Author: KnowledgeHippo

If the news of the Gottesman gift was met with such admiration and excitement, it was partly because it seemed to drown out the noise of the transaction that was ringing around so much generosity. It’s rarely been louder than in recent months, when some of the most successful people on Wall Street have been pushing to oust university presidents whose ideologies and management styles don’t align with their own.”There’s a wonderful humility to the story,” observed Amir Pasic, dean of Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, especially given what he described as a “change in sentiment” among donors,…

The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more resilient than many experts expected, and the rebound in immigration is a big reason.The resumption of the visa process in 2021 and 2022 has jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some workforce holes that remained in industries and locations after the pandemic shutdown. Immigrants also face a long-term need: replenishing the labor force, key to meeting job demands as births decline and older people retire.Net immigration in the year ending July 1, 2023 reached its highest level since 2017. The foreign-born now make up 18.6 percent of…

From the oil rigs of the Permian Basin to the wind turbines whirring over the Plains, West Texas has long been a magnet for companies seeking energy fortunes.Now, those barren ranchlands offer a new money-making opportunity: data centers.Lancium, an energy and data center management company setting up shop in Fort Stockton and Abilene, is one of several companies across the country betting that building data centers near manufacturing sites will allow them to tap into underutilized clean energy.”It’s a land grab,” said Lancium chairman Ali Fenn.In the past, companies built data centers close to Internet users to better serve consumer…

Employment growth, wage growth and business growth are all buoyant, and inflation has fallen sharply from the highs of 2022. But consumer sentiment, while improving, is still sharp.One reason may be sticker shock from some highly visible prices — even when overall inflation has calmed. The cost of car insurance is a prime example.Auto insurance rose 1.4% month-on-month in January alone and is up 20.6% over the past year, the biggest jump since 1976. It was a huge success for those who drive the approximately 272 million private and commercial vehicles registered in the country. And it played a role…

Why it matters: Vaccines often arrive too late to eliminate outbreaks.The public health response to outbreaks often relies on vaccines and treatments, but that underestimates the importance of other measures, said Miguel Paredes, lead author of the new study and an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.Although the Food and Drug Administration approved an mpox vaccine in 2019, getting enough doses and fielding the weapons proved challenging for many months after the outbreak began. Vaccines for new pathogens are likely to take even longer.The new analysis suggests an alternative. Notifying high-risk communities allowed people to change their…

Grapes have been associated with pleasure since ancient times, a symbol of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. These days, clusters of plum Concords, oval autumn royals and dusky kyohos grace dinner tables, doubling as antler decorations and low-effort snacks. “You can get a beautiful, imperfect grape,” says interior designer Colin King, 35, who overflowed a marble urn with a generous mound of them for the launch of his furniture collection, a collaboration with Future Perfect, in New York last fall. Although she uses green grapes for daytime parties, for evening events she prefers the “moody, sensual vibe” of…

Migration to the United States through the dangerous jungle passage known as the Darién Gap has stopped, at least temporarily, after the arrest of two boat captains working for companies that play an essential role in transporting migrants through the jungle.Shipping companies suspended migrant crossings from two northern Colombian cities, Necoclí and Turbo, to the entrance to the Darién forest, according to Necoclí’s mayor, leaving about 3,000 migrants stranded in those communities. Colombian law enforcement action in the region is sure to be closely watched by US officials: The Biden administration has been pushing Colombia for months to do more…

At Harvard University, the rabbi at a menorah lighting ceremony was unusually blunt.”It pains me to say, unfortunately, that Jew hatred and anti-Semitism thrive on this campus,” Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said Wednesday.”Twenty-six years I gave my life to this community,” he said. “I’ve never felt so alone.”Just the night before, he told the gathering, a woman walking through the Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony shouted that the Holocaust was fake. When Harvard Chabad hosted a screening of an Israeli military film featuring footage of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, he said campus police advised him to provide security for…

After watching “Navalny,” the documentary about Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, a Chinese businesswoman texted me: “Ren Zhiqiang is China’s Navalny.” He was talking about the retired real estate tycoon who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for criticizing China’s leader, Xi Jinping.After Mr. Navalny’s tragic death this month, a young dissident living in Berlin posted on X: “Master Li is closer to the Chinese version of Navalny.” He was referring to the rebel influencer known as Master Li, who used social media to share information about protests in China and who now fears for his life.There are…

President Biden issued an executive order on Wednesday seeking to limit the sale of sensitive US data to China, Russia and four other countries, a first-of-its-kind effort to keep personal information from being obtained for extortion, fraud or other harm.The president asked the Justice Department to write rules to limit the sale of information about the locations, health and genetics of Americans to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as to any entity associated with these countries. The restrictions will also cover financial information, biometric data and other types of information that could identify individuals and…