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“The Crown” tied with “The Mandalorian” for the most Emmy nominations Tuesday with 24 apiece, but the Marvel universe also got bragging rights with runner-up “WandaVision.” The nominations reinforced the rapid rise of streaming, with most of the top-nominated scripted shows on services that emerged in the past two years. In the top three categories — drama, comedy and limited series — broadcast networks scored only two nominations, for the NBC drama “This Is Us” and the ABC xcomedy “black-ish.” During an oppressive pandemic in which housebound Americans relied more than ever on television for distraction, TV academy voters recognized a varied mix of storytelling and a diverse group of actors and creators. One example: Mj Rodriguez of “Pose” is the first trans woman to be nominated in a lead…

Tesla founder Elon Musk took to a witness stand to defend his company’s 2016 acquisition of a troubled company called SolarCity against a lawsuit that claims he’s to blame for a deal that was rife with conflicts of interest and never delivered the profits he’d promised. And to the surprise of no one, the famously colorful billionaire did so in the most personally combative terms. “I think you are a bad human being,” Musk told Randall Baron, a lawyer for shareholders who was pressing Musk to acknowledge his mistakes in helping engineer the acquisition of SolarCity, a manufacturer of solar panels. “I have great respect for the court,” Musk later added, “but not for you, sir.” The long-running shareholder lawsuit asserts that Musk, who was SolarCity’s largest stakeholder and its…

Swashbuckling billionaire Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship last Sunday, bringing astro-tourism a step closer to reality and beating out his exceedingly richer rival Jeff Bezos. The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of 53.5 miles (86 kilometers) over the New Mexico desert — enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and witness the curvature of the Earth — and then glided back home to a runway landing. “The whole thing, it was just magical,” a jubilant Branson said on his return aboard the gleaming white space plane, named Unity. The brief, up-and-down flight — the space plane’s portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard’s first U.S. spaceflight…

So you want to travel on a budget. Who doesn’t? Yet it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the cheap travel tips, hacks and strategies out there that promise unbelievable deals on airfare and hotels. In reality, there’s only one important tactic for traveling cheaply: being flexible with your travel dates, destination and plans. It might sound simple — or even simplistic — but you would be surprised how few travelers are willing to take this piece of advice to heart. To be fair, this flexibility-first mindset requires a paradigm shift for many in terms of how they start planning vacations. It requires moving from this type of planning: “I want to go to Amsterdam from Sept. 5th through 13th.” To this: “I want to go somewhere fun in September.”…

A Space Jam: A New Legacy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Various Artists A quarter-century after the original Space Jam movie arrived with its now-iconic soundtrack, that album’s spiritual successor now attempts to score a similar slam dunk – with Saweetie, Brockhampton, Lil Baby and SZA all contributing to this very hip-hop-infused release. FIVE FACTS: 1. The original Space Jam’s soundtrack “came at a time when soundtracks for movies were just exploding,” A New Legacy director Malcolm D. Lee reflected to Rolling Stone. 2. He particularly made note of that album’s “hip-hop and R&B”, adding that it gave his team “a high bar to reach.” 3. That album was also a big seller, going six-times platinum. 4. Lil Baby and Kirk Franklin were responsible for the New Legacy soundtrack’s first single…

RICKDEPENDENCE SPRAYRICK AND MORTY, SEASON 5 (UNCENSORED) THE NUDE INTERLUDETHE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF POTOMAC, SEASON 6 IT’S LIKE RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAYBELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN, SEASON 6 1706THE BACHELORETTE, SEASON 17 A RICKCONVENIENT MORTRICK AND MORTY, SEASON 5 (UNCENSORED) ZERO THANKS GIVEN’SHAHS OF SUNSET, SEASON 9 RED HANDEDANIMAL KINGDOM, SEASON 5 MORTYPLICITYRICK AND MORTY, SEASON 5 (UNCENSORED) THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLYLEATHER PANTSTHE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS, SEASON 11 GOOD TROUBLE LOVE & HIP HOP: ATLANTA, SEASON 10…

France’s competition regulator fined Google 500 million euros ($592 million) this week for failing to negotiate in good faith with French publishers in a dispute over payments for their news. The agency threatened fines of another 900,000 euros (around $1 million) per day if Google doesn’t come up with proposals within two months on how it will compensate publishers and news agencies for their content. Google France said in a statement it was “very disappointed” by the decision, and that the fine “doesn’t reflect the efforts put in place or the reality of the use of news content on our platform.” It said it is negotiating in good faith toward a solution, and that it’s on the verge of reaching an agreement with some publishers. The dispute is part of…

