Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway announced today that it is selling Grubhub to Wonder in a deal valued at $650 million. The company said that it expects the deal to be completed by Q1 2025. “The sale of Grubhub to Wonder will increase the cash generation capabilities of Just Eat Takeaway.com…

Welcome back! This week (or, when we recorded this, so awhile ago) we have lots of Potter news to discuss. In Potter Ponderings, we're also getting into what Muggle work the wizards could or should be taking on. And on Hey Netflix... you know what, you're going to have to tell us.

We are still going through all your amazing emails for guest hosting and will be reaching out to people soon!

~*~
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This episode was produced by Christine Peruski and Melissa Anelli. Hosts Melissa Anelli, Frank Franco, and John Noe. PotterCast is (c) PotterCast 2005-2021.

Prices are for My BBY Members
 
LG - 65" Class 99 Series QNED Mini-LED 8K UHD Smart webOS TV $1499.99
Dell - Inspiron 24" Touch screen All-In-One Desktop - AMD Ryzen 5 - 12GB Memory - 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD $1699.99
HP - Pavilion 32" 4K UHD All-In-One - Intel Core i5 - 16GB Memory - 1TB SSD - Sparkling Black $1249.99
ASUS - Vivobook 14" Laptop - Intel Core i3-1115G4 with 8GB Memory - 128GB SSD - Transparent Silver $199.99

Microsoft - Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Controller for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and Windows PCs - White $88.99

More gaming deals for My BBY Members

I thought I'd just start a new topic since they changed from Oculus to Meta nearly two years ago.

At any rate, meta was kind enough to give us a few weekly deals.

My Best Buy Plus and Total members get:

• Get a free extra controller with an Xbox Series X console

• Save $60 on Xbox Series X Diablo IV bundle. 

• Save $400 or $700 on select Samsung gaming monitors.

• Save $30 on Elite Series 2 wireless controllers for Xbox.

https://cag.vg/memberdeals

My Best Buy Membership info

Hot off Twitter.  Prices may be fluctuating and cards may go in and out of stock.
 

My BB Members only

ACER PREDATOR NEO I5 4050 16" $799.99

CORSAIR - I7K - 4080 FE $2899.99

Logitech LOGITECH G29 DRIVING FORCE WHEEL PS4 $199.99

ASUS - ROG Ally $599.99

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It’ll go perfect with a tiny house. READ MORE...

There’s no better time to upgrade your sleep setup than Black Friday and Cyber Monday — two of the biggest sale events of the year. As usual, there are tons of great deals on top-rated mattresses, from trusted names like Tempur-Pedic and Mattress Firm to direct-to-consumer favorites like Purple and Naturepedic. We recommend taking advantage of all these sleep brands impressive sales, especially since a majority of them have already started. Yup, weeks ahead of schedule! READ MORE...

These are the 12 best! READ MORE...

On this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast Tim is joined by Tom Garry from the Guardian to talk about the process of transfer reporting. Tom talks about his many years breaking WSL transfer exclusives and explains how information gathering and reporting of transfers works, how it has developed in the women’s game over time and Tom and Tim swap some anecdotes about breaking different transfer stories.

You can follow Tom on Twitter @tomjgarry and Tim @Stillmanator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We know your inbox is probably flooded with emails about COVID-19. Internet is overwhelmed with this topic but we feel it is important to let you know about the crucial steps RSS Ground team has taken to ensure our employees’ continued safety through this pandemic and reassure you there is no interruption to your service. […]

The post Dealing with Coronavirus… appeared first on RSSground.com.

We are taking this opportunity to say Thank You! We can’t express how much we appreciate you being a part of RSS Ground family. We hope our unique tools will continue to be useful to you for years to come. We usually never do this, but this time we would like to show our token […]

The post Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday Deal appeared first on RSSground.com.

As Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spend months longer than planned on ISS, three astronauts tell us what life is like in orbit.

Undercover filming shows COP29 chief exec discussing new oil and gas projects ahead of climate summit.

