- Wild women’s college basketball brawl features five ejections, three fans booted New York Post
- Women’s college basketball game erupts into massive melee, 5 players and 3 fans ejected Fox News
- WATCH: Massive fight erupts in Southern Miss vs. Arkansas State WBB game On3.com
- Watch vicious brawl break out during Southern Mississippi’s 57-48 win over Arkansas State… with players and staff dragged to the floor after bitter row erupts near the sideline Daily Mail
- Higginbottom & Rogers have 11 pts each, A-State women’s basketball falls at Southern Miss KAIT
Tag Archives: booted
California school superintendent booted from district board meeting after opposing new transgender policy – New York Post
- California school superintendent booted from district board meeting after opposing new transgender policy New York Post
- Tony Thurmond kicked out, ‘verbally attacked’ at school board meeting FOX 11 Los Angeles
- California school district stands up for parental rights as Newsom targets conservative school boards Fox News
- California school superintendent kicked out, ‘verbally attacked’ at school board meeting KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- Parents will now be notified if a student identifies as transgender in Chino Valley KTLA 5
- View Full Coverage on Google News
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says other bank exec could have booted Jeffrey Epstein as customer – CNBC
- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says other bank exec could have booted Jeffrey Epstein as customer CNBC
- Jamie Dimon Says He Never Discussed Jeffrey Epstein’s Accounts at JPMorgan; Jes Staley Says Dimon Did – WSJ The Wall Street Journal
- Ex-JPMorgan exec Jes Staley claims boss Jamie Dimon discussed keeping Jeffrey Epstein as a client Daily Mail
- JPMorgan Tries to Deflect Blame for Long Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein The New York Times
- JPMorgan rejects claim that Dimon and Staley discussed Epstein: ‘We believe this is false’ CNBC
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Queens official booted from office for calling COVID the ‘Wu-Flu’
A member of a Queens community board was booted from office after referring to COVID-19 as the “Wu-Flu” in a public meeting.
Community Board 5 member Richard Huber, during the remote Jan. 11 meeting, said, “When all you ever heard about the vaccine — these so-called vaccines — for the ‘Wu-Flu.’”
He was questioning the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines and antiviral drugs amid an increase in COVID-19 amid a new contagious Omicron strain.
Board member Derek Evers responded, “I’m not going to comment on the unhinged anti-vaxx rant we just heard. But I would just like to condemn the racist language that was used and I don’t think the community board is any place for that.”
Queens has the largest Asian-American population in the US.
Borough President Donovan Richards immediately removed Huber from CB 5 — which covers the neighborhoods of Maspeth, Ridgewood, Glendale and Middle Village — citing the code of conduct for planning board members that bars discrimination. The borough president appoints members to the community board in consultation with City Council members and has the power to remove them with cause.
“For the last three years, our Asian-American neighbors in New York City have experienced a surge in bias and violence against their community, and I will not tolerate a community board member using language that has fueled that wave of bigotry and hate,” Richards said in a statement to The Post, which he later tweeted a variation of.
“Therefore, I have removed this individual from Queens Community Board 5 for cause.”
Huber’s remarks were first reported by the Queens Ledger.
But there’s been extensive reporting indicating that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Former President Donald Trump often called COVID-19 the “China virus” or “Chinese virus” and believed it spread from Wuhan.
Queens Councilman Robert Holden — whose wife is Japanese-American and has been subjected to anti-Asian discrimination — appointed Huber to CB5. But he said Huber’s ouster by the borough president smacks of cancel culture run amok.
He said BP Richards should have counseled Huber and given him a chance to explain himself or apologize and complained that Richards, who is black, is quick to racialize issues, including against him. Holden is white.
“I am married to an Asian-American. Anti-Asian violence is real,” Holden said.
“I also know that Richard Huber has a big heart and has done a lot of good things in the neighborhood. There’s a body of work that Richard Huber has done for decades that should be considered,” Holden said.
“Donovan Richards just cancels people.”
Huber told The Post that his remark was “extemporaneous” and “was not intended as a slur…..I said it. I live with it.”
He said he believes COVID-19 “did originate in the Wuhan laboratory” in China.
Huber, a long-time community advocate and member of the Queens Kiwanis Club, likened it to the measles being referred to as the “German Measles” because of the early cases first recorded in that country.
