is why I don’t understand the advice going around for people who are concerned about the sanctity of their government-held information to print their Social Security record as proof of their earnings history. Yes, it’s a good idea to check your statement — that’s why the government used to mail them to every taxpayer every five years. If you see a mistake, you certainly should call the number listed, especially if it’s a high-earning year that will count toward your benefit. It’s also good to be aware of your projected Social Security monthly check amount so you can do long-term financial planning. But otherwise, there’s nothing that a hard copy is going to do for you. None of the information on there is sensitive. It’s all a duplication of your tax records, which you probably are more likely to have a paper copy of in your files — I found my 1989 tax return in my mom’s files after she died. The information never changes for prior years. The only new thing each year is your most current tax-filing information. I have a stack of the forms that the government sent me in my files, and the electronic ones I just keep on my hard drive. I downloaded my 2024 statement when I started to see all the advice about printing a hard copy, and looked back at the 2023 and 2022 ones I had saved, and they were all identical, except for one additional line. Story Continues Why do I have so many statements saved? Isn’t what’s good for the goose, good for the gander? I do this for a living — I download them to be able to eventually make points like this. I play the long game. If you are already collecting Social Security benefits, your earnings history no longer matters. What you need to be worried about is what happens if the current chaos in the government will delay or impede a check being deposited in your account, either just once or on an ongoing basis. Even missing just one check could be a disaster for most households in this country, especially the 40% that rely solely on Social Security as their only income. If this happens, you’ll need to contact Social Security — check to make sure the office closest to you hasn’t been eliminated by cuts, and attempt to make an appointment first — and wait in a longer-than-usual line. Going in person to Social Security has never been fun, but it will likely be less so if checks don’t land. What you’ll need then is the bank statement or check stub showing the last payment you received. You should also take your 1099 SSA statement from your prior year’s tax return (or your current one) to prove what you get. If you don’t have a copy of this, you need it to file your current taxes. One should have come in the mail for 2024. If not, you can download it from your Social Security account, which is a good reason to make sure you have a log-in and know how to use it. The other scary thing the government can do concerning Social Security is go into your bank account and claw back a payment it thinks you have received in error. This tends to happen most after an individual has died and they receive a scheduled payment before the system catches up. Social Security only pays out a month of benefits if you live the whole month – it doesn’t prorate up to the date of death. So if a person dies on Feb. 28, and they got a check on March 3 that they didn’t earn, the government can reach back into the account and take back the money. Freezing your credit, printing out statements, calling to complain — none of this will help. The government has ********* access to financial accounts. Just ask New York City, which had $80 million deposited for migrants recently until the federal government took it back, and now the city is suing. You have to go full-on into conspiracy theories to think of other possible outcomes of rogue actors having unfettered ********* access to every individual’s financial life in this country. The same with what congressional action may take place in terms of cutting benefits or changing eligibility ages or taxation. In the face of this, worrying about your Social Security number getting on the dark web is small potatoes — it’s no doubt already there. This is something completely different. There is one thing that could be useful: File your taxes. It’s long been advised that filing your taxes as early as possible thwarts identity thieves. It also encourages you to get your financial documents in order and assess your goals. Everything you need for your taxes serves as proof of what you earned or held in assets. Your W-2 and 1099 wage statements confirm your job and income, and the amount of taxes you paid into Social Security and Medicare for future calculations. Your brokerage and interest statements will confirm your holdings in a comprehensive way, should anything go awry with computer systems down the road. Instead of trying to keep up with your daily balance by printing statements every