5 things to know for Oct. 28: Presidential race, Middle East, McDonald’s, Washington Post, Toxic smog

Technology

(CNN) — When considering who is living paycheck to paycheck, households with an income of six-figures or more likely aren’t the first to come to mind. However, it turns out that about a fifth of US households that earn more than $150,000 a year are in that situation.Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.1. Presidential raceMost voters think former President Donald Trump will not concede if he loses the 2024 presidential election, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with a sizable minority of his backers saying losing candidates have no obligation to do so. Overall, just 30% of registered voters think Trump will accept the results of the election and concede if he loses, while 73% say that Vice President Kamala Harris would accept an election loss. The poll comes a day after Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where he doubled down on his promise for a massive deportation program on Day 1 to reverse an “immigrant invasion.” “The United States is an occupied country,” Trump said, as Democrats projected messages on the exterior of the arena, reading “Trump is Unhinged” and “Trump praised Hitler.”2. Middle EastNegotiations for a ceasefire and to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza are not expected to see “significant progress” until a winner is declared in the US presidential election, a source briefed on the talks told CNN. The latest round of talks, which began in Qatar on Sunday, did not focus on achieving a deal, but rather on jump-starting the process, the source added. The discussions also covered the war in Lebanon, as well as Iran and its regional influence. Meanwhile, Iran has vowed to respond to Israel’s strikes on the country Saturday, which Tehran says killed five people, but said it does not want a wider war. Israel said the strikes hit military targets and were in response to Iran’s attacks on Israel earlier this month.3. McDonald’sMcDonald’s will resume selling Quarter Pounders in all its restaurants this week after considering new data regarding an E. coli outbreak linked to the burgers, the company said Sunday. The CDC issued a food safety alert last Tuesday warning that dozens of people reported becoming sick after eating Quarter Pounders. The E. coli outbreak has led to 75 illnesses across 13 states, including 22 hospitalizations and one death, according to the latest information from the CDC. Most of the related illnesses occurred in Colorado. A specific ingredient has not been confirmed as the source of the outbreak, federal agencies said Friday, but the FDA previously said slivered onions or beef patties were the likely source of contamination.4. Washington PostDays after The Washington Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate, its billionaire owner remains silent. Jeff Bezos has so far declined to comment, even as his own paper’s journalists reported that he was the one who ultimately spiked the planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Many current and former newspaper staffers feel the timing of the announcement was highly suspect and has led them to believe Bezos’s business interests influenced the decision. On Friday, Donald Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, the space exploration company owned by Bezos, hours after the Post announced its decision. The company has a $3.4 billion contract with the federal government to build a new spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the moon’s surface.5. Toxic smogA thick, toxic smog has enveloped northern India and eastern Pakistan just days before the start of Diwali, a festival typically celebrated with fireworks that each year sends air quality plummeting. The air quality index in India’s capital Delhi earlier today was roughly 250, after days in the “very unhealthy” zone above 200, according to IQAir, which tracks global air quality. In the Pakistani city of Lahore, roughly 15 miles from the Indian border, air quality today surpassed a “hazardous” 500 — almost 65 times the World Health Organization’s guidelines for healthy air — making it the most polluted city in the world, according to IQAir. Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, is set to begin Thursday. During the five-day celebration, people gather with their families, feast and set off firecrackers, further exacerbating air pollution.BREAKFAST BROWSESchool resumes in Asheville, NCA month after Helene pummeled western North Carolina as a tropical storm, students in the Asheville area have started returning to classrooms. The Asheville City Schools district will reopen on a modified schedule today , according to the district.Health alert for kidsChildren who have coughs that go on for weeks may have a type of walking pneumonia that’s been surging in the US this year — and they may need a different antibiotic regimen to treat it, infectious disease experts say.Shorter work week = thriving economyResearch shows Iceland’s economy is outperforming most other European countries after workers opted for less time in the office with no pay loss.Hidden in the wallsYou never know what renovating your old home might turn up: a Chicago-area resident once found a human skull in his walls. Decades later, DNA technology helped identified the remains.What all those sexy Halloween costumes are doing to kidsRather than helping them explore identities such as doctors or scientists, Halloween costumes often sexualize girls. Here’s how parents can combat this problem.TODAY’S NUMBER$20A North Carolina man knew it was his lucky day when he spotted a $20 bill in the parking lot of a convenience store. He had no idea how lucky until the scratch-off he bought with the money revealed his prize: $1 million.TODAY’S QUOTE“I will never excuse murder, and those were brutal, premeditated murders.”Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, explaining his recommendation to resentence Lyle and Erik Menendez, who are currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murder of their parents.TODAY’S WEATHERCheck your local forecast here > > >AND FINALLY …Dramatic rescueA Medina County, Ohio firefighter’s bodycam captured the courageous rescue of a woman who was trapped in the basement of her burning house and had to be pulled from a small window.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.​THE-CNN-WIRE (TM) & © 2024 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC., A TIME WARNER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Bose SoundLink Flex Is The Perfect Travel Speaker To Take Anywhere

Travel

Bose is one of those consumer brands that can divide a room full of nerds. Plenty of people swear by the audio brand and love its products. Some others say Bose products are pricey and the company doesn’t always show technical specifications. I tend to fall into the first camp because I’ve tested quite a few Bose products and I’ve always found them high quality even though they tend to be a bit more expensive than some other brands.

Following on from my recent review of the Bose SoundLink Max, this week I am looking at the Bose SoundLink Flex, a smaller Bluetooth speaker that was recently launched in its second iteration. The Second Generation SoundLink Flex is the same price as its predecessor but now incorporates some important changes that make it an even more compelling proposition.

