Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg, said in a pair of lawsuits that the effort to place blame on her and Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business host, was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the company.
Grossberg, who has worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, filed lawsuits against the company in New York and Delaware on Monday, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the continuing legal battle around the network’s coverage of unfounded claims about election fraud. As reported by the New York Times.
Grossberg said Fox lawyers had tried to position her and Ms. Bartiromo to take the blame for Fox’s repeated airing of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its supposed role in manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Ms. Grossberg said the effort to place blame on her and Ms. Bartiromo was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the network.
The new lawsuits, coupled with revelations from the Dominion legal fight, shed light on the rivalries and turf battles that raged at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, as network executives fought to hold on to viewers furious at the top-rated network for accurately reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in Arizona, a crucial swing state.
The lawsuits also include details about Ms. Grossberg’s work life at Fox and on Mr. Carlson’s show. Ms. Grossberg says she and other women endured frank and open sexism from co-workers and superiors at the network, which has been dogged for years by lawsuits and allegations about sexual harassment by Fox executives and stars.
The network’s disregard for women, Ms. Grossberg alleged, left her and Ms. Bartiromo understaffed — stretched too thin to properly vet the truthfulness of claims made against Dominion on the air. At times, Ms. Grossberg said, she was the only full-time employee dedicated solely to Ms. Bartiromo’s Sunday-morning show.
In her complaints, Ms. Grossberg accuses lawyers for Fox News of coaching her in “a coercive and intimidating manner” before her September deposition in the Dominion case. The lawyers, she said, gave her the impression that she had to avoid mentioning prominent male executives and on-air talent to protect them from any blame, while putting her own reputation at risk.
This story just keeps giving more fodder to the hypocrisy that exists at Fox News!
Willis Reed, the captain of the New York Knickerbockers died yesterday at the age of 80. He was the hero of the greatest game in New York professional basketball history when he led his team to victory in Game 7 of the NBA Championship against the Los Angeles Lakers. I watched that game on television and the energy he generated when he came out of the tunnel (see video) was incredible. Mike Lupica has a tribute (see below) to Reed in the New York Daily News today entitled, “Willis Reed was the beating heart of the champion Knicks.”
So true!
May he rest in peace!
Tony
Willis Reed after the Knicks beat the Lakers on May 8, 1970. Off the court, he was a gentle giant, flashing an easy smile and typically extending a large hand to greet friends and acquaintances. Credit…Associated Press
Willis Reed was the beating heart of the champion Knicks
It couldn’t have happened without all of them, without Clyde who played the game of his life in that Game 7 against the Lakers that May night in 1970, the night at Madison Square Garden when the Knicks finally won it all, 36 points from him and 19 assists and seven rebounds.
It wouldn’t have happened without Dave DeBusschere, the bartender’s kid from Detroit, and Bill Bradley, the Rhodes Scholar out of Crystal City, Mo., and then Princeton. And it sure wouldn’t have happened without Red Holzman, the basketball lifer out of the NBA in the 1950s, the quiet leader of the band, growling at them to all see the ball.
But none of it could possibly have happened without Capt. Willis Reed, who limped out that night on a ruined leg and made two jumpers against Wilt Chamberlain and the Lakers, in the greatest basketball moment of them all in New York City, the one that officially turned what Pete Hamill used to call the Basie band of pro basketball into as beloved and storied a team as the city has ever had, in anything.
Whether you are old enough to have been around in 1970 or not, you know that in so many ways it will always be May 8 when you hear the name Willis Reed, more than ever today now that he has passed at the age of 80.
Willis Reed, who willed the Knicks to their first NBA title, dies Tuesday. He was 80. (AP)
Earl (The Pearl) Monroe would eventually become a dazzling backcourt partner for Walt Frazier after all the times when they had gone up against each other, Earl with the Bullets and Clyde with the Knicks; back when they were part of a rivalry that is also a part of the permanent history of the NBA. Earl used to talk a lot about those days and those players. But always, it seemed, the conversation would start with the man he called “The Captain.”