day, take these year-end statements as a proxy. Your mortgage-interest statements and property-tax bills will ascertain your stake in the property you own. If you want to take it a step further, take all of that information and go see an estate attorney to solidify a plan in case you are incapacitated or you die. If you won’t want the state involved in your affairs because you don’t trust it, then you need to speak for yourself. A previous version of this column misstated the way the Social Security benefit is calculated. It has been corrected. Got a question about investing, how it fits into your overall financial plan and what strategies can help you make the most out of your money? You can write to me at . Please put “Fix My Portfolio” in the subject line. You can also join the Retirement conversation in our . Source link #printing #Social #Security #record #wont #protect Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Stylish Butter Yellow Clothing and Accessories for Spring Stylish Butter Yellow Clothing and Accessories for Spring Butter yellow has been applied to a wide spread of items lately: ********* dresses, jeans, jackets, hair clips, handbags and stand mixers. It has been slathered onto the walls of restaurants and home kitchens, and has oozed onto red carpets and the stages of major pop-music tours. Like the dairy product the color is named for, butter yellow ranges in tone from golden to almost white. And it has claimed the attention — not to mention the dollars — of a growing number of people. “It will be the fashion color for the spring season,” said Jodi Kahn, the vice president of luxury fashion at Neiman Marcus. This spring, the department store went all-in on butter yellow, offering it in the form of items like Alaïa sunglasses, Vince sneakers and basketball-style shorts by Dries Van Noten. Ms. Kahn said the color’s biggest selling point was its mood-lifting property. Butter yellow “has a bit of positivity and warmth,” she said, adding that it goes well with many neutral tones — white, navy, brown — that tend to populate wardrobes. After being adopted by high-end labels like Jacquemus and Auralee, the color has gone on to infiltrate the offerings of brands across the pricing spectrum. Mass retailers like the Gap, Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch are selling butter yellow clothing, as are independent brands based in various cities, such as Rachel Comey in New York, High Sport in Los Angeles and Cecilie Telle in London. Contemporary labels like Tory Burch and Simkhai have also embraced it, and brands like Bottega Veneta and Chloé are among those that have kept the color in the luxury space. Butter yellow items on the runways at the fall 2025 fashion shows of Gucci, Marni, Versace and Jil Sander late last month suggested that interest in the sunny tone would not melt away soon. Harling Ross Anton, 33, a writer who focuses on fashion and style, has long evangelized the merits of wearing butter yellow: In 2018, she posted a photo of herself in a monochromatic pale yellow outfit on Instagram and, in the caption, described it as a “stick of butter” aesthetic. While the color has become more mainstream, it has not deterred Ms. Ross Anton’s interest in dressing like a block of Land O’Lakes. “There is a charisma to it,” she said. Cynthia Erivo wore a Jacquemus ensemble in the color to an Oscar party last Friday and, two days later, Timothée Chalamet coated himself in a butter yellow Givenchy suit at the awards ceremony itself. Others celebrities who have embraced the color include the singer Sabrina Carpenter, whose wardrobe for her Short n’ Sweet tour included several buttery lingerie-inspired looks, many of which were heavily embellished with rhinestones. Compared with other yellows like mustard or neon, butter yellow has wider appeal, said Tina Burgos, 52, the owner of Covet + Lou, a boutique in Newton, Mass. That is because the color is “more subdued and works on more skin tones,” Ms. Burgos said. The butter yellow items at her store include Mary Jane wedge shoes by Rachel Comey; cashmere sweaters by Demylee, a knitwear brand in New York; and baubles like beaded key chains. Jake & Jones, a boutique in Santa Barbara, Calif., sells a similarly eclectic assortment of butter yellow products. Baggu shoulder bags, Cawley silk trapeze dresses and quirky boxy jackets by Eleph, a Dutch label, are among them. Jennifer Steinwurtzel, 44, the owner of Jake & Jones, said she first noticed butter yellow blossoming in Scandinavian style capitals like Copenhagen, where brands were offering sunny clothing as an antidote to long, dark winters. A sign to her that butter yellow’s popularity had reached a new saturation point was when one of her employees renovated a kitchen in the color last year. As butter yellow has proliferated in fashion, it has also bubbled up in the culinary world. In February, KitchenAid