In just two-and-a-half years the utility’s equipment started more than fifteen-hundred fires, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. Some of those were small, but others were deadly, like the 2018 Camp Fire, which burned the town of Paradise to the ground and killed 85 people. The Camp Fire caused about $16.5 billion in damages.
Reported by Amanda Stupi. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Jim Bennett and Paul Lancour. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Suzie Racho, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey and Vinnee Tong.
In which itinerant snowbirds turn an abandoned desert naval base into a trash-mountain utopia, and Ken hopes a nuke lands on his head. Certificate #33204.
Cannabis legends Tilray and Aphria are combining into the world’s largest pot company, but the real story is what they’re brewing. “Unicorn of the Day” StockX hit a $2.8B valuation because the rules of media apply to sneakers. And it turns out copycatting is so critical to Facebook that they’ve created a secret team of entrepreneurs… to Zuck or be Zucked.
$APH $TLRY $FB
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Sharon Marcus’s new book, The Drama of Celebrity(Princeton UP, 2020), sets out to help us understand celebrity culture and how it has shifted and evolved since its contemporary inception in the early 1800s. Marcus highlights the celebrity concept throughout western history, indicating some of the same dynamics at work in classical Greece that we see in our current popular culture landscape. This culture has three components that are generally all present in some form: the celebrities themselves, who may achieve that role through some form of performance or other attention-generating experience or event, a media of some kind (radio, newspaper, magazines, social media) that focuses attention on individual celebrities, and the fans or citizens who engage with the celebrities. Marcus delineates this “three-legged stool” of celebrity culture and notes that while aspects of it have changed over the years—especially the form of media—the structure and foundation continues to operate as an interactive ecosystem. Marcus opens up her tracing of this culture with Sarah Bernhardt, who embodied a kind of prototype of what we see and consider modern celebrity culture. With Bernhardt as an iconic example as well as a Virgil-like guide, Marcus explores contemporary celebrity, and also the critique of celebrity, asking the question of how we should understand these phenomena in the age of Trump, both in the United States and elsewhere.
The Drama of Celebrity also dives into the racial and gender dynamics that have long been at work in the value placed on those who achieve fame and celebrity status. Without shifting the thesis to focus only on the role of gender and celebrity, Marcus teases out the dichotomous approach to male celebrity and female celebrity, and the different standards that are applied to both the individual celebrity themselves and their fans. As we move through different media and different performative formats that promote or garner an individual fame and celebrity, Marcus also compels the reader to consider the opposing ideas of American individualism and the production of mass culture, and how these antithetical dimensions are united within celebrity culture. This is a fascinating examination of the idea and the mechanics of celebrity and will be of interest to a broad array of readers.
Millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, just days ago granted emergency use authorization by the FDA, are being distributed across the country. It's the first widely-available vaccine to use something called mRNA technology. So, with the help of epidemiologist Rene Najera, Maddie explains the science behind this vaccine and how it was developed so quickly.
Since Lindsey has started to appear on the show more often, we've heard from a few people who were under the impression that her field (evolutionary psychology) is "bunk" or is all unprovable just-so stories. As an expert, Lindsey takes us through where these objections come from and why they aren't accurate. Plus she takes us through some fascinating research!
Congressional leaders think they could pass a roughly $900 billion stimulus bill by the end of the week, which might include direct payments, but won't include money for states and localities. A deal can’t come soon enough: eight million Americans have been pushed into poverty since this summer, while jobless claims (and COVID cases) are rising.
The Supreme Court announced it will hear a case on compensation of athletes in the NCAA. Players think the NCAA’s cap on student athlete compensation violates antitrust laws… not to mention, college sports bring in billions in revenue each year on the backs of majority Black athletes.
And in headlines: Bezos’s ex Mackenzie Scott gave away $6 billion in 2020, Jackass guys got broke off on day two of filming, and at long last Trump gets new shower-head rules on the books.
Christine Fang is a Chinese national who is suspected of being a spy and has had ties to American mayors and other politicians, including Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
Swalwell has said he has cooperated with law enforcement and cut off all ties to Fang once he knew there were concerns she was a spy.
However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has said Swalwell shouldn’t serve on the House Intelligence Committee, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has defended her fellow California Democrat.
What questions should Swalwell face about his relationship with Fang? Does it raise any national security concerns?
What is China’s strategy here, and does it have a “long-term” approach?
Dean Cheng, senior research fellow in the Asian Studies Center in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss.
We also cover these stories:
Former Vice President Joe Biden says his cabinet will look like and represent the people of America.
President Trump is not pleased with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to refer to Joe Biden as "president-elect."
A new poll reports 62% of Americans are concerned that government leaders will hold onto their “pandemic powers” even after the virus subsides.
