Category Archives: Yahoo

Police believe that Tarik Cohen's brother was electrocuted while climbing electrical equipment. (Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The twin brother of Chicago Bears running back Tarik Cohen was found dead at a North Carolina electrical substation on Sunday.

Police say that a Duke Energy employee found Tyrell Antar Cohen's body at a substation near Raleigh early Sunday morning. Wake County sheriffs spokesman Eric Curry said that Cohen is believed to have been electrocuted while climbing power equipment, the News & Observer reports. He was 25 years old.

According to Curry, Cohen fled the scene of a car accident in Raleigh around 2 a.m. on Saturday. Authorities called off their search after failing to find him.

Cohen's family filed a missing-person report with Raleigh police later Saturday, prompting authorities to resume their search.

He entered the substation, which may have been resulting from the accident, Curry said, per the N&O.

Tarik, who grew up in nearby Bunn and attended North Carolina A&T University, sought help from his Twitter followers in finding his brother in a tweet that has since been deleted.

The Bears released a statement Sunday evening after authorities confirmed Cohen's death.

Authorities don't suspect foul play in Cohen's death.

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Twin brother of Bears RB Tarik Cohen found dead at N.C. power station - Yahoo Sports

Colin Kaepernick is continuing to keep busy despite still not having a job in the NFL. On Tuesday he announced that his publishing shingle, Kaepernick Publishing, will be releasing an anthology of essays on police and prison abolition in October. "Abolition for the People: The Movement For a Future Without Policing & Prisons" will contain 30 essays, and Kaepernick himself served as editor.

The topic of police and prison abolition is something Kaepernick has been passionate about for years. When he first knelt during the national anthem before a preseason game in 2016, he told NFL.com that he was doing it to protest institutional racism and law enforcement's treatment of Black people.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

The timing of Kaepernick's announcement couldn't be more perfect. It was reported Monday that after switching positions from quarterback to tight end and calling up his old college coach to request a tryout, Tim Tebow is on the verge of signing a one-year deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tebow hasn't appeared in an NFL game since 2012 for reasons that were entirely related to his talent level, and since then he has become a college football broadcaster and spent four years pursuing a baseball career.

Just one day later, Kaepernick, who hasn't appeared in an NFL game since Jan. 1, 2017, for reasons that are unrelated to his talent level, announced the release of an essay collection that he edited himself.

If Kaepernick wanted people to compare and contrast, or perhaps wonder why Tebow is getting another chance at an NFL job while he still isn't, he couldn't have picked a better time to announce his book.

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Colin Kaepernick has edited an essay collection about police and prison abolition. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

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Colin Kaepernick editing, publishing collection of police abolition essays - Yahoo Sports

The past few weeks haven't exactly been a golden age for the Golden Globes. The annual event honoring film and television has been embroiled in near-constant controversy following a February investigation by the Los Angeles Timesthat discovered the group behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, did not have a single Black member among its ranks, among other troubling revelations.

By mid-March, Hollywoods leading publicists joined with representatives from Time's Up and Color of Change had taken a stand against the HFPA and demanded reform. Last week, the 87-person HFPA announced its proposed changes, which, rather than satisfying critics, set off a new firestorm that is now threatening the very existence of the Globes.

There have been boycott announcements from Netflix, Amazon and Warner Media, as well as strong criticism from celebrities (and Avengers costars) Scarlett Johansson, who leveled charges of sexism at the HFPA "bordering on sexual harassment," and Mark Ruffalo.

But a blistering one-two punch came within minutes Monday. NBC struck the initial blow, announcing the network will not air the 2022 Globes due the ongoing controversy marking the first time the Globes won't air on NBC since 1996. "We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform," the network said in a statement. "However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right. As such, NBC will not air the 2022 Golden Globes."

Tom Cruise made waves moments later, returning the three Globes he has won to protest the HFPA.

With NBC pulling the plug and presumably suspending its lucrative broadcasting contract the HFPA loses its main source of income and its most visible platform. Since NBC began televising the Globes in the 1990s, the event has gained tremendous influence in Hollywood.

