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Unheard-of May snow, icy cold temps, and high winds blasting in for Mother’s Day weekend

Weather extreme enough to shatter records across large swaths of the U.S. is heading our way this weekend, just in time for Mother’s Day. A storm system heading into the Northeast on Friday will smash into the polar vortex as it makes swing down from the Arctic, reported NBC News. This might sock the region in with heavy, wet snow all the way into New England.




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Fox News pundit encourages Americans to get ‘out there’ and ‘have some courage’

Fox News pundit mocks 'experts,' encourages Americans to get out there and 'have some courage'




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SEE IT: Red tide by day showers shoreline in mystical light by night off Southern California

Californians venturing onto the beach after a month of lockdown are being greeted with the ethereal sight of bioluminescent waves from an algae bloom.




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Man called 911 to report 'a black male running down the street’ before Ahmaud Arbery shooting, audio recordings confirm

Audio recordings of two 911 calls placed moments before Ahmaud Arbery was killed confirm that at least two people were concerned that a black man was running in their Georgia neighborhood.




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Florida teen allegedly stabs younger brother to death, authorities say

An extensive search was launched Thursday for a teenager who allegedly stabbed his younger brother to death in the Florida Keys community of Islamorada, authorities said.




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SYSTEM UPDATE: 5 Mother’s Day gifts for the ‘Gamer Mom’

You can always get your mom flowers for Mother’s Day, or chocolate, or your standard Mother’s Day gift. Or, if your mom is anything like mine, you can go in a completely different direction.




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Costco shoppers upset the retailer is requiring customers to wear face masks during a pandemic

Some Costco customers are not happy about having to wear masks in stores.




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Chris Cornell’s widow fires back at Soundgarden members in escalating legal war, says they’re tying to ‘browbeat’ her into giving up music

Chris Cornell’s widow is firing back at her husband’s Soundgarden bandmates, calling the lawsuit they filed against her Wednesday an attempt to “browbeat” her into giving up “copyrighted works.”




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The downsides of working from home

How should those now working from home due to the coronavirus deal with guilt and exhaustion?



  • Work & careers

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374 staff at the IAA earned over €100,000 last year

The numbers of staff earning over €100,000 at the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) last year increased by 31 to 374.




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Did the Paycheck Protection Program Hit the Target? -- by João Granja, Christos Makridis, Constantine Yannelis, Eric Zwick

This paper takes an early look at the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a large and novel small business support program that was part of the initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use new data on the distribution of PPP loans and high-frequency micro-level employment data to consider two dimensions of program targeting. First, we do not find evidence that funds flowed to areas more adversely affected by the economic effects of the pandemic, as measured by declines in hours worked or business shutdowns. If anything, funds flowed to areas less hard hit. Second, we find significant heterogeneity across banks in terms of disbursing PPP funds, which does not only reflect differences in underlying loan demand. The top-4 banks alone account for 36% of total pre-policy small business loans, but disbursed less than 3% of all PPP loans. Areas that were significantly more exposed to low-PPP banks received much lower loan allocations. As data become available, we will study employment and establishment responses to the program and the impact of PPP support on the economic recovery. Measuring these responses is critical for evaluating the social insurance value of the PPP and similar policies.




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Trade Credit and the Transmission of Unconventional Monetary Policy -- by Manuel Adelino, Miguel A. Ferreira, Mariassunta Giannetti, Pedro Pires

We show that trade credit in production networks is important for the transmission of unconventional monetary policy. We find that firms with bonds eligible for purchase under the European Central Bank’s Corporate Sector Purchase Program act as financial intermediaries and extend more trade credit to their customers. The increase in trade credit flows is more pronounced from core countries to periphery countries and towards financially constrained customers. Customers increase investment and employment in response to the additional financing, while suppliers with eligible bonds increase their customer base, potentially favoring upstream industry concentration. Our findings suggest that the trade credit channel of monetary policy produces heterogeneous effects on regions, industries, and firms.




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Bring on the e-scooters: A Bird executive explains how New York City can smartly and safely welcome the micromobility devices

Electric scooters are coming to New York and, with a little planning and preparation, they can safely thrive here. To understand how, it helps to start with some context.