The new Bose SoundLink Flex is now able to take advantage of the excellent Bose smartphone app which offers access to various customization options and other features. For example, there’s a graphic equalizer for tweaking the speaker’s tone or SimpleSync, an easy way for linking the Soundlink Flex with another compatible Bose product for a multi-speaker stereo setup that’s ideal for parties.

The Bose SoundLink Flex is shown here in Arctic Sage. BOSE
Another new feature is the Shortcut button which can be programmed using the Bose app as a SimpleSync button, for accessing a voice assistant or to trigger Spotify Connect. Along with the support for the Bose app, the new version of the speaker now supports AAC and aptX Bluetooth audio codecs and will even work with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound Technology when used with a compatible Android device.

The Bose SoundLink Flex is about the size of a small clutch bag and sports a crisp and nuanced sound with a surprisingly big bass. It’s the perfect travel speaker that’s small enough to pack into your luggage but with a big enough sound to fill a hotel room.

The speaker can play standing up, on its back or even hanging upside down because PositionIQ Technology senses the speaker’s orientation and optimizes the audio to ensure there’s plenty of sound projected. There’s also a textile loop on the end of the speaker that can be fitted with a carabineer for hanging the speaker on a tent spar or something similar. I’d love to have seen a color-coordinated carabineer in the box.

On the top of the SoundLink Flex is a strip of waterproof touch controls for doing everything from … [+] turning the speaker on or off, to adjusting the volume levels.Bose
There is a strip of waterproof controls running along the top of the SoundLink Flex. The Buttons include a power switch, Bluetooth pairing, Shortcut button, plus a rtrio of transport controls and volume adjusters. One thing I like about the power button is it only needs a short press to turn on or off, unlike some Bluetooth speakers.
With an IP67 rating, the Bose SoundLink Flex is both waterproof and dust-resistant, ensuring it can be used anywhere. It will even float if it drops in the bath or is thrown in a swimming pool. And thanks to the silicone-wrapped body, the speaker is also resistant to scuffs and scratches so should stay looking good for years.
A full charge of the Bose SoundLink Flex’s rechargeable battery can provide up to 12 hours of playtime, plus it can double as a full-duplex speakerphone because there is a microphone built-in. So, if you do need to take an important business call while chilling at the pool, that won’t be a problem.Pack the Bose SoundLink Flex in the back of the bar or hitch it to your backpack. The speaker is … [+] rugged and has a long-lasting battery plus great sound.Bose
Verdict: As we’ve come to expect with Bose, there are few technical specifications listed for the Bose SoundLink Flex, so you’ll have to use your ears to judge the sound. What we do know is the speaker uses Bluetooth 5.3 and supports SBC, AAC, apt X and Snapdragon Sound. That’s about it. I can’t quote you the power output in Watts and neither can I tell you how big the drivers are. All I can say is this is a gorgeous speaker with high-quality construction, great sound, good looks and a speakerphone function. What more do you want? Highly Recommended.
Pricing & Availability: The Bose SoundLink Flex is available in Black, Blue Dusk, Sandstone and a very fetching Alpine Sage, which is a minty green shade. The price is $149 / £149.95 / €179.95.

Crowd pleasers: Top tourist destinations have delivered big

Travel

Tracking Central Massachusetts tourist locations’ decisions and challenges – and how they handled them over the last three decades – is an exercise in business strategy. How do you get people to keep coming to your attraction?

More than 3.5 million guests visited New England Sports Center in Marlborough; Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton; indoor water park Great Wolf Lodge New England in Fitchburg; and Worcester’s Polar Park and DCU Center in 2023, according to the Worcester Business Journal 2024 Book of Lists.

So, what has made these destinations draw crowds over the past 35 years?

And what’s ahead?

Unique operations

Standout superstars Wachusett Mountain, DCU Center, and New England Sports Center have survived the pandemic, industry challenges, and destination trends through a common focus, according to Monique Joseph, president of Discover Central Massachusetts.

“These three have shown exceptional ability to innovate while staying true to their core strengths,” Joseph said. “Their forward-thinking approach has not only helped them navigate challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic but has also allowed them to thrive in a competitive market. By remaining deeply connected to their communities and continuously enhancing their offerings, these destinations have managed to retain and even grow their appeal.”

This is true even when you have a formidable enemy in Mother Nature.

Mountain mama

Jeff Crowley’s late father Ralph Crowley Sr. began leasing the ski mountain in the 1960s. Each year, Crowley said, the destination initiates a $2-million capital expenditure program.

Photo I Courtesy of Wachusett Mountain Ski Area
Jeff Crowley, president of Wachusett Mountain Ski Area

Run by Jeff and his siblings, Carolyn (Crowley) Stimpson and David Crowley, Wachusett Mountain has 27 trails, eight ski lifts, and 100 percent snowmaking ability – it also has climate change as a constantly evolving problem.

“Climate change is why we are having so many rain events – 23 last year,” said Jeff Crowley, president of Wachusett Mountain. “It makes it hard to get psyched up to go ski. But it’s a good experience in some respects. People can have a great experience, as they have the mountain to themselves.”

So, it’s not so much the need to have snow to operate the ski mountain anymore that’s the problem, says Crowley, it’s a perception among some that natural snow is needed to ski.

In fact, he says, man-made snow is better for skiing and lasts longer.