“He was our heart,” Earl Monroe, a sweet man then and now, said. “He was our great beating heart, even when he was near the end.”
Willis Reed was near the end at the end of the 1972-73 season, when the Knicks would win it all again. He was breaking down by then, for good this time. But he still played 69 games that season, almost by the sheer force of his will, and managed to average 11 points a game and 8.8 rebounds. There were some big basketball nights in that run. Just not anything that compared to May 8 in 1970, when no one knew whether Willis Reed was going to play or not against Wilt and them.
But then there he was in the tunnel, and there was the kind of noise that only the old Garden could make, the one the old Philadelphia sportswriter named George Kiseda once described as the “monster of Madison Square Garden,” one Kiseda said lived in the throats of 19,000 people.
The oldtimers who were lucky enough to be there that night know. One of them once told me that the Garden made a sound in that moment for Willis when the people saw him that he doesn’t even believe the Garden could make, even in those days. And what days, and nights, they were.
It was partly happiness and it was partly surprise, because even the Knicks weren’t sure Willis was going out there until he was actually out there.
“We left the locker room for the warmups, not knowing if Willis was going to come out or not,” Bill Bradley would say much later.
“I can’t even call them jumpers,” Willis himself would tell me later when he came back to coach the Knicks. “I didn’t feel as if my feet even left that floor. But then I made the first one, and then I made another one. I’m a pretty big man, but when I heard those cheers I felt as if I were floating.”
There would be a night about a decade later when Wilt was back at the Garden, and in town to watch a Knicks-Lakers game, and we were standing in the runway before he went out to take his seat.
And he looked out at the famous floor in that moment and smiled and said, “I hope Willis isn’t out there.”
Willis Reed was the big man out of Louisiana and out of Grambling State and made himself a name that basketball will remember forever. He wasn’t the best player on that team. Clyde was. We saw it in Game 7 after Willis made those two shots and limped off, never to return. But Earl Monroe is right. Willis was the beating heart. They took their strength from him, and so much of their grace, and now they all find out the way we all do that that heart finally gave out for good.
The beauty of that team was the difference in their games and their personalities. There was Clyde, of course, through whom the game ran. And Bradley, a perfect complement to the rest of them because of the way he moved without the ball and made open shots. And there was a legendary grinder like DeBusschere. Dick (“Fall Back, Baby”) was in the backcourt before Earl was. And it all just worked.
“That locker room wasn’t just a grand basketball experiment,” Bradley told me one time when he was running for president. “It was like a sociological experiment at the same time.”
The New York Knicks’ starting five (from left) Dick Barnett, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Willis Reed, rejoice after a game in 1970. (Dan Farrell/New York Daily News)
Things were never great for Willis after he retired. “The captain has become the coach,” Michael Burke said when he hired Willis to replace Holzman. That wasn’t a triumph and neither was Willis’ time coaching the Nets. Finally, he went home. He didn’t show up at the Garden for the 50th celebration of the ‘73 Knicks the other night. He sent a video. He looked old, and he sounded weak, and now he is gone.
But for a little while on Tuesday, it was May 8 in 1970 again. In so many ways, it always will be at the Garden. Big man. Big memory. As big as we’ve ever had in New York.
“‘Papa, he must have been loved,’” Earl Monroe’s 11-year old grandson said to him yesterday about Willis Reed.
A New York City rally to protest against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s purported plans to indict the former president fell spectacularly on its face yesterday after more journalists showed up to the event than pro-Trump activists.
An email obtained by Newsweek hours earlier announced that the “peaceful protest” was set for 6 p.m. local time in lower Manhattan, organized by the New York Young Republican Club.
“I’m at the pro-Trump protest put on by the NY Young Republicans Club,” tweeted Ben Collins, senior reporter for NBC News, shortly after the protest started. “Not a joke, there are more reporters here than Trump supporters. This was supposed to be the big one.”
