Thousands protest in the UK after a formula replaced a test that influences college placement. It's led to broader scrutiny of automation and inequality.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2020
How to manage any credit card debt you may have racked up the last few months
No matter how you choose to pay down credit card balances, here are the hard truths. Paying the minimum on a card will keep you in the red — and from using it again — for years.
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3 Mississippi Police Officers Charged With Second-Degree Murder in Death of a 62-Year-Old Black Man
Three police officers in Jackson, Mississippi, who have been accused of causing the death of a 62-year-old Black man on Jan. 13, 2019, have now been charged with second-degree murder, according to WLBT.
The three police officers, Desmond Barney, Lincoln Lampley, and Anthony Fox, who all happen to also be Black, have been charged after a Hinds County grand jury accused them of “eminently dangerous” acts. All three have been charged with second-degree murder for the killing of George Robinson, 62, according to the Aug. 5 indictment.
The indictments state that the police officers either participated or assisted in physically removing Robinson from his vehicle, body-slamming him on his head, and striking and kicking him multiple times in the head and chest.
Barney and Lampley were both given $100,000 bond and Fox was given a $250,000 bond. All three posted bond last Thursday.
Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba issued a statement on the indictments on Thursday night.
“Our administration is committed to ensuring that Jacksonians have an accountable police department. As part of our accountability process, the City of Jackson has implemented a policy to turn all cases involving officer involved deaths over to the DA for review by a grand jury,” he said. “The Hinds County grand jury indictments, issued today, begin another phase of the process. In the full spirit of transparency, the administration will continue to monitor the situation and provide information to the public throughout each phase. We ask that you keep all those affected by this tragedy in your prayers.”
The coroner, Sharon Grisham-Stewart, had ruled the death a homicide by blunt force trauma. Meanwhile, the Jackson Police Department’s Internal Affairs stated they found no evidence of wrongdoing, nor did the FBI find any evidence of civil rights violations. The police officers were cleared by the city’s civil service commission to return to active duty.
“This is something that should have never been indicted, and every police officer that works particularly in Jackson and in this county could find themselves in this position,” said Francis Springer, one of the attorneys for the trio.
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Netflix on YouTube
Baby Season 3 | Official Date Announcement | Netflix
How long can you keep lying to yourself? Baby returns for one last season on September 16, with the secrets and truths of its young protagonists, only on Netflix. SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/29qBUt7 About Netflix: Netflix is the world's leading streaming entertainment service with 193 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments. Baby Season 3 | Official Date Announcement | Netflix https://youtube.com/Netflix As the police close in and their secrets begin to surface, Chiara, Ludo and Damiano grapple with volatile family dynamics and a looming public scandal.
View on YouTube
How long can you keep lying to yourself? Baby returns for one last season on September 16, with the secrets and truths of its young protagonists, only on Netflix. SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/29qBUt7 About Netflix: Netflix is the world's leading streaming entertainment service with 193 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments. Baby Season 3 | Official Date Announcement | Netflix https://youtube.com/Netflix As the police close in and their secrets begin to surface, Chiara, Ludo and Damiano grapple with volatile family dynamics and a looming public scandal.
View on YouTube
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Black newborns 3 times more likely to die when cared for by White doctors
The findings are based on data from 1.8 million hospital births in Florida between 1992 and 2015.
Black newborn babies in the United States are more likely to die when in the care of White doctors, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota found that the odds of survival increase when Black infants are cared for by Black doctors.
The findings are based on data from 1.8 million hospital births in Florida between 1992 and 2015, the Duluth News Tribune reports. The records show that Black newborns with a white doctor had a higher death rate compared to newborns with a Black doctor.
The findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Read More: Wendy Williams calls out ex-husband over his ‘baby situation’
“We wanted to understand the relationship between physician race and patient outcomes,” said lead author on the study Aaron Sojourner, an associate professor of economics at the Carlson School of Management.
“Our findings demonstrate that when newborns and the physicians treating them are of the same race, that newborn survival rate is significantly improved,” said study co-author Rachel Hardeman. “This study is the first piece of evidence that demonstrates the effect of physician-patient racial concordance on the Black-white mortality gap. As we seek to close persistent racial gaps in birth outcomes, this finding is incredibly important.”
Researchers found that Systemic institutional racism within healthcare is mostly perpetuated by non-Black medical professionals, as they discovered no mortality risks for white babies born to Black doctors.
“This fact that Black newborns do so much better under the care of Black physicians warrants greater investigation by researchers and medical practitioners into drivers of differences between higher- and lower-performing physicians, and why Black physicians systemically outperform their colleagues when caring for Black newborns,” said Sojourner.
The study does not address how specifically Black newborns die in the hands of white doctors, but researchers claim that Black infant mortality averages to an “additional 1,400 deaths annually,” CNN reports.
Read More: Ciara and Russell Wilson welcome baby boy
“We’ve known for a long time that there are big racial disparities in newborn mortality,” Sojourner said. “I think it’s hopeful to have found something associated with large reductions in that penalty… It does suggest that Black doctors are doing a better job on average in caring for Black newborns, and that we should learn from them.”
