If what you actually want this Halloween is to stuff yourself with handfuls of peanut butter cups, Reese’s has you covered.
The candy brand will deliver the ultimate Halloween treat this year with its innovative (and much appreciated) “candy converter” machine.
According to Delish, Reese’s will set up a machine in New York City on Wednesday that allows people to exchange candy they don’t want for delicious peanut butter-y goodness.
So, how does it work? You put all the Halloween candy you have no interest in — like Tootsie Rolls, Good & Plenty, and Dots (sorry!) — into the converter and then voila! Out come Reese’s cups!
The converter debuted at the Tarrytown Annual Halloween Parade last weekend, according to Delish, but will head to New York City for Halloween.
Reese’s told Delish, that they’ve planned to to give out “up to 10,000 cups,” including those already distributed in Tarrytown, last weekend.
For those looking to visit the machine IRL on Wednesday, it’ll be on 5th Avenue between Washington Square North and East 8th Street from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., ET.
If you’re a Reese’s lover and you happen to live in the area, get there sooner rather than later before the rest of New York snaps up the peanut butter cups for themselves.
According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, Price commented on his contract status at Wednesday’s World Series parade, saying, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The pitcher will make $127 million over the final four seasons of the seven-year deal he signed before the 2016 season, including $31 million in 2019, per Spotrac.
Price has been an effective front-line starter for Boston over the past three years, totaling a 39-19 record and 3.74 ERA in the regular season. While elbow inflammation cut short his 2017 efforts, he bounced back in 2018 with a 3.58 ERA, which ranked 11th in the American League.
This run came after he earned five All-Star selections and a Cy Young Award during his time with the Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Tigers.
The only question left was whether he could replicate this success in the playoffs, but he answered any doubts with his World Series performance. Price earned two wins while producing a 1.98 ERA in three appearances as the Red Sox won their fourth title in 15 years.
He was also well aware of what this run meant when speaking to reporters after the clinching Game 5.
“I hold all the cards now,” Price said of his postseason legacy, perAlyson Footerof MLB.com. “And that feels so good. That feels so good. I can’t tell you how good it feels to hold that trump card. And you guys have had it for a long time. You’ve played that card extremely well. But you don’t have it anymore; none of you do, and that feels really good.”
The left-hander can use the trump card against reporters, but he won’t against the team, as he won’t seek a new deal in free agency. Despite his brilliant October performance, it would have been difficult for the 33-year-old to find a better contract on the open market.
Boston should once again have one of the top rotations in the majors next year with Price, Chris Sale and Rick Porcello all returning.
Election security poses many tough questions for the federal government, which must navigate relationships with state and local election officials, vendors and a sometimes suspicious public. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The administration is letting individual agencies respond to foreign governments’ attempts to undermine U.S. elections.
Nearly a dozen senior law enforcement, homeland security and intelligence officials held a first-of-its-kind meeting at the Justice Department in late September to discuss how to respond if a foreign adversary tried to influence the midterm elections.
But they left after 90 minutes without devising a plan or answering key questions, according to a person who attended the previously unreported gathering.
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No one from the White House was present, said the attendee, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The only presidential appointee there, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, delivered opening remarks and left after the first half hour. And in a twist that epitomized the administration chaos surrounding election preparations, attendees emerged to discover that The New York Times was reporting that Rosenstein had discussed secretly recording his meetings with President Donald Trump.
“There are TVs out in the front office, and his face was on them,” the person said of Rosenstein. “It was very weird.”
A month after the Sept. 21 meeting, the Trump administration still has no strategy for fighting disinformation campaigns aimed at swaying U.S. elections, three people knowledgeable about the matter told POLITICO — less than a week before voters nationwide return to the polls.
In the absence of high-level White House coordination, the administration is letting individual agencies such as the FBI, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security make decisions about how to respond to foreign governments’ attempts to use social media and other propaganda to undermine U.S. elections, according to people who have been briefed on or participated in the administration’s discussions of the issue. That means broader strategic questions remain unresolved because of White House turf wars, agencies’ competing priorities, political sensitivities and a lack of experience with a relatively new threat, the people say.
Meanwhile, intelligence and law enforcement agencies warned this month that Russia, China and Iran are waging “ongoing campaigns” to influence American elections and policies.
“The lines of authority for defending against and responding to influence ops are going to be hypercomplicated,” said one former DHS employee, who also requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations.
Lisa Monaco, who served as Barack Obama’s second White House homeland security adviser, said the federal government needs a broad strategy to address the problem — along with “someone to bring all of these agencies and departments together and make sure they are implementing that strategy.”
“Otherwise,” she said, “there is a danger that well-meaning agencies are executing operations that may have unintended consequences for other operations, for sources and methods, or for diplomatic relations.”
Election security poses many tough questions for the federal government, which must navigate relationships with state and local election officials, vendors suspicious of potential regulations and voters who may dislike either the president or the career bureaucrats who are supposedly sabotaging his agenda. The Obama administration famously had its own problems navigating the issue, spending much of 2016 agonizing over whether and how aggressively to publicize evidence that Russia was carrying out a massive hacking and social media campaign aimed at disrupting the presidential race.
But the Trump administration is hardly faring any better, according to the three sources.
“I don’t think you can create some sort of line-and-block flowchart of, ‘If this happens, then this is the outcome,’” the meeting attendee said. “But I do think that you can establish some principles that should guide the federal government in determining whether the American public has a right to know about matters essential to our democracy. And I don’t think the sophistication level exists within this White House to be able to have a conversation like that.”
In the absence of an overarching strategy, officials from agencies such as DHS and the FBI have met repeatedly over the past year to discuss issues such as when to announce evidence of foreign influence operations and who in the government should take the lead. Some agencies have taken individual actions, such as a recent effort by the Pentagon’s Cyber Command — reported last week by The New York Times — to contact individual Russian operatives to discourage them from interfering in U.S. elections.
But the administration’s approach doesn’t resolve questions that inevitably arise when the agencies’ perspectives and priorities clash, such as the FBI’s need to keep investigations secret versus DHS’ greater focus on building public awareness.
