A Portland woman showcased what she identified as an enablement problem within the city’s homeless crisis in a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, telling philanthropist and outreach worker Kevin Dahlgren that being homeless in Portland is a “piece of cake.”
“It’s a piece of cake, really. That’s probably why you’ve got so many out here because they feed you three meals a day and don’t have to do s— but stay in your tent or party. If you smoke a lot of dope, you can do that…,” she told Dahlgren.
The woman, named Wendy, also said many among the homeless population wake up and proceed to repeatedly eat and get high throughout the day.
In a separate tweet, Dahlgren said Wendy is a licensed hairdresser and would like to work. In the video attached to the post, Wendy tearfully described the lawless state of the homeless community by revealing her dentures were recently stolen from her tent.
“I went and got my teeth about six months ago and then someone stole them. I was living outside, and somebody took them,” she said.
“Now I can’t go get new ones because I just got the first ones paid for. I don’t know what I’m going to do… I can’t go to work without teeth.”
Dahlgren, affiliated with a nonprofit called “We Heart Seattle,” said Wendy told him he is the first outreach worker to stop by and greet her in years.
“When I’m in charge I will have [to] bring outreach back. It will be daily and we will come with actual resources, not just peanut butter sandwiches. We need to work together to end this very fixable humanitarian crisis,” he tweeted.
“[Oregon] is the only state that actually allows you to put a tent [on the sidewalk]…” Wendy said in video shared with Dahlgren’s third tweet.
“You don’t have any police around. If you get hurt, you’re screwed because they’re not helping anybody. You don’t see them anywhere.”
The city’s developing homeless crisis is believed to be a byproduct of a cocktail of other problems, including recreational drug policies implemented in The Beaver State.
The issue grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading residents and business owners to relocate.
In August, University Park Neighborhood Association Secretary Tom Karwaki told “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy that encampments are wreaking havoc on the city streets, but officials have done little to nothing to solve the issue.
“We need to solve this problem, it’s an emergency,” he said.
“There are six people so far who said that [they are moving]… three have sold their house and three are in the process,” Karwaki added later. “We’ve actually had commercial businesses also put up their businesses and their land for sale.”
But building a “super-app” like WeChat is a far more complicated challenge than Twitter, with far more points of conflict with regulators in Washington, California, Brussels and elsewhere. Nothing like it exists yet in the West, and it could create a “regulatory nightmare,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, the deputy director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit that advocates for privacy reform.
For all its influence on media and politics, Twitter is a far smaller social platform than Facebook or TikTok, with relatively little exposure to government oversight. Anything that involves payments, health information or deeper uses of consumer data would be a whole different beast. And that’s all without integrating some of Musk’s wider and more futuristic interests, like his brain-computer interface company, his space-launch business, or his network of satellites, all of which draw their own kind of scrutiny.
If Musk tried to launch it, he’d be doing it in amoment when regulators and politicians are increasingly worried about Big Tech’s appetite for data, its impact on consumers’ lives and its unique ability to build monopolies — to say nothing of the political storm Musk has brought down on his own head with his increasingly partisan forays into politics. (Twitter did not reply to a request for comment about Musk’s app plans or regulatory strategy.)
There are plenty of business-world obstacles to the X App, and Musk has had his hands more than full just keeping Twitter afloat. But he’s also seen as ambitious enough to try anyway.
“Twitter is just one end of this future conglomerate app,” said Michael Sayman, a developer who helped create Instagram Stories, speculating that the X App could include finance, commerce, communication, news, entertainment, dating, music — and, of course, transportation, Musk’s chief business interest.
What could a Musk-owned super-app look like, and how would it collide with Washington? There’s no one authoritative answer — and a Twitter collapse would bring a quick end to the vision for now — but from observers and analysts, it’s possible to engineer a kind of preview of the maximal version of what he wants to do, and project just how many corners of Washington could find themselves facing off against one of the wealthiest men on earth.
Financial Services
The first and biggest question hanging over an “everything app” is money — specifically, payments and even banking.
