Author: Press Room

The relentless pursuit of profits in the Congo by King Leopold II resulted in one of the worst levels of moral decadence for mankind. The colony in the Congo – the Congo Free State – was personal property for the Belgian king and there was little oversight over what happened there. King Leopold II committed heinous atrocities in the name of chasing profits and raising the prestige of Belgium. The genocide in the Congo is one of the most forgotten pieces of history, but the damage has been long-lasting. From 1885-1908, the Congo Free State under the personal rule of King…

Decades before the internet made physical video game guides obsolete, The Legend of Zelda came packaged with a foldable map that teased its mysteries.My copy is tattered from repeated study sessions. Question marks dot the landscape of burnable bushes and pushable boulders, with entire regions left unrevealed. Along with images of items necessary to complete your quest in the game — bombs, a wooden raft, a silver arrow — is a franchise-defining promise: “Things are also hidden where you wouldn’t expect them to be.”That joy of discovery is a crucial part of Nintendo’s successful Zelda franchise. Over and over, it…

Mayor Eric Adams was booed at a City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law graduation ceremony Friday, after referencing his history as a police officer.As Adams delivered a short speech to the crowd, dozens of students began shouting when he mentioned his previous service in the New York Police Department (NYPD). The mayor had been an officer for 22 years, graduating from the New York City Police Academy in 1984.Video on Twitter shows dozens of law graduates standing up and putting their backs towards Adams in protest of his speech.COURT ORDER BLOCKS NYC PLAN TO MOVE MIGRANTS UPSTATE AFTER…

Move over, trillion-dollar coin, there is a new debt limit workaround in town — and this one sounds more sophisticated, which some of its proponents have suggested could make it more likely to work.For years, debt limit skeptics have argued that the United States can get around the cap on how much it can borrow by minting a large-denomination coin, depositing it in the government’s account at the Federal Reserve. Officials could then use the resulting money to pay the country’s bills. The maneuver would exploit a quirk in U.S. law, which gives the Treasury secretary wide discretion when it…

AngloGold Ashanti has announced plans to switch its primary stock market listing to New York, a sign that Wall Street rather than London has become the preferred destination for the world’s biggest gold miners.Under a plan set out on Friday, the world’s fourth-largest gold miner will move its primary listing from Johannesburg to New York as part of an effort to lift its valuation. The group said it would retain a secondary listing in its historic base in Johannesburg and another in Ghana.With roots in the mining empire built by Ernest Oppenheimer more than a century ago, AngloGold’s move follows…

Anybody who has tried to bake a cake will know there are lots of things that can go wrong, from burnt tops to soggy bottoms. And that can even happen when bakers are trying to follow a recipe.When it comes to assembling an investment portfolio, there is no set of instructions guaranteed to deliver success, since we cannot forecast the future with any certainty. To pursue the analogy, the same approach might produce a rich chocolate cake in one climate, but an inedible mess in another.Instead of an exact formula, investors tend to be guided by vague aphorisms, or rules…

Pepe coin price is pumping 33% at $0.000001644, as the weekend market flashes green, especially where meme coins are concerned, as with $SPONGE and AiDoge.com also climbing.Only a month old Pepe has delivered a 2,777% return for its early investors. A swooning bitcoin price has impacted sentiment and prices over the past couple of days, but anyone zooming out from the near-term noise will have noticed that the leading crypto is still up 61% and above its all-important 200-day moving average.Meme coins are of course far more erratic than bitcoin due to the red hot speculative price action that surrounds the…

A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Wednesday that the benefits of making a birth control pill available without a prescription outweigh the risks, a significant step in the decades-long push to make oral contraception obtainable over the counter in the United States.If the F.D.A. approves nonprescription sales of the medication, called Opill, this summer, it could significantly expand access to contraception, especially for young women and those who have difficulty dealing with the time, costs or logistical hurdles involved in visiting a doctor, reproductive health experts say.“I think Opill has the potential to…

LONDON — The Bank of England on Thursday hiked interest rates by 25 basis points and revised its economic projections to now exclude the possibility of a U.K. recession this year.The Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-2 in favor of the quarter-point increase to take the main bank rate from 4.25% to 4.5%, as the bank reiterated its commitment to taming stubbornly high inflation.related investing newsThe headline consumer price index rose by an annual 10.1% in March, driven by persistently high food and energy bills. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, increased by 5.7% over the 12…

CHICAGO — Moments before 10 a.m., a security guard thanked the crowd for being cooperative.When the clock struck the hour, it became clear why: The doors of the Marriott Chicago O’Hare conference center opened, and hundreds of attendees, a majority of whom were over the age of 60, bee-lined as fast as they could to the booths.Many had studied the color-coded map ahead of time listing each booth’s location and came prepared with a shopping plan — a scene that could easily be mistaken for a Black Friday sale. Instead, it was the Chicago International Miniatures Show.Despite the gathering touting…