Ultimately, though, the Cruise news could be more impactful. The Top Gunner's actions could lead to what many industry insiders believe is a long overdue divorce between the HFPA and its cozy relationship with the film and television industries.

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The actor whose three Globes came for Born on the Fourth of July (Best Actor, Drama), Jerry Maguire (Best Actor, Comedy or Musical) and Magnolia (Best Supporting Actor) remains one of the most powerful, influential actors in show business and commands a worldwide following. And unlike someone like Ruffalo, a tireless activist when not acting, Cruise rarely engages politically. His move could presage similar actions from other Golden Globe winners.

Signage advertising the 2021 Golden Globes hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

While distancing itself from the 2022 ceremony, NBC did leave the window open for a reunion. "Assuming the organization executes on its plan, we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023," the network's statement continued. Perhaps helping NBC decide to pause the Globes for a year: the 2021 ceremony was the lowest-rated installment ever, with fewer than 7 million people tuning in, part of a disturbing trend that has seen ratings for all awards shows plummet.

The Globes has long embraced its image as an actor-friendly party. While some groused about the HFPA's questionable ethics, few dared to speak out publicly against the powerful organization for fear of repercussions. Notably Gary Oldman ranted in 2014 that the Globes were "a meaningless event" and called the HFPA "90 nobodies having a wank."

Gary Oldman poses with the trophy for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama during the 75th Golden Globe Awards in 2018. (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

But Oldman changed his tune during the 2018 awards season, where he attended HFPA events and thanked the group upon receiving a Golden Globe for playing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, en route to winning an Oscar.

This time, however, the stakes feel different. Cruise's actions reverberated around the industry, as have the public comments of Johansson, Ruffalo and prominent filmmakers like Ava DuVernay.

Johansson's words in particular struck a chord in Hollywood. "As an actor promoting a film, one is expected to participate in awards season by attending press conferences as well as awards shows. In the past, this has often meant facing sexist questions and remarks by certain HFPA members that bordered on sexual harassment. It is the exact reason why I, for many years, refused to participate in their conferences," Johansson, a five-time Globes nominee, said in a statement released over the weekend. "The HFPA is an organization that was legitimized by the likes of Harvey Weinstein to amass momentum for Academy recognition and the industry followed suit. Unless there is necessary fundamental reform within the organization, I believe it is time that we take a step back from the HFPA and focus on the importance and strength of unity within our unions and the industry as a whole."

In a statement Monday afternoon, the HFPA attempted a conciliatory tone. "Regardless of the next air date of the Golden Globes, implementing transformational changes as quickly and as thoughtfully as possible remains the top priority for our organization," the group said in a statement. "We invite our partners in the industry to the table to work with us on the systemic reform that is long overdue, both in our organization as well as within the industry at large." The group also listed a detailed calendar outlining its reform efforts. The response has so far been muted.

The Globes banks on A-list stars and its national broadcast, and with those stars and the studios, networks and publicists who support them abandoning ship and NBC cutting the cord, the HFPA needs to reboot to survive. The clock is ticking.

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How Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson and NBC might have just gutted the Golden Globes - Yahoo Entertainment

Russell Westbrook surpassed the NBA's career triple-double record during the Washington Wizards' loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images)

Russell Westbrook has cemented his place in NBA history by surpassing league legend Oscar Robertson's career triple double record.

The former MVP notched his 182nd triple double with a 28 point, 21 assist and 13 rebound effort in the Washington Wizards' 125-124 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday.

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A missed three-pointer to win the game at the buzzer slightly soured the historic achievement, which came after he tied Robertson's record against the Indiana Pacers last weekend.

Westbrook eclipsed the record when he grabbed his 10th rebound with 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. The moment came during a 19-1 run that cut Atlanta's lead from 19 to one.

He already had 21 points and 16 assists. The Atlanta crowd responded to Westbrook's history-making rebound with chants of "Russell."

Westbrook missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds. Afterward, he sought out the game ball from officiating crew chief Tom Washington before accepting congratulations from his peers.

