Author: KnowledgeHippo

Deadspin, the sports news website, has been sold to a European digital media company, its owner, G/O Media, said Monday.G/O Media, which is owned by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, manages a number of digital media brands, including Gizmodo, Kotaku and The Onion. Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive, told staff members in an email Monday afternoon that the company had recently been approached about a deal by “a digital media startup” called Lineup Publishing.Mr. Spanfeller said the board accepted the offer because of “the buyer’s editorial plans for the brand, stiff competition in the sports journalism space and a…

Companies like OpenAI and Midjourney build chatbots, image generators, and other AI tools that work in the digital world.Now, a start-up founded by three former OpenAI researchers is using the technology development methods behind chatbots to create AI technology that can navigate the physical world.Covariant, an Emeryville, California-based robotics company, creates ways for robots to pick, move and sort items as they move through warehouses and distribution centers. Its goal is to help robots understand what is happening around them and decide what to do next.The technology also gives the bots a broad understanding of the English language, allowing people…

Faye Martin said her son, Ryan, a commercial electrician, was prescribed opioid painkillers for a work-related injury. When he became dependent on them, a doctor stopped his prescription. Ryan turned to heroin. Eventually, he entered treatment and stayed sober for a while. But, ashamed of his history of addiction, he kept to himself and gradually started using drugs again. Believing he was buying Xanax, he died from taking a fentanyl-tainted pill in 2021, the day after his 29th birthday.Although he, like thousands of victims, died from a fake pill, his grieving mother feels like others are looking down on her.”When…

Biden and Netanyahu clashed over the war in GazaPresident Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded barbs as the public dispute over Israel’s tactics in Gaza intensified.Biden said in an interview that Netanyahu “should pay more attention to the innocent lives that are being lost” and that he is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”Netanyahu responded in a later interview that if Biden believed that Netanyahu was going against the wishes of the majority of Israelis and that it harmed Israel’s interests, then he was wrong on both counts.The fight comes as the UN and aid agencies warned of…

Virginia will end legacy admissions at public universities after Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill Friday banning the practice that gives applicants with family ties to graduates a boost. Under House Bill 48, the state’s public universities would be prohibited from giving preferential treatment to applicants based on their connections not only to alumni but also to donors. This means that universities can no longer give an advantage to applicants whose relatives donate to the school. Critics of such preferences have said for years that the centuries-old practice perpetuates privilege.The ban would particularly affect the University of Virginia and William…

A year ago, the government and America’s biggest banks joined forces in a rare moment of optimism.They were forced into action after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, 2023, quickly followed by two other lenders, Signature Bank and First Republic. Faced with the threat of a burgeoning crisis that could threaten the banking industry — the worst since 2008 — rivals and regulators have raised a massive bailout fund. All three troubled banks were declared insolvent by the government and sold off.The biggest banks emerged from the period even bigger, having taken accounts from their smaller rivals. But they…

Kathy Goldman, who dedicated her career as a civic leader to establishing food banks, pantries and free breakfast and lunch programs in public schools to sustain low-income New Yorkers, died March 5 in Brooklyn. He was 92 years old.Her daughter, Julie Goldman, said the cause of death, at a hospital, was congestive heart failure.Ms. Goldman was determined to confront the collective indifference she felt had contributed to the Holocaust. Over five decades she worked with many partners to successfully lobby for federal subsidies such as food stamps and nutritional assistance for women, children and infants. build partnerships between corporate supply…

When Wafaa al-Kurd was about to give birth, she said, she weighed less than before she became pregnant and survived on rice and artificial juice.She gave birth to a nearly six-pound girl, named Tayma, just two weeks ago, she said. Since then, her husband has spent his days scouring the markets in northern Gaza, where the family lives, trying to find enough food for his wife to breastfeed and keep Tayma alive.Nearly 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffer from malnutrition, dehydration and a lack of proper healthcare, according to Gaza’s health ministry. In a statement on Friday, the ministry said…

The Scantron bubbles were gone. So were the long passages and the pressure to read quickly. #2 pencils? Optional and for note taking only.On Saturday, students across America took the latest version of the SAT, which was shorter, faster — and most importantly, all online. Some exams were briefly plagued by technical glitches, but even so, many test-takers had positive views of the new format. They were particularly relieved at the shortness of the exam – which was reduced from three hours to just over two hours – as well as being able to set their own pace as they…

William Whitworth, who wrote revealing profiles in The New Yorker giving voice to its idiosyncratic subjects and handled the prose of some of the nation’s best-known writers as an associate editor before transplanting that magazine’s arduous standards to The Atlantic, where he was editor-in-chief for 20, died Friday in Conway, Ark., near Little Rock. It was 87.His daughter, Kathryn Whitworth Stewart, announced the death. He said he was being treated after several falls and operations at a hospital.As a young college graduate, Mr. Whitworth abandoned a promising career as a jazz trumpeter to pursue a different kind of improvisation as…