Too bad we didn’t have the G-7 here. I offered to pick up the entire cost, would have saved at least $35,000,000 for the USA. Best location. Very stupid people thought I would gain. Wrong! Looking at Camp David. Will announce soon.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1198613021226131456

A Muslim woman who has been hailed a 'hero' for confronting a man hurling anti-Semitic abuse at Jewish children on the London Underground said she "wouldn't hesitate to do it again".

Asma Shuweikh, from London, stepped in when a man began reading anti-Jewish bible passages to two young boys in skullcaps while they were travelling with their family on the Northern Line.

The shocking incident was captured on camera by fellow passenger Chris Atkins who then shared the footage on social media.

Wearing a cap and hoody, the man is seen in the video threatening a man off-camera after he tries to intervene before a woman in a hijab - Mrs Shuweikh - steps in.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/hero-muslim-woman-who-defended-jewish-children-from-shocking-antisemitic-abuse-on-tube-says-she-a4294926.html

TRUMP confirms to pool on AF1 what two sources have said has been discussed for days - that he's likely to commute Rod Blagojevich's sentence.

“I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly; he was given close to 18 years in prison. And a lot of people thought it was unfair, like a lot of other things — and it was the same gang, the Comey gang and all these sleazebags that did it. And his name is Rod Blagojevich."

Per administration officials, BLAGO - another person with an Apprentice connection - has been pushed for a pardon by Trump's son-in-law, Kushner. Aides got Trump to agree to a commutation instead.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1159299367326691330

Let's get back to discussing critical national-security issues confronting America. The threats are grave and growing. The presidency and control of the House and the Senate will all be decided in less than one year. It's time to speak up again! #JohnBolton

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1198240903577645056

US president Donald Trump is almost two weeks into the impeachment hearings that have roiled his administration. But it hasn’t prevented him from making some winter plans to play a little golf.

The president spends a lot of time on the links, almost exclusively at his own properties. At the end of October, Trump made his 224th visit to one of his 17 golf courses since assuming office three years ago. On each outing, the Secret Service must follow. And with their golf carts comes a big bill for the American public.

As Trump rides around with his invited guests—on his last visit to the Trump National Golf Course in Potomac, Maryland, he was accompanied by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, and Republican senators Lindsey Graham and David Perdue—the Secret Service is never far behind, in their own carts. As Quartz first reported, the carts require modifications that allow them to go at least 19 mph, about 5 mph faster than a standard cart.

The Secret Service has rented 84 golf carts for Trump’s planned visits to Florida between now and May 2020, costing US taxpayers more than $50,000, according to federal procurement filings. That brings the total cost of the agency’s cart rentals for Trump’s golf outings to more than $550,000.



https://qz.com/1753518/trump-golf-cart-rentals-have-now-cost-us-taxpayers-550000/

In 1928, when Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute received a truckload of mangled and singed machine parts, they had no idea what it was. A boy’s porcelain head and hands and a pile of brass springs, levers, and gears—it looked like an automaton that had been in a bar fight.

It wasn’t until the puzzle pieces were reassembled that the machine revealed its identity. The boy was a writing and drawing automaton, capable of creating beautifully decorated poetry (in English and French) and charming drawings of Cupids, a three-masted ship, and a Chinese temple. The mystery of his origin was solved when the boy was wound, and he wrote out, at the bottom of one of the poems, “Ecrit par l’automate de Maillardet” – “Written by Maillardet’s automaton”.

Henri Maillardet was a Swiss-born watchmaker and mechanician, born in 1745. He was a master of automatons (or automata), finely tuned and controlled mechanisms that perform rote—and sometimes elaborate—functions. Their “memory” is stored on brass discs called cams, which activate a series of linkages to enable precise and preordained movements. Maillardet had built several automatons, including this one, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The boy-machine was a money-maker for Maillardet in its day but had been sold at some point to a 19th century showman named Maelzel, who exhibited it widely, including in the United States. There is some evidence that Maelzel then sold it to P.T. Barnum, who may have had it on display at his museum in New York when a fire devastated the building in 1865. Perhaps the boy was injured then?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/maillardets-automaton?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=atlas-page