February 8, 2021

shocking smash-and-grab break-in of a car merging on to freeway in San Francisco has gone viral.

Dashcam video of what appears to be a shocking smash-and-grab break-in of a car crawling toward I-80 in San Francisco has gone viral.

On Friday, Ben Barghabany told KTVU he and his wife were driving from a real estate photography project on Dolores Street to Treasure Island for another shoot. The route took them on Bryant Street near the Hall of Justice, where their Prius slowed near the on-ramp toward the East Bay. Tesla dashcam footage from a car behind them shows a black Honda pull up near the Prius. A figure jumps out, smashes the back of the Prius and quickly gets back into the Honda with their haul.

“I was doing the drone and video outside of the house so I think my guess is that the guy started following us from there,” Barghabany told KTVU.

Barghabany said they were robbed of "the most expensive stuff" they had, including $7,000 in cameras and a drone.



https://twitter.com/amegregan5/status/1357950023829360646

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/prius-break-in-sf-car-burglaries-viral-tweet-15931571.php

February 8, 2021

"The unfair power dynamic between women tipped workers and male customers"

The unfair power dynamic between women tipped workers and male customers in most states has only worsened during the pandemic. Women restaurant workers report being regularly subjected to ‘Maskual harassment’, in which male customers are demanding that women servers take off their masks so that they can judge their looks and their tips on that basis. With tips now down 50 to 75 percent, male customers know women workers are more desperate than ever.

For Black women, the situation is especially dire. Before the pandemic, Black women who are tipped restaurant workers earned on average nearly $5 an hour less than their white male counterparts nationwide — largely because they are segregated into more casual restaurants in which they earn far less in tips than white men who more often work in fine dining, but also because of customer bias in tipping.

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So was the risk that I would be punished for not flirting with the men I served. Men of all ages commented on my looks, asked me if I had a boyfriend, slipped me their phone numbers, and expected me to laugh along with their sexist jokes. I often played along, after learning from experience that the price of resistance would be the loss of tips that I had rightfully earned.


The truth was, though, that I was shielded from the biggest risk that tipped workers face: not being able to make ends meet. During the summers I spent waitressing, I was living at home with my parents and had my basic needs taken care of. On days when business was slow, and only a few customers trickled in, I was reminded that my situation was not the norm. I remember a co-worker crying at the end of her shift, because she hadn’t earned enough in tips to pay the babysitter. I remember a few of us pooling our tips so another co-worker could buy groceries on her way home and feed her kids.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/minimum-wage-racism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

February 8, 2021

Sleepless nights. Double shifts. COVID-19 is forcing high school students to help support families

Sleepless nights. Double shifts. COVID-19 is forcing high school students to help support families

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And when her dad lost his factory job in March at the onset of the pandemic, it was never a question that the 17-year-old would do whatever was needed to keep her family afloat.

Her parents do not speak English, so she researched how to sign up her family for food and rental assistance at various community organizations. She held garage sales on the weekends, selling blouses and shoes from her South Los Angeles home and dropping off catalogs for Tupperware — which she helps her mom sell — to family friends.

But it wasn’t enough. So she told her parents that she wanted to take on shifts at the embroidery factory where her mom worked.

“Tell your boss I’m ready, I can do this,” Stephanie, the eldest of four children, said to her mom at the dinner table. The next week, mother and daughter stood side-by-side at the industrial sewing machines, lining up snap-back hats that would soon be stitched with the logos of local sports teams.

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Counselors and teachers across California tell similar stories: One described a senior at Oakland High School who, before starting to work full-time this year, had a 3.9 GPA, but is now failing almost all of her classes. A counselor at South L.A.'s Communication and Technology School worries about a student there who works two jobs, from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m., five days a week and was so overwhelmed he tried to drop out — until the counselor dissuaded him.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-05/la-students-take-on-jobs-help-families-amid-covid-19

February 8, 2021

They went bust in the Great Recession. Now, in their 80s, the pandemic took their jobs

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/06/how-covid-led-to-unemployment-for-older-americans.html

Dan and Grace Porte, who are in their mid-80s, lost their jobs at Target early in the Covid pandemic.

Unemployed seniors typically have more trouble finding new jobs than younger workers. That may present financial challenges. Dan and Grace supplemented Social Security with job income.

The couple, from Richmond, Virginia, had worked together for decades. Now, the recession’s challenges have brought them even closer together.

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They’re among thousands of older Americans pushed out of work since the spring. The Covid recession has sidelined many of them for long stretches — making it harder to get another job at an age that makes employers already be less inclined to hire them.

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So far, Dan and Grace have been able to make ends meet with Social Security. But money is tight.

They relied on jobs at Target, where they worked four days a week, to supplement Social Security benefits. The retailer furloughed the couple in March but kept them on payroll, even upping their pay to $15 an hour, a $2 raise. In late April, they lost the jobs outright.


Unemployment aid helped for a while but ran out in September. They don’t have retirement savings to fall back on, either — a broker put their nest egg in an investment that went bust in the 2008 financial crisis, costing them approximately $240,000.

February 8, 2021

This rebellious female painter of bold nude portraits has been overlooked for a century

Over a century ago, Suzanne Valadon began painting lively nude portraits of sensual and self-assured women, with full, curvy bodies and pubic hair. Occasionally, she painted nude men as well, bucking art historical tradition and presenting them as figures of desire. Her canvases were full of bold outlines, vibrant colors and loose brushwork, and she deftly illustrated her subjects' interior lives, rather than the idealized scenes of leisure so prevalent at the time.

Championed by some of her most famous contemporaries, including Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Valadon was no minor artist, and one of the few women painters of the era to receive critical acclaim. Yet, like many women artists of the 20th century, her fame faded after her death.