named “butter” its color of the year and released a stand mixer in the shade for the occasion. In January, the restaurant Cafe Commerce opened on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with a pale yellow dining room. Cafe Commerce’s chef-owner, Harold Moore, 51, said the color he chose for the restaurant — a soft yellow called “saffron” from Fine Paints of Europe, which sells 2.5-liter cans for $175 — reflected a cozy, flattering light. He used the same color in his former restaurant Commerce, which closed in 2015, he added. “You want people to be comfortable and you want them to look good — those two things come together in that yellow tint,” Mr. Moore said. The chef Molly Baz, 36, became associated with the color after hosting YouTube cooking shows watched by millions in the butter yellow kitchen of her home in Altadena, Calif. She said she had been tagged in numerous posts on Instagram by people who had renovated their kitchens in the same color. Ms. Baz, whose home was destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires, called butter yellow “playful, cheery and inviting,” adding: “It made you want to eat.” But she characterized her interest in it as a moment in time.“We will, in all likelihood, embrace a new color story in this next chapter in which we rebuild and leave the butter kitchen as a marker of a truly glorious past,” she said. The ethics behind our shopping reporting. When Times reporters write about products, they never accept merchandise, money or favors from the brands. We do not earn a commission on purchases made from this article. Source link #Stylish #Butter #Yellow #Clothing #Accessories #Spring Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Woman Says Her Wealthy Boyfriend Is Making Her Pay Rent, Even Though He Owns the House They’re Living in Woman Says Her Wealthy Boyfriend Is Making Her Pay Rent, Even Though He Owns the House They’re Living in A woman says her wealthy, homeowner boyfriend wants her to start paying rent — but she’s not sure he’s coming from the most logical place. On the U.K.-based forum Mumsnet, the woman wrote that she recently moved in with her partner after dating for three years to a two-bedroom home that he owns “outright.” “He bought it with money from a family trust set up for him when he was born. He rents out one bedroom to his friend for [about $900 a month]. We share the other bedroom. He wants me to pay him [around $450 a month] on top of all bills, which are split equally three-ways,” the woman wrote. “We also split the cost of any house repairs that need doing.” According to the woman, her boyfriend “says the arrangement will make us both richer — as I will be paying less than market rent for a similar room.” However, the woman explained that her boyfriend’s request for rent came as a surprise to her. “When we first spoke about finances, before I moved in, he said that the money I saved in rent could be put towards making our lives ‘*******,’ ” she said. “When discussing this recently, he said that this was still true, that the money I pay him can go towards his masters course fees, for example, and that this will benefit us both long-term.” Related: Man Says Girlfriend Called Him ‘Stingy’ for Not Wanting to Pay for Her Friend’s Meal – Including Appetizers, Dessert and Drinks Since her boyfriend doesn’t have a mortgage, the woman wrote that she “can’t see why” she should pay him rent. “The amount is small, but I’m not sure how I feel about it in principle,” she explained, noting, still, that she is “benefitting hugely,” given that she is paying way less than if she were to rent a place on her own at market rates. The woman did highlight, however, that she is “very much sharing” the room with her boyfriend, who she said still hasn’t made space for many of her things that are “currently in boxes in cupboards/storage.” The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! The woman added, “I also end up doing most of the housework and I worry that if I am giving him money on top of that and on top of bills, etc., I will become resentful. I’m also not sure what his motivations are for asking me to give him money, since he doesn’t really need it.” Related: Woman, Who Lives at Home, Asks Parents If She Can Skip Rent While **** Sitting. Their Response Leaves Her ‘Gobsmacked’ Some of the Mumsnet forum users also expressed concerns about the boyfriend’s motivation behind asking the woman for rent. “Long term, will he ever put you on his deeds? Will you sell, then buy together, and he ring fences all his cash? Will he be a [stay-at-home] in that case, as you’ll be earning to pay your half?! Lots to think about there,” one person wrote. Another person added, “Personally I think it’s unfair to charge ‘rent’ to a partner. Contribute yes, but you’re letting a man who’s been given a property in all essence and who’s getting a passive and healthy income … charge you rent for what? Living in boxes and out of a bag. Secure your own finances instead of lining his pocket.” Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Others, meanwhile, weren’t so sure that it was wrong of the man to ask for some financial help from his girlfriend, though they thought he went about it the wrong way. “In principle, it makes sense that you should pay some sort of rent as you live there, but that should have been clearly agreed between you before you moved in,” said one user. Read the original article on People Source link #Woman #Wealthy #Boyfriend #Making #Pay #Rent #Owns #House #Theyre #Living Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