The White House told POLITICO that the process is working as intended.
“In this Administration, operational planning and execution is implemented by the Departments and Agencies, as is wholly appropriate,” National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said in a statement. The NSC provided “regular and continuous coordination,” he said, and “any inference otherwise is incorrect.” He did not answer a question about whether the administration had a formal, detailed strategy.
With White House leadership lacking, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has convened her own meetings with agency leaders on election security issues, though several sessions focused more on developing a messaging strategy than solving operational problems, the Sept. 21 meeting attendee said. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats’ team has held weekly meetings on the topic.
Trump, meanwhile, has reacted angrily to the investigations into Russian election meddling in 2016 — but White House involvement in election security was a sensitive subject even before his victory. Two years later, administration officials still haven’t decided whether to meet at the White House for an interagency response to election interference, the person who attended the Sept. 21 meeting told POLITICO.
“It may not be appropriate, particularly in a presidential election, for the White House to be the convening authority,” the person said, “because it gives the impression of politicization.”
Those planning the Sept. 21 meeting debated whether to formally raise the issue of the White House’s role but opted not to, the attendee said.
But at one point in the meeting, Christopher Krebs, the undersecretary in charge of the DHS cyber wing, asked whether any White House officials were present, according to the attendee. When he learned the answer was no, Krebs said something to the effect of, “All right, I’ll tell you what I really think.”
DHS did not dispute this exchange. In a statement, spokeswoman Sara Sendek said: “Despite the opinion of some unnamed sources, the Secretary, the Under Secretary and the entire DHS team are totally focused on improving security and countering any foreign attempts to interfere with the 2018 midterm elections.”
Months before the meeting, according to the attendee, officials concluded that cyber intrusions, such as hacks of voting technology vendors or state voter databases, would fall under an Obama-era framework for responding to “significant cyber incidents.” But they realized that no similar process existed for influence operations such as social media propaganda campaigns, which the intelligence community has called the bulk of the Russian government’s efforts in 2016.
At the Sept. 21 meeting, one question the officials considered was whether the government should be more aggressive in announcing disinformation that targeted the election process than attacks on specific campaigns. “We were more worried about false claims of election interference on an Election Day that would sow confusion and depress turnout,” the attendee said.
Another question that divided the room was whom to notify if intelligence agencies discover an influence operation targeting a particular race — specifically whether they should notify the campaign being targeted, both sides or the public. “How confident would we have to be?” the attendee said, recounting the debate. “Would it be enough to know that they were thinking about doing something?”
As they ate sandwiches and debated during the midday meeting in a secure DOJ conference room, the officials also considered which part of the government should deliver warnings about influence operations. Not every agency is equally trusted, and sending out the wrong messenger could undercut the message. Most meeting participants, according to the attendee, agreed that “the White House is not the right messenger.”
Some participants suggested the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that mostly serves as a clearinghouse for sharing best practices with election supervisors. But the general view was that it should be DHS, the FBI and the intelligence community.
Those agencies have been trying to reassure Americans. In a vague joint statement on Oct. 19, they said they were working “closely together in order to develop the most up-to-date picture of the threat.”
The Sept. 21 meeting involved several hypothetical scenarios, one of which raised a thorny question: What should the government do if hackers release fake documents alongside real ones? “Would the federal government simply acknowledge or confirm the hack and release was foreign-sponsored,” said the source present, “or would we go so far as to identify which ones were accurate and which ones were fake?”
The session ended without clear answers to most of these questions, though the meeting attendee argued that this didn’t represent failure.
“The purpose of this meeting wasn’t to reach consensus,” the person said. Instead, the goal was “to build a little bit of muscle memory, so that the first time we’re having some of these discussions isn’t when there’s an actual thing that’s occurred.”
Participants in the meeting included John Demers, the head of DOJ’s National Security Division, who chaired the session; Krebs, from DHS; Tonya Ugoretz, head of the intelligence community’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center; and Brian Benczkowski, who leads DOJ’s Criminal Division.
Also present were Matt Gorham, the head of the FBI’s Cyber Division; Robert Johnson, the head of the bureau’s Criminal Division; Joseph Bonavolonta, the No. 2 official in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division; Anne Neuberger, the NSA’s lead on countering foreign influence operations; a CIA official; and someone from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
A National Security Agency spokesman confirmed that the meeting occurred and that Neuberger participated. The other agencies did not confirm their attendees.
The Justice Department declined to discuss the meeting. “As you would expect the department to do, we have held a number of meetings in preparation for the upcoming election to discuss possible scenarios and our response to them on a variety of fronts,” said spokesman Marc Raimondi. “We will not comment on any particular meetings or about the attendees.”
Inside the White House, meanwhile, a nine-month bureaucratic turf war delayed a decision about which part of the National Security Council would oversee election security, according to the meeting attendee.
Rather than designate an “election security czar,” as some Democrats have suggested, the NSC wound up creating a bifurcated system, according to the meeting attendee and the former DHS employee. The teams that handle cybersecurity and “resilience” — meaning natural disasters and other public health crises — oversee policy related to election infrastructure, while the intelligence and Russia teams deal with foreign influence operations.
Through this system, the NSC has convened regular election security meetings with lower-level officials from across the government. The agencies’ No. 2 officials also hold occasional meetings, according to a former Obama administration official who keeps in contact with current government employees.
But the new structure has caused confusion. Different NSC teams have asked agencies three times for a list of their election security activities, the meeting attendee said, as well as repeated questions such as: “On Election Day, who will be reporting to us?” and “How will we be getting live updates about what’s going on?” When the White House decided that Trump would chair an NSC meeting on election security in July, “we all of a sudden are being called in to put together a slide deck with clip art for the president,” the person said.
Even absent White House issues, election security presents massive coordination challenges, because every agency approaches it from a different perspective.
The FBI treats election security probes like digital crime scenes, where investigators must preserve evidence and keep facts secret so prosecutors can build a case. DHS handles election-focused influence operations and cyberattacks like disaster zones, where public awareness and public-private cooperation can resolve incidents and reduce future risks. And CIA and NSA spies vigorously oppose declassifying their intelligence and sharing it with outsiders like state and local officials, fearing that publicizing what the U.S. knows would compromise the sources and methods used to learn it.
