A Beloved Cambridge Diner Is Expanding to Brookline
Elephantine Bakery, a fan-favorite Portsmouth cafe that sells breads, croissants, cakes, and other pastries, is expanding to Boston. Owners Sherif and Nadine Farag are opening a second Elephantine location at 332 Congress Street, in Fort Point, with a target opening in late summer this year. Keep an eye on Instagram for updates as construction gets underway. Lakon Paris takes home the top prize in local croissant competition
Croissant-heads, take note: Lakon Paris Patisserie, home of the viral, over-the-top croissants bursting at the seams with fillings like pistachio mascarpone and Nutella hazelnut, nabbed top honors at the Le Grand Prix Elmendorf du Pain, an annual baking competition held in Cambridge on Sunday, June 8. Cambridge Day reports that Lakon's Jenny Kiangkaew won first place in the competition, while Flourhouse in Newton and Praliné French Patisserie in Belmont came in second and third, respectively.
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Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
‘Time is now' for hydro connection to Nunavut: Inuit association president
A proposed hydroelectric fibre link from Manitoba's power grid to five communities and two mines in Nunavut's Kivalliq region should be part of the national infrastructure strategy, according to an Inuit leader. But the federal government has been keeping the project on the back burner for at least four years, Kono Tattuinee, the president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, told an audience at the Nunavut Arctic Security and Sovereignty Summit in Iqaluit on June 26. Tattuinee said that transitioning off 60-year-old diesel generators is a priority for the region. 'We've done our best to work with different departments. We tried to get our foot in the door of the finance minister's office, but we were half in and half out and never really made it,' Tattuinee told those gathered at the summit. An hydro-electric power connection to Nunavut would allow the territory to start building its own renewable energy facilities and sell electricity back to the rest of Canada's, according to a website pitching the project. The Nukik Corporation, an Inuit-owned company lobbying the federal government to build the 1,200-kilometre hydro fibre link, counts Tattuinee among its board of directors. Arviat, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet and Whale Cove, along with two gold mines and future resource projects in the Kivalliq Region, would benefit from the connectivity, according to the website. High-speed internet for residents, hospitals and businesses would also be a feature of the hydro-fibre link. Nukik Corporation's project has been mentioned three times in federal budgets since 2021, and it received $2.8 million to advance engineering and design work last year. The Department of Northern Affairs estimated construction would begin in 2028 at the time. But Tattuinee told the Nunavut Arctic Security and Sovereignty Summit that the federal government had been keeping proponents of the hydro-fibre link in the dark. 'We have it on a silver platter. It's all ready, shovel-ready — we were shovel-worthy a few years back, and now we're shovel-ready,' Tattuinee said. Despite the frustration with the pace of development, Tattuinee said he's hopeful about the future and believes the federal government will eventually make the project happen. 'We Inuit, we're resilient, we want to push this through. The time is now, and so we're very hopeful,' he said. The federal government passed Bill C-5 on June 26, giving itself far-reaching powers to fast-track 'nation-building' infrastructure projects, the same day as Tattuinee's comments to the summit. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
New York Post
13 hours ago
- New York Post
China using TikTok as a pawn to squeeze Trump in trade talks: sources
President Trump recently said he found a buyer for TikTok, the controversial Chinese-owned short-video app but his real problem is with the seller, On The Money has learned. TikTok is being used as a pawn in the US-Chinese trade negotiations by Beijing, which knows that Trump wants the app to remain operating in the US, according to people with knowledge of the matter. There will be no sale of TikTok to American investors — a move that is needed to conform to a US law that bans the app from operating domestically — until Chinese President Xi Jinping is confident he has extracted as much as he can in terms of a favorable trade deal with the White House, these people add. Chinese President Xi Jinping will extract as much as he can in terms of a favorable trade deal with the White House, sources told On The Money.. Jack Forbes/NY Post Design 'Trump still doesn't have a seller,' is how one person involved in the talks described the situation. The problem, the source said, is that 'Xi is a no-show' in putting TikTok front and center in the broader trade talks, at least up to this point. Which is why bankers and investors involved in the TikTok dealmaking who keep tabs on the trade machinations were more than a little