He asked that his “Wu-Flu” comment be heard in the context of his overall remarks, in which he praised doctors and nurses and lamented some left the profession over COVID-19 policies. He also complained that so many people are infected with COVID variants after getting vaccinated and boosted and warned about the side effects of anti-viral drugs.
“All you ever heard about the vaccine — the so-called vaccines — for the ‘Wu-Flu.’ It was only safe and effective and would prevent transmission, and it would prevent you from catching it. That doesn’t seem exactly true,” Huber said.
Public health studies show those who are vaccinated and boosted are far less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19 if they are infected or re-infected.
But New York City health officials also recently reported that the latest omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 was more likely to infect residents who were vaccinated or who were previously hit with COVID-19.
James Gunn Shoots Down Claim Gal Gadot Was “Booted” From DC Universe After ‘Wonder Woman 3’ Axing – Deadline
James Gunn and Peter Safran have been tasked to shake up the DC Universe and in doing so have scrapped several ideas from the past regime like Henry Cavill’s return as Superman and Patty Jenkins’ take on Wonder Woman 3.
Many fans have speculated that with the axing of the third installment of the Wonder Woman film, Gal Gadot had been “booted” from DC. However, Gunn provided some clarity about Gadot and where she currently stands.
“I’m not sure where you’re getting that we ‘booted’ Gal,” Gunn replied.
Gunn’s response could be interpreted in two ways: 1. Gadot is still working with DC for a future Wonder Woman appearance or 2. Gadot left DC on her own accord amid the shakeup.
Instagram @jamesgunn
Jenkins’s treatment for Wonder Woman 3 was rejected by the new regime at DC as it did not fit the plans Gunn and Safran have for the DC Universe.
“I never walked away. I was open to considering anything asked of me. It was my understanding there was nothing I could do to move anything forward at this time. DC is obviously buried in changes they are having to make, so I understand these decisions are difficult right now,” Jenkins said in a statement.
Prior to news that Wonder Woman 3 was not happening under Jenkins’s direction, Gadot shared a hopeful message about sharing with fans the “next chapter” of the superhero.
“A few years ago it was announced that I was going to play Wonder Woman. I’ve been so grateful for the opportunity to play such an incredible, iconic character and more than anything I’m grateful for YOU. The fans. Can’t wait to share her next chapter with you,” Gadot shared on social media.
Gunn has been getting a lot of backlash over his decisions as the DC Universe goes into a new direction. The Suicide Squad director addressed fans in a series of tweets calling out the “disrespectful outcry.”
“Our choices for the DCU are based upon what we believe is best for the story & best for the DC characters who have been around for nearly 85 years. Perhaps these choices are great, perhaps not, but they are made with sincere hearts & integrity & always with the story in mind,” he tweeted.
Gunn continued, “We were aware there would be a period of turbulence when we took this gig, & we knew we would sometimes have to make difficult & not-so-obvious choices, especially in the wake of the fractious nature of what came before us.”
A Super-Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Just Booted Up
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment team has announced the results from its first scientific run today; the experiment is the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, and though it did not find any dark matter in this first round, the team confirmed that the experiment is working as expected.
The LZ experiment detector is made up nested tanks of liquid xenon, each 1.5 meters tall and 1.5 meters wide, buried under South Dakota. The idea is that a dark matter particle whizzing through space will eventually bounce off one of the xenon atoms, knocking loose electrons in a flash that is recorded by the experiment. The tank is buried about a mile below Earth’s surface to minimize the amount of background noise. Today’s announcement comes after 60 live days of data collection that spanned December 25 to May 12.
“We’re looking for very, very low-energy recoils by the standards of particle physics. It’s a very, very rare process, if it’s visible at all,” said Hugh Lippincott, a physicist at UC Santa Barbara and a member of the LZ team, in a press conference today. “You can shoot a dark matter particle through 10 million light-years of lead and expect only one interaction at the end of that light-year.”
Dark matter is the catch-all term for the unknown stuff that appears to make up about 27% of the universe. It hardly ever interacts with ordinary matter, hence its “darkness” to us. But we know it’s out there because, while never directly detected, it has gravitational effects that can be seen on cosmic scales. (NASA breaks down the concept pretty well here.)
There are many candidates for dark matter. One is the WIMP, or a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle. Unlike other dark matter hypotheses like axions or dark photons, which are so small and diffuse that they may behave more like waves, WIMPs would have mass but hardly ever interact with ordinary matter. So to detect them, you need a device that pretty much mutes all other physics going on.