But today, curators and art historians are taking a second look at Valadon's works, and reconsidering her life with more nuance. This September, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia will stage her first major institutional show in the US, positioning her as an important yet underrecognized modern artist.

From the start, Valadon was a controversial figure in Paris' thriving art scene at the turn of the century, known as much for her bohemian attitudes and provocative personal life as her distinct, rebellious vision.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/suzanne-valadon-nudes-art-history/index.html

February 8, 2021

Officer fired for physically harassing a co-worker, mocking her fear of covid-19, police say

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/officer-fired-for-physically-harassing-a-co-worker-mocking-her-fear-of-covid-19-police-say/ar-BB1ds2q0

A police officer in central Florida was recently fired after allegedly hugging a colleague against her will while mocking her fear of contracting the coronavirus — an example of how some have socially weaponized the deadly pathogen.

Longwood Police Department investigators also determined that Cpl. David Hernandez was “not fully forthcoming and not truthful” about the allegations after his co-worker filed a complaint about the July incident, the Orlando Sentinel reported.


Hernandez ignored his co-worker’s instructions not to touch her, according to an internal investigative report first obtained by the Sentinel. Instead, he followed her into her workspace while “taunting her with comments about her being afraid of contracting COVID-19,” which was surging in Florida at the time.

The woman claimed that Hernandez ridiculed her as a “germaphobe,” touched her personal items and spoke into her phone while saying that he didn’t have the coronavirus, local television station WESH reported, citing the internal document. The employee also alleged that she hurt her finger and back while struggling to escape Hernandez.

February 8, 2021

This rebellious female painter of bold nude portraits has been overlooked for a century

Over a century ago, Suzanne Valadon began painting lively nude portraits of sensual and self-assured women, with full, curvy bodies and pubic hair. Occasionally, she painted nude men as well, bucking art historical tradition and presenting them as figures of desire. Her canvases were full of bold outlines, vibrant colors and loose brushwork, and she deftly illustrated her subjects' interior lives, rather than the idealized scenes of leisure so prevalent at the time.

Championed by some of her most famous contemporaries, including Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Valadon was no minor artist, and one of the few women painters of the era to receive critical acclaim. Yet, like many women artists of the 20th century, her fame faded after her death.

But today, curators and art historians are taking a second look at Valadon's works, and reconsidering her life with more nuance. This September, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia will stage her first major institutional show in the US, positioning her as an important yet underrecognized modern artist.

From the start, Valadon was a controversial figure in Paris' thriving art scene at the turn of the century, known as much for her bohemian attitudes and provocative personal life as her distinct, rebellious vision.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/suzanne-valadon-nudes-art-history/index.html

February 7, 2021

Myanmar military shuts down the internet

February 6, 2021

Hudson Yards - largest private development in US history - unsold condos, barren mall

** and it's signature "Vessel" sculptor closed because people were using it for suicide jumps**


How the Pandemic Left the $25 Billion Hudson Yards Eerily Deserted
The largest private development in U.S. history has attracted marquee companies, but is struggling with unsold luxury condos and a mall barren of shoppers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/nyregion/hudson-yards-nyc.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

When Hudson Yards opened in 2019 as the largest private development in American history, it aspired to transform Manhattan’s Far West Side with a sleek spread of ultraluxury condominiums, office towers for powerhouse companies like Facebook, and a mall with coveted international brands and restaurants by celebrity chefs like José Andrés.

All of it surrounded a copper-colored sculpture that would be to New York what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.

But the pandemic has ravaged New York City’s real estate market and its premier, $25 billion development, raising significant questions about the future of Hudson Yards.

Hundreds of condominiums remain unsold, and the mall is barren of customers. Its anchor tenant, Neiman Marcus, filed for bankruptcy and closed permanently, and at least four other stores, as well as several restaurants, have also gone out of business.

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mall on a recent weekday
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February 6, 2021

Bank of American snooped through records to help find Jan 6th rioters.. anyone with a purchase in DC

https://nypost.com/2021/02/05/calls-for-bank-of-america-boycott-grow-after-data-given-to-fbi/

Customers are calling for a boycott of Bank of America, after a report that the bank handed over the account information of hundreds of innocent people in connection with the Jan. 6 deadly riots at the Capitol.

At the request of the FBI, the country’s second-largest bank allegedly snooped through information of anyone making certain purchases in and around Washington before and after the riots, and handed over the information of 211 people, according to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

Only one of those 211 people was brought in for questioning, and none of them were arrested, according to Fox’s report.

Federal investigators reportedly asked Bank of America for information on customers who made debit or credit card purchases in DC, reserved hotels and Airbnbs in and around the capital, patronized weapons store and made airline reservations within the timeframe surrounding the attacks.


Bank of America gave the government the information of 211 people who they felt fit the 'criteria' of a suspicious involvement in the Jan 6 riot



The bank had been asked to turn over the records of anyone who used a debit card or credit card on January 5th and 6th in Washington DC

It was also asked for hotel or Airbnb purchases in DC, Maryland and Virginia

Any weapons charges between January 7 and Inauguration Day were included

Airline related purchases since January 6 were also requested by the feds

BoA complied and won't say if they were issued with a subpoena or warrant
One innocent person was hauled in for questioning as a result
Now, people are demanding to know which other banks did the same
There are also calls for people to boycott BoA because of the 'absurd overreach'
The FBI and DoJ have been on the back foot since before the insurrection
Many of the rioters plotted it in plain sight on social media and the FBI even issued an internal memo about it but it still wasn't
prevented

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9228367/BoA-snooped-hundreds-accounts-looking-Capitol-rioters.html