Generative AI Is Your Ally for Smart Staging, Selling

Amazon is selling the M2 MacBook Air 13″ model with 16GB RAM for just $749.99, taking $250 off the $999 retail price from Apple. Like many great Amazon deals, they tend to shift quickly, so if you’ve been thinking of getting a 16GB model MacBook Air now might be the time. To get the deal ... Read More

The best early Black Friday MacBook deals include all-time low prices on the latest MacBook Air models.

Black Friday is weeks away, but Amazon already has several great deals you can find now. Here are the best Amazon early Black Friday deals.

Gauteng legislature secretary Linda Mwale has signed a sweetheart agreement with Nehawu to let 32 employees accused of defrauding the institution off the hook.

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We're not gonna lie: This app is so good it should come with a warning label. It's got everything a podcast junkie like yourself could ever want: millions of shows, easy discovery of new episodes, offline listening…But be warned, you'll only want more once you get a taste. — Read the rest

The post This app is your podcast dealer…don't get addicted appeared first on Boing Boing.

Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) – 404 Media *** I had a call the other day with the Dean of a top-five school of public health, and in between furiously scribbling notes (yes, I still take notes), it struck me that here in the United States … Continue reading "Consume First, Deal with the Shit Later"

Legendary Christian writer C.S. Lewis gave us an analogy to help explain otherwise inexplicable moments such as this. Tolerance, Lewis once wrote, “parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.” In a […]

The post Biden Asked If He'll Get a Hostage Deal by the End of His Term, and His Response Is Telling appeared first on The Western Journal.

Ethics of dealing with authoritarians 28 March 2023 — 12:00PM TO 1:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 20 March 2023 Chatham House

How can democracies simultaneously defend human rights and promote open societies while still engaging with leaders from non-democratic states as strategic allies?

In 2022, the Biden administration called upon the world’s democracies to unite against a rising tide of autocracy. Through its messaging, conferences, and op-eds, the US and its allies presented the public with a binary choice: democracy or autocracy.

But in today’s world, and in the practice of international relations, the choice is rarely this simple.  

Joel Rosenthal, president of Carnegie Council, joins Chatham House to discuss how democracies and multilateral institutions can leverage ethics as a tool to assess concerns and trade-offs when engaging with illiberal actors.

Can democracies afford to be adversarial with certain countries or overly selective in cooperation when facing global-scale challenges such as climate change and the emergence of AI?

How can democracies simultaneously defend human rights and promote open societies while still engaging with leaders from non-democratic states as strategic allies?

Independent Thinking: Nigeria votes, Northern Ireland deal Audio NCapeling 2 March 2023

Episode 17 of our weekly podcast examines the outcome of Nigeria’s presidential election and the new deal for Northern Ireland negotiated by the UK and EU.

On 24 February, millions of Nigerians went to the polls in an election widely seen as crucial for the direction of the country, with the winner Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared the new president-elect. The panel discusses the state of Nigeria’s democracy and what lies ahead for the new administration.

In addition, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a new deal for Northern Ireland with implications for all the UK. Three years after the UK formally left the European Union (EU), has Rishi Sunak now got Brexit done?

Joining Bronwen Maddox are Leena Koni Hoffman, associate fellow with the Chatham House Africa programme, Aanu Adeoye, West African correspondent for the Financial Times and an academy associate at Chatham House, and Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform.

About Independent Thinking

A weekly podcast hosted by Chatham House director Bronwen Maddox, in conversation with leading policymakers, journalists, and Chatham House experts providing insight on the latest international issues.

Can Trump do a deal with Putin on Ukraine? Expert comment jon.wallace 12 November 2024

The Kremlin is signalling that it is ready to talk to the incoming US administration. But Trump may find Russia’s terms make him look unacceptably weak.

The nervousness of Ukrainian leadership is understandable. Since Donald Trump’s re-election, Russian President Vladimir Putin has lost no time in preparing the ground for a direct discussion between the US and Russia about the terms for peace in Ukraine – although reports at the weekend that Trump has recently spoken to Putin by phone were swiftly denied by the Kremlin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made determined efforts in recent months to persuade Trump that Ukraine’s future is worth fighting for. But there is no sign that his messages have brought about a change of heart. 