“The [intelligence community] and FBI are much more concerned about the reasons why we are sharing” and weighing costs and benefits, said the meeting attendee. “Whereas for DHS, it’s very two-dimensional. It’s like, ‘We should share. We should always share.’”
DHS has two election task forces, one for protecting infrastructure and one for combating foreign influence, as first reported by the Daily Beast. But those have had problems, too. The infrastructure group has been hobbled by states’ control over their election systems, and the influence group raised eyebrows elsewhere in the government, because the FBI already runs a foreign influence task force.
It’s “very difficult to imagine what role [DHS] could play in that space, given their authorities,” said the meeting attendee. This person compared the task force to DHS’ constant push to share information with tech firms. “It was kind of like, they just wanted the relationship, and they wanted to be the first phone call.”
Sendek, the DHS spokeswoman, responded: “Any notion that the department is sharing too much information with our state and local partners or working too hard to raise this public awareness is a criticism we will proudly embrace.”
Earlier this week, we learned that Justin Bieber can, in fact, eat a burrito correctly — or at least that it wasn’t him in that viral photo after all. A huge part of that pic’s success was the Biebs lookalike pulled in to pose for the shot, as well as the blond wig they plopped on his head. And it’s true: Since about 2015, Bieber’s lettuce has been strong, really coming into its own this year.
In 2018, the Biebs mane has toggled mildly between weekend surfer and flowy festival prince, but it’s stayed mostly in the long-ish realm. Not anymore, baby! It’s Halloween, and Justin Bieber just made his hair disappear. By shaving it all off.
In the new photo, he sports a black tee and assumes his best 2007 mirror-selfie pose, but the creeping tats on his arm and mischievous smirk on his face recalls something more like 2000 — specifically, a Slim Shady music video. Maybe Justin’s opting for a subtle Eminem costume? Or maybe this is just what he looks like now.
Justin tweeted out the photo on Tuesday night (October 30) without explanation. A possible one is, of course, that he wants a fresh start to begin his new life with his (maybe) wife, Hailey Baldwin. Another is that it was crowding his line of vision during hockey, although allthegreats had some serious flow and he knows it. It is also Halloween, so. Take that for what it’s worth.
Whatever his reasons, his hair’s back to being even shorter than it was in summer 2017. But don’t worry: Who’s to say that salad won’t be back to full strength in just a few months?
Alexa can’t vote, but Amazon’s digital assistant can help you do it.
In the run-up to election day in the U.S. (Nov. 6, if you weren’t sure), Amazon is giving Alexa a more civic mind by beefing up the assistant’s knowledge base of election data, including where to vote, real-time results, and even explanations of ballot measures.
Now you’ll be able to ask Alexa where your polling place is or who’s leading in any particular race, and it’ll respond with a real answer instead of just kicking you to a web search.
On the surface, the effort sounds rather benign — even anodyne — but even the mechanics of elections these days are fraught with politics. From attempted voting machine hacks to social media misinformation campaigns, technology and elections don’t have the greatest relationship right now. Of all the subjects Alexa could help with, why elections?
“Customers have always asked Alexa a lot of questions about major current events,” Bill Barton, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa information, told Mashable in answers to emailed questions. “We saw high customer engagement with the 2016 presidential debates and election, and we thought we could expand and improve upon the experience.”
Besides keeping the information decidedly nonpartisan, the main way Amazon is ensuring the veracity of the election information is by outsourcing it. It has three main partners for the effort: Ballotpedia for pre-election ballot information, RealClearPolitics for polling updates, and the Associated Press for elections results, including real-time info in individual races. Barton says they were the “most credible, neutral sources” Amazon could find.
When I asked Barton about whether Alexa could provide information on voting requirements in particular areas, in particular controversial voter ID laws in some jurisdictions, he said it was an “interesting idea” but that it wasn’t something Amazon offered.
An example of the kind of data Amazon Echo Show users will see accompanying responses to election information.
Image: Amazon
He similarly deflected a question about whether Alexa could tell voters what voting machines were being used in their area, which some voters might want to know for various reasons, but the recent focus on possible voting machine hacks in particular. “We focused on the areas of where we see the most customer interest and need,” Barton said, explaining info about voting machines was not something Alexa offered.
Got it. Just keep it simple: Who’s on the ballot? Where can I vote? What are the results? It’s understandable that Amazon wouldn’t want to even tiptoe close to the more contentious parts of electioneering, and anyone wanting information about something Alexa doesn’t cover can always look it up online on another device. Still, it’s a shame Amazon decided to simply shy away from reasonable questions voters might have about election-related topics in the news.
Points for Amazon, at least, for not being completely naïve. Election info gets more crucial the closer we get to election day, and Barton says Amazon has assembled its own “war room” of data scientists, engineers, and writers to monitor the effort to ensure the information Alexa is providing is accurate. It’s a move that echoes a similar one by Facebook, which is actively trying to fight election misinformation on its network.
In a sense, Amazon’s move could be seen as a part of that effort. While Amazon hasn’t been implicated as directly as Facebook or Twitter, many people are more wary of how deeply technology has been embedded in our lives in recent years, Alexa included. In a small way, Alexa’s new election upgrade may help ease that skepticism.
Dahyan, Saada – Excited screams used to echo through the corridors. Boys would skip and giggle, arm in arm.
They would race across the playground, kicking footballs against the sun-baked earth, imitating their sporting heroes, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But on Sunday, as the school bell shrilled to mark the start of a new term, several young boys, some of them on crutches, marched silently to their classrooms with their eyes and faces pointed squarely at the ground.
As they entered Al Falah primary for their first lesson, artwork from last year on one of the walls was a reminder that the school was once a place of joy.
But as soon as Abdulrahman al-Ojeri, one of the school teachers, began taking the morning register, a sombre mood swept over the room when the names of several familiar children, who should have been in attendance, were left out.
In the summer, a Saudi air strike decimated a school bus carrying a group of boys, some as young as six, as they went on a field trip to Yemen‘s northern city of Saada.