“We’re spending (a) half-million dollars this year on fan-type snowmaking units to enable us to get the place open on a timely basis,” said Crowley, with the technology becoming more energy efficient and better for the environment.

“It’s more dense and less apt to melt,” Crowley said of man-made snow. “Natural snow is beautiful, but doesn’t last as long.”

Snowmaking operations, along with the mountain’s webcams, were added by the Crowley family over the years. “We were webcam early adopters,” Crowley said. “It allowed people to go online and see ski conditions before heading out.”

Photo I Courtesy of the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism
Wachusett Moutnain has shined through ups and downs over the years.

Mount Wachusett – which had its trails cut in 1937 as part of a government program – will have its oldest lift replaced by a high-speed, six-pack lift next year, offering nine-second spacing in between each carrier, with auto-closure and auto-locking mechanisms. “It has the same capacity as a high-speed quad that would be loaded every six seconds,” Crowley said.

Another investment Mount Wachusett is making this year is replacing its circa-1960s skier services building, a project in the final planning stages.

Investment and improvement decisions – such as new lifts and building renovations – can come from customer feedback; anonymous surveys with management; and social media comments. Some upgrades aren’t as apparent to visitors, such as new software systems and well-pump replacements, Crowley said.

COVID constraints

During the pandemic, Wachusett Mountain did its best to accommodate the state’s mandate that it cut its capacity in half. It worked to find ways to enable more people to visit the mountain and get out of the house. It sold 4-hour blocks and 8-hour blocks.

“Our high-speed lifts got them a lot of vertical time,” Crowley said.

The DCU Center, meanwhile, was highly impacted by COVID, said general manager Sandy Dunn of ASM Global, the venue management company that oversees the 14,000-seat arena and 50,000-square-foot convention center.

Photo I Courtesy of DCU Center
Sandy Dunn, DCU Center general manager

The venue – owned by the city of Worcester since it opened in 1982 – was far from empty during the pandemic, serving as a UMass Memorial Health Care field hospital in the spring of 2021 for patients with minor coronavirus cases, to free up hospital space.

Over the years, the DCU Center has significantly expanded its ability to consistently book acts, Dunn said. With more competition in the marketplace, a company with ASM Global’s reach is a distinct advantage. “Without a consortium, a venue would be adrift now, finding it difficult to compete. Our team has 300 facilities and is the largest in the world. You need that kind of power in the industry,” Dunn said. “Artists are drawn to a global industry.”

The sheer number of venues now is a challenge, Dunn said. “There are only so many artists coming into a venue of our size. Back in the 1980s? It was just the [Boston] Garden and us.” Now, MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Great Woods (now the Xfinity Center) and other venues are in the running as well.

But along with tougher competition came an opportunity, and the DCU Center jumped into the ring – or rather rink – with professional hockey.

IceCat magic

The DCU Center – known until 1997 (and still to many) as the Worcester Centrum – hosted the Worcester IceCats for more than a decade when the Springfield Indians American Hockey League franchise moved to the city in 1994 and stayed until the end of the 2004-2005 season. The advent of higher-level professional sports brought a new revenue opportunity, Dunn said.

The AHL Worcester Sharks took the baton from the IceCats and played there from 2006 to 2015, while the ECHL Worcester Railers have made the DCU Center home since 2017.

“Minor league hockey showed it could exist and thrive. Now over 20 years in Worcester, it’s made a difference on our calendar,” she said.

More space made a difference, as well.

Photo I Courtesy of Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism
DCU Center in Worcester

Construction was completed in 1997 on a convention center with 50,000 square feet of exhibit space. This meant that lawn-and-garden-type shows could now move from the arena and into the convention center, which freed up the arena for other shows, said Dunn.

“We used to have to say no to certain consumer and trade shows as we could not accommodate. When the convention center was built, it created new business for the city and economic spinoff where folks could eat, stay, come in early and go to the attraction,” Dunn said.

The city will be putting out a bid to replace the arena sound system. The last upgrade was about 30 years ago, Dunn said. All the arena seats were replaced in 2023 for $7 million, the third seat replacement project since the arena was constructed.

Not keeping opportunities on ice

Hockey has been advantageous to the DCU Center, and it’s a game New England Sports Center founder Larue Renfroe calls “addictive,” having coached it for more than 40 years.

Renfroe also served as general contractor for NESC’s construction in 1994.

Photo | Courtesy of NESC
H. Larue Renfroe, founder of the New England Sports Center

The center began with four rinks for program teams, Renfroe said. “The facility helped to promote the game of hockey. It was just a 501(c) then, but we wanted to make money. To make money, you have to have ice.”

Tournaments continued, but it became harder and harder to get ice time, Renfroe said. “The business grew, and we had to add rink after rink, including smaller rinks for goalie training – all in response to demand.”

With a total of 10 rinks, including those added in 2004, 2010 and 2017, the center is the largest venue for hockey, figure skating, and public skating in North America. It has eight full-size rinks, one small, and one studio rink. A pro shop, two restaurants, and video arcade round out the offerings.

NESC hosts more than 50 hockey events annually, from all over North America. It is home to learn-to-play programs; development programs; and the Minuteman Flames and Lady Flames Minor Hockey Associations.

Demand drove the addition of each rink, Renfroe said, and the kind of programming, such as girls playing hockey.

But skaters and hockey players have to eat, too.

“We realized our original restaurant, which served breakfast and lunch, had a dinner menu that was the same as lunch and we needed more. We are a family destination. It constrained us, from a restaurant standpoint,” Renfroe said. New England Seafood opened at NESC in 2019.