LZ is super sensitive, which makes it good for spotting such fleeting and infrequent interactions. The experiment is 30 times larger and 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor, the Large Underground Xenon experiment, according to a Sanford Underground Research Facility release. LZ is “effectively an onion” Lippincott said, with each layer of the experiment insulating against noise that could obscure a potential WIMP interaction.
“The collaboration worked well together to calibrate and to understand the detector response,” said Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Laboratory and a member of the LZ team, in a Berkeley Lab press release. “Considering we just turned it on a few months ago and during COVID restrictions, it is impressive we have such significant results already.”
Of the many detections the LZ experiment made in its 60-day run, 335 seemed promising, but none turned out to be WIMPs. That doesn’t mean WIMPs aren’t out there, but it does eliminate a mass range from contention. (This is the crux of what dark matter detectors do: bit by bit, they rule out what masses the particles can’t be.) Multiple physicists recently told Gizmodo that they think the next big discovery in particle physics will come from a dark matter detector like LZ.
This scientific run kicked off what’s expected to be a 1,000-day schedule. The recent round was also unblinded, so the LZ team could monitor how the technology behaved. Since it performed as expected, the next scientific run will have its results ‘salted,’ or peppered with phony signals, to mitigate bias.
Twenty times more data will be collected in the coming years, so perhaps the wimpy WIMPs will finally have to face the music of their own existence. Then again, maybe they don’t exist at all. We won’t know until we look.
More: 10 Years After the Higgs Boson, What’s the Next Big Thing for Physics?
Cathie Wood has a simple response to Tesla getting booted out of an S&P 500 ESG index: ‘Ridiculous’
Cathie Wood isn’t pleased about one of her most popular investments, Tesla Inc., being excluded from a prominent index that tracks eco- and socially friendly companies.
“Ridiculous,” was essentially Wood’s terse response to news that the S&P 500 ESG Index has dropped Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle maker Tesla
TSLA,
-6.80%
from its lineup, as a part of its annual rebalancing.
Read: Tesla dumped by S&P ESG index and Musk cries label is a ‘scam’
“While Tesla may be playing its part in taking fuel-powered cars off the road, it has fallen behind its peers when examined through a wider ESG lens,” wrote Margaret Dorn, senior director and head of ESG indices, North America, at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a blog post dated Tuesday.
The announcement from S&P Dow Jones Indices might come as a shock to some, given that the vehicle manufacturer is seen as a pioneer of producing EVs for the masses, perhaps laying the groundwork for large manufacturers such as Ford Motor
F,
-5.54%
and General Motors Co.
GM,
-5.96%,
who are racing to compete with Tesla in EVs on a bigger scale after badly falling behind Musk & Co. in the low-carbon category.
Dorn makes the case that a couple of the factors contributing to Tesla’s exclusion were “a decline in criteria-level scores” related to its low-carbon strategy and its “codes of business conduct.”
Tesla has been one of the biggest and most successful investments for Wood, the CEO of ARK Investment Management, whose bullishness on disruptive companies like Tesla helped propel her to fame on Wall Street.
However, Wood’s flagship fund has been unhinged by the downturn, which has capsized much of the market in growth-oriented, technology and tech-related investments.
Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF
ARKK,
-4.43%
has tumbled about 74% from its peak back in mid-February 2021, and is down more than 56% thus far in 2022.
Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 42% since its recent peak in early November. Shares of the EV maker are off 33% so far in 2022.
Meanwhile, Ford and GM’s stocks are both down by about 38% year to date, with the S&P 500
SPX,
-4.04%
down almost 18% so far this year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-3.57%
off more than 13% and the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-4.73%
down 27%.
Musk also had thoughts on Tesla’s exclusion from the ESG index:
Worth a read: A ‘summer of pain’? The Nasdaq Composite could plunge 75% from peak, S&P 500 skid 45% from its top, warns Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd.
Trump-backed candidate booted from Tenn. ballot; Biden to host military leaders
Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, and someone who is frequently mentioned as a 2024 White House contender, sought in a speech Tuesday night to rebut those who “question my Blackness.”
Scott appeared at the Reagan Library in Semi Valley, Calif., as part of a “Time for Choosing” speaker’s series, which has been billed as platform for leading voices of the conservative movement. In his speech, Scott shared how his personal life had put him on a path toward conservative politics and spared no words for those who’ve questioned his choices.