Musk pitched investors on building Twitter into a digital payments behemoth that could generate as much as $1.8 billion by 2028 when he was getting financing for the buyout earlier this year. He hasn’t dropped that ambition: “It’s kind of a no-brainer for Twitter to have payments — in terms of both currency and crypto — and make that simple for people to use,” Musk said in the December Twitter Spaces.
Musk is publicly floating the concept of Twitter offering high-yield money market accounts, debit cards and checks. He has reportedly already filed paperwork to process payments. This clearly takes a page from WeChat’s playbook: The Chinese app created new ways for consumers and businesses to transact without cards or hardware, making money through merchant and withdrawal fees.
He’s not the first tech mogul to dream of an American version. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to launch his own digital currency, the Libra, and failed — but still considers it a missed opportunity.Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey also co-founded the payments company Block (formerly known as Square) and pursued a payments strategy that let Twitter users incorporate their handles for CashApp. The company also partnered with Stripe to let users pay businesses and creative outlets they discover on the social network. Those efforts haven’t transformed Twitter into a payments powerhouse, however.
Musk wouldn’t be coming to this cold: The Tesla CEO has an extensive background at payment-focused fintech startups — he co-founded the online bank X.com, which later merged with a Peter Thiel-led business to form PayPal. And his backers in the buyout include Binance, the global crypto exchange, as well as Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm that’s invested heavily in digital asset startups.
“I think it would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it’s easy to send money back and forth,” Musk said at a Twitter all-hands meeting earlier this year. “Currency as well as crypto.”
But if he tries, he’ll be entering one of the most tightly regulated spaces in American business. Unlike social-media platforms, which only hit Washington’s radar recently, banking and payment companies have been under the microscope for decades, with multiple agencies and vast regulatory requirements to meet — a task that Musk has struggled with, even disdained, as an entrepreneur.
If the X App developed digital wallets for users or a crypto-friendly token for payments, Musk could face opposition from banking regulators like the Federal Reserve and Treasury as well as top lawmakers on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would likely weigh in on how the social network handled instances of fraud and abuse. And Musk could invite even more scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission if he were to bring crypto trading to the platform.
Zuckerberg’s experience in trying to launch Libra — later rebranded as Diem — in 2019 is a sobering precedent: Despite an aggressive international lobbying campaign, policymakers from both parties — and on the other side of the Atlantic — blasted his far-reaching proposal for being a potential threat to global finance and commerce.
Consumer groups that opposed Meta’s efforts are already bracing for a similar fight if Musk tries to get into the game — possibly even more intense, given Musk’s newly contentious political brand, highly impulsive management style and propensity to tweak Congress and regulators.
“A big part of what really led to the downfall of Diem was the bad press around Mark Zuckerberg and Meta specifically,” said Cheyenne Hunt-Majer, a big tech policy advocate at Public Citizen. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Elon Musk is looking at this and saying, ‘Okay, well, I can do this differently.’”
Privacy
Any successful X App would bring in a massive new haul of consumer data – and would require the company to navigate a complicated, evolving new patchwork of U.S. and EU data-privacy rules.
Musk has already suggested Twitter’s immediate future would include advertisements carefully tailored to individual users — which could mean more sophisticated use of customer data. This data collection would likely only increase with an X App that touched more parts of people’s lives.
Even before Musk took over, however, Twitter struggled to meet basic privacy and data-handling requirements.
The company has been under a consent decree with FTC since 2011 for previously mishandling user data and paid a $150 million fine in May 2022 for breaking its commitment to protect user data again. The FTC is currently investigating allegations made by former Twitter security chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, who claims the company intentionally misled the agency and violated the terms of the 2011 settlement, according to a person familiar with the probe who is not authorized to speak publicly.
At Twitter, Musk’s abrupt staff cuts, and the exodus of its top privacy, cybersecurity and compliance executives, have already drawn a rare warning shot from the Federal Trade Commission: The FTC said in a statement in mid-November, “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” adding, “no CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees.”
And Democrats on Capitol Hill are paying attention too — calling on the FTC to enforce its consent decree — which could mean large fines and penalties for Musk’s Twitter if it is found to have violated the settlement terms.