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How to save the world: A VE Day salute to the men and women who defeated Hitler

The monster who started it, Hitler, was dead, with a coward’s bullet to the head. Also gone was FDR, the man who mobilized a nation and built a worldwide coalition to defeat Germany. As were millions of men who fought in the second war to end all wars to crush an insane regime that had murdered millions of civilian men, women and children, Jew and gentile. Churchill, who stood sometimes alone against the threat, would soon be turned out by the voters.




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Losing jobs, saving jobs: As unemployment soars, the nation and individual states try to balance health and economic concerns

The patient, laid up in the ICU, gets sicker. Thursday, 3.2 million more people joined the ranks of the unemployed, bringing to 33.5 million the number of Americans who’ve lost jobs since mid-March. Believe it: One in five of those employed before this living, dying hell began is now seeking jobless benefits.




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How to enforce social distancing: The NYPD is doing it all wrong

The beating of a young black man by police on the East Village last weekend should trouble all New Yorkers. Even more troubling is that the incident began with officers enforcing the city’s social distancing rules on the first summer-like weekend of the pandemic while white revelers lounged close together, unmolested, in parks nearby. Officers handed them masks instead.




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Racialized violence never takes a break: On the killing of Ahmaud Arbery

Early May weather finally brought spring relief to my family weary from weeks of dreary weather and sheltering in place. Inexplicably a dance party had broken out; the boys, giddy from the arrival of two rabbits — pandemic pets — were dancing with their grandmother as my wife and I looked on, sipping evening cocktails. Then an absentminded Twitter check confronted me with the shocking video of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black Georgian, being hunted down and killed by two white men.




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Justice extended, not denied: Gov. Cuomo rightly extends the deadline under which Child Victims Act survivors can face their

Last Feb. 14, Gov. Cuomo signed the Child Victims Act into law. He did it in the newsroom of the Daily News, because it was this paper that, over many years, spotlighted the wrenching cases of people abused as children, perversely prevented from seeking justice as adults.




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Let the whistles blow: Never mind the Trump administration; listen to those calling out wrongdoing

Add Dr. Rick Bright to the list of coronavirus whistleblowers silenced or sidelined for trying to push truth over politics as we battle this deadly scourge. He was just ousted from his post as director of the HHS agency working on a COVID-19 vaccine for what he claims was his refusal to support a “game-changing” supposed cure President Trump and friends have been touting. CDC chief Robert Redfield suffered a similar rebuke for warning of a second wave of the virus next winter, contradicting the more rosy picture the president wants trying to paint. Not fired (yet), but clearly pressured to toe the line, truth and science be damned.




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Trae Young is the perfect Knicks target

The Knicks have the draft picks to make a major swing on the trade market, and the Atlanta point guard makes sense for everyone involved.




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Reggie Miller, the dream opponent for the Knicks, was made for the bright lights of New York

There were two Reggies in New York City.




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Dave Checketts on his wild tenure running the ’90s Knicks

Time has been extremely kind to Checketts' Knicks tenure.




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Trae Young is the perfect Knicks target

The Knicks have the draft picks to make a major swing on the trade market, and the Atlanta point guard makes sense for everyone involved.




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One group of Nets workers is being left out in the cold

When Nets owner Joe Tsai pledged to continue paying the Barclays Center workers who make game day experiences possible through the end of May, it was a relief to many. One group has been left out in the cold, however, and is now speaking up for itself.




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Devonte Green’s complicated path to the NBA Draft

He is preparing for the 2020 NBA Draft in a year where basketball is no longer the same.




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Reggie Miller, the dream opponent for the Knicks, was made for the bright lights of New York

There were two Reggies in New York City.




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Dave Checketts on his wild tenure running the ’90s Knicks

Time has been extremely kind to Checketts' Knicks tenure.