“So, for those of you on the left, you can call me a prop, you can call me a token, you can call me the N word, you can question my Blackness, you can even call me Uncle Tim,” Scott said. “Just understand what you call me is no match for the proof of my life. Your words are no match for my evidence. Your pessimism is no match for the truth of my history.”
Scott is clearly trying to boost his national exposure with an eye toward 2024. He’s considered a potential GOP presidential candidate or a leading contender to be Donald Trump’s running mate if the former president seeks a comeback.
During an appearance on Fox News in February, Scott signaled an openness to the latter option.
“I think everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question,” Scott said.
Amazon just got Fakespot booted off Apple’s iOS App Store
Fakespot, known for its web browser extensions that try to weed out fake product reviews, suddenly no longer has an iPhone or iPad app — because Amazon sent Apple a takedown request, both Amazon and Fakespot confirm, and Apple decided to remove the app.
The giant retailer says it was concerned about how a new update to the Fakespot app was “wrapping” its website without permission, and how that could be theoretically exploited to steal Amazon customer data. But Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifah tells The Verge that Apple abruptly removed the app today without any explanation. Apple didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
The new Fakespot app launched just over a month ago on June 3rd, and I can confirm it let you log in to Amazon, browse, and buy items with Fakespot’s overlay on top. I downloaded and tried it a few weeks ago to see if it could help spot fake reviews on some new purchases, but I didn’t come to a conclusion on whether it actually helped.
Thank you to all of our users for making this new iOS app a reality. Together we will put an end to eCommerce fraud. We have more amazing products coming soon that will make secure shopping the gold standard for eCommerce. https://t.co/UyUnsOydzK
— Fakespot (@FakespotTweets) June 21, 2021
But in mid-June, says Fakespot’s founder, Amazon initiated a takedown notice. And just hours ago, Apple finally delivered a blunt three-line email about how it regretted that the situation couldn’t be resolved amicably and that Fakespot has now been removed from the App Store. “Apple hasn’t even given us the ability to solve this,” says Khalifah. “We just dedicated months of resources and time and money into this app.”
Amazon tells us it believes Fakespot violated Apple guideline 5.2.2, which reads:
5.2.2 Third-Party Sites/Services: If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third-party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use. Authorization must be provided upon request.
Amazon also tells us that Fakespot injects code into its website, opening up an attack vector and putting customer data (including email, addresses, credit card info, and your browser history) at risk, though it says it doesn’t actually know if Fakespot is using this information.
“The app in question provides customers with misleading information about our sellers and their products, harms our sellers’ businesses, and creates potential security risks. We appreciate Apple’s review of this app against its Appstore guidelines,” reads a statement from Amazon.
But while Fakespot admits the app injects code to display its own scores, he categorically denies there’s any vulnerability and points out that apps which include a web browser view are common — including coupon apps that Amazon seems to “have no problem with wrapping around a webview browser.”
Regardless of why, it’s a blow to one of the major outspoken critics of Amazon’s review system, as Fakespot is regularly cited in reports about review fraud on Amazon. Amazon even bought search ads against the “Fakespot” keyword in the App Store to reduce the app’s potential impact:
“Amazon is willing to bully little companies like ours that showcase the cracks in their company,” Khalifah says, suggesting Amazon must have realized people were choosing their app over the Amazon app. He says Fakespot racked up 150,000 installs from the iOS App Store, without spending any money on marketing.
Amazon says it regularly audits companies that try to call out fake reviews and claims that Fakespot’s ratings are mostly wrong: “We regularly review products where Fakespot rated a product’s reviews as untrustworthy and their findings were wrong more than 80% of the time. They simply do not have the information we have—such as reviewer, seller and product history—to accurately determine the authenticity of a review.” Amazon suggests that it does a much better job of finding fake reviews itself by analyzing 30 million of them each week, though that clearly hasn’t stopped the fake and incentivized review problems yet — something we’re still investigating at The Verge.
Amazon wouldn’t say if it’s contacted Google about the Android version of the app, but that app hasn’t been updated since 2019.
Fakespot’s founder says the company is weighing its legal options now because it believes mobile is the future of shopping. “We’re seeing percentages of 60/40 now hovering in mobile’s favor,” Khalifah tells me.