Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Leonard Cohen Reps Say GOP Was Turned Down on Request for ‘Hallelujah’ – Variety

Representatives of the late Leonard Cohen’s estate and publishing company have both issued statements saying they declined requests for his song “Hallelujah” to be used at the Republican National Convention — even though it was played twice following the conclusion of Donald Trump’s speech Thursday night.

The estate’s attorney made a threat of legal action as part of her statement.

Said Michelle L. Rice, the Cohen estate’s lawyer: “We are surprised and dismayed that the RNC would proceed knowing that the Cohen Estate had specifically declined the RNC’s use request, and their rather brazen attempt to politicize and exploit in such an egregious manner ‘Hallelujah,’ one of the most important songs in the Cohen song catalogue. We are exploring our legal options.”

 

Source: Leonard Cohen Reps Say GOP Was Turned Down on Request for ‘Hallelujah’ – Variety

The real-life origin story behind The Count of Monte Cristo — Repeating Islands

A report by Constance Grady for Vox. Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the work of Alexandre Dumas, the French writer who penned swashbuckling adventure novels like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s The Count of Monte Cristo that has an anniversary today — its serial publication first began on August 28, 1844, making it a sprightly 176 years old […]

The real-life origin story behind The Count of Monte Cristo — Repeating Islands

New York City tenants say they unwittingly appeared in GOP convention video: report | TheHill

New York City tenants say they unwittingly appeared in GOP convention video: report

Tenants who were featured in a Republican National Convention (RNC) segment on public housing say they had no idea their interview with a federal housing official would be used to support President TrumpThe New York Times reports. 

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

Another tenant, Carmen Quiñones, said she was upset her words were twisted to support President Trump, and that when Patton reached out to her about assembling tenants for the video it was not clear it was for the Republican Party. She said she is a lifelong Democrat who plans to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in November, and marched on Friday at the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks rally.

Source: New York City tenants say they unwittingly appeared in GOP convention video: report | TheHill

Nneka Jones, the Trinidadian artist catapulted into limelight after TIME magazine cover, talks more about her work · Global Voices

The cover of TIME magazine’s August 31-September 7 issue, titled “The New American Revolution,” boasts an embroidered image of the American flag, with a needle stuck into the thread of one unfinished end — a story that is still unfolding, especially for people of colour in the “land of the free.”

Source: Nneka Jones, the Trinidadian artist catapulted into limelight after TIME magazine cover, talks more about her work · Global Voices

Elon Musk Shows Neuralink Brain Link Working In a Pig

The Pig
Who Wanted To Become
The King

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With a pig named Gertrude, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink’s technology to build a digital link between brains and computers. A wireless link from the Neuralink device showed the pig’s activity activity as it snuffled around a pen on stage Friday night. CNET reports: The demonstration shows the the technology to be significantly closer to delivering on Musk’s radical ambitions than during a 2019 product debut, when Neuralink only showed photos of a rat with a Neuralink connected via a USB-C port. It’s still far from reality, but Musk said the US Food and Drug Administration in July granted approval for “breakthrough device” testing. Musk also showed a second-generation device that’s more compact and that fits into a small cavity hollowed out of a hole in a skull. “It’s like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said of the device. It communicates with brain cells with 1,024 thin electrodes that penetrate within brain cell.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former Florida Death-Row Prisoner Robert DuBoise Freed After DNA Proves His Innocence

A Florida trial court has freed a former death-row prisoner after local prosecutors said new DNA evidence had proven his innocence of the rape and murder for which he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 37 years ago.

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A Florida

trial court has freed a former death-row prisoner after local prosecutors said new DNA evidence had proven his innocence of the rape and murder for which he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 37 years ago.

Based on junk-science bite-mark evidence and false testimony from a prison informant, Robert DuBoise (pictured with his mother, Myra, following his release) was convicted of raping and murdering 19-year-old Barbara Grams. The jury unanimously recommended that DuBoise be sentenced to life, but his trial judge, Henry Lee Coe III, overrode their recommendation and sentenced DuBoise to be executed in Florida’s electric chair.