Trump appears to have no sympathy for Ukraine and no interest in the country – beyond preventing further US commitments to its defence. (Since February 2022, the US has provided $175 billion of economic and military aid to Kyiv, around 7 per cent of total allocated defence spending during that time).

Trump clearly regards Ukraine as an opportunity to demonstrate his power to US voters. If he can bring Putin to the table and end a war that in his view serves no purpose for the American people, it will also boost his claim that he can prevent World War 3.

Seen from Kyiv, the power relationship works in reverse. Putin is drawing Trump – said to be susceptible to flattery – into a negotiation to resolve an issue of great personal importance to him. The Russian president knows the issues in intimate detail, whereas Zelenskyy has genuine reason to fear that Trump might agree to terms whose consequences he does not fully understand.

Putin’s objectives

Putin has not deviated from his goals stated at the start of the full-scale invasion. These are the demilitarization of Ukraine and the replacement of Zelenskyy and his government by a leadership that accepts Moscow’s diktat (‘denazification’).

Putin’s highest priority for talks will be to ensure Ukraine’s neutrality. This will require a firm commitment that Ukraine will not join NATO in the foreseeable future. He will also seek to restrict the size of Ukrainian armed forces and prevent the stationing of foreign troops on Ukrainian territory. 

Putin will also hope to consolidate Russia’s grip on the Crimean peninsula by winning recognition of his annexation of Ukrainian territory. He will likely demand control of those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions not yet occupied by Russian forces, perhaps trading occupied territories in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia for Ukrainian-held territory in Russia’s Kursk Region.

Lastly, Putin will want sanctions relief. The Russian economy has managed to adapt to US sanctions and reduce their effect, but they are a significant burden on the country’s development. 

The loss of access to Western technology and equipment has halted several major industrial products. If sanctions remain in place, such effects will become more pronounced.

Trump might readily agree to these terms. But to do so without evidence of reciprocal flexibility by Putin will expose him to accusations of naivety and weakness as a negotiator. 

Trump could easily brush aside claims that he was outsmarted by Putin. But a charge that he was a weak negotiator would offend his vanity and damage his image in the view of Chinese policymakers – who will be watching closely. 

It is fair to assume that Trump will want to avoid this perception since he has worked hard to create the impression that China, Iran and others should continue to fear him in his second term.

Putin may therefore need to offer the US a sufficiently large incentive – an outcome that will allow both Washington and Moscow to claim an advantageous agreement. It is not clear what Putin could propose that would be affordable to him and satisfy Trump’s America First agenda. 

Ukrainian hopes

Shortly before the election, Trump spoke of the need to ‘un-unite’ Russia and China. The idea that Putin could help Washington by turning away from China is fantastical.

The relationship between Beijing and Moscow is far more complex than it appears on the surface. But the two share the common strategic goal of reducing the global influence of the US and its allies and have established much deeper relations since Trump left office in 2020.

It is also hard to see a new arms control proposal coming from Moscow that would interest Trump. The hope in Kyiv is that Trump will quickly recognize that the deal he would like to strike will not materialize because the underlying and connected issues – such as Russia–China relations – are more complex than he imagines. 

The one consolation for Ukrainians is that the Kremlin was disappointed by Trump during his first term, since despite his friendly signals no major results were achieved. The Trump administration supplied anti-tank weapons to Ukraine and fiercely opposed the building of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany.

Who Trump listens to

While Trump’s approach to negotiating with Moscow is likely to be highly personal and idiosyncratic, the preparation of talks will depend heavily on those he appoints to key positions. At this stage, it is unclear who in the new administration will be responsible for coordinating Russia policy and to what extent they might challenge Trump’s thinking.

Building trust in trade deals – is human rights monitoring the answer? 27 May 2021 — 4:00PM TO 5:15PM Anonymous (not verified) 14 May 2021 Online

Exploring the arguments in favour of more robust human rights monitoring systems and why effective monitoring mechanisms have proved so difficult to get up and running.

Please click on the below link to confirm your participation and receive your individual joining details from Zoom for this event. You will receive a confirmation email from Zoom, which contains the option to add the event to your calendar if you so wish.

