All posts tagged: predatory

Trump’s Predatory Version of ‘America First’

Trump’s Predatory Version of ‘America First’

Published by José

A conversation with David Frum on the dangers of Trump’s approach to the world Chip Somodevilla / Getty December 4, 2024, 5:38 PM ET This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Ronald Reagan, invoking the 17th-century Puritan John Winthrop, once compared America to “a shining city on a hill.” This image of visibility and power, my colleague David Frum writes in a new essay, “imposed extra moral responsibility on the city dwellers.” In the next Trump era, David argues, Reagan’s vision of America will disappear: “The hilltop will become a height from which to exercise arrogant control over those who occupy the lower slopes and valleys.” I called David to chat about the Trump administration’s zero-sum view of the world during Donald Trump’s first term and what to expect from the president-elect’s approach to foreign relationships come January. A Powerful Teacher Isabel Fattal: You write that …

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

A diver injecting vinegar into a crown-of-thorns starfish as part of the culling programme CSIRO A culling programme has succeeded in protecting key areas of the Great Barrier Reef from voracious coral-eating starfish. Scientists who analysed the outcome say the effort should be expanded to conserve more of the reef. Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are relentless feeders on nearly all species of coral within Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Each starfish can reach 1 metre in diameter and eat 10 square metres of coral reef each year. The starfish are native to the reef, but it is thought increasing nutrients pouring into the reef’s waters from agriculture and other human factors have increased their numbers and worsened the destruction of corals. Between 1985 and 2012, they accounted for 40 per cent of the region’s coral loss. During a major reef-wide eruption of the starfish between 2012 and 2022, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority carried out a large-scale culling programme. Teams of divers inject the starfish with a single shot of either vinegar or ox bile, …

Montgomery attacks ‘predatory’ BBC over local news provision | Business News

Montgomery attacks ‘predatory’ BBC over local news provision | Business News

Published by Sam

The newspaper veteran David Montgomery will on Thursday revive his long-held criticism of the BBC’s encroachment into local news provision when he accuses it of “predatory behaviour” which harms commercial rivals. Sky News has learnt that Mr Montgomery will use the foreword to the annual results announcement of National World, the London-listed company he runs, to launch a scathing attack on the corporation. Mr Montgomery, whose company owns titles including The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post, has been a staunch critic of the BBC’s presence in online news, saying in 2019 that its remit needed to be redefined. On Thursday, he will say that National World has been at “the forefront of the campaigning against predatory behaviour by the BBC which uses taxpayer funds to compete online, threatening local independent journalism”. “It is remarkable that the BBC, financed by a compulsory tax, is permitted to enforce its monopoly in the news sector month after month,” he will add in remarks which have been obtained by Sky News. “In January 2024, 3.1 billion page views for …

“Predatory and dishonest behavior”: A new “Scandoval” lawsuit highlights the impact of revenge porn

“Predatory and dishonest behavior”: A new “Scandoval” lawsuit highlights the impact of revenge porn

Published by skeptic

The explosive fallout of Scandoval continues to be felt as “Vanderpump Rules” alum Rachel Leviss filed a lawsuit on Thursday in Los Angeles against Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval for revenge porn, eavesdropping and invasion of privacy, Deadline reported. The Bravo reality stars’ lives exploded last year when it was revealed that Leviss and Sandoval had been having a year-long affair and keeping it a secret while Sandoval was still with Madix, his partner of nine years. The affair came to a boiling point when Madix found an intimate recording of Leviss, which was taken by Sandoval without her knowledge or consent, on Sandoval’s phone. Madix sent the video to herself and then to Leviss to indicate she knew about the affair.  However, the chain of events has led to Leviss suing both Madix and Sandoval, in a suit that alleges “Leviss was a victim of the predatory and dishonest behavior of an older man, who recorded sexually explicit videos of her without her knowledge or consent, which were then distributed, disseminated, and discussed publicly …

The Guardian view on women and predatory police: the work has barely begun | Editorial

The Guardian view on women and predatory police: the work has barely begun | Editorial