Conservative attorney George Conway yesterday slammed Republicans for their defenses of Donald Trump against a potential criminal indictment in New York.
The former president said in a post on his social media site over the weekend that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of him. The probe relates to a 2016 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, who was paid off days before the 2016 presidential election as she was allegedly on verge of going public about an affair she claims she had with Trump in 2006. As reported by The Huffington Post.
“The Republicans are behaving like complete disgraces,” said Conway, who is in the process of divorcing Trump’s former senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway. “By saying that Trump is being persecuted, they’re essentially saying you can’t touch Trump and Trump is above the law.”
“And whatever slack you might have wanted to cut a former president, that was gone after Jan. 6,” he added. “This man is a recidivist criminal. I mean, he’s committed fraud all of his life. He’s lied all of his life.”
Prominent Republicans have been quick to rush to Trump’s defense following his announcement. Several top members of the House of Representatives, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, characterized a potential indictment as politically motivated and an abuse of power.
“You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office,” Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), James Comer (Ky.) and Bryan Steil (Wis.), who chair the Judiciary, Oversight and House Administration committees, respectively, wrote in a letter to Bragg dated Monday.
Conway said the Republican defenses were “completely ridiculous” given the evidence. Republicans have sought to discredit the version of events presented by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, who was jailed in 2018 over his involvement in the hush money payments. Cohen has been cooperating with authorities in multiple investigations against Trump and says he facilitated the hush money payments at Trump’s behest.
“The notion that Cohen’s going to be discredited on it is ridiculous given the paper trail. We see the checks that were signed by Donald Trump,” Conway said. “It’s hard to say that he’s being picked on for paying $130,000 in hush money to a porn star and concealing that and using a straw donor, which was Cohen, to do that and saying he’s being persecuted somehow when no one has ever done that.”
Conway does not hold back when he goes after Trump and his supporters!
Former President Donald Trump is “very anxious and does not want to face getting arrested” ahead of a possible indictment over hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, according to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman.
Haberman made the comments (see video below) as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg signaled his office may be close to filing charges against the former president, a historic moment linked to a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the final days of Trump’s 2016 campaign. If he is indicted, it would be the first time a former president has been criminally charged.
The investigation is just one of several Trump faces: Others are probing his effort to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia and his absconding with classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“He’s very anxious about the prospect of being indicted for a couple of reasons,” Haberman told CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday. “Two things can be true at once. He is aware that there are reasons to believe this could help him politically … But he does not want to face getting arrested, which is what happens when you get indicted. You get fingerprinted. You get brought in. You have to ask for bail. None of that is something that he is excited about.”
Haberman went on to reiterate her reporting last week that Team Trump is preparing for a broad attack against Bragg and his associates amid any charges, hoping to smear the group as Democratic agents and linking them to his 2024 rival, President Joe Biden. A spokesman for his campaign attacked the investigation last week as a “witch hunt,” threatening that Americans would “not tolerate” an indictment.
Trump himself said this weekend his arrest was imminent, attempting to rally his supporters and calling for protests should any charges be levied against him.
“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” he wrote on his Truth Social site.
Haberman said the post wasn’t part of any “grand plan” but still signaled his deep anxiety about the DA’s investigation.
“He and his political folks are preparing for a huge blitz politically to push back on the Manhattan district attorney,” Haberman said. “I don’t think that his Truth Social post yesterday morning calling for protests was part of a grand plan, he did it and a bunch of his aides were surprised by it.”
Joe Biden’s former White House press secretary Jen Psaki opened her new MSNBC program yesterday by telling the audience, “It’s a hell of a week to launch a new show.”
She was talking about the major news of the weekend: Donald Trump’s potential arrest and his call on his supporters to protest, and that she led with it was to be expected, given MSNBC’s long focus on the former president.