Robertson's record stood for nearly 50 years from the final triple-double of his 14-year career on March 24, 1974. Westbrook is in the 13th season of his career and has played 100 fewer games than Robertson.

Magic Johnson's 138 career triple-doubles are third on the all-time list.

No other active player has reached the century mark. Injured Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is sitting on 99 career triple-doubles.

"The things hes been able to do, hopefully, we will say, Give him his love, give him his respect," Johnson told The Athletic's David Aldridge after Westbrook posted his ridiculous 14-point, 21-rebound, 24-assist triple-double last week.

"This is really big. This is something I couldnt even do. I know how big it is."

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Robertson is no stranger to Westbrook coming for his records. The Hall of Famer's single-season triple-double record of 41 in 1961-62 stood until Westbrook's 42 during his 2016-17 MVP campaign.

At the time, those two seasons marked the only times a player had ever averaged a triple-double for an entire season.

"I could not be happier for him," Robertson wrote for The Undefeated in 2017, when Westbrook broke his single-season record.

Robertson even predicted in that same column four years ago, "If he stays healthy, theres no reason [Westbrook] couldnt eventually break my career record of 181 triple-double games."

Anthony Davis had 42 points and 12 rebounds and the Los Angeles Lakers reignited their NBA title defence with a commanding 123-110 victory over the high-flying Phoenix Suns.

The Suns are now two games behind the Utah Jazz (50-18) atop the Western Conference with only four games remaining while the Lakers, who never trailed at Staples Center, improved to 38-30 and one game behind the sixth-place Portland Trail Blazers.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Alex Caruso each had 17 points on Sunday and the Lakers, missing LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma, won for just the third time in their past 11 games.

"I think I'm feeling about 20 per cent of my old self ... just kidding," Davis joked after the game.

"I'm getting my legs back, I'm getting my rhythm back. Getting my steps back on both ends of the floor, so feeling good ... We're headed in the right direction."

Cameron Payne had 24 points for Phoenix, Devin Booker added 21, and Chris Paul's double-double included 13 points and 10 assists.

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'Done the impossible': NBA in disbelief over Russell Westbrook feat - Yahoo Sport Australia

In his conversation with Yahoo Sports' LaJethro Jenkins, Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal was more measured than his Twitter rant responding to Golden State Warriors veteran Kent Bazemore's comments.

"Keep it hoops," Beal told Yahoo Sports when asked to elaborate on his takedown of Bazemore.

For the uninitiated, Bazemore took an unnecessary shot at Beal's recent injury during his pregame media availability on Monday. Beal and Golden State star Stephen Curry are currently neck and neck in the race for the scoring title. While lauding his Warriors teammate's performance over the weekend, Bazemore said, "49 points in 29 minutes, that's unreal, and we've got guys hurting hamstrings trying to keep up."

Beal sat out Monday's loss to the Atlanta Hawks with a left hamstring strain and is expected to miss Wednesday's rematch. He is averaging 31.4 points per game with three games remaining on Washington's schedule. Curry's 36 points on Monday raised his average to 31.9 points entering his final three games.

Keep in mind, Bazemore is averaging seven points per game for the Warriors. His career high is 32 points, roughly the equivalent of Beal's average this season. Beal had plenty of material to work with, lambasting Bazemore on Twitter during Golden State's game on Monday night. A sampling of Beal's onslaught:

Asked about Beal's diatribe following his own 19-point outing against the Utah Jazz, Bazemore said, via the San Francisco Chronicle's Rusty Simmons:

"I guess you cant joke anymore, but man, whatever. I feel like Im pretty light-hearted guy, and I stay in my own lane. I dont say things and ruffle feathers, but if you want to know where my loyalty is: Its to SC30 (Stephen Curry). It kind of got out of hand. I didnt check my phone all day until after the game, so its kind of blowing up, but I dont get involved in that crap."

Bazemore did not find it necessary to apologize to Beal.

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Itll pass," Bazemore added. "Tomorrow Ill probably wake up, and everything will be the same."

Indeed. With a night to sleep on the exchange, Beal avoided unleashing the verbal edition of a clown GIF.

