CNN style Arts | Rarely-seen photos tell the story of America’s Black Civil War soldiers

The emancipation of slaves is central to the story of the American Civil War. But as curator and photographic historian Deborah Willis discovered growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, the Black people who served in the conflict are often ignored by the history books.

As she would later learn, almost 180,000 Black soldiers fought for the North in the name of ending slavery. By the end of the war, a tenth of the Union Army was made up of free African American men.

“When Black soldiers were fighting for their emancipation, they were fighting for not only their own (freedom), but that of their families and other Black people,” Willis said in a video interview. “They felt the cause was necessary to fight.”  —read more— 

CNN HEROES | A team of high schoolers built a device that allows people in wheelchairs to walk their babies

(CNN) – For many parents, taking their babies on a walk or cradling them to sleep is a blessing that’s easy to take for granted. But for Jeremy King, it’s something he feared he would never be able to do.

That was until a group of high school students in Maryland designed and built a wheelchair stroller attachment so that people with disabilities could walk their babies.

The idea was born when students at Bullis School, a private K-12 school in Potomac, discovered that one of their teachers was expecting a baby, and her husband, who had impaired mobility, may never be able to walk his own child.

In 2017, Chelsie King, a 32-year-old middle-school theater teacher at Bullis, had been engaged to her now-husband Jeremy King, 37, for only three months before they discovered he had a brain tumor. That October, he underwent an eight-hour surgery to remove it, and was left with a number of challenges, including an inability to balance. He was a nurse anesthetist who had traveled to Africa for medical missions before the surgery.  —read more— 

CNN style Arts | ‘Donation of the century’: South Korea unveils late Samsung boss’ 23,000-strong art collection

Museum visitors have been given a first look at some of the 23,000 artworks donated to South Korea from the collection of Samsung’s late chairman, Lee Kun-hee.

Two exhibitions of the items opened in Seoul on Wednesday, just months after the businessman’s family announced the donation as it seeks to settle an inheritance tax bill of over 12 trillion won ($10.4 billion).

The works are showing at the National Museum of Korea and National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), the recipients of Lee’s vast collection. Items on display include centuries-old antiques and contemporary Korean artworks, while paintings by Western names like Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet are set to be unveiled next year.  —read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Software vendor caught up in ransomware attack obtains decryptor key

(CNN Business) – Kaseya, the software firm whose remote access tool was used to deliver REvil ransomware to hundreds of businesses around the world this month in a devastating supply-chain attack, has obtained a decryptor key allowing it to unlock networks seized by the malware, the company confirmed to CNN Business.

Kaseya is currently helping to restore the systems of customers whose networks were still locked down by REvil’s software, it said.

“I can confirm we have received a decryptor and are currently working to assist the customers impacted by the attack,” said Kaseya spokesperson Dana Liedholm. “We can’t share the source but can say it’s from a trusted third party.”  —read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Millions of jobs and a shortage of applicants. Welcome to the new economy

There’s a problem at James Hook’s chicken farms, and it has nothing to do with poultry.

P.D. Hook, a hatchery that supplies one third of the chickens sold in the United Kingdom, should be humming along as the economy roars back to life. But the company is short about 40 farm workers, double the usual number of vacancies.

At the same time, there’s a severe deficit of truck drivers, making it difficult for P.D. Hook to transport its birds to the factories where they are cut, portioned and packed. And when the chickens do arrive, there’s a shortage of staff at the processing plants, too.

“It’s all come together at a time when everybody wants more of everything,” said Hook, the company’s managing director. “It’s a perfect storm.”  —read more—

CNN entertainment | Prince’s ‘Hot Summer’ will turn your pandemic blues around

(CNN) – Prince may have left us five years ago, but his music lives on and remains always right on time.

His estate and Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, have debuted a previously unreleased song by the late legend, titled “Hot Summer.”

The single is from “Welcome 2 America,” an album that Prince recorded in 2010 that will be released from his legendary Paisley Park vault in standard and deluxe editions on July 30.  —read more— 

F1 OPINION | PALMER: The Hamilton-Verstappen clash polarised opinion, but I believe it was a racing incident – here’s why

Their rivalry had been fierce but just about respectful on track until Silverstone, but finally it boiled over in a fairly predictable manner, fueled by a festival atmosphere from a vocal British crowd and a new weekend format.

Before Silverstone we had seen the two go wheel-to-wheel at Imola, Portimao and Barcelona. Both have been very aggressive, but generally Verstappen had been the more aggressive of the two, particularly in Barcelona, lunging in on Hamilton in a risky first-corner move.

At Imola and Barcelona Verstappen came out on top, and again in Portimao, before Hamilton re-passed him and ushered him wide at Turn 3.  —read more—

CNN BUSINESS | Jamie Dimon awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to stay at JPMorgan for the foreseeable future

New York (CNN Business) – JPMorgan Chase really, really wants CEO Jamie Dimon to stick around.

The investment bank awarded Dimon 1.5 million stock options on July 20 — priced at the average price of JPMorgan’s stock on Tuesday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, that’s an award worth more than $220 million.

But here’s the catch: Dimon won’t be able to exercise the options. They’ll start to vest on July 20, 2026, and he must hold the shares until July 20, 2031. By then, the shares could be worth much more — especially if it has a few more years like this one. JPMorgan’s stock is up nearly 18% in 2021. —read more— 

CNN health | Most romantic relationships start as friendships, study finds

CNN) – Contrary to the popular perception that love typically sparks from passion, a new study finds two-thirds of romantic relationships begin as long-term friendships.

Though highly prevalent, the friends-to-lovers pathway to a relationship has been largely overlooked by science, said Danu Stinson, lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

Stinson has studied relationship initiation for 20 years, and she noticed over the years that many participants reported they were forming romantic bonds with friends they had known for a while. She began asking the question, “Were you friends with your partner before you became romantically involved?” in her other research and conducted a meta-analysis for this paper.

“Very few studies are really looking at this friends-first relationship initiation, despite our observation that it’s the most common form of relationship initiation by far,” Stinson said.  —read more— 

CNN Sports | Lewis Hamilton targeted with racist abuse online after controversial British Grand Prix victory

(CNN) – Lewis Hamilton was the target of online racist abuse after winning his eighth British Grand Prix on Sunday.

The seven-time world champion fought back from a 10-second penalty to clinch victory following a controversial collision with rival Max Verstappen, which left the Red Bull driver in hospital.

Facebook, which also owns Instagram, said it had removed a number of comments from its platform in relation to Hamilton, who has been a huge advocate for diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement, and called the abuse “unacceptable.”  —read more— 

View Post