Photo I Courtesy of NESC
NESC opened in 1994 with four ice rinks.

Reinventing itself

Now, said Jason Silbor, NESC general manager, with a great chef onboard, diners come in from outside – especially for New England Seafood’s chowder.

But with underutilized space, the facility wants to expand catering and events as another source of revenue. It’s a realm where there is definite potential.

NESC hosted a Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce dinner for 150 people in April. “We offer a nice venue, with about 40,000 to 50,000 square feet,” Renfroe said, with only about an eighth of that space used.

It’s now successfully bringing in another profit stream and another segment of the community that otherwise might not visit NESC.

Joseph, of Discover Central Massachusetts, called moves like DCU Center’s addition of the convention center; NESC’s branching into event hosting; and Wachusett Mountain’s strategic improvements wise and far-reaching.

“Each [organization] made significant strides in enhancing visitor experiences, adapting to changing consumer preferences, and investing in infrastructure to remain competitive,” she said.

All make the region socially vibrant and economically resilient.

Nicholas Sparks reveals which film adaptation is his favourite: ‘It just works’

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreNicholas Sparks has revealed his favourite film from the adaptations several of his novels have gone through.The author, 58, who has had 11 of his novels turned into films, told People magazine A Walk to Remember is the one that he has seen the most. “When I had my kids growing up, they hadn’t yet read a novel [of mine], and they’d say, ‘Oh, can we see what you do?’ I’d say, ‘I’ve got the movie for you.’”“And I had five kids so I had to sit through multiple viewings of that because I would show that to them again. That movie was great. It just works.”Mandy Moore and Shane West in ‘A Walk To Remember’

Book bans and censorship make America feel like ‘1984’

Arts & Culture, Books

It’s 2024, but the cultural climate feels like 1984, given book-banning, the reclassification of books and other methods of thought control nationwide.The British author George Orwell in his novel “1984” depicted the denial of objective fact, through censorship and other methods, as key indicators of a totalitarian state.His protagonist, the bureaucrat Winston Smith, spends his days manipulating archives, announcements and photographs to rid them of “unpersons” — people who have been erased from history by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the party’s thought police.It appears the thought police are active in Montgomery County, Texas, and other places.Montgomery County, a suburban area near Houston, recently reclassified the book “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” as fiction (and later reversed itself amid public pressure). The book about the Wampanoag nation that encountered the Mayflower, the 17th century ship that brought English colonists to the New World, is not fiction.
Montgomery County appears to want to shunt aside the troubled history of Indigenous Americans and European colonists.The erasure of historical fact, the repression of truth and the manipulation of thought portend a dark future for the U.S. if censorship impoverishes Americans, rendering them unable to wrestle with the unpleasant elements of American history.Craig Barner, Lincoln Square

SEND LETTERS TO: [email protected]. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of approximately 375 words.

Trump’s disturbing behaviorsLetter writer Bill Hartman of Barrington wrote about people questioning Donald Trump’s cognitive impairment, but funny, he doesn’t remember any letters being written about Joe Biden’s cognitive impairment, he said. All we heard and read for months were articles questioning Job Biden’s competency, but the difference here is that when Joe Biden himself realized — a sign of competency — that he might not be up to the task of being president again, he stepped back for the good of the country. It’s a concept Trump is completely unfamiliar with. As usual, it’s Trump putting himself, the narcissistic and arrogant megalomaniac, first. He has spoken of people eating pets in Ohio; he danced for 40 minutes at one of his rallies instead of taking questions; he has said children go to school, have surgery and return home that day as the opposite sex. Those are among a myriad of very strange and questionable behaviors. At least Biden was cognizant enough to know not to run. Trump is unable to see his inadequacies. If my father or grandfather uttered even one of the ideas Trump has spouted, I’d be terribly disturbed. The only difference is, my father or grandfather isn’t running to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world.Louise Bajorek, BurbankNo love for red-light camerasA reader said that Chicago needs more red-light cameras, and I wholeheartedly disagree. In my opinion, fewer cameras are needed for some simple reasons. One, a lot of people cannot afford the fines. And rear-end collisions have greatly increased at intersections where they are at. Lastly, contesting a ticket is nearly impossible.David Gordon, NorthbrookDolton mayor pulls a TrumpI read with great interest that Dolton mayor Tiffany Henyard has decided to pull a Donald Trump by announcing that she wants to have her “enemies” arrested.Steven Herr, West RidgeTackle West Side food insecurityThere is a serious problem with food insecurity on the West Side. This area needs grocery stores and fresh food options. There is an abundance of unhealthy fast-food restaurants everywhere you look. I spend most of my time working there. As a Chicago police officer, I witness how the correlation between resources and crime intersects. Neighborhoods without resources, jobs, stores and reliable transportation deal with upticks of crime.I remember reading an article last year, “Food Deserts Plague Chicago Neighborhoods. Could the City Run its Own Grocery Stores to Fill in the Gaps?” written by Mariah Rush and Michael Loria, that reported on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to open a city-owned grocery store at the same location as a previous Aldi that closed down.
I think this is a great idea. In fact, this location would be perfect for any grocery store because there is a building nearby with residents who do not have a local place to shop for fresh food or groceries. While the community waits for the results of this idea to come to fruition, we can take an idea from the gentleman who was interviewed in that article. Maurice Richmond is a manager of a locally owned nonprofit fresh market. Richmond uses his knowledge from working at Whole Foods to manage the store. He believes in providing food access, but says it is not easy. He believes in “providing low-cost, high-quality options for residents,” the reporters wrote.Although a city-run grocery store is a great idea, there are still several questions that need to be answered before a project like this can move forward. For example, who will operate the store? The article outlines that there must be a commitment of at least 10 years for it to be successful, so who will continue to fund the store? Finally, we must ensure that there is alignment in the community. We must take into consideration what the community needs. That is why some stores fail or close after two or three years. Look what happened to Whole Foods in Englewood. Whatever happens with the idea, the West Side of Chicago needs grocery stores!Jacqueline Trabanino, Garfield Park

Big Tech antitrust lawyers ramp up Harris fundraisers: ‘Trying to storm the castle’

Technology

High-powered lawyers representing Big Tech clients have co-hosted a series of blue-chip fundraisers for Kamala Harris’s campaign as the 2024 presidential election draws near – and antitrust watchdogs are crying foul.

