TIME and Ally Financial Name 2024 Dealer of the Year

Rita Case, President, CEO, and Dealer Principal at Rick Case Honda in Davie, Florida, Wins 55th Annual Award at 107th National Automotive Dealers Association Show

(Las Vegas, NV, February 3, 2024) – Today, Rita Case, president, CEO, and dealer principal at Rick Case Honda in Davie, Florida, was announced as the 2024 TIME Dealer of the Year at the 107th National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Show. Now in its 55th year, the TIME Dealer of the Year award is one of the auto industry’s most respected and highly coveted honors. 

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Case, also CEO of the Rick Case Auto Group, was selected for her outstanding achievements in the auto industry and her unwavering commitment to making a positive impact in her community. Case and her auto group, the largest woman-owned-and-operated dealership group in the country, has pioneered innovative sales initiatives and founded the Fort Lauderdale International Auto Show, which has elevated the profile of dealers in the region and raised money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County since 1990.  She has collected bicycles for children in need during the holidays for the past 41 years and is the founding sponsor of 77 Habitat for Humanity homes in South Florida.

Jessica Sibley, CEO of TIME, and Doug Timmerman, Ally Interim CEO and President of Dealer Financial Services, announced Case as the winner at a ceremony that honored all 49 nominees. Case was chosen from a field of more than 16,000 franchised dealers across the country.

“At TIME, we are proud to uphold the decades-long tradition of honoring automotive dealers who make a positive impact and show dedication to their communities through our TIME Dealer of the Year award,” said TIME CEO Jessica Sibley. “We are excited to keep this tradition of applauding these community contributions together with our partners at Ally.” 

 “Rita epitomizes the qualities the TIME Dealer of the Year Award was designed to recognize – a relentless determination to make this incredible industry even better and to support causes that strengthen her community,” Timmerman said. “She paved the way for women in the dealership business and found innovative ways to sell cars, while also working to provide those in need everything from housing and scholarships to healthcare and education.” 

The TIME Dealer of the Year winner and finalists are chosen by a panel from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan. The panel selects finalists from each of the four NADA regions, and, ultimately, a national winner from those finalists. 

In addition to Case, the 2024 TIME Dealer of the Year finalists include:

• H. Lehman Franklin, Franklin Toyota, Statesboro, GA
• Thomas Murphy, Falmouth Toyota, Bourne, MA
• Brian O’Meara, O’Meara Ford Center Inc., Northglenn, CO
• Daniel Wilson, Corwin Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, Fargo, ND

As the exclusive sponsor of the TIME Dealer of the Year program for the 13th year in a row, Ally will provide grants to eligible 501c3 charitable organizations selected by the nominees, finalists, and winner. For more than a decade, Ally has made donations in connection with the program, totaling nearly $1 million. This year, Ally will give $10,000 to the charity of Case’s choice and $5,000 to each of the nonprofit organizations selected by the four finalists. In recognition of their achievements, Ally also will give $1,000 to the charities of choice for each of the 49 nominees. 

For more information on the nominees, finalists, and winner, please visit:  https://www.ally.com/go/allydealerheroes/nominees.

About TIME 

TIME is the 100-year-old global media brand that reaches a combined audience of over 120 million around the world through its iconic magazine and digital platforms. With unparalleled access to the world’s most influential people, the trust of consumers and partners globally, and an unrivaled power to convene, TIME’s mission is to tell the essential stories of the people and ideas that shape and improve the world. Today, TIME also includes the Emmy Award®-winning film and television division TIME Studios; a significantly expanded live events business built on the powerful TIME100 and Person of the Year franchises and custom experiences; TIME for Kids, which provides trusted news with a focus on news literacy for kids and valuable resources for teachers and families; the award-winning branded content studio Red Border Studios; an industry-leading web3 division; the website-building platform TIME Sites; the sustainability and climate action division TIME CO2; the new e-commerce and content platform TIME Stamped, and more.

About Ally Financial Inc.

Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a financial services company with the nation’s largest all-digital bank and an industry-leading auto financing business, driven by a mission to “Do It Right” and be a relentless ally for customers and communities. The company serves more than 11 million customers through a full range of online banking services (including deposits, mortgage, point-of-sale personal lending, and credit card products) and securities brokerage and investment advisory services. The company also includes a robust corporate finance business that offers capital for equity sponsors and middle-market companies, as well as auto financing and insurance offerings. For more information, please visit http://www.ally.com and follow @allyfinancial.

For more information and disclosures about Ally, visit https://www.ally.com/#disclosures. 

For further images and news on Ally, please visit http://media.ally.com.

