A sea of 500 tents covered the white sands of remote Ham Tin Wan in Sai Kung during a recent holiday, turning one of Hong Kong’s most scenic beaches into a makeshift campsite for crowds of overnight visitors. Some of the campers had joined tours from mainland China for the Labour Day “golden week” holiday, sleeping in rows of identical tents and gathering around camping tables for hotpot dinners, ...
A sea of 500 tents covered the white sands of remote Ham Tin Wan in Sai Kung during a recent holiday, turning one of Hong Kong’s most scenic beaches into a makeshift campsite for crowds of overnight visitors. Some of the campers had joined tours from mainland China for the Labour Day “golden week” holiday, sleeping in rows of identical tents and gathering around camping tables for hotpot dinners, with ingredients hauled across the border by their guides. By morning, the sink in the beach’s only...
"It Was Like Two Bucks": Homeless Residents Say They Were Paid To Vote In Los Angeles Mayoral Race Shocking videos posted on social media show multiple homeless Skid Row residents claiming they accepted cash payments ranging from $2 to $5 in exchange for voting for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and city councilwoman Nithya Raman in last week's mayoral election. Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the...
"It Was Like Two Bucks": Homeless Residents Say They Were Paid To Vote In Los Angeles Mayoral Race Shocking videos posted on social media show multiple homeless Skid Row residents claiming they accepted cash payments ranging from $2 to $5 in exchange for voting for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and city councilwoman Nithya Raman in last week's mayoral election. Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the mayoral race on Monday, after Raman secured the number two spot in what many believe was a mathematically improbable surge in votes from post-Election Day mail-in ballots. Skid Row is home to almost 4,000 people and has the highest concentration of homelessness in Los Angeles County. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) A man who identified himself as Kevin Shepherd says he cast a mail-in ballot for Bass after being offered $2 and negotiating the payment up to $4. He says he completed the ballot and deposited it into a ballot box. When asked whether payments extended to Raman as well, Shepherd confirmed they did. He also told investigators that outreach workers showed up in the area "three to five times a week" in the weeks leading up to the election, with multiple organizations cycling through. Rene Johnson, 39, told a similar story. She says she received $5 after being directed to vote for Bass and describes groups regularly moving through Skid Row asking residents to sign paperwork. "But, you know, at the time, I didn't know that that was going on," Johnson said. "I was just trying to make five bucks, you know? But I didn't do the fraud ." Asked directly whether she believed the arrangement amounted to fraud, Johnson did not hesitate. She called it "fraudulent behavior" and said she believed people were being taken advantage of. A third, unidentified woman who says she lives on the street described a recurring pattern of politically motivated visits. "It was like two bucks," she said of her payment, adding that "yeah, they come out here all the time." A fourth resident, M...
IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) is facing social media controversy after former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli accused the company of exaggerating its quantum computing capabilities, including claims related to Bitcoin mining. The dispute has fueled questions about IonQ's technology disclosures and has drawn wider attention to how quantum computing potential is described to investors and the public. At ...
IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) is facing social media controversy after former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli accused the company of exaggerating its quantum computing capabilities, including claims related to Bitcoin mining. The dispute has fueled questions about IonQ's technology disclosures and has drawn wider attention to how quantum computing potential is described to investors and the public. At the same time, IonQ, along with Google and Microsoft, was not included in a new US government...