perplexed when Trump, appearing on Fox News on Sunday, said: 'We have a buyer for TikTok. … I'll tell you in two weeks.' He added that China will 'probably' allow the sale to 'very, very wealthy people. It's a group of wealthy people.' Having 'very wealthy people' willing to step up and buy TikTok is nothing new. In April, a group of wealthy investors and tech honchos were poised to place a bid with the Chinese to buy the US based operations until Trump launched a trade war against Beijing, hitting China with 145% tariffs on imported goods. Trump has been seeking a solution since returning to the White House, issuing a series of executive orders to keep the TikTok ban from going into effect. AP That number has since been lowered as both sides negotiate other trade issues as part of a broader deal. As for buyers, this person said either tech giant Oracle, co-founded by Trump pal Larry Ellison, the previous investor group, or a combination of both would be interested in taking a controlling stake in TikTok's US operations and stop it from going dark. In 2024, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers, fearful that the Chinese use TikTok to spy on US citizens, passed legislation, signed by former President Biden, that the company would cease operating on US app stores unless the Chinese gave up control of the platform. The ban was to go into effect Jan. 19, the day before Trump's inauguration. Trump once wanted TikTok banned but became a fan after the 2024 election, where he believed pro-Trump spots on the app helped him win over younger voters, which represent the majority of TikTok's users. He has been seeking a solution since returning to the White House, issuing a series of executive orders to keep the ban from going into effect despite prominent Republicans arguing that the law is still being flouted by Trump's delaying tactics and even the latest deal iteration. Under the terms of the last negotiated deal, the Chinese wanted a minority stake in the new US-investor controlled company and continued ownership of TikTok's crown jewel – its technology, the algorithm that funnels videos based on preferences to users, which lawmakers claim is used to spy on US citizens. The Chinese have long denied the spying issue, but US lawmakers remain concerned that majority US control still doesn't provide enough protection from alleged spycraft. That's one reason it took so long to come up with a structure that satisfied all the competing constituencies, and why even after finding a buyer that appeals to the seller, TikTok might still be banned in the coming months unless Trump issues yet another extension after the current one expires in mid-September.
Atlantic
14 hours ago
- Atlantic
Welcome to the Mafia Presidency
Theoretically, it's illegal for the president to accept or solicit bribes. The plain language of the statute is perfectly clear: It is a crime for a public official to seek or receive 'anything of value' in return for 'being influenced in the performance of any official ac t.' The prohibition applies whether the public official seeks or receives the bribe personally or on behalf of 'any other person or entity.' As I said: theoretically. On Tuesday, the media-and-entertainment conglomerate Paramount announced a $16 million payment to President Donald Trump's future presidential library. The payment settled a lawsuit that Trump had filed against the Paramount-owned broadcaster CBS because he was unhappy with the way the network had edited an election-season interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump's lawsuit was about as meritless as a lawsuit can be, for reasons I'll explain shortly. If CBS were a freestanding news organization, it would have fought the case and won. But like the Disney-owned network ABC, which also paid off Trump for an almost equally frivolous lawsuit, CBS belongs to a parent corporation with regulatory business before Trump-appointed agencies. Paramount is pursuing an $8 billion merger that requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission. In November 2024, then-incoming FCC Chair Brendan Carr warned that merger approval would depend on satisfying Trump's claims against CBS. Carr told the Fox News interviewer Dana Perino, 'I'm pretty confident that that news-distortion complaint over the 60 Minutes transcript is something that is likely to arise in the context of the FCC review of that transaction.' 