"For me, it was nothing against Steph," Beal told Yahoo Sports. "I'm gonna just nip that now. I'm not sitting here debating about whose side to choose. Obviously, you should be on your teammate's side, but just keep it that. Keep it hoops. Don't bring my injury into it or me into it. I have my goals, and why I go hoop and what I'm focused on are totally different. I could care less about people saying, 'Oh, it's a close race.'

"I'm here to hoop. Everybody knows I can score. I've been doing this for the last couple years, so it's nothing new. I'm not chasing after nothing. So, for me, I just want to keep it that. Just keep it hoops. Stay over there. I didn't say anything. I didn't go out of my way to do anything, so that's all my point was."

If he sits on Wednesday, as expected, Beal would need 95 points over the final two games to match Curry's current average of 31.9 points per game. That number could rise or fall with Curry's production over the next week. Both the Wizards and Warriors are still battling for seeding in the NBA's play-in tournament.

Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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Bradley Beal again responds to Kent Bazemore: 'Don't bring my injury into it' - Yahoo Sports

Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of the Insider Tech newsletter, where we break down the biggest news in tech, including:

Soundtrack: This week's newsletter has been specially designed to be consumed while listening to Serge Gainsbourg's "Requiem pour un con"

With all the big news this past week about Donald Trump's Facebook account, Apple's courtroom battle with Epic, and the Bill and Melinda breakup, you might have missed another important development in tech: the sale of Yahoo and AOL.

Iconic is an apt description for both Yahoo and AOL. The companies helped create the internet as we know it today, with decades-long histories that have spanned the administrations of about a half dozen US presidents and just as many transitions of technology standards. (Remember the ubiquitous 3.5 inch AOL floppy discs?)

As Insider columnist Adam Lashinsky writes, the slow decline that befell both companies is the result of a long list of causes. Yahoo's fall from grace is particularly instructive when you consider all the trends the company recognized early on but never capitalized on, allowing other companies to steal the show. Lashinsky writes:

"It bought a Web 1.0 company called GeoCitiesthat could have been the next MySpace or Facebook but wasn't. The same goes for Flickr, the preeminent photo-sharing site of its day later outshone by Instagram. It even beat Google to the punch byacquiring the original search-based ad auction company, Overture, only to be overwhelmed by its competitor."

Elon Musk, the self-declared Imperator of Mars, is due to host comedy show "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, a must-see TV event that has apparently, and fittingly, fueled a surge in the price of dogecoin a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke.

As Insider's Margaux MacColl reports, the venture capital world is getting serious about the crypto boom, especially with the news that Andreessen Horowitz is launching a $1 billion crypto fund.

Of course, there's a risk that blockchain tech could obviate the need for VCs altogether. Instead of giving away equity in their company in exchange for a venture firm check, a crypto startup could simply issue its own currency through an "initial coin offering" and raise capital all by itself.

Now that's a crypto joke that VCs might not find very funny.

See also: Elon Musk is pumping stocks, cryptocurrencies, and the energy of 49 million loyal followers to dizzying heights. Experts break down the risks of his incessant tweets, from legal trouble to losses for small investors.

It looks like something from a new action movie, but there are no special effects in this video of Britain's Royal Marines training with a jet pack.

The "Jet Suit" made by the UK's Gravity Industries is still experimental and the British military has not committed to buying the technology. But the video, based on three days of training drills conducted by 42 Royal Marines, offers a fascinating glimpse of how jet packs could be used for military operations.

In the video, a Jet Suit-equipped Royal Marine blasts off an inflatable raft and lands on the deck of a nearby ship. He then throws down a rope ladder to let fellow soldiers board the vessel, part of a maritime operation known as "visit, board, search and seizure." Trust me, you'll want to watch this video.

Google's new security default for all users is part of its path to eliminating passwords entirely, according to a product exec

Leaked financials: Sequoia-backed grocery delivery unicorn Getir is in talks to raise a pre-IPO round at a $7 billion valuation

Melinda French Gates has an investment firm called Pivotal Ventures that is a quiet powerhouse in the venture industry.

