Neewday 365

Can’t Hear the Dialogue in Your Streaming Show? You’re Not Alone.

18Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Technology

Can’t Hear the Dialogue in Your Streaming Show? You’re Not Alone.

“What did he just say?”Those are some of the most commonly uttered words in my home. No matter how much my wife and I crank up the TV volume, the actors in streaming movies and shows are becoming increasingly difficult to understand. We usually end up turning on the subtitles, even though we aren’t hard of hearing.We’re not alone. In the streaming era, as video consumption shifts from movie theaters toward content shrunk down for televisions, tablets and smartphones, making dialogue crisp and clear has become the entertainment world’s toughest technology challenge. About 50 percent of Americans — and the majority of young people — watch videos with subtitles on most of the time, according to surveys, in large part because they are struggling to decipher what actors are saying.“It’s getting...

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Sports

The Dodgers Pile Up Wins and New Babies

Brusdar Graterol, a right-handed reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers, will always remember the day he saw his teammate Max Muncy sprinting straight toward one of the greatest moments of his life.Muncy was not attempting to beat out an infield single. And Graterol was not standing on the mound or in the Dodgers’ bullpen.It was April 24, and the moment came in Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The rest of the Dodgers were in Pittsburgh. Graterol stepped out of the bathroom, saw a man dashing down the hallway, and said to himself, “Oh my God, that’s Muncy over there! He’s going to have the baby right now!”Graterol was well aware of what was happening because he and his wife, Allison, were quite busy in their own hospital room, also on the second floor of Cedars-Sinai, following the b...

Jules Melancon, Oyster Farmer Who Tried Something New, Dies at 65

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Economy

Jules Melancon, Oyster Farmer Who Tried Something New, Dies at 65

Jules Melancon, a third-generation Louisiana oysterman who, rather than giving up after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill ravaged the Gulf Coast, found an innovative, sustainable and much tastier way to bring his briny delicacies to New Orleans restaurants, died on Aug. 31 at his home in Cut Off, La. He was 65.His father, Loyman Melancon, said the cause was metastatic cancer.Mr. Melancon spent most of his life farming oysters the old-fashioned way, working a dredge across the bottom of the shallow, brackish waters of the lower Mississippi River Delta. He captained his own 65-foot steel-bottom boat, My Melanie, named for his wife and returned every evening sagging under the weight of the day’s catch.It was backbreaking work. In his prime, the ursine Mr. Melancon would lug two 120-pound s...

Legal Actions Seek Guarantee of Abortion Access for Patients in Medical Emergencies

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Health

Legal Actions Seek Guarantee of Abortion Access for Patients in Medical Emergencies

Early in her pregnancy, Jaci Statton was in her kitchen when she felt like she was going to pass out and saw that her jeans had become soaked with blood. Doctors told her the pregnancy was not viable and that it could threaten her life if an abortion was not performed soon, she said.But Ms. Statton lives in Oklahoma, a state that bans most abortions. Three hospitals declined to provide the procedure, she said. At the third, “they said, ‘We can’t touch you unless you’re like crashing in front of us,’” Ms. Statton, 26, said in an interview. The hospital’s only suggestion, she said, was “we should wait in the parking lot until I was about to die.”On Tuesday, Ms. Statton filed a legal complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asserting that the third institution, Oklahoma...

How a Yale Student’s Rape Accusation Exposed Her to a Defamation Lawsuit

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

How a Yale Student’s Rape Accusation Exposed Her to a Defamation Lawsuit

Naomi Shatz, a lawyer who has represented accusers and accused in other hearings, has noticed an uptick in such suits, but they are uncommon, she said. The accused usually wants to move on, especially if the case is not public. (Mr. Khan’s case had received significant news media coverage, including in The Times, before he filed his lawsuit.)“It’s a huge emotional and financial burden to be dragged into a defamation lawsuit,” she said, citing the successful lawsuit by the actor Johnny Depp against his former wife, Amber Heard. “Nobody wants to be in Amber Heard’s position, especially as a young college student without financial resources or social capital.”For his part, Mr. Khan, who is originally from Afghanistan, said that he was pleased with the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision. But...