Images of children covered in blood being dragged from the twisted wreckage triggered global outrage, and reignited the debate over the safeguards Saudi Arabia, along with its military partner, the United Arab Emirates, employ in their fight against Houthi rebels.
As they returned to school on Sunday, some of the surviving children carried blue UNICEF rucksacks, some were still stained with blood from that horrific day.
Hassan Hanash, a 12-year-old boy, was visibly haunted by the August 9 attack.
He was near the back of the bus when a US-made missile landed metres away, lifting the vehicle off the ground and flinging it into a nearby shop.
Although most of his physical injuries have healed, the emotional trauma is palpable.
“I still don’t know why the aircraft attacked us,” he told Al Jazeera, his face gaunt.
Attacking children is the lowest any party in this conflict can do.
Meritxell Relano, UNICEF’s resident representative in Yemen
A total of 51 people, including 40 children, were killed in the attack, which the Saudi-UAE alliance had initially declared a “legitimate target”.
In the days following the raid, the alliance defended its actions, claiming it was in response to a missile being fired from Yemen at the Saudi city of Jizan some 24 hours earlier.
But as international condemnation grew, including criticism from the alliance’s main military backers – the United States and the United Kingdom – Riyadh made a rare concession, saying it would conduct an investigation, and hold those responsible to account.
The Trump administration lauded the announcement with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praising the alliance’s efforts to limit civilian casualties in a war that has claimed an estimated 56,000 lives.
“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure resulting from military operations,” Pompeo said.
But his remarks were overwhelmingly rejected by survivors and their families at the Al Falah primary school.
“Anyone who says we were a legitimate target is a liar,” an angry Hassan told Al Jazeera.
“We didn’t fire a ballistic missile,” he said, pointing to his small, frail leg which was wounded in the attack and continues to affect his mobility.
Hassan Hanash and his two brothers, Ahmed Ali and Yahya, pray for their friends who were killed in a Saudi air strike on a school bus in August [Naseh Shaker/Al Jazeera]
Since March 2015, when it intervened in Yemen’s war, the Saudi-UAE military alliance has conducted more than 18,000 air raids across the country, with almost one-third striking non-military sites.
Data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project has revealed that weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals have frequently been targeted.
Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the alleged architect of the war, the alliance has also imposed a raft of punitive economic measures aimed at undercutting the Houthis’ grip on power, including a debilitating blockade on the port city of Hodeidah, a vital gateway for food, fuel, medicine and other goods into the country.
This has exacerbated Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which aid groups have decried as “choking civilians.”
“Mass starvation is a deadly by-product of actions taken by warring parties and the Western nations propping them up,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement earlier in October.
“The way the war is waged has systematically choked civilians by making less food available and affordable to millions of people.”
The war has also truncated children’s education, with UN officials telling Al Jazeera that nearly 2,000 schools have been destroyed by the conflict, re-purposed as shelters or commandeered by armed factions.
“Attacking children is the lowest any party in this conflict [can] do,” said Meritxell Relano, UNICEF’s resident representative in Yemen.
“There is no justification whatsoever to attack children. Unfortunately, this has become a common feature of the conflict.”
‘The carnage in Yemen’
The war has received more attention recently as outrage grows towards Saudi Arabia over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
In recent weeks, American and British politicians have voiced their opposition to the alliance’s war campaign and pushed for a temporary halt in arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Writing in the New York Times, US Senator Bernie Sanders urged Congress to end what he called “the carnage in Yemen”.
“The US is deeply engaged in this war. We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refuelling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence,” Sanders wrote.
Between 2010 and 2014, Washington sold more than $90bn of military equipment to Riyadh, and since Trump took office, the US has signed an arms deal to supply military equipment worth nearly $350bn to the Saudis over the next 10 years.
“I very much hope that Congress will act, that we will finally take seriously our congressional duty, end our support for the carnage in Yemen, and send the message that human lives are worth more than profits for arms manufacturers,” Sanders added.
Meanwhile, Emily Thornberry, a member of the UK’s opposition Labour Party, told parliament that “a repeated pattern” was being played out by the Saudis, both in how they handled the Khashoggi killing and the war in Yemen.
“When major civilian casualties are reported, first they deny the reports are true, then they deny responsibility,” she said. “And when the proof becomes incontrovertible, they say it is all a terrible mistake. They blame rogue elements, promise those will be punished and say it will not happen again, until the next time, when it does.”
Zaid al-Humran’s son Osama was among those killed on August 9.
He had filmed the children on the bus prior to the attack and said were it not for the recording, the massacre would have gone unreported like several other crimes in the more than three-year-war.
“Without it, people would have believed [the Saudi narrative] that they were [the ones responsible for firing the] missile launchers,” he told Al Jazeera.
Lingering trauma
Despite the school’s many shortcomings owing to its limited resources, teacher al-Ojeri said it was one of the few places in Dahyan which provided routine, with classes offering a brief respite from the horrors of war.
But now as term begins again, several students are unable to shake off their lingering trauma.
“When I see my [new] teacher standing in front of me, I’m reminded of those teachers who were killed in the assault,” said Ahmad, Hassan Hanash’s 14-year-old brother.
An image of Ahmad after the attack, showing him soaked in blood, highlighted the devastation being unleashed in Yemen.
“I keep remembering when I was at the hospital and seeing all that blood and chaos around me,” he said.
Attempting to put on a brave face, the child added that he would not allow the attack to deprive him of an education, referring to several pupils who had chosen not to return to school.
“By God, I will remain steadfast,” he said.
But with the Yemen Data Project reporting more than 101 air raids on Saada province last month alone, and one attack striking a school, Ahmad’s future, like countless other Yemenis looks bleak.
Ahmed Ali Hanash attends class at his school which lost pupils in an August 2018 Saudi-led air strike on a school bus in Saada province [Naseh Shaker/Al Jazeera]
One of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, the U.S.-based Coinbase, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $300 million in a new round of financing.
The round, led by Tiger Global Management, values the company at more than $8 billion.