Peloton just recalled its treadmill, but customers reported injuries and safety concerns as early as January 2019

5 top VCs reveal the favorite cybersecurity startups in their portfolios, after investors pumped a record $7.8 billion into the industry last year

Meet Elizabeth Yin, the VC reforming the industry by openly sharing what may be some of venture's ugliest secrets

The wealthy invested in 'hidden gem' locations during the pandemic, propelling property prices in smaller cities to new heights

Thanks for reading, and if you like this newsletter,tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it.

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A last waltz for Yahoo and AOL, and Elon's crypto comedy show - Business Insider

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It's over. On May 4, Yahoo Answers went offline, putting an end to one of the weirdest, oldest and least organized communities of crowdsourced questions and answers. The site's seemingly endless parade of user-submitted queries ranged from intriguing thought experiments (from the likes of Stephen Hawking, no less) to the absurdity of someone asking the community, "What did my dad just say to me?"

Why do you think anybody on the internet would know this?

Yahoo Answers became notorious as a home for a very specific brand of chaos. Some questions became famous memes unto themselves. Others became standards on "top ten funniest" Yahoo Answers questions. The community became a rich mine of material for YouTube comedians, even PewDiePie. Famous podcasters used Yahoo Answers as a source for inspiration too: Dissecting weird questions was a regular segment on My Brother, My Brother and Me.

Yahoo Answers had a legacy. Just not the one it was designed to have.

Entertain your brain with the coolest news from streaming to superheroes, memes to video games.

When Yahoo launched its question-and-answer platform in 2005, becoming a mainstay of internet comedy wasn't part of the plan. The company billed the service as "a place where people can ask each other questions on any topic, and get answers by sharing facts, opinions and personal experiences." Even so, Yahoo Answers didn't exist for its own sake -- it was created to help bolster Yahoo Search results.

It can be easy to forget how influential Yahoo once was. It was a big company with social communities, email, directories and, of course, the biggest search engine in the world. In 2005, however it was facing fierce competition. The hope was that Yahoo Answers could make the company's search engine better by offering users millions of crowdsourced answers to any question they might have.

A tech support classic.

"Long term, Answers has the potential to attract incremental users, increase time spent on the Yahoo! Platform," Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth told Forbes shortly after the service launched, "and create monetization opportunities through additional sponsored links and page views."

Yahoo Answers was never really about the answers, which could be why the service was best known for the questions its users asked.

Regardless of what Yahoo Answers was designed to be, it's best known for the surprising and ridiculous questions people asked it. In fact, before news broke of the shutdown, most searches for Yahoo Answers on Google, YouTube and other platforms brought back lists of absurd and amusing ponderings.

There are dozens of comedy videos mocking Yahoo Answers' weirdest questions, and teasing these often too-personal questions will forever be a part of the service's legacy. Despite the jokes, the platform actually got kind of close to what it was designed to be. More earnest searches could lead you to awkward, but innocent questions about growing up and human development -- possibly the queries of those too embarrassed to ask their parents. Lots of users were seeking household repair tips and tech support.

Some questions were just students trying to get the internet to "help" with their homework.

When you really didn't feel like doing your own homework, Yahoo Answers was there.

Although the platform was devised to augment Yahoo's search engine, the site's features helped it find its own weird identity once that searchable trove of knowledge became less of a priority for the company. Question askers could pick the best response to any given question, which would help the person writing that answer earn points to level up in an internal ranking system. The points and level didn't actually do anything, but it helped create a sense of community.

That sense of community is one of the things that made Yahoo Answers interesting. When it launched in late 2005, it debuted alongside many of today's internet giants. Facebook and Reddit were both still in their infancy, and Twitter was only months away. Yahoo Answers wasn't built to compete with any of these networks, but it filled some similar roles. At a time when users online were moving away from traditional message board systems and chat rooms, Yahoo Answers was there -- serving as a half-step between the internet communities of the late 1990s and the social media empires that were about to take over the web.

Some Yahoo Answers users were just trying to learn about growing up.