His ambition also arrives amid growing concerns about U.S. consumer data security and privacy protections.Though Congress hasn’t managed to pass a comprehensive data privacy bill, several states are already plowing ahead with their own rules, including California, Virginia and Colorado, creating a complicated patchwork for tech companies to navigate. And any company with a global presence also needs to worry about Europe’s data privacy law — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — which gives consumers the right to opt out of data collection. Some aspects of the X App would also be subject to sectoral federal privacy laws, like in finance and health care.
Musk would also immediately draw a spotlight from privacy advocates, who worry that he’d potentially have access to millions of Americans’ data without any federal law to ensure it’s properly protected.
“As a society, we really have kind of started getting to a point where we feel uncomfortable with the loss of privacy,” said Karan Lala, a software engineer who previously worked at Facebook. “Maybe folks are not fully comfortable with having one person having access to all of that information.”
Health care
In China, people can look up doctors, book them, conduct a telehealth appointment and even manage their medical records inside of WeChat. In other countries, patients can use WhatsApp to book their doctor appointments over text.
In the U.S., that kind of user-friendly approach to health care is largely blocked by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the 1996 patient-protection law setting strict rules around how health care providers share and store data.
So an X App could track your fitness, scrape your data and log your steps, but hit a wall when it comes to the highly regulated world of the American medical system. It doesn’t mean Musk wouldn’t try — but he’d need to find partners willing to test the edges of what’s possible under the law.
Musk does have his own medical venture, though, and that raises another question. Neuralink is a brain-computer interface that allows a person to navigate a computer directly from their brain with an implantable device. Musk says the company has submitted “most” of the paperwork needed to get the FDA go ahead for a clinical trial in 2023 in order to bring that invention to market.
Right now, brain-computer interfaces are being trialed to help people with paralysis, but Neuralink’s website tantalizingly promises a “non-medical application” and says the technology could someday “expand how we interact with each other and experience the world around us.”
If a person used a Neuralink chip to interact with the X App, would the app literally be reading that person’s mind? And what happens to the data? Brain data isn’t necessarily protected by HIPAA, and the issue is not yet on Washington’s radar, but it’s a real concern among policy thinkers; Chile recently became the first country to protect “neurorights.”
At this point, the idea of a neural connection to any app is purely speculative. However, it’s not as sci-fi as it might sound: Synchron, a competing BCI company, which launched an FDA clinical trial earlier this year, already allowed one patient to Tweet directly from their brain.
Transportation
Though Musk is often lumped in with pure tech moguls like Zuckerberg, he’s primarily a transportation mogul — a maker of cars and rockets, with some interest in tunnels.
Musk hasn’t talked specifically about the transportation side of an X App. But WeChat also offers a ride-hailing service, and the X app has a range of potential applications for ride-hailing, transit and more.
Ian Adams, a specialist in the automotive technology practice at the Orrick law firm, envisions an app that offers a “hub of information” for easy access to “hopping on transit, hopping in a rideshare, hailing an automated system — who knows what that will look like, at what point.”
Putting Musk at the center of an identity-verification app with security implications could be problematic, though. Adams said government regulators might be skeptical of the arrangement — to say nothing of any connection to Tesla, whose cars are already software-intensive products that constantly track user behavior. “The big question mark right now is, we’ve got an FTC and a DOJ that takes a really dim view of all kinds of data-sharing arrangements and particularly of consolidation,” Adams said. The FTC is “going to take a fine-tooth comb through everything that they attempt to do.”
Antitrust
Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are looking more and more closely at big tech companies’ anti-competitive behavior. AndWhile Musk’s businesses don’t currently run afoul of monopoly review by either agency, that could easily changeif he were to buy a lot of other apps, said Charlotte Slaiman, the competition policy director at nonprofit Public Knowledge.
She said antitrust regulators may be concerned about a vertical relationship wherein Musk incentivizes his X App offering over competitors. And antitrust regulators may weigh in if Musk purchases another app that competes directly on his platform.
“From a competitive climate, now might not be the best time to even put up the fact that you want an app that does everything,” former Facebook engineer Lala said. “I don’t think Congress is going to take lightly to that, so that might be victim number one.”