Still, with Inside with Jen Psaki, her challenge will be to make a mark during a busy Sunday morning period with all the major cable and network channels having news-oriented shows. Regardless, I thought her debut was excellent although her interviewee Hakeem Jeffreys was a bit stiff in his responses to her questions. Below is a video of her opening where she comments on “the ugly truth” that is Donald Trump and his legal issues especially as related to his possible indictment in New York City for paying “”hush money” to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
Her approachable and confident manner came through during the show as it did when she was a White House press secretary.
Administrators at The King’s College, a small Christian liberal arts college in Manhattan, have been meeting with students in recent weeks to deliver a grim message: All of you should find someplace else to go to school.
The college has been struggling for years. But what began as a handful of layoffs in November quickly escalated to a doomsday scenario. Now it appears likely the school will close, and school officials have been going from department to department to show students a list of schools that might accept them as transfer students. As reported by The New York Times.
The King’s College is a small school. But as the city’s only high-profile evangelical college committed to “the truths of Christianity and a biblical worldview,” it is more well known than its enrollment numbers — over 600 students before the pandemic, down to roughly half that now — might suggest.
Its sudden decline has drawn national attention.
Most of its students are white, and many come from conservative households far from New York City. For them, King’s has been a pathway to a world beyond their lives back home, where roughly half were home-schooled or attended private, often Christian, academies.
In interviews, most said they hoped to stay in New York and transfer to non-evangelical schools, like Fordham University, Columbia University or the City University of New York. Representatives of the college did not respond to messages seeking comment.
“The one truth I am committed to is biblical truth,” said Matthew Peterson, 19, who said he grew up in a “homogeneous” Christian community in Ohio. “I really wanted to come to New York, where I knew I would be confronted with all sorts of ways of living and belief systems.”
Before the pandemic, the school dreamed of expanding, to give its brand of nondenominational Christianity a secure place in the country’s media and financial capital. But it appears instead to have been undone by a pandemic-related decline in enrollment and revenue. An unsuccessful foray into the world of for-profit online education, meant to help, may have only accelerated the downward spiral.
At a recent meeting, Paul Glader, a journalism professor, told students in his department to do everything they could to secure a spot at another school.
“If I were in your shoes, I would apply to all these schools, I would pray a lot, I would talk to my parents a lot. This is your life,” he said, as two administrators standing nearby nodded in agreement. “That being said, I hope we survive.”
King’s was founded in 1938 and moved campuses twice before it shut down in 1994 during an earlier period of declining enrollment and financial woe. It was revived in 1999 by Campus Crusade for Christ, whose founder, Bill Bright, said he wanted the school to educate two million students within its first decade.
The school never came close to that. But not long ago, it appeared to be standing on solid ground.
Before the pandemic, donations were reliable enough that King’s purchased a former hotel that it converted into a dorm named in honor of Richard and Helen DeVos, the parents-in-law of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. They were longtime donors who died in 2018 and 2017.
Before the school moved downtown in 2012, it boasted a rented campus in the Empire State Building. The high profile conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza once served as its president.
But since 1999, King’s has run multimillion-dollar deficits each year and relied primarily on donations to make ends meet.
Another victim of declining enrollments due in part to COVID.
Kirk Daulerio alerted me to this piece that compares ChatGPT with Mainstay. ChatGPT has gotten a lot of attention in recent months especially among educators for its ability to provide quick essays on a wide variety of topics. Mainstay, which has been available for several years, bills itself as “a student engagement platform powered by behaviorally intelligent chatbots. It is purpose-built to positively influence students and guide them throughout their academic journeys.” It can be used for a number of student support activities such as applications/admissions, counseling, and academic support. A focus of Mainstay is “to boost enrollment, improve retention, and close equity gaps.”
Below is a comparison of the two chatbots courtesy of Mainstay.
The entire article is informative and portends the future of chatbots in higher education.