It's one aspect of the service that survived to the end. Browsing Yahoo Answers' categories in its final days still surfaced plenty of standard questions seeking answers ("Can u write on money," or "How do I get a grease stain out of concrete"), but you could also find the same discussions you'd expect on Reddit. These range from new parents asking in the parenting forum what people thought of the name of their child, or political partisans debating the latest headlines in the politics and news sections.

After May 4, the Yahoo question-and-answer service will go the way of GeoCities. There'll be no official attempts to preserve or archive the service. Unless an outside group takes action, Yahoo Answers' millions of questions -- chaotic, hilarious and sublime -- will be lost to time.

Fortunately, this is the internet, where there's always someone happy to preserve a bizarre database of terrible spelling and weird questions -- even if it might not be worth saving. When Yahoo announced it was shutting the service down, Gizmodo wrote that it created a script that would archive 84 million Yahoo Answers questions to the Internet Archive, but admitted that it would take two years to complete the process. Fortunately, a group called Archive Team started a similar project back in 2016.

A large portion of Yahoo Answers' publicly available questions are already backed up, and the team has made archiving the rest their "warrior project" focus for spring 2021. For better or worse, Yahoo Answers' weird legacy will be preserved on the Internet Archive.

Unfortunately, the archived pages' search function doesn't currently work, but at least we'll always have all those MBMBAM segments.

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Yahoo Answers is dead, but its weird and amusing legacy lives on - CNET