About the NADA Show 

The annual NADA Show brings together more than 20,000 franchised dealers and their employees, industry leaders, manufacturers and exhibitors to learn about the latest auto industry tools, trends, products and technologies.

source https://time.com/6632445/time-and-ally-financial-name-2024-dealer-of-the-year/

Target Pulls Item Highlighting Civil Rights Icons After TikTok Video Points Out Errors

Target has stopped selling a children’s educational product celebrating Civil Rights history after a TikTok video, which has so far been viewed over 960,000 times, pointed out that some historical leaders were mislabeled.

In the TikTok posted earlier this week, U.S. history high school teacher Tierra Espy, who shares content under the handle @issatete, said she purchased the magnetic learning activity to give to her kids for Black History Month in the U.S. in February, but immediately noticed discrepancies.

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She pointed out the names of three Civil Rights icons—Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington—did not match cartoon depictions of their photos that she found online. 

“I don’t know who’s in charge of Target, but these need to be pulled off the shelves, like, immediately,” she said. “I get it, mistakes happen, but this needs to be corrected ASAP.” 

@issatete

Idk who needs to correct it but it needs to be pulled off the shelves nontheless. Any person could have missed the mistake but it just takes one person to point it out and ask for corrections #blackhistory #blackhistorymonth #blacktiktok

♬ original sound – Issa tete

In an email on Saturday, Target told TIME: “We will no longer be selling this product in stores or online. We’ve also ensured the product’s publisher is aware of the errors.”

The front cover of the magnetic learning activity in the video bears the logo of Bendon, a children’s publishing company.

In a follow-up TikTok video, posted after reports Target had pulled the product, Espy said that as a U.S. history teacher, she had to call out the errors. “I wasn’t going to let it slide for my 200 students or my two babies, who I’m responsible for teaching.”

TIME reached out to Target, the publisher, and Espy for comment.

source https://time.com/6633318/target-pulls-civil-rights-product-errors-tiktok-video/

The Science of Getting Along

All around us seems to be conflict. The Global Conflict Tracker lists 27 conflicts around the world today; a sample of 1,490 leaders polled by the World Economic Forum said the biggest societal risk this year was polarization; and even Taylor Swift has been targeted for fear she’ll endorse President Biden and sway the 2024 election. Why can’t we just all get along?

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Surprisingly, we do. Humans are almost ant-like in the scale and range of our cooperation and conflict of all kinds are less frequent and devastating than they were in the past. We take it for granted but we should be amazed that people from so many diverse places across the globe can live, work, and even commute on crammed trains and planes in peace. A plane full of chimpanzees who didn’t know each other would be a plane full of dead and maimed apes, blood and body parts strewn through the aisles, as primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy reflected in her widely acclaimed book, Mothers and Others.

The mechanisms that sustain cooperation are now well understood. The most ancient of these is “inclusive fitness,” or cooperation among family and small tribes through shared genes. Ongoing cooperation for mutual benefit, or “direct reciprocity,” is the basis of friendships and networks. This mechanism, too, is ancient and found across the animal kingdom. Mutual benefit reaches our extended networks through reputation and shared norms—the basis of cooperation among those who share religion, politics, and other group memberships. This is a uniquely human form of cooperation facilitated by our ability to gossip and keep track of everyone around us, even strangers.

Read More: What I Learned About America by Traveling 150,000 Miles on Greyhound

But there are always risks of conflict, both large and small, breaking out. Fortunately, the science of cooperation reveals what it takes for mere tolerance to become friendship and comity. For them to truly become us.

Here are 3 lessons:

1. Competition helps us discover mutual benefit

Ultimately, cooperation flourishes when people expect to get more by working with many others than by themselves or in a smaller group—a maxim so ubiquitous across all facets of life that I call it the “Law of Cooperation.” That doesn’t mean all groups achieve this optimal scale. When we start a company, form an alliance, or try to make peace with an enemy, we don’t always know in advance the reward, if the other party will do their part, or if they’ll be fair in sharing the reward. Cooperation depends not only on actual rewards, but people’s expectations. So many groups are trapped by historical grievances, false beliefs about the other side, or what can be gained by working together. It is competition that breaks us out of these suboptimal traps.

In the 11th century, most trade was facilitated by known locals or based on trust through family ties. But competition led to experimentation. Groups like the Maghribi Jewish Traders tried creating mechanisms of sharing reputations and informal community enforcement. Their experiment succeeded in expanding cooperation to an extended network of trust and trade beyond family ties to those throughout the Mediterranean, from Spain to Sicily to Egypt and Palestine.

Perceived mutual benefit is why trade between two countries reduces the probability of war. You don’t want to fight with your factory, unless you have another factory. Similarly, the sharing of knowledge empowered cooperation during the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization and tapping into a vast new energy source in the form of fossil fuels led to large factories, the expansion of education to create a workforce for those factories, and educated workers forming coalitions and companies to compete for the spoils.