Arm Soars 25% in the Year’s Biggest Initial Public Offering

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Technology

Arm Soars 25% in the Year’s Biggest Initial Public Offering

Call it Wall Street’s Groundhog Day.When shares of Arm, the British chip designer, began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Thursday in the year’s biggest initial public offering, investors, tech executives, bankers and start-up founders were watching closely for how it performed.If Arm’s stock fell, they knew the market for I.P.O.s was likely to stay frozen for longer. But a warm welcome for the shares would probably mean many more companies going public in the coming months, ending the cold streak.They quickly got their answer: It was an early spring. Arm’s shares opened trading at $56.10, up 10 percent from its initial offering price of $51. Shares quickly soared further, rising 25 percent by the end of trading to close at $63.59 and giving the company a fully diluted valuation of ...

A Night at the Best Pickup Soccer Game in the World

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Sports

A Night at the Best Pickup Soccer Game in the World

As the players idled by the chain-link fence at the side of the field, taking great gulps of air and water and conducting an immediate autopsy of the game that had just finished, they focused their attention on three outstanding bones of contention. Instinctively, they separated into dedicated working groups to tackle each one.The first considered whether a penalty that had not been awarded absolutely should have been, as an aggrieved plaintiff was claiming. The second investigated if a particularly egregious foul was premeditated (yes) and/or warranted (also yes). The third explored the knotty issue of how many deflections preceded the last of the game’s 12 goals — estimates ranged from two to “about a million” — and whether allowing the goal could, therefore, reasonably be considered the...

What to Know About the U.A.W. Strike at GM, Ford and Stellantis

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Economy

What to Know About the U.A.W. Strike at GM, Ford and Stellantis

Negotiators for the United Auto Workers union and the three large U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — remained far apart as a limited strike began on Friday.The strike is not a full-scale walkout by the union’s roughly 150,000 members but a “limited and targeted” work stoppage by about 12,700 workers that could expand if talks remain bogged down. It began after workers’ four-year contracts expired.The union must negotiate separate deals with each of the companies on issues including pay and retirement benefits.What is the union seeking?The U.A.W. has demanded a 40 percent wage increase over four years — an amount that union officials said matches the raises the top executives at the three companies have received over the last ...

C.D.C. Recommends New Covid Vaccines for All Americans

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Health

C.D.C. Recommends New Covid Vaccines for All Americans

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended on Tuesday that all Americans 6 months and older receive at least one dose of the latest Covid shots, the last of a trifecta of vaccines intended to prevent another surge in respiratory infections this fall and winter.The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved reformulated Covid vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. On Tuesday, scientific advisers to the C.D.C. reviewed the data and voted to recommend the shots. Large pharmacies will likely have the new vaccines available later this week.Vaccines against flu and the respiratory syncytial virus are already on the shelves. The flu vaccine is recommended for everyone aged 6 months and older, and the R.S.V. vaccine for everyone 60 and older, in consultation with a health ca...

First Cargo Ships Arrive in Ukraine Since Russia Ended a Grain Deal

17Sep

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

First Cargo Ships Arrive in Ukraine Since Russia Ended a Grain Deal

The first cargo vessels to arrive at a Ukrainian port since Russia terminated a deal under which Kyiv was able to export food crops across the Black Sea were moored on Sunday in Chornomorsk, offering early signs of hope that Ukraine could open an alternative route for grain shipments.Ukraine’s grain exports provide a vital source of foreign exchange and are also important for global food markets, particularly for countries in Africa and the Middle East that are facing hunger. Russia has imposed a de facto blockade on Ukrainian cargo ships since July, when the Kremlin terminated an agreement that had allowed Kyiv to export grain by sea, a deal that was seen as essential to keeping the world’s food prices stable.But establishing a corridor secure enough for a regular flow of cargo vessels to...