'News-distortion complaint?' What's that? Nearly a century ago, in 1927, Congress empowered a new Federal Radio Commission to police the accuracy of news broadcasts. In the preceding decades, the airwaves had become a chaos of transmissions interfering with one another. The right to use any particular frequency was a valuable concession from the federal government, the owner on the public's behalf of the nation's airwaves. Congress felt that it could impose conditions in return for such concessions. One condition was a duty to meet public-interest standards in broadcast content, which included giving equal time to opposing political candidates in an election. In 1934, the Federal Radio Commission evolved into the Federal Communications Commission. As television technology spread, so did the FCC's ambition to police the new medium, resulting in 1949 with its power to compel the fairness doctrine on ' all discussion of issues of importance to the public.' The fact that opinions can differ about what counts as 'accuracy' and what counts as 'distortion' rapidly became obvious. Government efforts to police the boundary between fair reporting and unfair scurrility create conflicts with First Amendment rights. For print media, the courts have been very clear: Editing, even arguably unfair editing, is protected free speech, subject only to the laws of defamation. In the 1960s and '70s, the FCC groped its way toward a similar rule for broadcast media. Interestingly, some of the crucial milestones involved CBS News. In the early days of color television, CBS News pioneered the use of aggressive editing to tell powerful stories in dramatic ways. In 1971, for example, CBS broadcast a documentary, The Selling of the Pentagon, that accused the Department of Defense of manipulating public opinion. To amplify the argument, the producers cut and reassembled questions and answers. Some of the affected individuals filed complaints against CBS, and the matter was taken up by members of Congress. Yet the FCC declined to get involved in the case on free-speech grounds. Before the end of the first Nixon administration, the FCC had generated a series of precedents that more or less nullified the agency's Calvin Coolidge–era status as a monitor of broadcast accuracy and a potential censor. The whole issue soon became moot, because the FCC had no jurisdiction over cable television or the internet. As Americans drew more of their information from sources outside the FCC's domain, the very idea of content regulation by the agency came to seem absurd to all parties, including the FCC itself. Who would think of invoking a doctrine that originated in 1927 to police speech in the 21st century? Then came Trump and the loyalty-above-law appointees of his second term. Evident from the Trump legal filing against CBS is that not even the president's own lawyers took his complaint seriously. Three whopping clues give away the game about the filing's farcicality. The first is where the lawsuit was brought: the Amarillo division of the U.S. district court for the northern district of Texas. CBS is not domiciled in Amarillo. Neither is Trump or Harris or any person significantly connected with the 60 Minutes segment. What is located in Amarillo is America's premier pick for right-wing forum-shopping, a practice criticized not only by liberal counterparties but also, at least implicitly, by The Wall Street Journal and National Review. Amarillo is the court where a partisan-conservative plaintiff goes with a case that would be summarily thrown out elsewhere. The next clue is the language of the filing, which reads like direct dictation from the president: As President Trump stated, and as made crystal clear in the video he referenced and attached, 'A giant Fake News Scam by 60 Minutes & CBS. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election interference. She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact. AN UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the election? WOW!' See President Donald J. Trump, TRUTH SOCIAL (Oct. 10, 2024). And so on, through 65 paragraphs of irrelevant name-calling and Trump-quoting obsequiousness. The final clue lies in the carelessness of the complaint's quoted sources, two of which actually argue against the Trump claim. A cited law-review article concluded that 'the reinvented news distortion doctrine would undermine the very democratic norms marshaled in its defense.' Similarly, an FCC decision referenced found against taking action (in another case involving CBS)—explicitly on free-speech grounds: 'In this democracy, no government agency can authenticate the news, or should try to do so.' One has to wonder whether Trump's lawyers even read the texts they cited. The complaint's flimsy legal basis—including Trump's claim of standing under a Texas consumer-protection law—indicates its pure-nuisance quality. And yet, Paramount paid $16 million to settle a case that it could almost certainly have won for a fraction of the price. U.S. law forbids both accepting a bribe and soliciting a bribe, yet they're not exactly the same offense. There is an important difference between a police officer who takes money to let a criminal escape and a police officer who uses the threat of arrest to extort money from an innocent citizen. Paramount did not come up with the idea to pay Trump $16 million; Trump decided to squeeze Paramount for the money. What's going on here is extortion—and it does not get any less extortionate for being laundered through Trump's hypothetical future library. A systematic pattern has emerged: shakedowns of law firms, business corporations, and media companies for the enrichment of Trump, his family, and his political allies. Every time targets yield, they create an incentive for Trump to repeat the shakedown on another victim.