2. Cooperation undermines cooperation

Corruption and civil conflict are often thought of as a puzzle but they are less puzzling than well functioning institutions and peace. Corruption is often the oldest, most stable form of cooperation—the ties that bind us into families, friends, and networks—relabeled as nepotism and cronyism. My colleagues and I experimentally demonstrated how the possibility of “direct reciprocity”—in effect bribery—undermines well functioning institutions and how cultural exposure to bribery can increase its prevalence. In the West, these can often manifest as lobbyists, special interest groups, and revolving doors. The most effective anti-corruption strategies are those that undermine these cooperation mechanisms—such as banning revolving doors and creating cooling off periods—to undermine alliances and prevent people from cooperating to undermine the system.

In The WEIRDest people in the world, Joseph Henrich argues that the Catholic Church’s banning of cousin marriage and other reforms to European family practices that began in the 4th century undermined European tribes and created the modern nuclear family. This in turn weakened nepotism and set the stage for non-family corporations and more successful liberal democracies in Europe. The values created by that shift, such as individualism, are spreading worldwide through education, urbanization, and jobs that take people away from their families.

3. Perceptions can create reality

The U.S. economy is currently booming, but there is a lag on the rise in consumer sentiment. The perception of a deteriorating standard of living—unsurprising given high interest rates and price increases on a range of goods, from essential items and services to homes—have triggered zero sum perceptions. Our zero-sum psychology leads us to believe that there is not enough for everyone. This in turn causes people to rely more on their immediate networks at the expense of others, increasing political divides. Regardless of reality, even the perception of zero-sum conditions can create that zero-sum reality as people choose not to work with one another. 

Well intentioned attempts to help us get along or redress past injustice can further divide us by reifying subgroups at the expense of a larger group. The ethnic and racial boxes we tick for college, scholarship, and job applications reify categories such as African American, Asian American, Latino, and white. These categories are choices. They mask other possible unifying groups. Does a wealthy non-white child of immigrants, such as former Harvard president Claudine Gay, the daughter of wealthy Haitian immigrants, have more in common with Black Walmart workers who might tick the same box than affluent White colleagues? Is focusing on ancestry and ignoring other forms of privilege the best way to close racial wealth gaps?

Evolutionary theory and experimental evidence reveals that race is not a natural category. We evolved alongside people who looked like us. And social categories we create and reify affect perceptions of who is them and and who is us. When combined with zero-sum perceptions, this is a recipe for polarization and conflict.

The science of cooperation reveals that we can get along, but that it’s easy to slip backwards into conflict. The danger today is that because the scale of cooperation is now in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, the consequences of potential conflict is higher than it’s ever been. By revealing the win-wins through cooperation for mutual benefit, by undermining rather than reifying subgroup differences, and by talking to one another across our divides, we remind ourselves of what we share and what we can achieve by working together.

source https://time.com/6622170/science-cooperation-conflict/

America Must Choose Honor in Ukraine

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I recently read a book by the great historian William Shirer, a book about the Third French republic, it was between World War I and World War II. One of the most haunting parts of that book was about the failure of the European allies, particularly France and Great Britain to face Hitler when stopping him would have been relatively easy. Whenever people write to my office, asking why are we supporting Ukraine, I answer, Google “Sudetenland in 1938.” We could have stopped a dictator; we, the west, at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths. That chapter has haunted me because it echoes so strongly in what’s happening in Ukraine.

We’re going to have one of the most important votes that any of us have ever taken in the next few days on support for the people of Ukraine as they fight for our values. This vote will echo throughout the history of this country and the history of the world for generations, particularly if we fail to meet what I believe is a commitment to the people of Ukraine. If we back away, pull out, and leave the Ukrainians without the resources to defend themselves, it will compromise the interests of this country for 50 years. It will be viewed as one of the greatest geopolitical mistakes of the 21st century.

Why? First it will embolden Vladimir Putin. He told us in 2005 that he felt that the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the disolution of the Soviet Union. He has pursued the remedy to that catastrophe in his eyes ever since. In 2005, he said the catastrophe, the greatest catastrophe, the disillusion of the Soviet Union. In 2008, he gobbled up part of what had been an independent country of Georgia. In 2014, we all know what happened in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. In 2022, he tried for the rest of Ukraine. And I’ve talked to people about this. I talked to a fellow on the street in Maine just recently. He said, Putin will stop with Ukraine. I said the Fins don’t think so. The Swedes don’t think so. The Baltic countries don’t think so and the Fins and the Swedes know Russia. Finland has a long border with Russia. They know Russia better than any of us. And they decided to join NATO. They haven’t been in NATO for almost 75 years. Why did they decide to join this year? It wasn’t just a coincidence or a casual decision like “Oh, yeah, let’s join NATO.” No. They know what’s coming. They see the danger of our failure to stop Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.