There’s a counterargument, though, based on the fact that the X App would be the first of its kind.Graham DuFault, a senior director of public policy at ACT | The App Association, a trade group representing app developers, says that U.S. policies tend to be conducive to new market entrants — at least to start.
“One of the striking things about the U.S. competition, law and policy landscape is that it’s pretty permissive in that it treats a new company’s entry as something that is a benefit to competition and a benefit to consumers unless there really is evidence that is going to harm competition, and then therefore harm consumers,” DuFault said in an interview.
The network in the sky
When it comes to other competitors, Musk has an offering that many others still don’t have — Starlink, the world’s satellite internet constellation company. Operated by his firm SpaceX, it provides service to at least 36 countries, with plans to offer mobile phone service with T-Mobile in 2023.
Depending on how he links up the satellites and the X App, Musk could start to collide with California’s net neutrality law — which says internet service providers are not allowed to slow down or limit services online, especially efforts to advantage their products over competitors. Ever since the Trump administration rescinded the FCC’s net neutrality policy — and Congress has failed to enact it into law — California’s law is the de facto law of the land.
Using Starlink internet, Musk would be able to streamline faster and more efficient access to the X App services — and potentially throttle access to competing mega-apps, Sayman said. This preference of service could potentially run afoul of California’s rules.
It could be worth him testing the waters on that, even if it’s risky: “The level of fundamental dominance that could be achieved — if he’s able to do that well — I think positions his ‘X’ company to be able to do all the rest of this stuff,” Sayman said.
Politics
For the average big tech giant, politics is a third-tier risk at best: The companies and moguls strategically spread out their political donations, and only occasionally do executives run afoul of elected officials, or get hauled in front of Congress.
Musk is different. After being out of the political wind for years, he has jumped full-bore into the American culture wars, attacking Democrats by name, re-platforming Donald Trump and hosting elaborate Twitter threads suggesting collusion between the FBI and his own company. He’s also aligned himself with Republicans, encouraging votes for the GOP in the 2022 midterms and backing a Ron DeSantis run for president in 2024, earning him the kind of support from the GOP that other tech billionaires can only dream of.
However, Congress has failed to pass bipartisan tech legislation — and is unlikely to next year under a split House and Senate — so the action is expected to continue in state capitals where legislatures have passed the most aggressive laws regulating tech platforms to date.
So far, there has been more smoke than fire on the political front. But a bigger consumer platform could easily change that, as activists, think tanks, elected officials and voters increasingly see Musk as a player in American political life – either for better or worse.
Fans look on as the ambulance leaves carrying Damar Hamlin #3 of the Buffalo Bills. Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals during the first quarter at Paycor Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dylan Buell | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Buffalo defensive back Damar Hamlin was in critical condition early Tuesday after the Bills say his heart stopped following a tackle during the Monday Night Football game, which was indefinitely postponed.
Hamlin collapsed on the field during the first quarter of the nationally televised game against the Cincinnati Bengals and was given medical treatment for nearly 20 minutes before being taken to a hospital.
“Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in our game versus the Bengals. His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the UC Medical Center for further testing and treatment,” the Bills said in a statement. “He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.”
Jordon Rooney, a family representative who described himself as a good friend of the player, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday that Hamlin’s relatives are in good spirits but going through a lot and need their privacy. He declined to give details on Hamlin’s condition other than to say he is sedated.
“All I can say is he’s fighting; he’s a fighter,” Rooney said.
In a chilling scene, Hamlin was administered CPR on the field, ESPN reported, while surrounded by teammates, some of them in tears, while they shielded him from public view. He was hurt while tackling Bengals receiver Tee Higgins on a seemingly routine play that didn’t appear unusually violent.
An announcement is displayed on the scoreboard after the game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills is postponed following the injury of Damar Hamlin #3 at Paycor Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dylan Buell | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
The NFL announced Hamlin’s condition shortly after he was taken to a hospital, but neither the league nor the hospital released any other details about the 24-year-old’s medical condition. The team’s statement was released before its flight arrived back in Buffalo early Tuesday. There was no immediate update about the future status of the game.
