Friday, April 14, 2023
Threats to dictionary publisher land man a year in prison - Yahoo Finance - Dictionary
A California man who made violent anti-LGBTQ-related threats against dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster Inc. over its updated gender definitions was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison.
The sentence imposed on Jeremy Hanson, 35, by a federal court in Massachusetts also included 30 days of home confinement, three years of probation and mental health treatment.
Hanson pleaded guilty last year to interstate transmission of threatening communications in connection with threats made to the Springfield, Massachusetts-based dictionary publisher and to the president of the University of North Texas.
In court documents, prosecutors said the Rossmoor, California, man has a history of making “threatening communications, nearly all of which were motivated by ... biases based upon race, gender, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation.”
Those other communications were directed at the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O’ Lakes Inc., Hasbro, a nonbinary rabbi and others, prosecutors said.
In a remote hearing Thursday, prosecutor Steven Breslow asked for an 18-month prison sentence, in part to serve as a deterrent to others at a time when violent rhetoric is becoming more common.
Hanson’s defense attorney, Marissa Elkins, asked that her client be sentenced to the time he has already served, citing his history of emotional and behavioral issues, including anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
More time behind bars could negatively affect his mental health, she said.
Judge Mark Mastroianni in U.S District Court in Springfield acknowledged Hanson's medical history and said he had no intent or capacity to carry out his threats, but called his actions “disturbing and terrifying.”
He noted that Merriam-Webster management was “fearful that Hanson would come to their office and cause harm,” and said internal company communications referenced the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in France, where terrorists killed 12 people who worked for the satirical weekly newspaper.
Hanson sent Merriam-Webster threatening messages and comments between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8, 2021 using the website’s “contact us” function, where he commented on word entries such as “girl,” “woman,” and “female,” prosecutors said.
“It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda,” Hanson wrote, according to prosecutors. “There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Twice he threatened to shoot and bomb company headquarters, prompting Merriam-Webster to close offices in Springfield and New York City for several days, prosecutors said.
Hanson also wrote an email to the president of the University of North Texas in 2022 that said “You ought to be shot in the head and have your offices set on fire," for supporting transgender students, prosecutors said.
Hanson, who appeared at the hearing remotely from a California jail, declined to address the court when given the opportunity.
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Love & Translation is basically that Duolingo reality dating show minus the owl - The Verge - Translation
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They did it. They actually made the Duolingo show.
While it was clearly in development long before Duolingo’s very funny and compelling April Fools’ joke, Love & Translation is definitely going to get a lot of comparisons to the viral ad. That’s because they’re basically the same thing.
In the new show, three men who only speak English look for love amongst 12 women who don’t speak any English at all, which is... a little cringier than the Duolingo gag. Also, there’s no green owl looming in the distance and trying to teach people to new languages so they can better communicate.
But if you’re okay with all that, this sure looks like the kind of show you’ll plow through on a rainy Saturday when you forget to put on real pants until like 5PM.
Love & Translation will be coming to TLC this winter, and given it was announced at the big HBO Max rebranding event, you can expect it to probably show up on the streaming service at some point in the future, too. It’s part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s new plan to expand HBO Max (now called Max) from a service focused exclusively on high-quality programming to one that can appeal to a far wider range of viewers, including ones who sometimes want to watch a dumb reality show instead of the next episode of Succession.
Man Who Threatened Dictionary Publisher Sentenced To A Year In Prison - HuffPost - Dictionary
A California man who made violent anti-LGBTQ-related threats against dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster Inc. over its updated gender definitions was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison.
The sentence imposed on Jeremy Hanson, 35, by a federal court in Massachusetts also included 30 days of home confinement, three years of probation and mental health treatment.
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Hanson pleaded guilty last year to interstate transmission of threatening communications in connection with threats made to the Springfield, Massachusetts-based dictionary publisher and to the president of the University of North Texas.
In court documents, prosecutors said the Rossmoor, California, man has a history of making “threatening communications, nearly all of which were motivated by ... biases based upon race, gender, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation.”
Those other communications were directed at the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O’ Lakes Inc., Hasbro, a nonbinary rabbi and others, prosecutors said.
In a remote hearing Thursday, prosecutor Steven Breslow asked for an 18-month prison sentence, in part to serve as a deterrent to others at a time when violent rhetoric is becoming more common.
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Hanson’s defense attorney, Marissa Elkins, asked that her client be sentenced to the time he has already served, citing his history of emotional and behavioral issues, including anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
More time behind bars could negatively affect his mental health, she said.
