Local governments across the country are embracing Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) to fight crime. At the center of this trend is Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based tech startup. Flock promises an easy solution to property crime by installing AI-powered cameras on public roads. It sounds like a reasonable upgrade to traditional policing, but a massive […]
My 98-year-old movie pal, Jack, and I have long spent Saturday afternoons enjoying classic films. A recent Saturday was no different. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn starred in the first movie, followed by the laugh-out-loud comedy, Some Like It Hot. As the afternoon progressed, I heard a loud crack of thunder. I pulled back the […]
The new PBS Masterpiece series Marble Hall Murders is a sumptuously filmed “cozy” with an unthreatening structural complexity. The Viking Cruises crowd will eat it up with a Christofle spoon. Like its predecessors, Magpie Murders (2022) and Moonflower Murders (2024), the new show is based on a book by Anthony Horowitz, who returns here as […]
Dogs bark, ducks quack, and populists offer free stuff. Enrique Pena Nieto dispensed around 10 million TV sets to low-income Mexican households. Hugo Chavez gave Venezuelans steeply discounted refrigerators, air conditioning units, and, again, TV sets. In Argentina, Evita Peron would personally hand out children’s toys, sewing machines, clothes, and kitchenware. None of these (for once […]
During Donald Trump’s first run for the presidency, China, the economic behemoth that was gutting America’s manufacturing base and flexing its muscles in East Asia, was his favorite punching bag. Yet as Trump was seeking to reclaim the presidency after four years in the political wilderness, his new foreign target was much closer to home: […]