Last Thursday, a group of “antitrust lawyers and economists for Harris” held a virtual fundraiser featuring an appearance by former US Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta. Ticket prices ranged as high as $6,600, according to a copy of an invitation obtained by The Post.

Notable co-hosts included Daniel Bitton, a partner at San Francisco-based law firm Axinn who is defending Google in the Biden-Harris DOJ’s lawsuit targeting its alleged monopoly over digital advertising

Other co-chairs included Renata Hesse, who once downplayed concerns about Google’s monopoly over online search; Edith Ramirez, a former Democratic FTC chair who once defended Google-owned YouTube in a class-action suit over kids’ privacy; and Ethan Glass, who has repped clients like JetBlue against US antitrust complaints.

Kamala Harris’s campaign surrogates has signaled she will take a friendlier stance toward businesses. ZUMAPRESS.com

“This is a confab of ‘Big Law’ lawyers who have been representing monopolists against the FTC and DOJ, and they are shamelessly trying to storm the castle after being locked out during the Biden years,” one Democrat who pays attention to antitrust issues told The Post.

Explore More

The Post reached out to the Harris campaign, Bitton, Hesse, Ramirez and Glass for comment but did not hear back.

Earlier this month, The Post reported on conflict-of-interest concerns that arose after several key members of Google’s legal team co-hosted an Oct. 18 fundraiser for Harris in Washington, DC – with tickets costing as much as $50,000.

Karen Dunn, a top litigator at white-shoe law firm Paul Weiss who infamously led Harris’s final debate prep against Trump on the same day that she delivered Google’s opening defense in the digital advertising trial, was listed as a co-chair.

Daniel Bitton is part of the team defending Google in the DOJ’s antitrust case targeting its digital advertising business. Axinn

Dunn’s colleagues Jeannie Rhee and Bill Isaacson also attended the event, which featured appearances by former US Attorney General Eric Holder, Uber general counsel and Harris’s brother-in-law Tony West and ex-acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

Just one day later, longtime Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky co-hosted a fundraiser alongside key Harris campaign surrogate and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by The Post.

In California, Newsom recently vetoed an AI safety bill that had been vigorously lobbied against by tech venture firm Andreessen Horowitz and trade groups representing Google and Meta. After initially opposing the bill, Amazon-backed AI firm Anthropic expressed tepid support for the bill after securing changes.

Edith Ramirez is listed as a co-chair of a fundraiser for the Harris campaign last Thursday. Getty Images

The offensive is playing out as Big Tech firms weather an unprecedented wave of antitrust litigation.

Apple and Google are in the midst of historic Justice Department antitrust cases, while Amazon and Facebook are currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission. AI leaders like chip supplier Nvidia and OpenAI also have the attention of regulators.

“It should be deeply concerning to anyone, Republican or Democrat, that cares about reining in Big Tech monopolies, that (Harris’s campaign) continues to do fundraisers with lawyers for Google and other Big Tech companies,” public affairs executive Garrett Ventry said.

Top regulators appointed by the Biden-Harris administration, including FTC Chair Lina Khan and SEC chair Gary Gensler, have faced sharp pushback from Silicon Valley bigwigs for leading a crackdown on prominent firms active in the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency sectors.

Renata Hesse once downplayed concerns about Google’s monopoly over online search. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

In July, billionaire Reid Hoffman sparked outrage among progressives when he accused Khan of “waging war on American business” and openly calling on Harris to fire her if she is elected. Other Democratic advocates, including Mark Cuban, have called for Gensler to be forced out.

The backlash has contributed to a surprising shift in Silicon Valley support toward Trump – most notably in the form of Elon Musk, who recently declared himself “dark MAGA” and contributed millions to his campaign.

The Harris campaign has made clear efforts to reassure Silicon Valley, a longtime source of support and major donations for Democrats.

Key Harris surrogates like Cuban and West have made the case in public and behind closed doors that she would take a friendlier stance toward corporate interests if she is elected.

Karen Dunn (center) and other Google attorneys hosted a fundraiser for Kamala Harris earlier this month. REUTERS

Cuban, when asked by The Post if he had a sense of how a Harris administration would handle Big Tech antitrust matters, replied, “I don’t.”

Last week, the Washington Post reported that West and ex-Treasury official Brian Nelson have been telling groups of tech executives that they are in “listening mode” during private outreach meetings on Harris’s behalf.

Andreesen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz, who previously expressed support for Trump, reversed course last month by pledging a “significant” donation to Harris. Horowitz said he “had several conversations with Vice President Harris and her team on their likely tech policies and am encouraged by my belief in her.”

Kamala Harris has yet to take a firm stance on how she’ll approach Big Tech antitrust matters. Getty Images

In September, Harris released an economic policy outline that provided arguably the most substantive look at the policies she would pursue in the office.