Tony
ChatGPT
Mainstay
Solely reactive.
Like many other chatbots, ChatGPT generates text in response to individual prompts. What if you could use ChatGPT’s language generation capabilities and proactively reach out to students to suggest that they take action?
True two-way engagement.
Mainstay does much more than automatically answer student questions. Our partners also use our platform to proactively engage target audiences with the right information at the moment it’s needed (like before a key deadline.) Our Best Practice Collections offer partners a full calendar of proven, research-backed communications to spark student progress and drive positive outcomes.
Lacks human intervention or checks and balances.
ChatGPT advises its users, “The system may occasionally generate incorrect or misleading information and produce offensive or biased content.” Because it is built to generate answers based on prediction, it will sometimes guess or create answers that sound reasonable, but are inaccurate or potentially inappropriate. On its own, ChatGPT does not allow for human intervention to ensure that its responses are accurate and reflect well on your institution.
Accurate answers that keep a human in the loop.
It’s true that Mainstay’s bots cannot answer as broad a range of questions as ChatGPT. However, we are 100% confident that the answers our chatbots deliver contain accurate information because they have been finely tuned for each partner’s needs by our expert [human] team. Our AI is transparent and admits when it cannot answer questions, which ensures that a person can provide an accurate answer and expand the bot’s relevant knowledge with usage over time.
When our platform detects that a person needs to get involved because the AI cannot answer a question accurately or because a student is asking about a sensitive topic, we flag the question or conversation so that a person can seamlessly take over the conversation.
Potential vulnerability to bias.
AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. Any deficiencies — such as bias, intentional or not — in the dataset may be mirrored in the text it generates. A model like ChatGPT that is trained on a dataset of typical conversations rather than the most supportive responses can only generate language reflective of typical dialogue, not best practices.
But what if an AI with ChatGPT’s language generation capabilities was trained specifically to support improved equity in higher education?
A focus on historically underserved students.
From our inception, we have designed our platform to improve access and equity for first-generation, minority, low-income, and non-traditional students. We provide not only the technology to have automated conversations with students, but also the messaging shown to have the greatest impact on outcomes for all students.
This story was first posted on Facebook by my colleague, Patsy Moskal.
University of Central Florida scientists have just completed the first successful test of any red tide mitigation technology in open water using large water column containers called limnocorrals. These tubes — about six feet in diameter — extend from the waters’ surface to the ocean floor, allowing scientists to test real ocean conditions within a controlled setting. Think of it like a giant test tube.
Pretty cool!
Below is a longer explanation of the study using limnocorrals courtesy of the University of Central Florida UCF Today!
Tony
UCF Uses 6-Foot ‘Test Tubes’ to Study Red Tide
This study is the first successful test of any red tide mitigation technology in open water using large water column containers called limnocorrals.
By Kyle Martin|
March 14, 2023
A potential treatment for Florida’s devastating red tides took another step toward widespread deployment after successful testing in Sarasota Bay.
Additional detailed data analysis is required to confirm results, but UCF Assistant Professor of Biology Kristy Lewis is encouraged by the large-scale test of a red tide mitigation technology called clay flocculation that was performed in partnership with Mote Marine Laboratory.
This study is the first successful test of any red tide mitigation technology in open water using large water column containers called limnocorrals. These tubes — about six feet in diameter — extend from the waters’ surface to the ocean floor, allowing scientists to test real ocean conditions within a controlled setting. Think of it like a giant test tube.
Experts and technicians from Mote Marine Laboratory and funding from Florida Sea Grant provided the necessary resources to set eight limnocorrals into Sarasota Bay. Four columns were treated with a fine spray of the clay solution, while the other four served as a control.
Clay flocculation works by the clay attaching to the Karenia brevis algae, which is responsible for Florida red tide, and sinking them to the ocean floor. Lewis has spent the last three years carefully testing the impact of introducing this non-native mineral into the ocean ecosystem. She’s not only looking for changes in the water’s nutrients and quality, but also evaluating how the clay impacts the health of invertebrates like blue crabs, sea urchins and clams.