DuBoise was released from the Hardee Correctional Institution in Bowling Green, Florida, August 27, 2020, one day after Hillsborough prosecutors and lawyers from the national Innocence Project and the Innocence Project of Florida presented Circuit Judge Christopher Nash with evidence of his innocence. Working with State Attorney Andrew Warren’s Conviction Integrity Unit, the parties told the court that there was in fact no bite mark and that DNA evidence from an untested rape kit excluded DuBoise and implicated two other men.

In February 1988, the Florida Supreme Court overturned DuBoise’s death sentence, ruling that the trial court should not have overridden the jury’s sentencing recommendation and directing that DuBoise be resentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Nash reduced that sentence to time served and set a September 14 hearing date for the presentation of evidence to overturn his conviction.

DuBoise was greeted outside the prison by his mother, Myra, his sister, Harriet, and Innocence Project lawyer, Susan Friedman. After hugging his mother, he spoke to an assemblage of reporters and cameras.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he said.

Trump unleashes diatribe of falsehoods and baseless attacks in RNC finale

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Trump portrayed Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp, beat the drum of law and order and said little about racial injustice

You write him off at your peril. Donald Trump stood at one of America’s most hallowed spaces on Thursday – the White House – and bent it to his will, just as he has bent the Republican party and swaths of America.

Related: RNC: Trump paints Biden as a ‘radical’ candidate and a danger to America

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Families of Black Americans Killed by Police Had Too Many Names to Say at the March on Washington

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Black Americans who have lost loved ones to police brutality banded together Friday to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington — and they had a lot of names to say. 

“I wish George was here to see this right now,” Floyd’s brother Philonise said. “That’s who we’re marching for. For George. For Breonna. For Ahmaud. For Jacob. For Pamela Turner and Michael Brown. For Trayvon. And anyone else who lost their lives to evil.”

The families of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, and others closed out three hours of speeches from politicians, union workers, entertainers and activists on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 50,000 attendees packed onto the National Mall to listen before beginning the march to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. 

This year’s theme, “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” is a direct attack on police brutality and the killing of Black Americans. The relatives of those slain, many through tears, took to the podium to thank protestors for their support and share their condolences with others who share the same experience. 

The sister of Jacob Blake, the unarmed black man who was shot and paralyzed by Milwaukee Police Sunday, spoke directly to Americans who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I’m here to tell you in front of the world, that you’ve got the right one,” Blake’s sister Letetra Widman said. “We will not be your docile slave. We will not be your footstool to oppression. Most of all, we will not dress up this genocide and call it police brutality.”

Others, including Jacob Blake Sr., expressed mental exhaustion over the repeated slayings of black Americans by police.

“There are two systems of justice in the U.S., there’s a white system, and there’s a black system,” Jacob Blake Sr. said, calling out the killers of George Floyd, Amadou Diallo, and others. “The Black system ain’t doing so well. I’m tired of looking at camera [footage] and seeing these young black and brown people suffer.”

“I am tired of learning new names and adding new hashtags to an already long list of victims of police terror,” Botham Jean’s sister Alissa Finley echoed, invoking the names of Sandra Bland, Antwon Rose, Terence Crutcher and others.

Voting rights were also a big topic at the march this year, as USPS continues to make drastic changes that have slowed the mail, just months before a historic election where more people are voting absentee than ever before because of the threat of coronavirus. The son of Eric Garner challenged people to take to the polls this November.

“It’s been six years since my father’s words became our words,” Garner Jr. said, referring to his dad’s dying words, ‘I Can’t Breathe,’ which has since become a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. “We have to make a change. I am challenging the young people to go out and vote. Change is possible, we just have to put in the work.”

Political action was another common theme for speakers Friday. Democratic Vice President nominee Kamala Harris, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Martin Luther King Jr. III all implored people to not only vote, but to support legislation like the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

The night before Friday’s March on Washington, President Trump accepted his nomination at the RNC with a rambling, hour-and-ten-minute speech that blamed Democrats and the Black Lives Matter movement for violent protests and riots across the country in the wake of Black Americans who have died at the hands of police.