Y Combinator Continuity, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain also contributed to the funding round, among others.
Coinbase says it will use the funds to accelerate global expansion, introduce more crypto assets to its platform and continue development of utility applications in the space, such as its recently announced USDC stablecoin and the Coinbase Wallet. Finally, the company plans to bring more institutional funds into the crypto space.
We’re pleased to announce our latest funding round, led by Tiger Global Management. We plan to accelerate our global expansion and investments in the utility phase of crypto—always working to create a more open financial system for the world. Read more: https://t.co/JzGlMGLjaC
“We see Coinbase’s growth as validation that the ecosystem will only continue to grow in size, influence and impact — ultimately ushering in a more open financial system for the world,” the company said in a blog post.
Coinbase has been growing like a weed when Bitcoin and Ethereum prices were raging early this year. But even when the prices pulled back, Coinbase continued to expand, having recently introduced a stablecoin, adding new cryptocurrencies to its platform, and launching new tools for institutional and professional investors.
The result of that expansion is that $8 billion valuation — as TechCrunch notes, it’s a huge increase from the $1.6 billion the company was valued in August 2017.
Disclosure: The author of this text owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH.
Well, congrats to Prince Harry for making us all cry at our desks this morning.
He had a conversation with a 6-year-old boy in Auckland, New Zealand, who lost his mum when he was one year old and offered up some comforting and inspiring words.
Prince Harry was just 12 years old when his mother, Princess Diana, was tragically killed in a car accident in Paris, France. He has since talked publicly about the impact losing his mum at such a young age had on his mental health.
“Don’t you worry about having just one parent,” said Harry, after the boy’s grandmother told him that her grandson looks up to him.
“You live here in Auckland? You gonna be a rugby player?” he joked.
“Life will always be alright, you know that? I made it to 34 years old and life is great, I’ve got a beautiful wife and a baby on the way,” he said. Your life is gonna be sorted, don’t you worry about that.”
Head coach Mike D’Antoni stated the obvious Tuesday night.
“Right now, we’re playing like crap,” D’Antoni told reporters after the Rockets‘ 104-85 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. “We’re just not playing well. You know, I don’t have a whole lot of answers for you now. We’ll look, and we’ll fight it.”
The Rockets sit 1-5 and turned in a listless home performance in which they shot just 32.3 percent from the floor. Carmelo Anthony shot 2-of-12 from the floor, and his acquisition is at the very least a slow work in progress if not an outright bust.
The Rockets have lost their last two games without James Harden by a combined 39 points. Chris Paul has shot a disappointing 9-of-32 in those contests, his first since returning from a two-game suspension.
“It’s very easy for the negativity to start seeping into the room,” Anthony said. “For me, I’m just here to make sure that that doesn’t happen. We don’t need that right now, especially not in this locker room. You don’t kick a dog when it’s down. We’re all we’ve got right now, and we can figure this out.”
Houston went an NBA-best 65-17 last season and took the Golden State Warriors to Game 7 in the Western Conference Finals. Changes in role players have resulted in the most marked change, with Anthony and Michael Carter-Williams performing poorly. The Rockets had a far deeper bench last season and players who fit better defensively, particularly Luc Mbah a Moute and Trevor Ariza.
Any team missing the reigning MVP is going to hurt a bit, but it’s a surprise to see the Rockets completely fall apart. Paul is still among the NBA’s best point guards and was a legitimate force for most of last season. He hasn’t looked capable of being the best player on a winning team so far this year.
D’Antoni and his coaching staff—and perhaps their front office—have some work to do turning this around.
DEMOCRATS WILL WIN, PELOSI SAYS … HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI (D-CALIF.) last night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”: PELOSI: “Let me say this. Up until today, I would’ve said, ‘If the election were held today, we would win.’” COLBERT: “What happened today that changed that?” PELOSI: “What now I’m saying is, ‘We will win.’”
COLBERT: “Please don’t say that. … Do you want to say that on Hillary’s fireworks barge that she canceled? … Please don’t say that. … And how long are the curtains that you’re measuring right now?” PELOSI: “No, we’re not measuring. We’re just walking precincts and if everyone votes, we’ll have even a bigger victory. But Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the Senate, governorships, it’s going to be a great night for America.” The 8:56 clip
A THOUGHT EXERCISE … In the last few days, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has said the U.S. is going to build tent cities all over the place to stop migrants. He said he was going to unilaterally change the constitutional principle of birthright citizenship. He said he was going to release a tax bill to further cut income tax rates by 10 percent. Imagine what he’ll say when he, himself, is up for re-election in two years.
— WSJ ED-BOARD: “President Trump really, really wants to make the midterm election about immigration, and for a while it looked like he had an edge due to Democratic excess. But with this week’s pre-election vow to end birthright citizenship in America by executive order, Mr. Trump has driven into his own constitutional ditch.” WSJ
THINGS WE ARE STILL WAITING TO SEE … STEVE BANNON’S multimillion-dollar ad blitz on behalf of House Republicans. … That tax bill that Trump has said would be released ahead of a post-election vote.
2020 WATCH … THE EMPTYING WHITE HOUSE … ALEX ISENSTADT: “‘Moving day’: White House staffers set to split for 2020 campaign”: “The first moves could come shortly after next week’s election, when senior Trump aides Bill Stepien, the director of political affairs, and Justin Clark, who oversees the office of public liaison, are expected to take senior roles with the reelection effort, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans. Both are heavily involved in the run-up to the midterms and had top positions on Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“The list is almost certain to grow. Jessica Ditto, a staffer in the White House press office who worked on the first Trump campaign, is widely expected join the 2020 team in a communications role. Cabinet aides with political backgrounds — such as Jason Simmons, a Small Business Administration staffer who ran Trump’s North Carolina effort — are regarded as potential hires.
“And on Thursday evening, the Trump campaign alumni group 45 Club is scheduled to meet at Morton’s steakhouse in downtown Washington to discuss how ‘members can get involved and engaged in 2020 after the midterms,’ according to a copy of the invitation.” POLITICO
Good Wednesday morning and Happy Halloween! SIX DAYS until Election Day. SPOTTED: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and his security detail, at the Whitman vs. Bethesda-Chevy Chase boys’ soccer game. Whitman won, 2-1.