As the world increasingly focuses attention on climate change, Roland Busch, the CEO of Siemens AG, says his company is well-positioned to help manage the challenges. Munich-based Siemens specializes in making buildings, factories and railroads more efficient through digitalization and automation. And its medical unit includes technology that could lead to faster treatments for stroke patients. Siemens has predicted 5% to 7% annual revenue growth for the next three to five years, based largely on its expectation that demand for its products involved in energy efficiency will steadily increase. Siemens’ stock is up roughly 14% this year. And 13 of 21 industry analysts who follow it give the company a buy rating, according to FactSet. Busch, who became CEO in February, has been with Siemens for more than a quarter-century.…

Electrify America, an electric vehicle charging network funded with money paid by Volkswagen as punishment for its emissions cheating scandal, says it plans to more than double its number of charging stations throughout the United States and Canada. The expansion will include 1,800 fast-charging stations and 10,000 individual chargers to be installed by 2025 and is part of Electrify America’s previous commitment to invest $2 billion over 10 years on EV infrastructure, education and access in the U.S. Automakers have ramped up production of electric vehicles that can go farther and charge faster, but are concerned that consumers interested in EVs may wait to buy until there’s better, faster charging infrastructure. The latest generation of EVs, many with ranges around 300 miles (480 kilometers) per charge, can accept electricity at…

With Apple reportedly expressing an interest in streaming rights for the National Football League’s “Sunday Ticket” package, there’s never been a better time to sign up for Apple’s streaming service. With a raft of award-winning TV shows and movies, and perhaps soon live sporting events available to stream from your iPhone, Apple TV+ is coming into its own. A TURBULENT START FOR APPLE TV+ Whether you’re an Apple die-hard with shares in the company or you’re a casual fan of the firm and its hardware, there’s no denying that the Cupertino company’s foray into services has been challenging at best. Although Tim Cook and Co have found great success in some services like Apple Music (which recently launched its new lossless streaming feature, much to the concern of Spotify) and…

Jeff Bezos’ rocket company has gotten government approval to launch people into space, himself included. The Amazon founder will climb atop his New Shepard rocket next Tuesday in West Texas, joined by his brother, an 82-year-old female aviation pioneer and a $28 million auction winner. It will be the first launch with passengers for Blue Origin, which like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic plans to start flying paying customers in the months ahead. The Federal Aviation Administration issued its OK. The license is good through August. On Sunday, Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder Richard Branson rode his own rocket plane to space, accompanied by five company employees. A specially designed aircraft carried the winged ship aloft over New Mexico. The space plane dropped away, fired its rocket motor and soared to 53.5…

Skeptical of the four-year college degree? It’s still your best bet to make money. Backlash against college as a common stop on the road to adulthood has mounted over the past decade. Critics say four-year degree programs saddle most students with five-digit debt without a clear path from classroom to career. Nearly half (46%) of all families surveyed in November and December 2020 by Gallup for the Carnegie Corporation of New York said they would prefer their children attend alternatives to four-year institutions — even when there were no financial barriers. But when you compare the value of a four-year degree with other credentials — a high school diploma, certificate programs and associate degrees — it still puts workers at an advantage in the labor market and leads to higher…

The dystopian action-horror “Purge” franchise has previously made stops in New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Now it’s time to pull on cowboy boots and get ready for a little twangy Purge. “The Forever Purge” is set along the U.S.-Mexican border and it’s perhaps the most overtly political of the series, portraying a ragtag group of Americans trying to flee the anarchy and white supremacy of Texas for the safety of Mexico as the annual U.S. bloodlust event turns into an everyday abomination. The film jettisons its horror roots for an aggressive — some may call it ham-fisted — social critique of modern America. But watching video of real insurrectionists on Jan. 6 try to violently take over the U.S. Capitol makes portions of “The Forever Purge” seem…

The World Health Organization issued new recommendations on human genome editing, calling for a global registry to track “any form of genetic manipulation” and proposing a whistle-blowing mechanism to raise concerns about unethical or unsafe research. The U.N. health agency commissioned an expert group in late 2018 following a dramatic announcement from Chinese scientist He Jiankui that he had created the world’s first gene-edited babies. In two reports, WHO’s expert group said all studies involving human genome editing should be made public, although the committee noted that wouldn’t necessarily stop unprincipled scientists. “In the field of stem cell research, unscrupulous entrepreneurs and clinics have deliberately misused clinical trial registries by registering procedures they plan to undertake as if they were properly sanctioned clinical trials,” the group said, calling for WHO…