The recent signing of the EU-China Investment Agreement has reignited arguments about trade and human rights. While many trade agreements envisage human rights monitoring in some shape or form, the monitoring systems that have emerged so far are not especially coherent, systematic or impactful. 

Are the human rights commitments in trade agreements more than just window-dressing?  If so, what kind of monitoring is needed to ensure they are lived up to? 

At this panel event, which marks the launch of a new Chatham House research paper, participants explore the arguments in favour of more robust human rights monitoring systems and why effective monitoring mechanisms have proved so difficult to get up and running in this context. 

• What factors are presently holding governments back, and where is innovation and investment most needed?
• What are the political, economic and structural conditions for fair and effective human rights monitoring of trade agreements? 
• Is human rights monitoring best done unilaterally – or should more effort be put into developing joint approaches? 
• What role might human rights monitoring have to play in governments’ strategies to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Monitoring of trade deals needs a risk-based approach Expert comment NCapeling 24 May 2021

On human rights issues, trading partners must do more than trust to luck.

The recent row within the UK government about the treatment of agricultural products in a proposed new trade deal with Australia provides a reminder that changes to trading arrangements can have social and environmental costs, as well as benefits.

Although the UK government clearly feels political pressure to demonstrate its ‘Global Britain’ credentials with some speedily concluded new deals, rushing ahead without a full understanding of the social, environmental, and human rights implications risks storing up problems for later. In the meantime, calls for better evaluation and monitoring of trade agreements against sustainability-related commitments and goals – ideally with statutory backing – will only get stronger.

EU experiences with these kinds of processes are instructive. For more than 20 years the Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission (DG Trade) has been commissioning sustainability impact assessments (SIAs) from independent consultants in support of trade negotiations, and since 2012 these assessments have explicitly encompassed human rights impacts as a core part of the analysis.

These processes have since been augmented with a programme of periodic ‘ex post’ evaluations of trade agreements to ‘analyse the observed economic, social, human rights, and environmental impacts’ of live trade deals and to make recommendations about any mitigation action which may be needed.

For credibility and objectivity, the Commission outsources much of its sustainability assessment and ex post evaluation activities to independent consultants, who are encouraged to innovate and tailor their approaches subject to broad methodological parameters laid down by the Commission. Over time, experiences with specific assessment and monitoring assignments have enabled external SIA practitioners – and the Commission itself – to progressively strengthen these processes and underlying methodologies.

Yet despite the improvements there remains legitimate questions about whether the human rights aspects of these SIA processes – and subsequent evaluations – are having real policy impact. The difficulty of predicting human rights impacts of trade agreements in advance – as the COVID-19 crisis amply demonstrates – suggests a need for realism about the extent to which a ‘one off’ process, often carried out at a time when there is only ‘agreement in principle’ as to future trading terms, can produce a robust roadmap for heading off future human rights-related risks.

Human rights impact assessments have a potentially valuable role to play in laying down the substantive and structural foundations for future human rights monitoring as part of a broader, iterative, human rights risk management strategy. But the fragmented manner in which many trade agreements approach human rights issues, and the fact that outcomes are the product of negotiation rather than necessarily design, make it difficult to turn this vision into reality.

Controversies surrounding the SIA process for the EU-Mercosur agreement illustrate why striving for more coherence in the identification and subsequent management of human rights-related risks is important. In June 2019, the Commission decided to wrap up negotiations with the South America Mercosur bloc, even though the SIA process for the proposed agreement was still incomplete and the interim and final SIA reports yet to be delivered. Frustrated NGOs made their feelings clear in the form of a formal complaint – and a slap on the wrist from the EU Ombudsman duly followed.

However, when it eventually appeared in December 2020, the final SIA report for the EU-Mercosur deal did include a number of interesting recommendations for responding to specific areas of human rights-related risk identified through the pre-signing assessment process – such as flanking measures designed to address issues pertaining to health, equality, and protection of indigenous peoples, and stressing the need for ‘continuous monitoring’.

Hopefully these recommendations will be proactively followed up, but there are reasons not to be overly optimistic about that. To the extent that these recommendations might have required, or benefitted from, some tweaks to the terms of the trade agreement itself, it was clearly too late. And while there may be opportunities for EU institutions to follow up the recommendations through unilateral ex post evaluation processes, current legal, policy, and institutional arrangements provide few guarantees this will take place.