BOB HUGIN, the Republican running against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), gave his campaign $3.5 million yesterday.
SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-ARIZ.) will headline the Radio and Television Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner on Nov. 14 at The Anthem.
THE LATEST IN PITTSBURGH …
— AP’S MARYCLAIRE DALE and ALLEN BREED in Pittsburgh: “Mourning and protests as Pittsburgh begins victims’ burials”: “As thousands in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community began burying their dead President Donald Trump encountered hundreds of protesters when he arrived to pay his respects.
“Funerals were held Tuesday for a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two 50-something brothers known as the Rosenthal ‘boys.’ Thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the first in a weeklong series of funerals for victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Funerals continue on Wednesday with Melvin Wax, Irving Younger and Joyce Fienberg being laid to rest.
“Trump, meanwhile, arrived to shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as ‘It’s your fault’ and ‘Words matter,’ a reference to allegations his bellicose language has emboldened bigots. Pennsylvania’s governor and the mayor of Pittsburgh declined to join him during the visit.” AP
ANNIE KARNI and ELIANA JOHNSON: “How Trump’s ‘birthright’ idea went from the fringe to the Oval Office”: “Vocal proponents of ending birthright citizenship acknowledge that view has long been dismissed as a far-right fantasy. Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon, who supports the idea of ending birthright citizenship and favored the broad use of executive actions, when he served in the administration, wanted to keep the hot-button issue on the back burner.
“And when the idea came up at a Heritage Foundation symposium in September, one scholar at the conservative think tank cautioned that those who ‘even hover near the question of birthright citizenship immediately feel the wrath of the ruling class.’
“But President Donald Trump has never been cowed by elite opinion, and on Tuesday, less than a week before the midterm elections, he made it a major political flashpoint, telling Axios in an interview posted on Tuesday that he was preparing an executive order to end the Constitutional guarantee of American citizenship to anyone born within the U.S.” POLITICO
CNN’S MANU RAJU and ELIZABETH LANDERS in North Charleston, S.C.: “How Lindsey Graham shifted from Trump detractor to defender”: “An ebullient Lindsey Graham hopped off the stump here after revving up a room full of conservative voters, reliving his furious defense of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearings and making clear he was on President Donald Trump’s side.
“After streams of voters lined up to take selfies with Graham last week, the detractor-turned-Trump-defender was asked: Is there any room for a Trump critic in today’s Republican Party?
“‘I don’t think there’s any room in the party for wanting him to fail,’ Graham, a South Carolina Republican and now a chief Trump ally, recently told CNN. ‘If they see your criticism is designed to want him to fail or not support him, then you’re in trouble.’ Graham quickly added: ‘Most people in that room want me to stay close to the President.’” CNN
RACHAEL BADE and JOHN BRESNAHAN: “Stivers ‘could not stay silent’ on Steve King”: “Steve Stivers had had enough. In an extraordinary moment just a week before the critical midterm elections, the chairman of the House Republican campaign arm called out a sitting colleague, accusing him of being racist. Stivers, who leads the [NRCC], had been briefed on racially charged comments made recently by Iowa Republican Steve King, an immigration hard-liner with a history of controversial and insensitive remarks.
“And so with not even a heads-up to GOP leaders, Stivers went on Twitter and blasted his colleague. He ‘could not stay silent,’ said one source familiar with his thinking. ‘Congressman Steve King’s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate,’ Stivers wrote on Tuesday afternoon.
“‘We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.’ King has a history of racially insensitive comments, but he’s recently sparked even more of a backlash over his decision to endorse Faith Goldy — a white nationalist running for mayor of Toronto — and his latest criticism of liberal donor George Soros.
“In an interview with members of a far-right Austrian political party with historical Nazi ties, he tied Soros to the ‘Great Replacement’ — a far-right conspiracy theory describing a push to replace white Europeans with minorities.” POLITICO
KANYE DITCHES POLITICS … @kanyewest: “My eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!”
SCOOP — “Justice Department investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke,” by CNN’s Pamela Brown, Evan Perez, Lauren Fox and Gregory Wallace: “The Justice Department is investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for possibly using his office for personal gain, following a referral from Interior’s inspector general, two sources familiar with the investigation say. …
“Zinke has faced multiple ethics questions during his time at Interior, and the inspector general’s office has multiple public inquiries into the secretary including the department’s handling of a Connecticut casino project, whether the boundaries for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument were redrawn to benefit a state lawmaker and conversations between Zinke and Halliburton Chairman David Lesar about a Montana land development project.
“Zinke said he has not been contacted by the Justice Department. ‘They haven’t talked to me. It will be the same thing as all the other investigations. I follow all rules, procedures, regulations and most importantly the law. This is another politically driven investigation that has no merit,’ Zinke told CNN.” CNN… Background: POLITICO, June 19: “Exclusive: Zinke linked to real estate deal with Halliburton chairman”
2018 WATCH— MARC CAPUTO in Miami, “Florida governor’s race gets down in the gutter”: “Dog-whistle charges. Black minstrel-voice robocalls. A claim that a candidate ‘justified slavery.’ In the contest for Florida governor, race dominates the race. Whether measured by rhetoric, tactics or strategy, the campaign between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum is shot-through with racial politics, putting the nation’s rawest and most sensitive issue at the center of one of the hardest-fought elections of the year.” POLITICO
— NATASHA KORECKI in Milwaukee: “Biden embarks on working class whisperer tour”: “Joe Biden stepped into a union hall here on Tuesday, spinning another folksy tale, this one about his uncle from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would tell him: ‘Joe, you’re labor from belt buckle to shoe sole.’
“Two days into a big Midwestern push this week that will take him to at least six states — five of which Donald Trump carried — the former vice president was in familiar form, reminding Democrats of the lane he’ll occupy if he decides to run for president in 2020: the party’s ambassador to the working class.