On the play the 6-foot, 200-pound Hamlin was injured, Higgins led with his right shoulder, which hit the defensive back in the chest. Hamlin then wrapped his arms around Higgins’ shoulders and helmet to drag him down. Hamlin quickly got to his feet, appeared to adjust his face mask with his right hand and then fell backward about three seconds later and lay motionless.
Hamlin was treated on the field by team and independent medical personnel and local paramedics, and he was taken by ambulance to University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Teammate Stefon Diggs later joined Hamlin at the hospital.
About 100 Bills fans and a few Bengals fans gathered on a corner one block from the emergency room entrance, some of them holding candles.
Jeff Miller, an NFL executive vice president, told reporters on a conference call early Tuesday that the league had made no plans at this time to play the game, adding that Hamlin’s health was the main focus.
An ambulance was on the field four minutes after Hamlin collapsed while many players embraced, including quarterbacks Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.
Buffalo Bills players kneel after teammate Damar Hamlin #3 collapsed following a tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals during the first quarter at Paycor Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Kirk Irwin | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Hamlin collapsed at 8:55 p.m., and when he was taken off the field about 19 minutes later in what seemed like an eternity, the Bills gathered in prayer. A few minutes after the ambulance left the field, the game was suspended, and players walked off the field slowly and into their locker rooms where they awaited word on Hamlin and the game.
“I’ve never seen anything like it since I was playing,” NFL executive Troy Vincent, a six-time Pro Bowl cornerback during his career, said in the conference call early Tuesday. “Immediately, my player hat went on, like, how do you resume playing after seeing a traumatic event in front of you?”
Hamlin’s uniform was cut off as he was attended to by medical personnel. ESPN reported on its telecast that Hamlin was also given oxygen.
Vincent said the league took no steps toward restarting the game and did not ask players to begin a five-minute warmup period as ESPN’s broadcasters had announced.
“It never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play,” Vincent said. “That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive. That’s not a place we should ever be in.”
Vincent said the Bills were returning early Tuesday morning to the team facility in Orchard Park, New York, with the exception of a few players who stayed behind with Hamlin.
There was a heavy police presence at Buffalo Niagara International Airport when the team arrived at about 2:45 a.m. A small group of fans gathered across the street from the players’ parking area near the airport. Police blocked off the road to allow the players to leave.
The Bengals led 7-3 in the first quarter of a game between teams vying for the top playoff seed in the AFC. Cincinnati entered at 11-4 and leading the AFC North by one game over Baltimore, while AFC East champion Buffalo was 12-3.
“The NFLPA and everyone in our community is praying for Damar Hamlin,” the players’ union said in a statement. “We have been in touch with Bills and Bengals players, and with the NFL. The only thing that matters at this moment is Damar’s health and well being.”
The unfinished game has major playoff implications as the NFL enters the final week of the regular season, with the wild-card playoff round scheduled to begin on Jan. 14.
The aftermath of the injury was reminiscent of when Bills tight end Kevin Everett lay motionless on the field after making a tackle on the second-half opening kickoff in Buffalo’s 2007 season-opening game against the Denver Broncos.
Everett sustained a spinal cord injury that initially left him partially paralyzed.
Hamlin spent five years of college at Pittsburgh — his hometown — and appeared in 48 games for the Panthers over that span. He was a second-team All-ACC performer as a senior, was voted a team captain and was picked to play in the Senior Bowl.
He was drafted in the sixth round by the Bills in 2021, played in 14 games as a rookie and then became a starter this year once Micah Hyde was lost for the season to injury.
Kathryn Bersani and her mother, Gayle, were among the Bills fans who traveled from Buffalo for the game and went to the hospital from the stadium.
“This is our family Christmas,” Kathryn Bersani said. “We thought it would be a great game. Joe (Burrow) and Josh (Allen) are such great men. Sad, sad time. Such a shock. I just hope he can live a normal life. It stunned us.”
Chuck and Janet Kohl went to the hospital after watching the game at home.
“This is much more important than football,” Chuck Kohl said. “Had to come and pray for Mr. Hamlin.”
