These are the top maybe-not headlines from the past 36-hours presented by The Conversation Project from raw engagement data from our social media to the headlines posted over the past day.
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The 8 topics that our followers ranked as the most conversational are:
STERLING PROFESSOR HAROLD BLOOM DIES AT 89
The 89-year-old literary critic wrote over forty books in his lifetime and attained widespread academic recognition for his innovative interpretations of poetry. Bloom was known as a “lone warrior in the literary world,” according to a 2003 Atlantic article, because of his passionate defense of romantic poetry. At Yale, Bloom is teaching two Humanities classes for undergraduates this semester: “Shakespeare and the Canon: Histories, Comedies, and Poems” and “Poetic Influence from Shakespeare to Keats.” He taught his last class at Yale on October 10, 2019. Bloom joined the Yale faculty over 50 years earlier.
[SOURCE: yaledailynews.com]
UAW BOOSTS STRIKE PAY AS GM WALKOUT CONTINUES
The United Auto Workers union said Saturday it will boost strike pay for 48,000 hourly workers at General Motors Co by $25 a week to $275 as a strike against the largest U.S. automaker nears the end of its fourth week. Talks were continuing late Saturday afternoon to try to resolve the longest nationwide strike at GM since 1970, both sides said. The UAW also said it would allow members striking to take on part-time jobs without reducing their strike pay – as long as they perform picket-line duties. The strike pay hike was previously set to increase on Jan. 1. Also Saturday, details of a revised GM contract offer emerged, with a person briefed on the matter confirming that GM had boosted its proposed ratification bonus by $1,000 to $9,000. GM has proposed 3% pay raises in the second and fourth year of the four-year-contract and 3% and 4% lump sum payments in the first and fourth year respectively, the person confirmed. The company would agree to make temporary workers permanent with three years of service and they would get a $3,000 bonus upon ratification of the contract.
[SOURCE: reuters.com]
3-TIME PRO BOWL WIDE RECEIVER ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT
A longtime NFL wide receiver and three-time Pro Bowler has officially announced his retirement from the league. The veteran wide receiver is officially retiring with the Baltimore Ravens. Anquan Boldin, a three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver and 14-year NFL veteran, has officially retired from the league. The Ravens announced the news this afternoon. Boldin’s announcement came during this afternoon’s Ravens game. Naturally, he got a huge ovation from the Baltimore crowd.
[SOURCE: thespun.com]
WOMAN SUES HOTEL AFTER WAITER ADDS LIQUID NITROGEN TO HER DRINK
A Tampa woman is suing the Don Cesar Hotel, alleging severe injuries she suffered after liquid nitrogen was poured into her drink, WFTS reported. According to the lawsuit, Stacey Wagers was celebrating her birthday with a friend on Nov. 11, 2018, when the incident happened. She claims that a waiter who was using liquid nitrogen on another guest’s dessert, to make it smoke, added the chemical to her water. Wagers says after taking a sip of the water. She became so sick she was rushed to the hospital. The incident forced Wagers to have her gallbladder and part of her stomach removed, according to the lawsuit. “She lost about 26 pounds as a result of this because she couldn’t eat,” attorney with Morgan and Morgan Adam Brum said. “She had to have laparoscopic surgery where they go in and actually scrape away the dead portions of tissue that was in her stomach from being frozen. The initial injury was to the tissue in her stomach, which they went in and had to do surgery on. And, then it turned out that this had done damage to her gallbladder, she had to have that removed.”
[SOURCE: kvia.com]
APPLE IPHONE SE2 WILL COST $399 AND LAUNCH IN Q1 2020, KUO SAYS
TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said the phone, which he calls the iPhone SE2, will include the same processor that’s in the new iPhone 11. It will succeed the iPhone SE, which launched in 2016. An Apple spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. In a note to investors Sunday, Kuo reiterated that the iPhone SE2 will have a similar design to the iPhone 8. That suggests Apple will be able to reuse parts from that phone while upgrading some of the internal components, like the processor and camera. It will be offered in silver, space gray and red, Kuo said. Kuo also predicted that the budget iPhone will likely attract people who are still using the iPhone 6 and 6s, which he estimates are still being used by as many as 200 million people, even though those phones launched five years ago. He said the new phone will be a “key growth driver” for Apple next year. The “iPhone 6 and 6s series are the best-selling iPhone series, and we estimate that around 170–200mn people are still using iPhone 6 and 6s series now,” Kuo wrote. “The iPhone 6 series users may have more urgent replacement demand for an upgraded model because iOS 13 doesn’t support iPhone 6 series.” The iOS 13 software is Apple’s latest iPhone operating system, but it doesn’t support the iPhone 6. It was released last month.