The New York Times

Democrats are struggling to build a surefire legal strategy to block new Republican-backed restrictions on voting rights, relying on broadly worded warnings and urgent pleas that are designed, in part, to build political pressure on the White House, Congress and the Justice Department to act, as well as to engage their supporters to mobilize in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. The approach is aimed at persuading recalcitrant Senate Democrats in Washington to pass a sweeping federal elections bill, painting the new Republican laws in the news media as suspect on arrival, and convincing the swing voters who last year helped elect President Joe Biden that the GOP is more interested in fixing elections for itself than in winning those voters back. Locked out of power in the Republican-run states that are enacting laws making it harder to vote, Democrats are engaged in a partywide effort to push back against the legislation that has as much to do with winning hearts and minds outside courtrooms as it does legal victories inside them. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Were taking an all-of-the-above approach because we cant allow these things to stand, Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview Friday. As Democrats, we have to make this personal and we have to tell the story as to why this is important. This is fundamental. The most fundamental thing we have to do is protect the right of all folks to vote. Republican laws passed in Georgia and Florida, along with a bill advancing in Texas, have so many new provisions that Democrats find troublesome both politically and legally that it is proving overwhelming to confront the measures one by one in court. Instead, the liberal push has become more focused on political outreach to ensure that progressive voters are sufficiently outraged about the new laws to apply pressure on senators and get out the vote next year. No one is going to file a 2,000-page brief, said Myrna Prez, the director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. The energy spent educating voters about whats going on, and then energy spent trying to stop it, is consuming resources from the bread-and-butter work that groups like mine do. Many of the voting bills have been able to sail through Republican-controlled legislatures because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, which hollowed out the preclearance provision that required certain states, mostly in the South, to gain federal approval before making changes to voting laws. With the Voting Rights Act now far weaker, voting rights activists say that litigation is often the only way to fight new restrictions, and an imperfect one at that. Case-by-case litigation in the voting context is time-consuming, costly and ultimately inadequate because even if you win a case, frequently these kinds of laws remain on the books for one or more election cycle before litigation can be complete, and theres no way to compensate people after the fact, said Dale Ho, the director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which litigated several major cases last year. Beyond lawsuits, Democrats are grappling with the long-term question of how to make crucial gains in GOP-led legislatures where state demographics, years of gerrymandering and the prospect of Republicans mapping themselves into another decade of control when redistricting takes place later this year have given conservatives a nearly unbreakable grip on power. In Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the states new voting law Thursday, Democrats are reckoning with decades of party disinvestment in down-ballot elections and issuing dire warnings that nothing will improve without wholesale changes in how the party invests in local contests. Raymond Paultre, the executive director of the Florida Alliance, an often secretive network of progressive donors that has in the past been at odds with the Florida Democratic Party, said Friday that the new laws in Georgia and Florida and the bill advanced by Texas Republicans illustrated the need for more resources to be directed to state legislative races. We are living in and through sort of the remnants and results of a lack of investments in state infrastructure for the last 30 years, Paultre said. We dont have a clear way of stopping these bills. Lets use this as a wake-up call. Lets get as upset with ourselves as we are with the Republicans. At the same time, Florida Democrats are already envisioning how they will use the new law as part of their campaigns in the midterm elections to paint Republicans as being opposed to Black and Hispanic peoples right to vote. People want us to push back, said Fentrice Driskell, a state representative from Tampa. We recognize that the 22 election cycle will be a great opportunity to try and do that. Democrats legal case against the Florida law, filed by the partys top election lawyer, Marc Elias, argues that the legislation violates the First Amendments protection of free speech, and the 14th Amendment on the grounds that it would adversely affect people of color. Another suit, filed Thursday by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, also argues that the law violates the First and 14th Amendments, as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act because many drop boxes are likely to be moved to indoor locations that are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Sam Spital, the director of litigation for the legal defense fund, said that while he believed the lawsuits would prevail, the only comprehensive solution to Republican efforts to restrict voting would come from the federal government both Congress and the Justice Department. It is incumbent upon Congress to exercise its authority to make sure that were not going to have this kind of voter suppression, he said. Elias said he was seeking to make the legal case that the Florida law violates First Amendment free speech rights because it restricts what voters can be told when they register to vote. The 14th Amendment argument is that the law violates Supreme Court doctrine known as the Anderson-Burdick test, which requires courts to balance new burdens on voters against the benefits that the state claims are being added to its voting system. Elias makes his legal case daily on Twitter, where he promotes his Democracy Docket website and, on Friday afternoon, hosted a 40-minute live chat on Twitter Spaces, the sites live audio chat feature, in which he explained civil rights and election laws to about 170 people who tuned in. The numerous lawsuits from Elias and others have not rattled the Republican National Committees legal team, which views them as an effort to drum up outrage as much as a legal challenge. And, they argue, the lawsuits will be very hard to win. The state is going to need to basically provide a justification that outweighs any potential burden on the right to vote, said Justin Riemer, the chief counsel for the RNC. And the fact of the matter is, the Democrats will be unable to provide evidence that shows that these laws actually impair voting rights and make it harder to vote. Instead, Riemer saw the lawsuits as an attempt to force Democrats in Washington to act. Theyre trying to have Congress solve the problem for them by actually imposing a new legal standard for bringing these claims, Riemer said. In Texas, late amendments and procedural moves were still unable to halt the Republican bill from being passed at 3 a.m. Friday. The bill, which became slightly less restrictive after the late-night adjustments, still greatly empowers partisan poll watchers, bars election officials from proactively mailing out absentee ballots, and sets strict punishments for election officials who run afoul of regulations while helping voters who require assistance. Hours after the bill passed, Democrats in Texas looked to Congress for help. Democrats will continue to work together to quickly pass federal legislation that ensures the rights of the people to vote are protected in all 50 states, said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. In the hours between DeSantis signing of the Florida law and Texas House Republicans passing their voting bill early Friday, progressive groups spoke out about their desire for Congress to pass Democrats big election bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The For the People Act, which is far broader, would mandate national automatic voter registration and no-excuse early voting and mail-in voting; neuter restrictive state voter identification laws; and create independent redistricting commissions for congressional districts and new dark-money transparency measures. The John Lewis act would reinstitute the federal preclearance requirement for changing election laws. The For the People Act has passed the House and remains stalled in the Senate, where Democrats lack both 60 votes to avoid a filibuster and an agreement among themselves over whether the legislation can proceed with a simple majority vote. The John Lewis bill has not yet passed the House. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., chairman of the partys Democracy Reform task force, said Friday that congressional Democrats voting legislation, if enacted, would carry more weight than any court victory could. There will be court decisions and challenges in the future, he said, but what were really trying to do is reset the table on what our democracy looks like. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has questions about cryptocurrency, including whether it takes advantage of smaller investors. The progressive senator also wonders whether bitcoin is too easy to steal.