Entering the game, Hamlin had 91 tackles, including 63 solo tackles, and 1 1/2 sacks.
A tweet from the Pitt football account was simple and clear: “Damar Hamlin is the best of us. We love you, 3,” the tweet said, referring to Hamlin by his college jersey number. “Praying for you.”
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger on Monday said his force is “clearly better off” than it was before the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which happened two years ago Friday.
Manger said in a statement Monday that the Capitol Police force will exceed both its pre-pandemic and pre-Jan. 6 staffing levels in a few months, and that the force has hired a new intelligence director and leaders from “premier” law enforcement agencies who have experience in national security special events.
“Make no mistake, there is still work to be done,” Manger said. “The current threat climate, particularly against elected officials, will require continued and heightened vigilance. We will do everything possible to fulfill our mission of protecting the Members of Congress, the Capitol Complex and the legislative process.”
Manger said Capitol Police have made more than 100 improvements since the attack, some of which exceed recommendations made in the wake of the event. He added that the force now has specialized training and upgraded equipment to be better prepared for future attacks.
“With the polarized state of our nation, an attack like the one our Department endured on January 6, 2021, could be attempted again,” Manger added. “Should the unthinkable happen, we will be ready.”
More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot. One Capitol Police officer serving on Jan. 6 died the day after the attack. Two other officers, one with Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and one with Capitol Police, died by suicide in the days after the attack.
Ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who was the chief at the time of Jan. 6, warned in his new book that the department is “not in a better place or on a readier footing” two years after the insurrection, according to The Washington Post.
“Few people in the department feel there is a viable plan to move the agency into a better position,” Sund said in his book. “Hundreds of officers have left the department since Jan. 6 and many feel it is only going to get worse.”
Sund resigned the day following the riot after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on him to step down. Manger took over the post in July 2021 after a nationwide search for Sund’s replacement.
News, National Security, Capitol Police, Jan 6 insurrection, Jan. 6, Steven Sund, Tom Manger Read More
The journey for Klay Thompson has been far from easy.
Thompson went from winning three NBA championships to missing nearly two and a half years with injuries, then struggling to regain his form as the Warriors won the 2022 NBA Finals.
Thompson’s road to recovery has frustrated the five-time All-Star as Golden State has stumbled out the gate for the 2022-23 NBA season.
Monday night, Thompson took a major leap forward, scoring 54 points in a thrilling 143-141 double overtime victory for the Warriors over the Atlanta Hawks.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for me,” Thompson said, according to ESPN. “There were some hard days for me when I didn’t know that this would be possible in real time. I am just going to embrace the heck out of it.”
Thompson was 21-39 from the field – shooting 10-21 from beyond the three-point line – reaching his highest single-game total since the 2016 season.
“He just made shot after shot and play after play, he was incredible,” coach Steve Kerr said.
Golden State, without the services of Steph Curry for the ninth straight game, won their fifth consecutive game on Kevon Looney’s back as the game clock expired in the second OT.
“Everybody dreams about getting a game winner, so whenever you have a chance… it’s a great moment,” Looney said. “Especially in a double-overtime game where everybody was exhausted.”
Thompson played a season-high 46 minutes Monday night as Golden State moved to 20-18 on the season.
“I would not have been able to do this a few months ago, so this is a huge milestone for me,” Thompson said. “It’s a big confidence booster, individually. We’re almost nearing the halfway point. It feels great to feel like I’m getting better with every game. I know I’ll be more consistent as the season goes on… after 30 games under my belt, I’m feeling wonderful.”
Thompson’s long road back to the court began in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals when he tore his ACL. After rehabbing and missing the 2019-2020 season, Thompson tore his Achilles, forcing him to miss another full season and half of the 2021-22 schedule.
He returned to the court on Jan. 9, 2022, and was placed on a minutes restriction that extended into this season.
Critics of Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., slammed the politician for admitting that her government must “reverse the trend of people leaving our state” on Sunday after she told Republican lawmakers in the state to beat it to Florida last year.
During a January 1 inaugural address following her November re-election, the governor vowed to make New York a better and safer place to live, acknowledging the fact that many New Yorkers have fled the state for other parts of the country in the past year.