Judge Mark Mastroianni in U.S District Court in Springfield acknowledged Hanson’s medical history and said he had no intent or capacity to carry out his threats, but called his actions “disturbing and terrifying.”
He noted that Merriam-Webster management was “fearful that Hanson would come to their office and cause harm,” and said internal company communications referenced the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in France, where terrorists killed 12 people who worked for the satirical weekly newspaper.
Hanson sent Merriam-Webster threatening messages and comments between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8, 2021 using the website’s “contact us” function, where he commented on word entries such as “girl,” “woman,” and “female,” prosecutors said.
“It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda,” Hanson wrote, according to prosecutors. “There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
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Twice he threatened to shoot and bomb company headquarters, prompting Merriam-Webster to close offices in Springfield and New York City for several days, prosecutors said.
Hanson also wrote an email to the president of the University of North Texas in 2022 that said “You ought to be shot in the head and have your offices set on fire,” for supporting transgender students, prosecutors said.
Hanson, who appeared at the hearing remotely from a California jail, declined to address the court when given the opportunity.
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Threats to dictionary publisher land man a year in prison - The Associated Press - Dictionary
A California man who made violent anti-LGBTQ-related threats against dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster Inc. over its updated gender definitions was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison.
The sentence imposed on Jeremy Hanson, 35, by a federal court in Massachusetts also included 30 days of home confinement, three years of probation and mental health treatment.
Hanson pleaded guilty last year to interstate transmission of threatening communications in connection with threats made to the Springfield, Massachusetts-based dictionary publisher and to the president of the University of North Texas.
In court documents, prosecutors said the Rossmoor, California, man has a history of making “threatening communications, nearly all of which were motivated by ... biases based upon race, gender, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation.”
Those other communications were directed at the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O’ Lakes Inc., Hasbro, a nonbinary rabbi and others, prosecutors said.
In a remote hearing Thursday, prosecutor Steven Breslow asked for an 18-month prison sentence, in part to serve as a deterrent to others at a time when violent rhetoric is becoming more common.
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Hanson’s defense attorney, Marissa Elkins, asked that her client be sentenced to the time he has already served, citing his history of emotional and behavioral issues, including anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
More time behind bars could negatively affect his mental health, she said.
Judge Mark Mastroianni in U.S District Court in Springfield acknowledged Hanson’s medical history and said he had no intent or capacity to carry out his threats, but called his actions “disturbing and terrifying.”
He noted that Merriam-Webster management was “fearful that Hanson would come to their office and cause harm,” and said internal company communications referenced the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in France, where terrorists killed 12 people who worked for the satirical weekly newspaper.
Hanson sent Merriam-Webster threatening messages and comments between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8, 2021 using the website’s “contact us” function, where he commented on word entries such as “girl,” “woman,” and “female,” prosecutors said.
“It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda,” Hanson wrote, according to prosecutors. “There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Twice he threatened to shoot and bomb company headquarters, prompting Merriam-Webster to close offices in Springfield and New York City for several days, prosecutors said.
Hanson also wrote an email to the president of the University of North Texas in 2022 that said “You ought to be shot in the head and have your offices set on fire,” for supporting transgender students, prosecutors said.
Hanson, who appeared at the hearing remotely from a California jail, declined to address the court when given the opportunity.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
A new translation of a chapter of the Bible written 1750 years ago has been unearthed by researchers - CTV News - Translation
A new translation of a chapter of the Bible has been unearthed by scientists after applying UV light to a manuscript housed in the Vatican Library.
A small manuscript fragment was masked behind two layers of writing on parchment paper and dates back to the 6th century. Experts say the text could provide new insight into how Christian texts and the New Testament have changed over the last 2,000 years.
The manuscript, written in Syriac, the official liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, comprises a translation from the Gospel of Matthew 11-12 from the New Testament.
Researchers say the text was originally produced in the 3rd century and copied in the 6th century and was then erased by a scribe in Palestine, a common practice because the parchment was made of animal skin and was hard to come by. The practice of rewriting, or writing over the original text, creates palimpsests, which are manuscripts comprising multiple layers of the script.
The new translation was discovered by Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was found as part of the Sinai Palimpsests Project, where researchers use ultraviolet photography to see whether original texts on the parchment paper have been written over or reused between the 4th and 12th centuries. So far, researchers with the Sinai Palimpsests Project have deciphered 74 manuscripts using this method.
The complete findings of the study have not been published yet, but the Austrian Academy of Sciences has released parts of the translation on its website. For example, the original Greek version of Matthew chapter 12 says: “At that time Jesus went through the Grainfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat,” and the Syriac translation says “[...] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”
This translation provides new insights into the Gospel text and early translations of the Bible.
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