The authors also noted that “The findings suggest that Black physicians outperform their White colleagues when caring for Black newborns.”
They added, “Reducing racial disparities in newborn mortality will also require raising awareness among physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators about the prevalence of racial and ethnic disparities.”
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What is s driving the innovation in NLP and GPT-3?
2019 and 2020 have seen rapid strides in NLP
What’s driving the rapid strides in NLP and will this trend continue?
Here is a simple way to explain the rise and rise of NLP
Today, GPT-3 is displaying some amazing results. Some call it more like AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Created by OpenAI with a large investment from Microsoft, GPT stands for Generative Pretrained Transformer
The three words offer a clue to the success and future trajectory of NLP
- Let’s start with ‘Transformer’. Introduced in 2017, the Transformer is a deep learning model designed for NLP. Like recurrent neural networks (RNNs), Transformers handle sequential data. However, unlike RNNs, due to the attention mechanism, Transformers do not require that the data be processed in a sequential manner. This allows for much more parallelization in Transformers (in comparison to RNNs). In turn, parallelization during training allows for training on larger datasets.
- This in turn has led to the second benefit of transformers i.e. the possibility of pre-trained models. This is similar to Transfer learning in CNNs and it allows you to build more complex models on top of existing models. The earliest example of this is BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers). BERT itself led to other models trained in specific domains such as BioBERT: a pre-trained biomedical language representation model for biomedical text mining
- Finally, the model is Generative. GPT-3 is the best example of this. GPT-3 is a transformer based model trained on 45TB of text data and with 175 billion parameters . The generative ability of GPt-3 is magical – with everything from SQL queries to basic UI.
Conclusions
The Transformer mechanism is the main innovation driving NLP. Transformers enable new models to be built on the foundations of other models (like Transfer learning does for CNNs). As the ability to train on larger corpus grows, transformer based models like GPT will be more ‘magical’.
With contributions from Vineet Jaiswal
Image source: OpenAI
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Hornets announcer suspended after tweeting N-word instead of ‘Nuggets’
Play-by-play announcer John Focke says he’s ‘gutted’ over a tweet he sent about the Denver Nuggets but called them a racial slur.
The Charlotte Hornets suspended radio play-by-play announcer John Focke after a tweet he sent Monday about the Denver Nuggets included a racial slur.
Focke’s post about the Utah Jazz/Denver Nuggets playoff game Monday included the N-word instead of “Nuggets,” which he insists was a typo, the Charlotte Observer reports.
“Shot making in this Jazz-(N-word) game is awesome! Murray and Mitchell going back and forth what a game!” the tweet read.
Focke, who recently completed his first season with the Hornets, apologized via his Twitter account Monday night, blaming the embarrassing error on a typo. He also addressed the matter in an interview with the Observer on Tuesday.
“I was trying to get it done as fast as I could,” Focke said of the tweet, “so that it was relevant by the time I posted it. I tried to type it and obviously I mistyped the word ‘Nuggets.’ And I did not reread it — which, as you know, that’s rule No. 1 of working in the media. And unfortunately, I didn’t, because I was trying to get it up as fast as possible. And I hit ‘Send.’”
The Charlotte Hornets took to social media to announce Focke’s indefinite suspension over the controversy.
“The Charlotte Hornets are aware of the recent social media post by radio broadcaster John Focke. As an organization, we do not condone this type of language,” the Hornets’ statement said via Twitter. “John has been suspended indefinitely as we investigate the matter more closely.”
Focke, meanwhile, has taken full responsibility for the tweet. He explained to the Observer that he was typing too quickly without rereading his post before sharing it. He was trying to type “Nuggets,” not the N-word, calling it an “autocorrect” error.
In his apology tweet Monday, he wrote: “Earlier today I made a horrific error while attempting to tweet about the Denver-Utah game. I don’t know how I mistyped, I had (and have) no intention of ever using that word.
“I take full responsibility for my actions. I have been sick to my stomach about it ever since. I’m truly sorry that this happened and I apologize to those I offended.”
Focke previously worked for the Timberwolves and WNBA Lynx in Minnesota.
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Sweetie Pie’s owner charged in murder for hire plot in nephew’s death
James Timothy Norman, 41, is accused of staging a hit to collect on a life insurance policy
Sweetie Pie’s restaurant owner James Timothy Norman was arrested on federal charges in St. Louis over the death of his nephew in an alleged plot to collect on his life insurance policy.
Norman, 41, who starred in the OWN reality series Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, was charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire, resulting in death, according to a criminal complaint published by local TV station WLBT.
Norman is accused of being involved in the 2016 fatal shooting of his 21-year-old nephew, Andre Montgomery, for whom Norman obtained a $450,000 life insurance policy in 2014. Both Norman and Montgomery appeared on OWN’s Sweetie Pie’s, which followed the restaurant family business in Mississippi and aired for nine seasons on OWN from 2011 to 2018.