Local CBS anchor Anne McCloy tweeted about the telling moment in Hochul’s address, stating, “In a perhaps unexpected acknowledgment, @GovKathyHochul says New York State ‘must reverse the trend of people leaving our state.’”
McCloy also noted in the same post that “New York State saw the greatest population decline of any state in the last year according to the most recent U.S. Census data.”
The governor’s statement came several months after she told prominent Republicans to “get out” of New York.
In August, during her gubernatorial campaign against Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., Hochul lambasted her opponent and his Republican allies, stating, “We’re here to say that the era of Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. Get out of town.”
Conservatives were outraged by the statement at the time, accusing the governor of “flat out attacking not just GOP politicians, but GOP voters.” Though Hochul insisted the comments were specifically directed at Zeldin, Trump and Molinaro, not voters.
Conservatives blasted Hochul’s inaugural wish to get people back to New York considering her previous comments.
On Twitter, reporter Jim Stinson reminded Hochul, “If you tell people to leave, they will. If you over-regulate them and overtax them, they will leave faster.”
The RNC’s Jake Schneider tweeted, “Woman who told Republicans to ‘jump on a bus and head down to Florida’ shocked they listened.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., deputy press secretary Jeremy Redfern asked, “Didn’t she recently tell people that’s if they don’t vote for her then they should just move to Florida?”
Conservative radio host Michael Berry said, “They all moved to Florida. People voted with their feet. The policies of @GovRonDeSantis created a safer, freer & better place to live. When self-described ‘NYC snob’ moved out, they should have just turned out the lights. It’s all about policy.”
Retired U.S. diplomat Alberto Miguel Fernandez summed up Hochul’s problem, tweeting, “New York State missing the citizens that have fled and the future citizens that have been killed in the womb.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin himself slammed his former gubernatorial opponent in a tweet, writing, “Here’s a great place for Hochul to start: Stop telling people to get on a bus and move to Florida if they disagree with your views.”
And National Review national affairs reporter John Fund remarked that Hochul missed her window to solve her state’s crisis. He tweeted, “This is so late, it basically counts as never….”
Media, not the hotels themselves, often label hotels like Burj Al Arab as “six-star” or “seven-star” hotels.
Waitforlight | Moment | Getty Images
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai is scrapping its 30% tax on alcohol sales for the rest of the year, the emirate’s municipality announced Monday, the latest move in a series of liberalizing policy changes over the last few years aimed at boosting tourism and attracting more foreign residents.
“Dubai Municipality has temporarily stopped collecting the 30% fee from alcoholic beverage companies for a period of one year from the beginning of 01/01/2023 to the end of 12/31/2023. The companies authorized to sell in the Emirate of Dubai have been notified of this decision,” Dubai Municipality wrote in a post from its official Twitter account.
The move is likely a bid to increase tourism and stimulate more business among both visitors and residents as Dubai pushes forward in its goal to become the “happiest place on Earth.” Booze is notoriously pricey in Dubai, with a pint of beer often costing $15 and a glass of wine as much as $20 or more.
Local alcohol distributors announced the news first, with Dubai-based alcoholic beverage chain Maritime and Mercantile International (MMI) writing on its Facebook page on Sunday, “You can now: save 30% municipality tax on alcoholic beverages. We have reflected this across all our pricing!” It added that the UAE’s 5% sales tax (VAT) still applies, however.
It also said that personal liquor licenses, previously a requirement for all Dubai residents for purchasing alcohol in shops and costing 270 dirhams ($73.50), are now free. Before Jan. 1, liquor licenses had to be renewed yearly and had a processing time of about four weeks. Buying alcohol in bars however, did not require any license.
It’s not certain whether the new free licenses will still have the same processing times or renewal requirements. Dubai is also the only emirate in the United Arab Emirates that required residents to obtain a liquor license for in-shop purchases; in five other emirates including Abu Dhabi, no license was required, and in the UAE’s more conservative emirate of Sharjah, the sale of alcohol is not allowed.
Some Dubai residents were unhappy about the abrupt announcement, having recently paid the full fee for their yearly license.
