March 2024 - Page 9 of 10

‘Dune: Part Two’ Gives Sci-Fi-Obsessed Silicon Valley a Reason to Party

Mar

‘Dune: Part Two’ Gives Sci-Fi-Obsessed Silicon Valley a Reason to Party

In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco on Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped from cannily named cocktails like the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear purée, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tim O’Reilly, a tech industry veteran, dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.“Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the…

Russian Strike’s Toll Rises to 12 as Zelensky Blames Air Defense Delay

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Russian Strike’s Toll Rises to 12 as Zelensky Blames Air Defense Delay

Rescue workers in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa pulled the bodies of a mother and baby from the rubble of an apartment building on Sunday, as the death toll in a Russian attack two days earlier rose to 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said delays by allies in supplying air defenses had contributed to the deaths.The denunciation by Mr. Zelensky appeared to reflect frustration that Ukraine’s capacity to resist Moscow’s military campaign and protect its own citizens has been undermined by the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a multibillion-dollar military aid package.A drone hit…

Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right

As I.V.F. grew in popularity, so did the concerns of its opponents. Standard practice involves creating multiple embryos, which are screened for genetic abnormalities, and the ones that appear healthiest can be transferred. Extra embryos are often frozen; by one count, there are a million and a half frozen embryos in the United States. After a designated time period, they may be donated to science or destroyed, just as the Catholic Church feared.The anti-abortion movement won a partial victory for protecting life at conception in 2001, when President George W. Bush banned the use of federal funds for embryonic stem…

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources

The biggest name in NASCAR is on the move.Dale Earnhardt Jr. is leaving NBC and heading to racing newcomers Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, sources briefed on his decision told The Athletic.Earnhardt is expected to take this season off and then resume his broadcasting career in 2025 when WBD Sports and Amazon begin their coverage.The move figures to give WBD Sports and Amazon instant credibility when they start their series. Each will have five races a season. WBD Sports’ races will be broadcast on TNT, streamed on Max and have a Bleacher Report component. NASCAR complements WBD…

The Paradox at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Science and Technology

The Paradox at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit

It would be easy to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI as a case of sour grapes.Mr. Musk sued OpenAI this week, accusing the company of breaching the terms of its founding agreement and violating its founding principles. In his telling, OpenAI was established as a nonprofit that would build powerful A.I. systems for the good of humanity and give its research away freely to the public. But Mr. Musk argues that OpenAI broke that promise by starting a for-profit subsidiary that took on billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft.An OpenAI spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit. In…

How 33-Year-Olds, the Peak Millennials, Are Shaping the U.S. Economy

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Investments and Business

How 33-Year-Olds, the Peak Millennials, Are Shaping the U.S. Economy

I have covered economics for 11 years now, and in that time, I have come to the realization that I am a statistic. Every time I make a major life choice, I promptly watch it become the thing that everyone is doing that year.I started college in 2009, in the era of all-time-high matriculation rates. When I moved to a big coastal city after graduation, so did a huge crowd of people: It was the age of millennial urbanization. When I lived in a walk-in closet so that I could pay off my student loans (“The yellow paint makes it…

Claudia Sheinbaum Is Turning Mexico’s Presidential Election Into a Blowout

Mar

By Kyle C. Garrison

Politics

Claudia Sheinbaum Is Turning Mexico’s Presidential Election Into a Blowout

She would also create a national investigative police force and reduce the military’s power.Concerns over security are part of the campaign conversation as Mexico prepares for its largest ever election, with voters choosing national offices all the way down to the municipal level.Since June, Laboratorio Electoral, an independent research institute focused on democracy and elections, has documented at least 67 attacks, threats, kidnappings and killings related to the elections. At least 39 people have been slain, 19 of them candidates for local positions. A significant portion of the violence is linked to cartels and other criminal groups seeking to influence…