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A Call to Arms From That Annoying Woman in the PTA

Dear parents, Greetings, fellow chauffeurs, cooks, therapists and personal assistants! Mandy Jensen here, mom to 4th-grade quadruplets McKenzie, McKenna, McQueen and McLean. I’m sure you know who I am: The woman perpetually wearing $200 yoga pants and $250 sneakers, someone with six kids and an inexhaustible wellspring of energy, who allegedly works a full-time job while also playing paddle tennis six times a week, running the PTA, crocheting all the banners for spirit week and still baking allergen-free souffles for the bimonthly Children’s Hospital bake sale. Every time ...

Prices Are No Longer a Big Deal

May I be so bold as to note that the price of turkey is down this year? To be specific, a 16-pound turkey now costs an average $27.35. That’s a 5.6% drop from last Thanksgiving. Making a big deal out of this would not be necessary had all things turkey not become an obsession two years ago. Remember the drama over a rise in the cost of Thanksgiving dinner so manageable that virtually no menus changed? Recall how the news channels couldn’t talk enough about a turkey shortage that, actually, didn’t exist? But it is necessary now that food inflation has been much tamed. We ...

TikTok Dilemma Continues

On May 2, 2011, American soldiers raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and recovered an undated letter to the United States. It was a propagandistic letter calling for endless wars against American imperialism. It circulated on several news sites including The Guardian. On the day Chinese dictator Xi Jinping met with American President Joe Biden in San Francisco, the letter began circulating on TikTok, a website controlled by the Chinese military. Thousands of American kids began circulating and sharing bin Laden’s anti-American commentary. “Continue the war if you ...

Precandidates File For Intermediate Court

By STEVEN ALLEN ADAMS For The Intelligencer CHARLESTON — For the first time, West Virginia voters will get to select the first elected member of the state Intermediate Court of Appeals. Charleston-based attorney Mychal Schulz announced Tuesday that he will run for the first seat up for election on the new Intermediate Court of Appeals. Speaking by phone Monday prior to Tuesday’s announcement, Schulz said he wants to bring his 31 years of experience as a litigator to the new court. “While this is a new court and maybe not well known in the public, it’s a court that does ...

OpenAI Brings Back Altman As CEO Days After Firing

The ousted leader of ChatGPT maker OpenAI will return to the company that fired him just days ago, concluding a short but chaotic power struggle that shocked the tech industry and underscored the conflicts around how to safely build artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based company said late Tuesday that it “reached an agreement in principle” for co-founder Sam Altman to return as CEO under a different board of directors. The board will be led by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who chaired Twitter’s board before Elon Musk took over the platform last year. The other ...

Waddingham Special Takes Viewers ‘Home For Christmas’

By ALICIA RANCILIO Associated Press Hannah Waddingham’s friends weren’t exactly ready to celebrate Christmas when they received an invitation to attend a live taping of her holiday special last May at the London Coliseum. It “was uncommonly sweaty in London,” recalled Waddingham, “and there was us putting out an invitation saying, ‘Please wear your Christmas finery.’ So many of my friends rang me, were like, ‘Dude, really?’ I was like, ‘Yes, get your Christmas sweater out. If I’m going to be sweating, so can you.’” “ Hannah Waddingham: Home for ...