February 2024 - Page 5 of 13

‘His legs have gone’: Unpicking the four words no footballer wants to hear

Feb

‘His legs have gone’: Unpicking the four words no footballer wants to hear

Last season, it was a Brazilian midfielder at Liverpool. This season, it’s been his international team-mate at Manchester United.“I think Casemiro’s legs have gone,” Jamie Carragher told the Covering Liverpool podcast in October. “I noticed it last season at Anfield and I didn’t like what I saw. It took me back to watching Fabinho last year for Liverpool. I want to be the first to say it (about Casemiro). I don’t want to say it when everyone else is saying his legs have gone.”Regardless of who said what and when, Carragher — who played for Liverpool until he retired at…

Inside the Funding Frenzy at Anthropic, One of A.I.’s Hottest Start-Ups

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Science and Technology

Inside the Funding Frenzy at Anthropic, One of A.I.’s Hottest Start-Ups

Last May, Anthropic, one of the world’s hottest artificial intelligence start-ups, raised $450 million from investors including Google and Salesforce. It was the beginning of an astonishing funding spree.By August, Anthropic had landed $100 million from two Asian telecoms. Then Amazon committed $4 billion to it, followed by $2 billion more from Google.This month, the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures closed a deal to invest $750 million in Anthropic.All told, the A.I. start-up hauled in $7.3 billion in a year. Its five funding deals stood out not just for their speed and size, but for their unusual structures.In one of…

Can the Olympics Rejuvenate One of France’s Poorest Corners?

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Investments and Business

Can the Olympics Rejuvenate One of France’s Poorest Corners?

Parisians are already grumbling about the crowds for this summer’s Olympics. They envision sweaty tourists jamming the subway cars, making the hell of commuting even more, well, hellish. They are planning their summer escapes; at worst a “télétravail” schedule to work from home.But not Ivan Buyukocakm. Glancing out at a corner known for drug dealing near his family’s kebab shop in the low-income district just north of Paris, he sees the upcoming Olympics as heralding something totally different: opportunity.“They are redoing the streets and refurbishing buildings,” said Mr. Buyukocakm, as a woman in a thin coat dragged a grocery trolley…

Navalny’s Widow Pledges to Carry On Opposition Leader’s Work

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Navalny’s Widow Pledges to Carry On Opposition Leader’s Work

The widow of Aleksei A. Navalny said on Monday that she would carry on her husband’s work to bring about a democratic and free Russia, presenting herself for the first time as a political force and calling on his followers to rally alongside her.Mr. Navalny’s sudden death in prison, which was announced by the Russian authorities on Friday, left a vacuum in Russia’s opposition. His supporters had wondered whether his wife, Yulia Navalnaya — who long shunned the spotlight — might step in to fill the void.In a video released on Monday, Ms. Navalnaya, 47, signaled that she would. She…

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Old and Young, Talking Again

On Fridays at 10 a.m., Richard Bement and Zach Ahmed sign on to their weekly video chat. The program that brought them together provides online discussion prompts and suggests arts-related activities, but the two largely ignore all that.“We just started talking about things that were important to us,” said Mr. Ahmed, 19, a pre-med student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.Since the pair met more than a year ago, conversation topics have included: Pink Floyd, in a long exploration led by Mr. Bement, 76, a retired sales manager in Milford Township, Ohio; their religious faiths (the senior conversation partner is…

Does the PGA Tour have a juice problem, and will Sunday solve it?

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Does the PGA Tour have a juice problem, and will Sunday solve it?

LOS ANGELES — It was all going to be so perfect. It had stars. It had records. It had one of the most beautiful stages in all of sports in prime time. It was supposed to be the PGA Tour’s big day.Two weeks ago up in Pebble Beach, Wyndham Clark shot a third-round 60 to break the historic course’s record and take the lead at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The tour couldn’t have drawn up a better Sunday — in theory. It was the off week before the Super Bowl, meaning it practically had the sports calendar to itself.…

‘Most Wanted’ Man Pleads Guilty in Cyberattack That Upended Vermont Hospital

Feb

By Kyle C. Garrison

Science and Technology

‘Most Wanted’ Man Pleads Guilty in Cyberattack That Upended Vermont Hospital

A Ukrainian man pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to his leadership role in two cyberattack schemes that caused tens of millions of dollars in losses and temporarily crippled a Vermont hospital in 2020, according to the Justice Department.Prosecutors said that Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov, 37, was a leader for an organization that in May 2009 began to infect thousands of computers at corporations with malicious software, and that he helped lead a separate malware scheme that began around November 2018.Mr. Penchukov, of Donetsk, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Nebraska to one count of conspiracy to commit…