“With a Youngstown, Ohio, visit Monday and two Wisconsin rallies Tuesday, Biden has traveled to 22 states to campaign for 60 candidates. In recent weeks, he’s showcased his versatility as a surrogate: He’s stumped in Indiana for Sen. Joe Donnelly; in Florida for Sen. Bill Nelson; and for House candidates ranging from Orange County, California, to Kentucky to Upstate New York. The former vice president even squeezed in a visit to London, where he delivered a foreign policy speech.” POLITICO
— VICE’S WILLIAM TURTON: “We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them”: “[O]n the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, a VICE News investigation found the ‘Paid for by’ feature is easily manipulated and appears to allow anyone to lie about who is paying for a political ad, or to pose as someone paying for the ad.To test it, VICE News applied to buy fake ads on behalf of all 100 sitting U.S. senators, including ads ‘Paid for by’ by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer.
“Facebook’s approvals were bipartisan: All 100 sailed through the system, indicating that just about anyone can buy an ad identified as ‘Paid for by’ by a major U.S. politician. What’s more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as ‘Cookies for Political Transparency’ and ‘Ninja Turtles PAC.’” Vice
— NEW VIDEO: In the fourth installment of POLITICO’s video series “The Midterm View,” Eugene Daniels and Mary Newman look into how Trump’s policies on mining and farming are affecting two congressional races in Iowa and Minnesota. The video
THE INVESTIGATIONS — DARREN SAMUELSOHN: “Mueller asks FBI to probe scheme seeking sexual assault dirt on him”: “Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked the FBI to investigate an alleged scheme to manufacture sexual assault stories about him.
“At issue is an email widely circulated this month among journalists from someone who claimed she’d been approached with an offer to pay her tens of thousands of dollars if she’d answer questions about Mueller and then sign a sworn affidavit accusing him of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment.
“‘When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,’ Mueller spokesman Peter Carr said in an email.” POLITICO … The email
— WAPO’S BOB COSTA, CAROL LEONNIG, ROS HELDERMAN and MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA: “Mueller probes Roger Stone’s interactions with Trump campaign and timing of WikiLeaks release of Podesta emails”: “The special counsel investigation is pressing witnesses about longtime Trump ally Roger Stone’s private interactions with senior campaign officials and whether he had knowledge of politically explosive Democratic emails that were released in October 2016, according to people familiar with the probe. As part of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III appears to be focused on the question of whether WikiLeaks coordinated its activities with Stone and the campaign, including the group’s timing …
“Stone and WikiLeaks have adamantly denied being in contact. On Friday, Mueller’s team questioned Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, about claims Stone is said to have made privately about WikiLeaks before the group released emails that prosecutors say were hacked by Russian operatives, according to people familiar with the session.” WaPo
TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY — THE PRESIDENT will meet with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at 1:30 p.m. At 2:30 p.m., he’ll attend the Our Pledge to America’s Workers event. He will leave the White House at 3:40 p.m. for a trip to Fort Myers, Fla., where he’ll hold a rally at 7 p.m. He’s scheduled back into the White House at 11:05 p.m.
— THE VP will go to Mansfield, Ohio, for a rally for Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) and Mike DeWine.
HAPPENING TODAY — per White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters: “Following President Trump’s signing of an Executive Order establishing the President’s National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, the President, today, will participate in a discussion on the nation’s growing economy and the Administration’s comprehensive workforce development efforts to ensure more Americans have the skills necessary to succeed.
“During the executive order signing, over 20 companies and organizations pledged to create enhanced career opportunities for over 3,800,000 Americans through increased apprenticeships and work-based learning programs, continuing education, on-the-job training, and re-skilling.
“The President is proud to announce that since the establishment of the Pledge to America’s Workers, over 160 companies and organizations have pledged to create 6.39 million new enhanced career opportunities for America’s workers.”
EXPECTED TO ATTEND: Trump, Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, Larry Kudlow, Ivanka Trump, Kevin Hassett, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Kentucky Gov. Matthew Bevin and Textron CEO Scott Donnelly.
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WEDNESDAY LISTEN — ANNA spoke with MARTHA MACCALLUM of FOX NEWS in the latest “Women Rule” podcast, where the host of “The Story with Martha MacCallum” called out Trump for his divisive rhetoric.“When he points at the press in the back of the room and calls them the enemy of the people, that is wrong,” MacCallum said in an interview earlier this fall. “And it exacerbates the situation.” When asked her perspective on Trump calling the media “fake news,” the she added: “I find it disturbing. I think it’s a mistake.” Listen and subscribe
PAUL DEMKO in Boise, Idaho, “Obamacare enrollment opens facing pressure from new Trump attacks”: “No deeply conservative state has done more than Idaho to make Obamacare work. But no other state is doing more to untangle itself from the health care law. On the eve of the 2019 open enrollment season, at least three insurers are selling plans in every corner of the sprawling state. … But Idaho officials are backing a radical plan to offer skimpier coverage options, sounding the alarm over their insurance marketplace. They estimate enrollment in the individual market has shrunk by about a third in three years as premiums skyrocketed.” POLITICO
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION — “Inside Trump’s Plan to Scale Back U.N. Resolutions on Sexual Health, Violence Against Women,” by Foreign Policy’s Robbie Gramer and Colum Lynch: “One of the memos obtained by FP says the United States can no longer use the phrases ‘sexual and reproductive health’ or ‘comprehensive sexuality education,’ saying such terms promote abortions and normalize sexual activity for young people.” FP
— “Senior Saudi Prince Returns to Kingdom as Royals Confront Khashoggi Crisis,” by NYT’s David Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard in London: “A senior member of the Saudi royal family, who had feared returning to the kingdom, flew back to Riyadh from London on Tuesday in the most significant move in the royal family since the killing of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi. …
“As one of the most senior figures in the royal family, Prince Ahmed, in his 70s, could help bestow legitimacy on any family response to the furor over Mr. Khashoggi’s killing — whether that response might be some effort to limit the crown prince’s unrivaled power or instead to reinforce his grip on the kingdom.” NYT
K STREET FILES — “A Donald Trump appointee — also a Saudi government lobbyist — is reassessing his roles,” by the Center for Public Integrity’s Sarah Kleiner and Lateshia Beachum: “Richard F. Hohlt, a longtime lobbyist who has served on the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships since Trump appointed him to the post in June 2017, said in emails with the Center for Public Integrity that his upcoming 71st birthday has caused him to reconsider who he represents. ‘I am currently in the process of reevaluating my representation, my participation, and retirement,’ Hohlt said in an email.” CPI
NYT’S MAGGIE HABERMAN — “Barbra Streisand Can’t Get Trump Out of Her Head. So She Sang About Him: Her new album, ‘Walls,’ is a rare instance of politics permeating her music, and in an interview, she could barely stop talking about her least favorite president.” NYT
MEDIAWATCH — “Megyn Kelly Character Cut From Showtime’s Roger Ailes Series,” by The Hollywood Reporter’s Tatiana Siegel: “A Megyn Kelly character is getting the boot from a Showtime project about Fox News chief Roger Ailes’ downfall, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Sources say the NBC News anchor will no longer be featured in the untitled limited series from producer Jason Blum, based on Gabriel Sherman’s book ‘The Loudest Voice in the Room.’” THR
REMEMBERING ADAM CLYMER — A memorial service was held for him last night at the Cosmos Club. Pool report: Jill “Zuckman called him a ‘major league mentor and a big time feminist.’ ACU’s David Keene recalled fly-fishing with Adam, and how they were able to maintain their friendship because their favorite teams were in different leagues. [Howell Raines called him a] ‘consummate old-school newspaperman’ … ‘Adam had been called worse names by better men.’ [Clymer famously was called a ‘major league a***hole’ by George W. Bush on a hot-mic during the 2000 campaign.]