Facebook’s WhatsApp faces a complaint from European Union consumer groups who say the chat service has been unfairly pressuring users to accept a new privacy update in what it calls a breach of the bloc’s regulations. The European Consumer Organisation, or BEUC, filed a complaint this week over the way WhatsApp has brought in changes to its terms of service and privacy policy, saying they aren’t transparent or easily understood by users. Many WhatsApp users switched to other chat apps like Signal and Telegram because of privacy concerns when the update was rolled out earlier this year because of concerns the changes would give Facebook access to more information on users. “WhatsApp has been bombarding users for months with aggressive and persistent pop-up messages to force them to accept its…

For 21 years, the software company Kaseya labored in relative obscurity — at least until cybercriminals exploited it in early July for a massive ransomware attack that snarled businesses around the world and escalated U.S.-Russia diplomatic tensions. But it turns out that the recent hack wasn’t the first major cybersecurity problem to hit the Miami-based company and its core product, which IT teams use to remotely monitor and administer workplace computer systems and other devices. “It feels a little like déjà vu,” said Allie Mellen, a security analyst at Forrester Research. In 2018, for instance, hackers managed to infiltrate Kaseya’s tool in 2018 to run a “cryptojacking” operation, which channels the power of afflicted computers to mine cryptocurrency — often without its victims noticing. It was a less harmful breach…

Federal regulators said they now can better track rocket launches and space vehicles returning to Earth, which could cut the amount of time that airplanes must be routed around space operations. The Federal Aviation Administration said a new tool automates the near-instantaneous delivery of data about a space vehicle’s flight path to the nation’s air traffic control system. The tool, called the Space Data Integrator, will replace a system in which much of the work of giving telemetry data about space vehicles to air traffic control managers is done manually. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was the first company to share flight telemetry data with the FAA, and others including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have since joined the program, according to the FAA. The FAA said the new technology was first used…

Top finance officials representing most of the world’s economy have backed a sweeping revision of international taxation that includes a 15% global minimum corporate levy to deter big companies from resorting to low-rate tax havens. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries endorsed the plan at a meeting last weekend in Venice. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal would end a “self-defeating international tax competition” in which countries have for years lowered their rates to attract companies. She said that had been “a race that nobody has won. What it has done instead is to deprive us of the resources we need to invest in our people, our workforces, our infrastructure.” The next steps include more work on key details at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation…

The God Committee After a donor heart unexpectedly arrives at a New York hospital, an organ transplant committee – including heart surgeon Boxer (Kelsey Grammar) and his younger lover Jordan (Julia Stiles) – is tasked with deciding which of three patients should be given the lifesaving heart. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film’s events alternate from 2014 to the present day. 2. The main cast also includes Colman Domingo as Father Dunbar, Janeane Garofalo as Dr Valerie Gilroy, and Dan Hedaya as Granger. 3. The God Committee is only the second full-length feature film both written and directed by Austin Stark, after the 2015 political drama The Runner. 4. Filming for The God Committee took place in New York City. 5. Shooting lasted from March 5 to April 3, 2019. The…

Batman’s secret cave, Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs and the apartment from “Friends” are major centerpieces to the huge Warner Bros. studio lot expansion. Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood recently reopened more than a year after doors were shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, attendees will have a chance to explore the studio’s nearly 100 years of television and filmmaking history, highlighting the DC Universe and “Harry Potter.” A firsthand look took place a couple of days before the tour opened in late June at the Southern California studio, which now welcomes families with children ages 5 and older. Warner Bros. officials said the expansion — that includes a new building — took five years to develop in Burbank. Officials say the studio tour will follow all city,…

The European Central Bank said it is launching a two-year investigation on whether to introduce a digital version of the euro that would complement cash, taking a cautious step toward introduction as central bankers around the world eye digital currencies and their potential impact on policy and the financial system. The ECB said in a statement that the digital euro must be able to meet consumers’ needs while helping prevent illegal activity such as money laundering and must not have an adverse impact on financial stability and monetary policy. Digitalization “is reaching all areas of our lives,” Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB’s executive board, wrote in a blog post. “The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has shown just how fast such change can happen. And this is affecting the way…

Cubans facing the country’s worst economic crisis in decades took to the streets over the weekend. In turn, authorities blocked social media sites in an apparent effort to stop the flow of information into, out of and within the beleaguered nation. Restricting internet access has become a tried-and-true method of stifling dissent by authoritarian regimes around the world, alongside government-supported disinformation campaigns and propaganda. On the extreme side, regimes like China and North Korea exert tight control over what regular citizens can access online. Elsewhere, service blockages are more limited, often cutting off common social platforms around elections and times of mass protests. There was no formal organizer of protests; people found out about the rallying points over social media, mostly on Twitter and Facebook, the platforms most used by…