The former presidential candidate has been pushing for government intervention on both of those fronts and, in a conversation with Yahoo Finance's editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer, this week, she raised another growing concern: the impact on the planet that has come with the rapid growth of cryptocurrency.

I also think with bitcoin, and with the other cryptocurrencies, I think there's a real issue about the environmental impact as well, this whole notion of how much energy is consumed just to keep the currency tracking going, said Warren, who's out with a new book, "Persist," which is billed as both a personal narrative and a call for "political transformation."

Compared to traditional currency, bitcoin has a relatively large carbon footprint because new bitcoin has to be "mined." Bitcoin "miners" receive bitcoin as a reward for verifying and recording transactions that require massive amounts of computing power which takes massive amounts of real life power.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) questions Xavier Becerra, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, during his Senate Finance Committee nomination hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., February 24, 2021. Greg Nash/Pool via REUTERS

Crypto miners' energy needs have already disrupted the grid of an entire town, and consumption grows the more popular these currencies become.

You don't consume that kind of energy, in order to have money on deposit at a bank or a mutual fund, Warren told Yahoo Finance. In that sense, bitcoin is very different and in a 21st century, we're becoming a lot more sensitive to the worldwide impacts of the choices we make.

Warren spoke to Serwer in an episode of Influencers with Andy Serwer, a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

There have been different efforts to measure the environmental impacts of bitcoin. The electricity used to mine bitcoin each year exceeds the individual annual electricity consumption of Ukraine, Sweden, or Argentina, according to an ongoing study from the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School.

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Warren is far from alone in expressing concerns over bitcoin. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has worked to fund efforts at combating climate change, has also raised the alarm over the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so its not a great climate thing," Gates told Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times in February.

It's unclear whether governments around the world will enact regulations to mitigate these impacts, but the industry has taken some steps to regulate itself. In April, energy, cryptocurrency, and fintech leaders signed onto a "Crypto Climate Accord" seeking to have all of the world's blockchains powered by 100% renewables within four years. Meanwhile, payments company Square (SQ) has responded to the increasing public pressure by pledging to support greener bitcoin mining practices and to become a zero-net carbon contributor by 2030.

Still, even if bitcoin's environmental impacts are reduced, Warren will likely continue to have questions about the cryptocurrency. As she told CNBC in March, agreeing with a sentiment expressed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, "It's speculative in nature and going to end badly."

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

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The Telegraph

Yes, weekend golf! So Rory McIlroy bellowed, arms aloft, as he left the recorders hut here at the Wells Fargo Championship and headed to speak to the media. Of course, this was mock celebration on behalf of the four-time major winner, but beneath the self-deprecation there was clearly relief that he will be playing competitively on a Saturday for the first time in two months. If that sounds incredible for someone of McIlroys stature, then it should be noted this is only his fourth event since finishing 10th at Bay Hill at the start of March. No doubt the ensuing missed cuts at The Players and The Masters - as well as the group-stage exit at the WGC Match Play - were worrisome and did cause him to slip to 15th in the world, his lowliest ranking in 11 years. But Pete Cowen, his new swing coach, has assured him they are nowhere near panic stations. This five-under 66 at his beloved Quail Hollow proved as much. Despite two late three-putts, McIlroy hurtled up from a tie for 78th, eight off the lead and outside the cut-line, to four-under and into a tie for fifth, just two behind the halfway pacesetters, England's Matt Wallace (67) and a pair of Americans in former US Open champion Gary Woodland (69l and Patrick Rodgers (68). If McIlroy can fix his form off the tee, the quality of his iron play suggests a first win in 19 months could be just around the dogleg. I worked hard after Augusta, he said. Yeah I took a week off, which I needed, but then I put my head down and felt better about everything coming in here. Well, almost everything. He is still battling with the fact that contrary to a lifetime of a high slinging draw with the driver, he is now fading it. With these modern drivers, it's harder to turn them over, so I've had to adjust, he explained. I just have to commit to going down the left side and trust it's going to come back.

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