“Just done the licensing couple of days back and paid for it. Can someone explain how to this came about? Why wasn’t this mentioned then?!” one Facebook user wrote in a comment on MMI’s post.
“My husband paid for the license 2 days ago, we wish you had said something! And he didn’t get any vouchers as per mentioned on your page and website. Definitely feel cheated,” another user wrote.
One of the users said MMI offered her a free bottle of wine as compensation, which she described as “not acceptable.” CNBC has reached out to MMI for comment.
watch now
VIDEO6:2506:25
The UAE moved its weekend. Here’s what happened next
More broadly, residents celebrated and welcomed the news. The announcement also comes as neighboring Saudi Arabia ramps up its apparent drive to supplant the UAE as the tourism and commercial capital of the region. Saudi Arabia is still a dry country, and its strict laws and largely conservative society are barriers for many prospective foreign residents.
The UAE, by contrast, and in particular its commercial capital of Dubai is home to a diverse 90% expatriate population and has long offered lifestyles comparable to those in the Western world. The city has countless bars, nightclubs and restaurants serving alcohol, conservative dress is not required, every major religion can set up places of worship, and cohabitation before marriage is legal, whereas in Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf Arab states it is not.
Woman sunbathers sit along a beach in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on July 24, 2020, while behind is seen the Burj al-Arab hotel.
KARIM SAHIB | AFP via Getty Images
The UAE also recently changed its Islamic weekend of Friday-Saturday to the Western weekend of Saturday-Sunday, to be in line with much of the rest of the world, and began offering a remote worker visa through the coronavirus pandemic as more people adopted a remote work lifestyle.
“Dubai has been a clear standout in terms of the speed of which its tourism market has recovered since the pandemic,” Karim Jetha, chief investment officer at Dubai-based asset management firm Longdean Capital, told CNBC.
“The decision to suspend alcohol taxes follows moves to change its weekend to Saturday-Sunday and the widening of access to long-term residency visas. As a collective, these initiatives are should boost tourism and encourage more expatriates to think of Dubai as their home,” he said.
BUFFALO (WPRI) — The NFL community was rocked after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during Monday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The 24-year-old is currently in critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest following a tackle during the first quarter.
Hamlin collapsed at 8:55 p.m., and when he was taken off the field about 19 minutes later, the Bills gathered in prayer. A few minutes after the ambulance left the field, the game was suspended, and players walked off the field slowly and into their locker rooms.
The online toy drive fundraiser was started by Hamlin in 2020 with the then-goal of raising $2,500. Since his collapse, fans have raised more than $3 million as of Tuesday morning.
“Following his injury on the field tonight, fans across the country are showing their support for him and his family by donating to his fundraiser,” GoFundMe tweeted Monday night.
Hamlin spent five years of college at Pittsburgh — his hometown — and appeared in 48 games for the Panthers over that span. He was a second-team All-ACC performer as a senior, and was voted a team captain.
Hamlin was drafted in the sixth round by the Bills in 2021, played in 14 games as a rookie and then became a starter this season after teammate Micah Hyde suffered an injury.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Arts & Culture, Changing America, Enrichment, News, Sports Read More
Conservative writer and author David French is joining The New York Times as a columnist, the newspaper announced on Tuesday.
French, who has emerged as a leading critic among conservatives of former President Trump in recent years, helped launch the anti-Trump conservative website “The Dispatch” before spending several years as a writer at The National Review.
The Times, in a note announcing French’s hire, described him as “forthright in his views, yet open to counterargument; sincere in his ideological commitments, yet willing to call out those who normally share his beliefs when he believes they’ve wandered astray.”
French begins at the Times later this month.
“Writing about politics and current affairs in the era of Donald Trump ideally requires a variety of traits that do not always, or even often, go together: factual and intellectual clarity, moral seriousness, and a spirit of generosity toward others and humility toward oneself,” the Times said.
Authorities have identified two men who died after being shot when a man fired a gun in celebration during a fireworks display at a New Year’s party in western Michigan.
The Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that the shooting killed David Reed, 35, of Waverly Township and Jason McCreary, 40, of Sutter Creek, California.