The 82-page document said a Harris administration would “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors” – but referenced the word “antitrust just one time.”     

Some anti-monopoly watchdogs previously warned that corporate-friendly advisers in Harris’s orbit could lobby behind the scenes for leniency toward Google – potentially in the form of a “slap on the wrist settlement” rather than the full-fledged breakup sought by the feds.

In August, the DOJ won a historic victory after Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google was a “monopolist” with an illegal stranglehold over the online search market. He is expected to decide on remedies by next summer – and the feds have floated a forced selloff of Google’s Android software or Chrome browser as potential fixes.

Meanwhile, closing arguments in the DOJ’s digital advertising antitrust case are expected to wrap up in November. Google boss Sundar Pichai has admitted that he expects the company to be entangled in antitrust litigation and appeals for “many years.”

Vampires, satanists and mad scientists: the evolution of horror in 10 revolutionary films

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

How do you like your horror? Elevated arthouse or sleazy splatter? Comfortably cliched or disturbingly groundbreaking? Disgustingly gruesome or so subtle you can’t work out why you’re uneasy? Do you limit your consumption of horror films to Halloween but steer clear the rest of the year? Or are you a horror fiend who just can’t get enough of it, whatever the season?The good news is that the horror genre has been going strong for more than a century, so you’ll never run out of films to scare you. From early silents Le Manoir du diable (1896) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) to this year’s genuinely gruesome slasher hit Terrifier 3 – which recently knocked Joker: Folie à Deux off the top of the US box office – there has never been any shortage of audiences lining up to be chilled, unsettled or downright freaked out. Just look at this year’s robust box office on Abigail, Immaculate and Longlegs, as well as artier offerings such as The Substance. The future of cinema, it seems, is horror. And not just in terms of profit, but in visual imagination, envelope-pushing and audience enjoyment.Every genre fan knows Dracula and Frankenstein, King Kong, The Exorcist, Carrie, An American Werewolf in London, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. But behind every gamechanger, there are antecedents and influences, both direct and indirect. And however beloved the canon, there are always less familiar treasures to be unearthed. So here I have traced the evolution of the horror genre in 10 films. For the most part I have avoided the big beasts and instead highlighted some less familiar, but no less significant efforts in the long history of the genre.If the most recent title in this selection is from 2001, it doesn’t mean 21st-century horror is in decline. On the contrary, the genre is thriving, with film-makers such as Jordan Peele exploring new avenues, more female directors adding their voices to the mix, and subgenres overlapping in surprising new ways. It takes time for trends to coalesce; it wasn’t until 30 years after its release that The Wicker Man (1973), and films with related themes, were given the label “folk horror”. But of one thing you can be sure: the genre is a constantly evolving beast, and horror films will continue to shock, delight and terrify us for many years to come.Monsters: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)View image in fullscreen“And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”FW Murnau’s unofficial adaptation of Dracula provided a blueprint for the gothic monster movie. From Universal’s creature features to Hammer’s dark fairytales, the monsters were invariably foreign interlopers injecting polite society with erotic energy. Murnau’s silent expressionist masterpiece also introduced a specifically cinematic feature that has since become lore: the vampire destroyed by daylight. Werner Herzog remade it in 1979, and Robert Eggers’s new version hits cinemas at the end of 2024.Mad science: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)View image in fullscreen“I’ve played with dangerous knowledge!”In Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella and its umpteen adaptations, the horror comes not from outside, but from within. From Frankenstein and The Invisible Man to Re-Animator, hubristic experiments invariably end in carnage. Fredric March won an Oscar for his bravura mad scientist performance in Rouben Mamoulian’s version, which anticipates slasher movie conventions with its first-person point-of-view camerawork, and raised the special effects bar with an extraordinary onscreen transformation, achieved with coloured filters.Satanism: The Seventh Victim (1943)View image in fullscreen“If one believes in God, one must believe in the devil.”Val Lewton, who produced a series of low-key, low-budget horror films for RKO in the 1940s, anticipated Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby by 25 years with this poetically downbeat tale of New York satanism. And it was Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Lewton alumnus Jacques Tourneur, that bridged the gap between shadowy witch cults and the unambiguous devilry that would flood cinemas with in-your-face demonic possessions and unnatural pregnancies in Rosemary’s wake.Dreams and hallucinations: Dead of Night (1945)View image in fullscreen“Everybody in this room is part of my dream.”An architect experiences extreme deja vu at a country house party where the guests tell spooky stories. Ealing Studios’ anthology takes the “it was all a dream” cliche to its logical, terrifying conclusion. The blurred line between dreams and reality has never been evoked so well as in horror films, embracing such variations as death dreams, premonitions, characters revealed as figments of the imagination, and the uncanny non-linear visions of Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now) and David Lynch (Eraserhead onwards).Aliens: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)View image in fullscreen“Some weird alien organism, a mutation of some kind.”Horror and science fiction have always gone hand in hand. But aliens emerged as an amorphous peril in their own right in Don Siegel’s film of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers, which channelled cold war paranoia and McCarthyism into a nightmare where even loved ones can’t be trusted. Two successful remakes (and a botched one) followed. Meanwhile, Italian maestro Mario Bava prefigured Alien with his eerie Planet of the Vampires (1965), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967) showed us the Martians are already here – and they’re us!skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSlashers: Peeping Tom (1960)View image in fullscreen“Imagine … someone coming towards you … who wants to kill you … regardless of the consequences.”The Spiral Staircase (1946) featured proto-slasher elements, but it wasn’t until 1960 that Peeping Tom and Psycho sowed the seeds of the modern slasher movie, in which the mortal threat arises from psychiatric disorder rather than anything supernatural. Bava, ever prescient, got in early with Blood and Black Lace (1964) and A Bay of Blood (1971), followed by Black Christmas, Halloween and Friday the 13th. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) reintroduced supernatural elements to the formula, while Vincent Price horror-comedies The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) and Theatre of Blood (1973) laid the groundwork for the theme-killing of Se7en (1995) and its imitators.Sadeian cinema: Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)View image in fullscreen“Brutal … evil … ghastly beyond belief!”Low-budget exploitation director Herschell Gordon Lewis advanced the cause of gore for gore’s sake in films such as this splatter version of Brigadoon, in which southern rednecks butcher Yankee tourists in graphic ways. Sadeian Cinema (alluding to the Marquis de Sade, who derived pleasure from the suffering of others) pushes boundaries of what is acceptable on screen, and provides young horror fans with a gruelling rite of passage. It eventually morphed into the New French Extremity genre, the Saw franchise (2004 onwards) and A Serbian Film (2010). Sadeian masterpieces, if you’re brave enough, include Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).Zombies and gore: Dawn of the Dead (1978)View image in fullscreen“They’re us, that’s all.”George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) broke all the horror rules (entrail-eating, no comic relief, everybody dies) and had as drastic an effect on horror cinema as Easy Rider had on mainstream Hollywood, but it wasn’t until his first sequel that flesh-ripping zombies became the monster du jour. Italian film-makers such as Lucio Fulci took this template and added even more splatter, while low-budget cinema was overrun with walking cadavers of all persuasions. Shuffling or sprinting, comic or poignant, they can be metaphors for everything, from viral contagion to any depersonalised social group.Body horror: Videodrome (1983)View image in fullscreen“Long live the New Flesh!”Canadian director David Cronenberg virtually invented the body horror subgenre with his gruesome thought experiments featuring sexual parasites, armpit implants and – in this ahead-of-its-time media meltdown – James Woods as a cable TV programmer who develops a pulsating VCR slot in his stomach. With the expanding interest in piercings, tattoos, cosmetic surgery and gender fluidity, it’s not surprising Cronenberg’s successors have continued to explore physical modification themes in films such as Titane (2021). Meanwhile, Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto pushed that modification into cyberpunk territory with Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).Techno horror and ghosts: Kairo, AKA Pulse (2001)View image in fullscreen“I just feel like something’s wrong.”The Blair Witch Project (1999) kickstarted the found-footage phenomenon already glimpsed in Cannibal Holocaust (1980). But it was Japanese film-makers who most fruitfully explored the horror of new technology: a cursed video in Ring (1998), mobile phones in One Missed Call (2003), and an internet of ghosts feeding off the alienation of the living in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s unnerving masterpiece, Kairo. The new wave of horror that followed took its cue from chatrooms, hackers and the dark web. Kurosawa’s slow-burn approach, shared by Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) and Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge), also triggered a global resurgence in ghost stories, shying away from the graphic Sadeian horrors of Saw and harking back to the subtler chills of The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting (1963).

