Biafra Activist - Biafra Or Dead. No Going Back

Kim Jong-un, Michael Flynn, Stephon Clark: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

WORLD NEWSLeave a comment

Kim Jong-un, Michael Flynn, Stephon Clark: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)
Good evening. Here’s the latest.
Photo Credit KCNA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 1. Confident, reasonable, and willing to bargain.
Our correspondent says that’s the image North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, left, sought to project during a visit with President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
It was Mr. Kim’s first known trip abroad since taking power — and it could strengthen his hand going into talks with the U.S. Here’s how the Chinese and North Korean news media covered the meeting.
President Trump was quick to chime in. He posted on Twitter that Mr. Xi told him that the meeting went “very well” and that Mr. Kim “looks forward to his meeting with me.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story ____
Photo Credit Jonathan Ernst/Reuters 2. A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael Fly..

Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

UncategorisedLeave a comment

Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees Photo Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has been on an apology tour of sorts this week for his company’s mishandling of data privacy. On Friday, he spoke to employees. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO — For the past week, Mark Zuckerberg has grappled with a backlash from lawmakers, regulators and users over Facebook’s mishandling of data privacy. He has also had to face another restive group: his own employees.
The Facebook chief executive has taken multiple steps over the past few days to communicate with the social network’s 25,000 employees over revelations last week that a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, had improperly obtained data of 50 million Facebook users.
The Silicon Valley company held a staff meeting on Tuesday to answer questions about Cambridge Analytica, featuring one of Facebook’s lawyers, Paul Grewal. On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Zuckerberg addressed employees directl..

Siri, Alexa and That Google Gal Will Get You Only So Far

UncategorisedLeave a comment

Siri, Alexa and That Google Gal Will Get You Only So Far Photo Credit Anna Godeassi In 2015, when the Silicon Valley C.E.O. Mike Chen was working on a health care start-up, he and his colleagues had one of those light bulb moments regarding digital assistance.
“There should be something where you can just text it, and it just, like, does it for you,” he said. Three years later, his remote personal-assistant company, Magic, has employees in the United States and the Philippines. Its promise is bold: to do “anything” for customers who send requests over text or email, Mr. Chen said, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
Fin, another new virtual personal-assistant company, is the brainchild of Sam Lessin and Andrew Kortina, a founder of the popular mobile payment service Venmo. Fin is similar to Magic but costs $1 per minute instead of 59 cents, and only uses assistants in the United States (though they work out of Arizona, rather than the company’s San Francisco headquarters). Its sleek, z..

A New Generation of Food Magazines Thinks Small, and in Ink

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Food A New Generation of Food Magazines Thinks Small, and in Ink Shayne Chammavanijakul, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, felt let down by the way some magazines depicted Asian cuisines — framed as alien, styled with visual clichés and oversimplified. So she started her own.
Last summer, between her freshman and sophomore years, she fried corn chips and rolled burritos at Chipotle, saving her wages to pay a few contributors. She gathered enough financial and editorial support from friends and family to print 10,000 copies of the first issue of Dill, packed with articles about noodle dishes, from Indonesian soto ayam to Filipino pancit puso.
“We present things in a way that isn’t sensational,” said Ms. Chammavanijakul, 20, whose family has roots in Thailand. “Food isn’t bizarre or cool or something you do on a dare. We have no interest in exoticizing it.”
At a time when traditional food magazines are shrinking and cutting staff, Dill is part..

Square Feet: In the Catskills, New Hope for the Return of Tourism

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Business Day In the Catskills, New Hope for the Return of Tourism Photo A view of the Resorts World Catskills hotel from the lobby of the casino. The complex opened last month in Thompson, N.Y. Credit Eva Deitch for The New York Times THOMPSON, N.Y. — Patti Greco Sunshine, 57, a longtime resident of this town near the Catskill Mountains in Sullivan County, has watched as the region’s once-mighty hospitality industry literally crumbled around her.

The Pines resort, where Ms. Greco Sunshine, a professional singer, made her regional debut in 1970 at the age of 10, and which closed in the late 1990s, is now a rotting hulk.
Similarly, the Breezy Corners Bungalow Colony, where Ms. Greco Sunshine went to camp as a child, was bulldozed a few years back. It was replaced by a casino hotel, Resorts World Catskills, which opened last month.
But rather than bemoan the changes, Ms. Greco Sunshine has capitalized on them. In October, she relocated a business she owns, the Funky Hip..

Bargain Booze owner set to go into administration risking 2,500 jobs

UncategorisedLeave a comment

Conviviality says it is exploring options for a potential sale of all or parts of the business
The owner of Bargain Booze has said that it intends to appoint administrators within the next 10 business days “unless circumstances change”, putting 2,500 jobs at risk.
In a brief statement, Conviviality said that it intends to keep trading and to work alongside advisers “in order to preserve as much value as possible for all stakeholders”.
It said that it is exploring options for a potential sale of all or parts of the business.
Read more Death of the high street? Closures and cuts paint grim scene for 2018 Shares in the company, which are listed on the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange, will be suspended pending further notice.
Conviviality is the latest in a string of high street names to succumb to financial pressure. In recent weeks it has issued a string of profit warnings and its chief executive has stepped down after the group revealed a £30m tax bill that it had pre..