[SOURCE: cnbc.com]
BOX OFFICE: ‘JOKER’ GOES CRAZY WITH $55M; ‘ADDAMS FAMILY’ BURIES ‘GEMINI MAN’
Joker easily remained at No. 1, although MGM and United Artists Releasing’s early Halloween family pic The Addams Family came in a strong No. 2 with $30.3 million, ahead of expectations and more than enough to bury Ang Lee’s big-budget Gemini Man, starring Will Smith, which followed at No. 3 with an estimated $20.5 million. Gemini Man, conversely, took in a soft $31.1 million from 58 markets for an early $39 million offshore total and $59.5 million globally. Mexico and Russia led the weekend with $2.7 million each, followed by $2.2 million both in the U.K. and South Korea. The movie was beaten by Joker in many places; at the same time, in 25 territories, the pic marks Lee’s biggest opening. Gemini Man has big aims for China, where it launches Friday. Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the twisted supervillain, fell only 43 percent in North America, one of the lowest drops ever for a superhero or superhero-related pic behind Aquaman. The latter debuted over the year-end holidays, when films generally have huge second weekends. The CG-animated Addams Family, co-financed by Bron, features a star-studded voice cast led by Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron, along with Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll and Bette Midler. The film’s opening is a big win for MGM and UAR — the joint distribution company owned by MGM and Annapurna Pictures — and there almost certainly will be a sequel.
[SOURCE: hollywoodreporter.com]
HARLEY-DAVIDSON HALTS PRODUCTION OF LIVEWIRE ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLES
Harley-Davidson has temporarily halted production of its LiveWire electric motorcycle after quality tests uncovered a problem with the bikes, the company said Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing an internal company memo, reported the problem is with the bikes’ charging systems. “We recently discovered a non-standard condition during a final quality check; stopped production and deliveries; and began additional testing and analysis, which is progressing well,” the company said in a statement. The production stoppage comes as the LiveWire models were arriving in dealer showrooms this month. Investors seemed unmoved by the delay, with the company’s shares finishing the day higher Monday after the news broke. “Obviously this is a setback, but I don’t think this is a deal-breaker by any means,” said Brian Yarbrough, a financial analyst who follows Harley-Davidson at investment firm Edward Jones. “This bike alone was not the end all, be all.”
[SOURCE: usatoday.com]
ALL OF PATAGONIA’S WATERPROOF SHELLS ARE NOW RECYCLED AND FAIR TRADE
Patagonia is at it again, proving that the clothing industry doesn’t have to be nearly as wasteful as other companies would have us believe. For years, the industry has been saying it’s too expensive and too difficult to make exterior jacket material from recycled plastic, and that the resulting material won’t perform as well, but after years of trial and error, Patagonia would beg to differ. The outdoor gear company has just announced that 100 percent of its waterproof shells, which includes 61 styles for men, women, and children, are all made with recycled materials and sewn in Fair Trade Certified factories. While some are entirely recycled, others are partially, which works out to 69 percent of this season’s line being made with recycled materials. Considering that the industry norm is only 15 percent, this is an impressive accomplishment. The clothing pieces travel around the globe before arriving in Patagonia’s North American stores. They start as plastic chips in Italy and Slovenia, are woven and spun into yarn in Japan, then cut and stitched into garments in Vietnam.
[SOURCE: treehugger.com]
Eight Things To Talk About uses the raw engagement data from the social media engagement from The Conversation Project to generate the top-ranking headlines over the course of a weekend.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Wrap-Up Show with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
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