Vampires, satanists and mad scientists: the evolution of horror in 10 revolutionary films

Science and Health

How do you like your horror? Elevated arthouse or sleazy splatter? Comfortably cliched or disturbingly groundbreaking? Disgustingly gruesome or so subtle you can’t work out why you’re uneasy? Do you limit your consumption of horror films to Halloween but steer clear the rest of the year? Or are you a horror fiend who just can’t get enough of it, whatever the season?The good news is that the horror genre has been going strong for more than a century, so you’ll never run out of films to scare you. From early silents Le Manoir du diable (1896) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) to this year’s genuinely gruesome slasher hit Terrifier 3 – which recently knocked Joker: Folie à Deux off the top of the US box office – there has never been any shortage of audiences lining up to be chilled, unsettled or downright freaked out. Just look at this year’s robust box office on Abigail, Immaculate and Longlegs, as well as artier offerings such as The Substance. The future of cinema, it seems, is horror. And not just in terms of profit, but in visual imagination, envelope-pushing and audience enjoyment.Every genre fan knows Dracula and Frankenstein, King Kong, The Exorcist, Carrie, An American Werewolf in London, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. But behind every gamechanger, there are antecedents and influences, both direct and indirect. And however beloved the canon, there are always less familiar treasures to be unearthed. So here I have traced the evolution of the horror genre in 10 films. For the most part I have avoided the big beasts and instead highlighted some less familiar, but no less significant efforts in the long history of the genre.If the most recent title in this selection is from 2001, it doesn’t mean 21st-century horror is in decline. On the contrary, the genre is thriving, with film-makers such as Jordan Peele exploring new avenues, more female directors adding their voices to the mix, and subgenres overlapping in surprising new ways. It takes time for trends to coalesce; it wasn’t until 30 years after its release that The Wicker Man (1973), and films with related themes, were given the label “folk horror”. But of one thing you can be sure: the genre is a constantly evolving beast, and horror films will continue to shock, delight and terrify us for many years to come.Monsters: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)View image in fullscreen“And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”FW Murnau’s unofficial adaptation of Dracula provided a blueprint for the gothic monster movie. From Universal’s creature features to Hammer’s dark fairytales, the monsters were invariably foreign interlopers injecting polite society with erotic energy. Murnau’s silent expressionist masterpiece also introduced a specifically cinematic feature that has since become lore: the vampire destroyed by daylight. Werner Herzog remade it in 1979, and Robert Eggers’s new version hits cinemas at the end of 2024.Mad science: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)View image in fullscreen“I’ve played with dangerous knowledge!”In Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella and its umpteen adaptations, the horror comes not from outside, but from within. From Frankenstein and The Invisible Man to Re-Animator, hubristic experiments invariably end in carnage. Fredric March won an Oscar for his bravura mad scientist performance in Rouben Mamoulian’s version, which anticipates slasher movie conventions with its first-person point-of-view camerawork, and raised the special effects bar with an extraordinary onscreen transformation, achieved with coloured filters.Satanism: The Seventh Victim (1943)View image in fullscreen“If one believes in God, one must believe in the devil.”Val Lewton, who produced a series of low-key, low-budget horror films for RKO in the 1940s, anticipated Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby by 25 years with this poetically downbeat tale of New York satanism. And it was Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Lewton alumnus Jacques Tourneur, that bridged the gap between shadowy witch cults and the unambiguous devilry that would flood cinemas with in-your-face demonic possessions and unnatural pregnancies in Rosemary’s wake.Dreams and hallucinations: Dead of Night (1945)View image in fullscreen“Everybody in this room is part of my dream.”An architect experiences extreme deja vu at a country house party where the guests tell spooky stories. Ealing Studios’ anthology takes the “it was all a dream” cliche to its logical, terrifying conclusion. The blurred line between dreams and reality has never been evoked so well as in horror films, embracing such variations as death dreams, premonitions, characters revealed as figments of the imagination, and the uncanny non-linear visions of Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now) and David Lynch (Eraserhead onwards).Aliens: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)View image in fullscreen“Some weird alien organism, a mutation of some kind.”Horror and science fiction have always gone hand in hand. But aliens emerged as an amorphous peril in their own right in Don Siegel’s film of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers, which channelled cold war paranoia and McCarthyism into a nightmare where even loved ones can’t be trusted. Two successful remakes (and a botched one) followed. Meanwhile, Italian maestro Mario Bava prefigured Alien with his eerie Planet of the Vampires (1965), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967) showed us the Martians are already here – and they’re us!skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSlashers: Peeping Tom (1960)View image in fullscreen“Imagine … someone coming towards you … who wants to kill you … regardless of the consequences.”The Spiral Staircase (1946) featured proto-slasher elements, but it wasn’t until 1960 that Peeping Tom and Psycho sowed the seeds of the modern slasher movie, in which the mortal threat arises from psychiatric disorder rather than anything supernatural. Bava, ever prescient, got in early with Blood and Black Lace (1964) and A Bay of Blood (1971), followed by Black Christmas, Halloween and Friday the 13th. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) reintroduced supernatural elements to the formula, while Vincent Price horror-comedies The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) and Theatre of Blood (1973) laid the groundwork for the theme-killing of Se7en (1995) and its imitators.Sadeian cinema: Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)View image in fullscreen“Brutal … evil … ghastly beyond belief!”Low-budget exploitation director Herschell Gordon Lewis advanced the cause of gore for gore’s sake in films such as this splatter version of Brigadoon, in which southern rednecks butcher Yankee tourists in graphic ways. Sadeian Cinema (alluding to the Marquis de Sade, who derived pleasure from the suffering of others) pushes boundaries of what is acceptable on screen, and provides young horror fans with a gruelling rite of passage. It eventually morphed into the New French Extremity genre, the Saw franchise (2004 onwards) and A Serbian Film (2010). Sadeian masterpieces, if you’re brave enough, include Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).Zombies and gore: Dawn of the Dead (1978)View image in fullscreen“They’re us, that’s all.”George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) broke all the horror rules (entrail-eating, no comic relief, everybody dies) and had as drastic an effect on horror cinema as Easy Rider had on mainstream Hollywood, but it wasn’t until his first sequel that flesh-ripping zombies became the monster du jour. Italian film-makers such as Lucio Fulci took this template and added even more splatter, while low-budget cinema was overrun with walking cadavers of all persuasions. Shuffling or sprinting, comic or poignant, they can be metaphors for everything, from viral contagion to any depersonalised social group.Body horror: Videodrome (1983)View image in fullscreen“Long live the New Flesh!”Canadian director David Cronenberg virtually invented the body horror subgenre with his gruesome thought experiments featuring sexual parasites, armpit implants and – in this ahead-of-its-time media meltdown – James Woods as a cable TV programmer who develops a pulsating VCR slot in his stomach. With the expanding interest in piercings, tattoos, cosmetic surgery and gender fluidity, it’s not surprising Cronenberg’s successors have continued to explore physical modification themes in films such as Titane (2021). Meanwhile, Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto pushed that modification into cyberpunk territory with Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).Techno horror and ghosts: Kairo, AKA Pulse (2001)View image in fullscreen“I just feel like something’s wrong.”The Blair Witch Project (1999) kickstarted the found-footage phenomenon already glimpsed in Cannibal Holocaust (1980). But it was Japanese film-makers who most fruitfully explored the horror of new technology: a cursed video in Ring (1998), mobile phones in One Missed Call (2003), and an internet of ghosts feeding off the alienation of the living in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s unnerving masterpiece, Kairo. The new wave of horror that followed took its cue from chatrooms, hackers and the dark web. Kurosawa’s slow-burn approach, shared by Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) and Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge), also triggered a global resurgence in ghost stories, shying away from the graphic Sadeian horrors of Saw and harking back to the subtler chills of The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting (1963).