The credibility of the EU SIA programme has clearly taken a knock because of the problems with the EU-Mercosur process, and stakeholders could be forgiven for questioning whether expending time and effort on engaging in these processes is actually worthwhile. As a first step towards rectifying this, the Commission should be transparent about how it plans to respond to the EU-Mercosur SIA recommendations regarding flanking measures and follow up – ideally consulting with stakeholders about the various human rights monitoring options available.

Looking further ahead, the Commission should be urging SIA practitioners to deal more expansively with the options for follow up human rights monitoring in future SIA reports, setting out recommendations not just on the need for ongoing monitoring of human rights-related issues but on the detail of how this might be done, and how progress towards human rights-related goals could be tracked. And creativity should be encouraged because, as detailed in a newly-published Chatham House research paper, there may be more opportunities for human rights monitoring than first appear.

The SIA process could also provide a forum for exploring complementary measures needed to make future monitoring efforts as effective as possible – jointly and unilaterally; politically, structurally, and resources-wise; both within the framework of the trading relationship and extraneously. The credibility of the process – and hence stakeholder trust – would be further enhanced by commitments from the Commission to be more transparent in future about how different human rights monitoring recommendations laid out in SIAs have been taken into account in subsequent negotiations, in the supervisory arrangements developed for specific trading relationships, and in the implementation of EU trade policy more generally.

Jörg Brendle and Wolfgang Wohofsky
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 152 (), 5395-5410.
Abstract, references and article information

The Phillies continued to bolster their infield depth on Friday by signing versatile veteran Sean Rodriguez to a Minor League contract with an invite to big league Spring Training, MLB.com has learned.

Aaron Nola established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2018. The Phillies ensured on Wednesday that he will be the ace in their rotation for possibly the next five seasons.

The Angels agreed to terms with right-hander reliever Daniel Hudson on a Minor League deal to add bullpen depth, a source confirmed to MLB.com on Friday.

The Angels added a veteran lefty reliever, as Dan Jennings officially signed a Minor League deal on Saturday and joined the club for workouts at the club's Spring Training complex. Jennings will earn $1 million, plus incentives, if he makes the club.

SpaceX has reportedly struck a deal with LG Energy Solution Ltd. to supply cylindrical lithium-ion batteries for Elon Musk's Starship rocket, expected to launch early next year, according to industry sources.

Q-CTRL, the Australia-based start-up focusing on quantum infrastructure software, today announced that its performance-management software, Fire Opal, will be natively integrated into four of the world’s most advanced quantum computing […]

The post Quantum Software Specialist Q-CTRL Inks Deals with IBM, Rigetti, Oxford, and Diraq appeared first on HPCwire.

SpaceX has reportedly struck a deal with LG Energy Solution Ltd. to supply cylindrical lithium-ion batteries for Elon Musk's Starship rocket, expected to launch early next year, according to industry sources.

Wisconsin's $3 billion Foxconn deal is an economic and workforce loser for the state and its residents, argues Marc Tucker.

When Scott Gann learned his son Dustin had dyslexia, he was shocked at the school's reaction. No one there wanted to use the word.

The statewide teacher strike could end today if both chambers of the legislature pass the bill to deliver a 5 percent raise to all school employees.

In WW2, the British made destroying German dams a key strategic target in order to kneecap the German industrial effort. To accomplish this, they needed a special plane to deliver the payload: the Lancaster Bomber.

For years, the owner's son had wondered about the artwork, which features the Spanish painter's signature. Now, some experts think it's the real deal

The Canadian Post-Impressionist artist was famous for her evocative landscapes and paintings incorporating motifs from First Nations groups

A new exhibition in New York celebrates Berthe Weill, an often overlooked but visionary figure who jumpstarted the careers of many of modern art's giants

The Manhattan district attorney's office has obtained an arrest warrant for Edoardo Almagià, who has been accused of working with looters and dealing stolen artifacts for years

Questions included whether the province plans to renew the NHL tourism partnership deal for a second year, how much that renewal would cost, and even the date on which a second year would begin.