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Office Visits Preventing Emergency Room Visits: Evidence From the Flint Water Switch -- by Shooshan Danagoulian, Daniel S. Grossman, David Slusky

Emergency department visits are costly to providers and to patients. We use the Flint water crisis to test if an increase in office visits reduced avoidable emergency room visits. In September 2015, the city of Flint issued a lead advisory to its residents, alerting them of increased lead levels in their drinking water, resulting from the switch in water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Using Medicaid claims for 2013-2016, we find that this information shock increased the share of enrollees who had lead tests performed by 1.7 percentage points. Additionally, it increased office visits immediately following the information shock and led to a reduction of 4.9 preventable, non-emergent, and primary-care-treatable emergency room visits per 1000 eligible children (8.2%). This decrease is present in shifts from emergency room visits to office visits across several common conditions. Our analysis suggest that children were more likely to receive care from the same clinic following lead tests and that establishing care reduced the likelihood parents would take their children to emergency rooms for conditions treatable in an office setting. Our results are potentially applicable to any situation in which individuals are induced to seek more care in an office visit setting.




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White House upgrade: First lady’s done a lot with the place

Like anyone who has ever spruced up their home, Melania Trump will have a few new touches to showcase Friday when guests visit the White House for only the second state dinner of the Trump presidency.




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SEE IT: Video shows random attack on real estate agent in Los Angeles: ‘Seeing my legs in the air, it’s like a movie’

A Los Angeles real estate agent was shoved backwards off a stairway and pinned to the ground by an unknown open house visitor who flashed a chilling smile at a security camera seconds earlier.




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Two South Florida mansions offer a taste of the rock star lifestyle

Russ Weiner, the founder of Rockstar Energy Drink, has listed his Miami Beach and Delray Beach mansions for sale. The total asking price: $71.5 million.




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The last home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright sells in Arizona for nearly $1.7 million. Take a look inside.

Out of nearly 20 bids at a public auction for the Norman Lykes House, the winning bid came from a man who lives out of state, Heritage Auctions told The Associated Press.




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The world’s largest Starbucks opens tomorrow in Chicago. Here’s what to expect if you go, from rare beans to coffee cocktails.

The Reserve Roastery Chicago opens Friday, transforming the former Crate & Barrel space into five floors of coffee wonderland.




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Plans for a Wu-Tang Clan theme park in Seoul

Jimmy S. Kang opens his laptop and shows the Wu-Tang theme park that he is negotiating in Seoul, which has special relevance to him as his family emigrated from South Korea when he was 4 years old.




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From this luxury tower, you’ll see horses cross the finish line

The developer of a 23-story tower near Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach envisions a project with 320 condo style rentals and a 140-room hotel.




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California holds 73% of the nation’s priciest ZIP codes for home buyers

According to a new report from real estate database PropertyShark, California has accounted for roughly 73% of the country’s priciest ZIP codes for home buyers this year.




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Tom Brady looks to score in the Massachusetts housing market

Tom Brady is moving up and down the field as he and the New England Patriots make another postseason run. Away from the gridiron, however, the three-time league MVP is still looking to score big in the real estate market.




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Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari toss Tennessee mansion back on the market

Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavalarri have chopped the price of their Tennnessee mansion to $4.95 million.




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Smells impacting sales, rules against growing: How the real estate market is influenced by legal marijuana

A new National Association of Realtors report revealed the ways that legalizing marijuana has impacted real estate.




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‘They slap lipstick on a pig’: What Chicago real estate experts think of the HGTV effect and ‘Windy City Rehab’ woes

Chicago real estate experts bust myths portrayed by home improvement shows, from actors subbing in as buyers to unrealistically low renovation costs.




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Hoodlums in the ’hood: Where mobsters lived in South Florida

Some of the most infamous mobsters lived in South Florida neighborhoods we call home today, from Miami to Hollywood to Boca Raton.




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‘Be prepared for the Wild West’: As real estate’s busy season winds up, here’s how to buy or sell a home during the coronavirus pandemic

Real estate data suggests the market took a downturn in March that might already be rebounding. Here's what experts predict.




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Southern Legend edges Beauty Generation in Hong Kong

Southern Legend denied Beauty Generation in a thrilling renewal of the FWD Champions Mile at Sha Tin.