“We want to make sure the cure is not worse than the disease,” she says.
Initial plans for the large-scale test were simply to measure the impact of the clay on the ecosystem, but the unexpected appearance of an actual red tide event heightened the realism of the experiment. Initial results suggest the clay performed as expected, but there’s still a question of whether the algae’s toxins remain dormant or active on the ocean floor. Water samples collected during the experiment should provide an answer.
The tests are the latest in a long chain of progressively larger-scale experiments — from tiny test tubes, to 5-gallon tanks and 300-gallon replicas of Sarasota Bay. Next steps depend on the outcome of test results, but there are already plans to investigate what happens to the clay-coated algae when it’s used near seagrass beds and then distributed by tide and currents.
More than a dozen people were involved in setting up and running the experiment over the course of four days, including Emily Hall, co-investigator on the grant and senior scientist and program manager from Mote Marine Laboratory. Lewis also credits UCF assistant professors of biology Michelle Gaither and Robert Fitak for providing the necessary technicians and equipment to carry out the experiment. Doctoral student John Kristoffer “JK” Andres will analyze the outcomes of this experiment as part of his dissertation research.
Visiting Sarasota, Florida, in the middle of a red tide event reminded Lewis just how critical the research is to restoring the state’s coastal health and the corresponding fallout on its economy. Lewis says she’s prepared to go another three years if that’s what it takes to find a concrete solution to red tide.
“I want to take every precaution and do our due diligence to ensure we are not doing more harm than good,” she says. “When it’s time to convince policy makers and the people who can take action, we will be prepared.”
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Dear Commons Community,
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that his government would move forward with ratifying Finland’s NATO application, paving the way for the country to join the military bloc ahead of Sweden.
NATO requires the unanimous approval of its 30 existing members to expand, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet ratified the Nordic nations’ bids. Hungary has indicated that it will approve entry for Finland and Sweden later this year. The Turkish government accused both Sweden and Finland of being too soft on groups that it deems to be terror organizations, but expressed more reservations about Sweden.
“When it comes to fulfilling its pledges in the trilateral memorandum of understanding, we have seen that Finland has taken authentic and concrete steps,” Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara following his meeting with Niinisto.
“This sensitivity for our country’s security and, based on the progress that has been made in the protocol for Finland’s accession to NATO, we have decided to initiate the ratification process in our parliament,“ the president added.
With Erdogan’s agreement, Finland’s application can now go to the Turkish parliament, where the president’s party and its allies hold a majority. Ratification is expected before Turkey holds its presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.
Commenting on Turkey’s willingness to consider ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO, Erdogan said it would “depend on the solid steps Sweden will take.”
Explaining the difference between the Nordic countries from Ankara’s viewpoint, Erdogan claimed that Sweden had “embraced terrorism,” and cited demonstrations by supporters of Kurdish militants on the streets of Stockholm. “Such demonstrations do not take place in Finland,” he said. “For that reason we had to consider (Finland) separately from Sweden.”
Niinisto welcomed Turkey’s willingness to move on his country’s bid but also expressed solidarity with its neighbor. “I have a feeling that Finnish NATO membership is not complete without Sweden,” he said.
Referring to a NATO summit scheduled for July in Lithuania’s capital, Niinisto added: “I would like to see in Vilnius that we will meet the alliance of 32 members.”
Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum of understanding in June of last year to resolve differences over the Nordic states’ membership.
The document included clauses addressing Ankara’s claims that Stockholm and Helsinki did not take seriously enough its concerns with those it considers terrorists, particularly supporters of Kurdish militants who have waged a 39-year insurgency in Turkey and people Ankara associates with a 2016 coup attempt.
Good news for Finland and bad news for Russia!
Tony
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