CNN style Arts | France is sending a second Statue of Liberty to the US

After Independance Day, it will be installed outside the French Ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C. on Bastille Day — July 14. Credit: CMA CGM Group

New Yorkers have a surprise gift to look forward to for this Independence Day: a second Statue of Liberty sent by France. This new bronze statue, nicknamed the “little sister,” is one-sixteenth the size of the world-famous one that stands on Liberty Island. On Monday, during a special ceremony, the smaller sibling was lifted and loaded into a special container at the National Museum of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) in central Paris, where it has been installed since 2011 in the museum’s garden. It will be erected on Ellis Island, just across the water from the original, from July 1 to July 5.

The statue, over 450 kilograms (992 pounds) in weight and just shy of 10 feet tall, was first made in 2009. It is an exact replica of the original 1878 plaster model preserved by CNAM.  —read more—

CNN World | For years, the underworld thought its phones were safe. They fell for an encrypted app trap

(CNN) – It was supposed to be the underworld’s impenetrable communication tool, a digital safe space to plot crimes ranging from drug trafficking to murder away from the prying eyes of the law.

But for nearly three years, an encrypted app used by criminals was covertly monitored by the FBI and Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) — leading to hundreds of arrests and tens of millions of dollars in asset seizures, authorities revealed on Tuesday.

In a statement, the AFP said they and the FBI had been reading the clandestine communications of criminals since 2018 on the ANoM app — a black-market product only accessible on specially prepared mobile phones.  —read more—

CNN BUSINESS | Why electric cars are so much heavier than regular cars

(CNN) – Batteries are heavy. That’s why, generally, electric cars weigh considerably more than otherwise similar gasoline-powered vehicles. Take the GMC Hummer EV, for instance. The Edition 1 version, which has lots of batteries for additional driving range and power, weighs over 9,000 pounds. That’s roughly three times the weight of a Honda Civic.  —read more—

CNN politics | Obama criticizes Republicans for embracing 2020 falsehoods

(CNN) – Former President Barack Obama said Republicans have been “cowed into accepting” a series of positions that “would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is worried about the state of democracy in the United States in an exclusive interview that aired Monday.

Obama, in an interview that comes after his latest memoir, “A Promised Land,” was published in late 2020, said he never thought some of the “dark spirits” that began rising within the Republican Party during his tenure would get this dark and reach the epicenter of the party.

“We have to worry,” Obama said, “when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago.”  —read more—

CNN | Ransomware attacks saddle Biden with grave national security crisis

(CNN) – The Biden administration Sunday confronted the implications of a sudden and grave national security challenge as ransom-demanding cyber hackers target the staples of American life — food, gas, water, hospitals and transport.

The assaults, which have led the FBI director to make comparisons to 9/11, are targeting the country’s vulnerable infrastructure as it struggles back to life after pandemic shutdowns and are putting civilians on the front lines of an invisible conflict likely to defy quick fixes to lessen the threat.

They leave President Joe Biden, who took office amid multiple crises, with thorny dilemmas about how to respond without escalating a full-on international cyber war and expose him to new political vulnerability. Many of the attacks appear to be the work of criminal gangs on Russian soil, heaping more pressure on the President’s already tense, high-stakes summit next week with President Vladimir Putin during his first foreign trip.  –read more—

F1 | Perez beats Vettel to Baku victory after Verstappen crashes out from lead late on

Max Verstappen looked set to take his first first-ever Azerbaijan Grand Prix victory before he crashed out from the lead with just five laps to go – giving Sergio Perez a second career victory, as Lewis Hamilton locked up on the penultimate lap to finish 15th in a hugely dramatic race in Baku.

For the first time this season, Charles Leclerc led away from pole, but he was passed for the lead by Lewis Hamilton with no need for DRS, so strong was the tow, on Lap 2. Verstappen then swept by the Ferrari man on Lap 7.

Verstappen took the lead after a crucial sequence of pit stops, Hamilton starting that sequence on Lap 12 with a slow switch for hards thanks to traffic in the pit lane. Verstappen pitted a lap later and emerged first, followed by Perez who split the championship rivals. And the Dutchman seemed to have victory in the bag, mastering a Lap 35 Safety Car restart after Lance Stroll’s terrifying accident, when the Aston Martin driver’s left-rear tyre appeared to gave way on the pit straight.  –read more—

CNN BUSINESS | AMC shares jump more than 120% to an all-time high

New York (CNN Business) – The hits keep coming. Shares of AMC — the largest movie theater chain in the world — surged more than 120% Wednesday to a new peak above $70 before falling back slightly. Trading of the shares was halted twice due to volatility. The stock closed Wednesday at $62.55, up 95% for the day.

The popular WallStreetBets Reddit board has boosted the stock lately as a way to hurt short sellers who bet against the company. On Wednesday, AMC (AMC) announced that it would reach out to its new backers with an initiative called “AMC Investor Connect.”

The company described “Investor Connect” as a way to put AMC in “direct communication with its extraordinary base of enthusiastic and passionate individual shareholders.” The theater chain also revealed that it has seen its “retail shareholder base grow beyond 3 million owners” over the last several months.  –read more—

CNN BUSINESS | Every Lamborghini will have an electric motor by 2024

(CNN Business) – By the end of 2024, every model Lamborghini offers will be a plug-in hybrid, announced CEO Stephan Winkelmann. But don’t expect a fully electric Lamborghini supercar anytime soon.

Lamborghini hybrid models will combine electric motors and powerful batteries with traditional internal combustion engines.

Lamborghini’s target customers — those who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cars that go fast but also look and sound fast — have shown they will accept this type of technology, Winkelmann said. Plug-in hybrids keep the feel and sound of an internal combustion engine when driven aggressively while allowing the car to operate under purely electric power at times.  —read more—

CNN BUSINESS | Why Amazon just spent more than $8 billion on MGM

MGM was bolstered by acquiring United Artists in 1981. UA was known for hit brands like James Bond.

New York (CNN Business) – MGM, a classic Hollywood brand synonymous with “The Wizard of Oz” and Leo the roaring lion, was purchased for $8.45 billion on Wednesday by Amazon (AMZN), a company currently valued at nearly $1.7 trillion. Being gobbled up by a tech behemoth is a fitting finale for a studio that has been whittled down over the last century by one technology disruption after another.

“MGM is really the story of Hollywood,” Jonathan Kuntz, a film professor at UCLA School of Theater, Film and TV, told CNN Business. “The studio has gone through all of the cycles of the film business over the last 100 years.”

“In many ways, MGM is the idea of the classic Hollywood studio,” he said. “And it tried to preserve that idea long after it was no longer a viable business strategy.”

Here’s a brief history of MGM, and why Amazon was likely so interested in buying it:  —read more—

CNN style Fashion | A visual history of space-age fashion

The 1960s space race was more than a measure of scientific progress. The anticipation of this next stage of humanity left an indelible impression on culture, too.

President John F. Kennedy’s vision of man reaching the moon soon spawned a throng of TV shows and films — including cartoon sitcom “The Jetsons” and the “Star Trek” franchise — all of which looked to cater to America’s newfound interest in space travel.

The success of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 only whetted appetites further. For fashion designers Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin and Thierry Mugler, it became the rocket that launched a thousand looks, as they centered whole collections around an intergalactic vision of the future.  —read more—