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Inequality of Fear and Self-Quarantine: Is There a Trade-off between GDP and Public Health? -- by Sangmin Aum, Sang Yoon (Tim) Lee, Yongseok Shin

We construct a quantitative model of an economy hit by an epidemic. People differ by age and skill, and choose occupations and whether to commute to work or work from home, to maximize their income and minimize their fear of infection. Occupations differ by wage, infection risk, and the productivity loss when working from home. By setting the model parameters to replicate the progression of COVID-19 in South Korea and the United Kingdom, we obtain three key results. First, government-imposed lock-downs may not present a clear trade-off between GDP and public health, as commonly believed, even though its immediate effect is to reduce GDP and infections by forcing people to work from home. A premature lifting of the lock-down raises GDP temporarily, but infections rise over the next months to a level at which many people choose to work from home, where they are less productive, driven by the fear of infection. A longer lock-down eventually mitigates the GDP loss as well as flattens the infection curve. Second, if the UK had adopted South Korean policies, its GDP loss and infections would have been substantially smaller both in the short and the long run. This is not because Korea implemented policies sooner, but because aggressive testing and tracking more effectively reduce infections and disrupt the economy less than a blanket lock-down. Finally, low-skill workers and self-employed lose the most from the epidemic and also from the government policies. However, the policy of issuing “visas” to those who have antibodies will disproportionately benefit the low-skilled, by relieving them of the fear of infection and also by allowing them to get back to work.




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Which Workers Bear the Burden of Social Distancing Policies? -- by Simon Mongey, Laura Pilossoph, Alex Weinberg

What are the characteristics of workers in jobs likely to be initially affected by broad social distancing and later by narrower policy tailored to jobs with low risk of disease transmission? We use O NET to construct a measure of the likelihood that jobs can be conducted from home (a variant of Dingel and Neiman, 2020) and a measure of low physical proximity to others at work. We validate the measures by showing how they relate to similar measures constructed using time use data from ATUS. Our main finding is that workers in low-work-from-home or high-physical- proximity jobs are more economically vulnerable across various measures constructed from the CPS and PSID: they are less educated, of lower income, have fewer liquid assets relative to income, and are more likely renters. We further substantiate the measures with behavior during the epidemic. First, we show that MSAs with less pre-virus employment in work-from-home jobs experienced smaller declines in the incidence of `staying-at-home', as measured using SafeGraph cell phone data. Second, we show that both occupations and types of workers predicted to be employed in low work-from-home jobs experienced greater declines in employment according to the March 2020 CPS. For example, non-college educated workers experienced a 4ppt larger decline in employment relative to those with a college degree.




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Optimal Regulation of E-cigarettes: Theory and Evidence -- by Hunt Allcott, Charlie Rafkin

We model optimal e-cigarette regulation and estimate key sufficient statistics. Using tax changes and scanner data, we estimate relatively elastic demand and limited substitution between e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes. In sample surveys, historical smoking declines for high- and low-vaping demographics were unchanged after e-cigarettes were introduced; this demographic shift-share identification also suggests limited substitution. We field a new survey of experts, who report that vaping is almost as harmful as smoking cigarettes. In our model, these results imply that current e-cigarette taxes are far below the social optimum, but Monte Carlo simulations highlight substantial uncertainty.




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Brooklyn father who stabbed 2-year-old son in temple with comb charged with attempted murder

Jahvier Perez, 26, faces attempted murder, assault and child endangerment charges in the grisly Saturday morning attack, which may have left the two-year-old brain-damaged, police sources said.




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Defense lawyer, in closing arguments for 2016 slaying of beloved Brooklyn pizzeria owner, insists prosecutors failed to prove their case

Attorney Javier Solano, in his final jury address Friday, insisted there was a “piece that didn’t fit” in the prosecution’s presentation against murder suspect Andres Fernandez in the June 30, 2016, shooting of Louis Barbati.




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Shocking claims of racism, other misonduct by high-ranking NYPD cops emerge in ‘collar quotas’ case

The city withheld explosive allegations of racism against two high-ranking NYPD cops accused of demanding arrests of black and Hispanic people, an attorney charged Friday.




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Angry customer broke glass door at Junior’s Restaurant in Brooklyn, then fled in BMW: police

An angry man broke a glass door at Junior’s restaurant in Brooklyn before fleeing in a BMW, police said Wednesday.