“We ‘both started dating Ted Kennedy in the spring of 1991. I became his wife and Adam became his biographer,’ [recalled Vicki] Kennedy. ‘Ted believed that Adam would be fair and tell the whole story’ because of his ‘masterful grasp of both politics and policy.’ ‘Even though he did enjoy wearing that mask of a curmudgeon, he really was a gentle man, a gentleman with … an encyclopedic mind.’ [There was also a v]ideo at the end by book editor and friend John Van Vliet documenting Adam’s last catch, bringing everyone to tears.” Other speakers included Rick Berke, Lynda Onthank/Jane Fessenden, Amy Palmer-Ellis and Elisabeth Bumiller.
SPOTTED: Stephanie Cutter, Jeff Zeleny, Carl Hulse, Mark Shields, Eric Lipton, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Karen Tumulty, Ceci Connolly, Maralee Schwartz, Bill Plante, John and Barbara Cochran, Elaine Povich, Steven Weisman, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Bill Kovach, Maureen Dowd, Jonathan Martin, Jackie Calmes, Diane Dewhirst, Bombay Club owner Ashok Bajaj, Marty Tolchin and Carol Balassa, Adam’s friend from summer camp and, later, partner.
TRANSITIONS … OBAMA ALUMNI: Karen Kornbluh will join the German Marshall Fund as director of GMF’s new technology policy program and senior fellow. She most recently was senior fellow for digital policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served as policy director to Barack Obama in the Senate and was ambassador to the OECD in the Obama administration.
— Rachel Kelly, the pride of Fairfield, Conn.,is leaving Rep. Jim Himes’ (D-Conn.) office after 10 years to serve as Rep. Derek Kilmer’s (D-Wash.) chief of staff. Kelly was most recently Himes’ deputy chief of staff.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — BUSH ALUMNI: Rob Saliterman, a former Bush administration official and Google and Snap alum, and Lara Crystal, co-founder and co-CEO of Minibar Delivery, emailed friends and family: “We are grateful and thrilled to announce the arrival of Samuel Charles Saliterman [Tuesday] at 12:56 p.m. at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Sam entered the world weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and 21.3 inches long. He has his dad’s hair and his mom’s intuition and loving personality. … Lara and Sam are both resting comfortably as Sam contemplates options for a last-minute Halloween costume — he can’t wait to meet everyone.” Pic … Another pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Luke Mullins, senior writer at Washingtonian. How he got his start in journalism: “I got a bit of a late start in journalism. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa and then a baseball coach at an elementary school in the Dominican Republic. When I got back to the U.S., I spent a year in journalism school at Syracuse and then I got an internship at Roll Call in 2005.” Playbook Plus Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Sam Tanenhaus is 63 … Frank Bruni is 54 … Jane Pauley is 68 … Dan Rather is 87 … Mike Ambrosini, a Trump WH alum who is now principal at Michael Best Strategies (hat tip: Vanessa Morrone) … Justin Bis … Archana Mehta … Michael Kruse … ProPublica’s Marilyn Thompson … The New Yorker’s Susan Orlean … Brad Spahn … Peter Pasi, VP of political sales at Zeta Global … Clay Heil of Ice Miller Strategies … Lisa Hagen, campaign reporter for The Hill … Howard Friedman, former president of AIPAC … Alana Goodman … Cathy Cavender … Ryan Morgan, CEO of Veracity Media … Cibele Reschke … Laura Oatman … Adam Braun is 35 … Kenny Thompson Jr., senior director of gov’t and external affairs at PepsiCo, is 38 (h/t Jon Banner) … Cynthia Meyer …
… Olivia Alair Dalton, SVP of comms and marketing for Human Rights Campaign … POLITICO New Jersey’s Linh Tat … Sarah Brown … Herman Van Rompuy is 71 … David Jolly is 46 … Edelman’s Joe Kon … Lauren Vrazilek of Universal Pictures … The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff … George Bogden … Marilyn Rosenthal, national director for progressive engagement at AIPAC … Piper Perabo … Chris Stelmarski, VP of digital strategy at Murphy Vogel Askew Reilly … Jon Seaton is 43 … Rachel Bauer Taylor … Bobby Batts … Kay Ryon Daly … Barbara Laker … Carol Mason … John Rowley … John McCaslin … Ellen Warren … Bobby Pitts … Kim McElyea Traczyk … Regena Thomas … Brian Kettenring (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)
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Daily Trends Hunter 