Read More: Arrests made in killing of Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC after 18 years
Prosecutors connected Norman to the shooting based on alleged communications he had with a woman named Terica Ellis. Both Norman, who lived in Los Angeles, and Ellis, who lived in Memphis, Tenn., traveled to St. Louis in the days leading up to Montgomery’s murder.
Investigators used the phone location of Ellis to track her near Montgomery at the time of his death. Ellis allegedly phoned Norman before the murder to determine Montgomery’s whereabouts, placed another call after the shooting and then returned to Memphis.
Read More: 3 men arrested for harassing, threatening R. Kelly’s accusers
In the days after the murder, St. Louis prosecutors claim Norman contacted the life insurance company and attempted to collect on his nephew’s policy. Additionally, Norman allegedly deposited more than $9,000 in cash into various bank accounts.
In 2016, Norman was sued by his mother Robbie Montgomery, who claimed his three Sweetie Pie’s restaurants was a copyright infringement.
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Byron Allen, George Clooney to host virtual fundraiser for Biden campaign
The media mogul will co-host the event along with Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Clooney and philanthropist Andrew Hauptman.
Byron Allen is set to host a virtual fundraiser on Friday for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as part of a series of similar events lined up for the week for the Democratic presidential ticket.
Allen will co-host the afternoon event on Aug. 21, along with Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Clooney and philanthropist Andrew Hauptman, Deadline reports. The Hollywood titans will be joined by their wives and other hosts including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Tickets for the star-studded event start at $100,000 per person, with levels at $250,000, $500,000 and $730,600.
Read More: Byron Allen buys Honolulu ABC affiliate TV station for $30 million
The Biden campaign reportedly has several fundraisers slated throughout the week. On Tuesday afternoon, the former vice president joined actor Tom Hanks for a virtual fundraiser dubbed the “Grassroots Fest,” with tickets costing $10.
“We have this great reckoning that is going on as far as who we are as a people, about our diversity,” Hanks said at the event. “That there is an election that’s going on here in 2020 is almost like, that’s when you got to give a nod of the head that something bigger might be at work right here, and there is a chance for a reckoning. Every election comes along, and you can always make the argument, ‘This is the most important election of our lives.’ This is the most important election in the history of America.”
Hanks, who in March announced that he and wife Rita Wilson tested positive for COVID-19, also noted: “You don’t have to be Superman to fight for truth, justice and the American way.”
Read More: Fox News drags Biden-Cardi B interview, makes fun of her ’empowerment’
In related news, Byron Allen‘s Allen Media Broadcasting is acquiring an ABC affiliate, KITV, in Honolulu for $30 million, theGRIO reported earlier.
A division of Allen Media Group, part of the parent company which owns theGrio, Allen Media Broadcasting was founded by Allen, who serves as chairman and CEO.
“Over the past year we’ve invested over $500 million to acquire best-in-class, top-tier, broadcast network affiliates,” the media mogul said in a statement. “We plan to invest approximately ten billion dollars to acquire more ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX television stations over the next two years with the goal of being the largest broadcast television group in America.”
Since last year, Allen’s media company, Entertainment Studios, has purchased 16 broadcast TV stations for a reported $500 million.
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Ciara to host new Apple Music radio show
The ‘Level Up’ singer is taking her own song to heart
This week, Ciara announced that even though she just had a beautiful baby boy she’s already signed up for a new gig hosting a radio show on Apple Music.
READ MORE: Ciara releases ‘Rooted’ video she shot two days before giving birth
Tuesday the singer took to Instagram to announce to her nearly 26 million followers how excited she was to not only welcome a new addition to her family but also kick off a new chapter in her career.
“I’m incredibly proud to share that I have my own radio show with @AppleMusic!” she wrote in a caption accompanying an animated visual teaser. “#LevelUpRadio on Apple Music Hits! Come hang with ya girl! P.s. Another cool moment that was created during my pregnancy 😎 #LevelUp”
According to The Shade Room, the singer is just one of several entertainers like Snoop Dogg and Young M.A. who have recently inked deals to have their very own radio shows on Apple Music.
Tuesday, the music streaming service announced a new block of radio shows that will be available to listeners in approximately 165 countries.
What was formerly known as Beats 1 Radio will now be rebranded as Apple Music 1, with two additional radio stations – Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country added to the lineup.
Ciara’s new show will allow her to “celebrate the definitive songs and sounds of modern R&B and share stories of her experience as an entrepreneur, mother, philanthropist, and an unstoppable entertainment force.”
Ciara and her husband, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson welcomed son Win last month. That makes three kids in the household after their daughter Sierra and Ciara’s son Future with the rap star of the same name.
READ MORE: Fox News drags Biden-Cardi B interview, makes fun of her ’empowerment’
Snoop’s weekly show “Uncle Snoop’s Army Radio,” says he’ll be using his new platform to discuss “the best of hip-hop’s golden era and shine a light on the legends who set the table.”
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