At Anrealage, Light Up Dresses Made Us Look At Anrealage, Light Up Dresses Made Us Look What’s the difference between a gimmick and a good idea? One makes you grimace, the other makes you grin. By that metric, the mesmerizing, mirthful runway show from the Japanese label Anrealage, held in Paris on Tuesday afternoon, was a very good idea. Because after already seeing clothes so square they looked like something out of “Minecraft,” and after witnessing platform shoes shaped like slip-on Cybertrucks, when then the label’s blocky designs agitated to life like an arcade game, the only proper response was to grin. As the designer Kunihiko Morinaga explained after the show, these clothes were produced from yarns laced all over with teensy LED “******.” Picture a Times Square billboard packaged into a swaying sack dress. Each design had a battery pack and sensor, allowing the display to be manipulated backstage. (The material is proprietary to Anrealage and was developed with MPLUSPLUS, a Japanese technology design studio.) The result was like “Tron” crossed with “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Three flickering dresses recalled the lights of a skyscraper in the hands of a hyperactive toddler. A pair of models marched side by side, their tartan smocks ping-ponging colors back and forth to each other to form new kaleidoscopic tartans as they advanced. For the finale, models clustered together, their frocks devolving into the pixely static of a TV on the ******, then resolving into a stained-glass motif, a seeming nod to the American Cathedral where the show was put on. This collection, Mr. Morinaga said backstage through a translator, was inspired by quite an archaic technology: two-sided advertising placards that “sandwich men” use to shill for businesses. “Before the design was always fixed, but now we can move the design,” Mr. Morinaga said. Here was a fashion show that fully seemed to accept our tech-addled age. It was, at least, a reminder of how static fashion can be. Almost all other labels showing at Paris Fashion Week will continue to use the same wools and cottons that have been in circulation for centuries. Not Mr. Morinaga. He is fashion’s Carl Sagan, tilting toward the cosmos to question how far one man can take a dress. His previous exploits include clothes that inflated on the runway and tabula rasa ensembles that took on patterns when subjected to UV light. It is a missed opportunity that an Olympic team didn’t tap Mr. Morinaga to weave his wizardry onto their opening ceremony kits for the Paris Games. “Fashion is something that never stops and is always moving and changing,” Mr. Morinaga said, summing up his ethos. He is striding into the future. Even if there aren’t many who seem to be willing to join him there. Yet. As we stepped out onto the Parisian streets, it was tough to picture someone in a digitized “Starry Night” dress striding beside me. None of our clothes yet had LCD screens on them. What we were wearing were those grins. And maybe that was Mr. Morinaga’s intent all along. Source link #Anrealage #Light #Dresses Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

What’s the Secret to a Long-Lasting Marriage? Tell Us Yours. What’s the Secret to a Long-Lasting Marriage? Tell Us Yours. Marriage is one of life’s most significant commitments, impacting the way we grow and navigate the world. The New York Times Weddings section has spent decades chronicling the stories of couples who found each other in extraordinary — and sometimes very ordinary — ways. Many of these relationships have stood the test of time, enduring personal reinvention, global crises, health issues and life’s other trials and triumphs. So what’s the secret to a long-lasting marriage? We’re looking for couples from all walks of life — whether they were featured in a Times wedding announcement or not — who have faced challenges, embraced change and found ways to sustain their love for 30 years or more. Selected couples will be interviewed and photographed as a part of an upcoming project. We look forward to hearing from you. Source link #Whats #Secret #LongLasting #Marriage Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]