Published by skeptic

The murder of Sarah Everard seemed unfathomable when the details first emerged. A young woman who should have had many years of life ahead of her was not merely failed by police who should have kept her safe, as so many women before her have been. She was murdered by a serving Metropolitan police officer, Wayne Couzens, who stopped and handcuffed her as she walked home before raping and strangling her and burning her body. His record of predatory behaviour soon emerged. Yet three years on, the truth is even more shocking than it first seemed. The report by Lady Elish Angiolini, commissioned by the Home Office and published on Thursday, makes it clear that Couzens should never have been able to become a police officer, let alone an armed one. Three forces “could and should have stopped him”, but “red flags” were repeatedly ignored. His alleged offending (including serious sexual assault against a child barely in her teens), his preference for extreme and violent pornography and his unmanaged debts dated back almost 20 years. …

Under the guise of cinema, director Benoît Jacquot set up a predatory system

Under the guise of cinema, director Benoît Jacquot set up a predatory system

Published by skeptic

Actress Isild Le Besco and director Benoît Jacquot at the 57th Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2004. BRUNO VINCENT / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP Julia Roy was sitting at the back of the auditorium at Sciences Po in Paris. On January 29, 2013, the 23-year-old student had come to listen to a lecture by a director she didn’t know, Benoît Jacquot, who had been invited to talk about the “politics of intimacy.” “He stared at me throughout the session, and I was a little surprised,” she told Le Monde 11 years later. At the end, she went to greet the speaker. “Benoît Jacquot jumped on me to hand me a piece of paper with his number and asked me several times to call him.” Since her Austrian childhood in Vienna, Roy, who at the time had only played a small role in a TV series, has nurtured a precocious love of cinema. She decided to call the filmmaker back: Perhaps he could give her some advice on her dream of making films? At the …

When predatory investors damage your chances of success

When predatory investors damage your chances of success

Published by skeptic

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. You know what isn’t a great idea for my energy levels? Enjoying a week of TechCrunch Disrupt and then getting straight on a plane to attend a startup event in Oslo, Norway. I’ve only just gotten over my jet lag, so now it’s time to get back on a plane and do it all over again. Hrrrgh. I must really love startups. Back in 2016, I spent some time in Oslo as well, and whined about the lack of sophistication in the Norwegian startup ecosystem. I was curious if they had started to figure out how to startup. The answer? Yeah, kinda. The startups themselves are vastly more competent than they were seven years ago, and it’s incredible what seven years of ecosystem development does. There are some great accelerators, good support systems and even a number of investors starting to pop up. I was moderately horrified and more than a little bit surprised to find a contender to wear …

Apple purges predatory lending apps in India following scrutiny

Apple purges predatory lending apps in India following scrutiny

Published by skeptic

Apple removed several predatory lending apps from the App Store in India this week, days after users and media questioned the legitimacy of those services. Pocket Kash, White Kash, Golden Kash, and OK Rupee are among the apps that Apple pulled from the store this week. The apps offered fast-track lending to consumers in India, climbing to the top 20 of the finance list on the App Store in recent weeks. But they also levied outrageously superfluous charges, according to hundreds of user reviews. The lenders also employed downright unethical tactics to get the borrowers to pay back. “I borrowed an amount in a helpless situation and […] a day before repayment due date I got some messages with my pic and my contacts in my phone saying that repay your loan otherwise they will inform our contacts that you r not paying loan,” a user review from last month said. The apps — whose developers had strange names and suspicious websites — were littered with hundreds of similar reviews, some sharing even more alarming …

Byju’s files suit challenging acceleration of .2B loan, seeks to disqualify Redwood for ‘predatory’ tactics

Byju’s files suit challenging acceleration of $1.2B loan, seeks to disqualify Redwood for ‘predatory’ tactics

Published by skeptic

Indian edtech giant Byju’s has filed a complaint in the New York Supreme Court to challenge the acceleration of the $1.2 billion term loan B and to disqualify Redwood, who it alleges has conducted a series of predatory tactics. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup said Redwood purchased a significant portfolio of the loan while primarily trading in distressed debt. India’s most valuable startup said it will not make any payments to the term loan B lenders until the dispute is resolved. Source link