Maya Angelou said if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. Putin has told us who he is. He’s an autocrat. He’s an authoritarian. And he wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. And I believe he wouldn’t stop there. I don’t have much doubt that if in 2022 when those Russian tanks were headed for Kyiv if they had succeeded. If Zelenskyy had run and if they had succeeded in dismantling and amputating the head of the Russian government, of the Ukrainian government, the people of the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia would also be facing threats from Russia.

We have to take him at his word. He doesn’t like the West. He despises the West. He thinks NATO is an aggressive alliance, somehow designed to invade or otherwise threaten Russia. NATO doesn’t want to invade Russia. NATO wants to keep the lines where they are. And that’s one of the significances of the invasion of Ukraine. It was the first crossing of a border of this nature since World War II.

Until Russia’s invasion, the lines in Europe had been drawn. Putin crossed into a separate country. He doesn’t like the concept of democracy. He doesn’t like the rule of law. He has a nostalgic view of the Soviet Union. What we’re looking at here is an important piece of a global struggle that is real struggle of the 21st century, in my opinion. It’s the struggle between the idea of Democracy and the rule of law and authoritarianism and totalitarianism. That’s what’s going on here; Ukraine is the opening wedge in that conflict. The world is watching – Xi Jinping and Putin and others, are saying our system can’t work. It’s too messy, too complicated. It takes too long to make. And they’re betting, they’re betting that we don’t have the staying power that our democracy is too feckless to stick to our guns, in this case literally. We’d be rewarding naked aggression. Sudetenland in 1938, the lesson we learned from the 30’s was that appeasing dictators, appeasing authoritarians just doesn’t work.

Read More: Inside Ukraine’s Plan to Arm Itself

But it wouldn’t only embolden Putin. It would embolden Xi Jinping. Many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are gravely concerned about the future of Taiwan.

It’s inevitable that if we cut and run in Ukraine, that will change Xi Jinping’s calculus about Taiwan. He’s going to say “well, the Americans aren’t going to stick it out.” We don’t have to worry too much about them helping the Taiwanese defend themselves. It’s going to make it easier for him to make that decision because he’s going to look and take a lesson. We aren’t as good as our word. We left. We walked away. He’s watching this like a hawk. He’s watching this like a hawk and not a very friendly hawk at that.

You know who else is watching this like a hawk? Kim Jong-Un. He’s making threatening noises about South Korea and the war on the peninsula the last few days. You don’t think he’s not paying attention to what we’re doing or not doing in Ukraine? It will be a signal to him. You can’t count on those Americans, can’t count on them sticking with the South Koreans against aggression from the north. It will embolden Iran. I hate to use the word catastrophe because that’s what Putin used, but it would be a catastrophe for this country. It would also shatter the confidence of our allies and our commitments.

Our asymmetric advantage in the world right now is allies. China has customers; America has allies. Russia has Iran and North Korea. We have allies across the world. But our allies are concerned, they are wondering “You’re with us now but when the going gets tough, and you have to maybe have a budget supplemental to stick with us, you’re going to walk away”. It’s going to undermine the confidence of our allies and in places like Japan and South Korea, they may say we can’t count on the Americans to defend us. Therefore, maybe we better develop our own nuclear arms, for example. Maybe we can’t count on the famous American nuclear umbrella proliferation, heightened tension, a higher likelihood of these unthinkable weapons being used.

The other reason that we can’t walk away is we’re undermining our ability to negotiate and make deals in the future. Who the heck is going to deal with us if they know we can’t be trusted? We can’t keep our word? People who don’t keep their word, nobody wants to deal with. Nobody wants to make agreements. Nobody wants to make concessions. Nobody wants to work together.

We will be your ally when times are good, but don’t count on us when it gets tough. Don’t count us if it’s not easy. Don’t count on us when times are tough. What an awful thing, what an incredible wound, self-inflicted wound on this country, not only on our moral standing but on our just practical because the allies are going to go their own way because they’ll say we can’t be trusted. We would be abandoning the people of Ukraine who are literally dying for our values.

I was doing a little historic research the other day. The battle of Yorktown in 1781, the battle that ended the Revolutionary War and really made America. It was the key battle. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwall at Yorktown. It was a French Army along with the Continental Army that won the Battle of Yorktown. What if the French had said it’s going on too long, this war is going on too long, we’re just going to leave, we’re going to walk away? There’s a reasonable chance we wouldn’t be the United States of America today, if our ally had walked away.

Ally means somebody you can count on. The whole idea of an alliance is that you can count on somebody when the times are tough. We’re sending ammunition. They’re sending lives.

There’s not much doubt if we cut and run—if we stop, if we cut off aid— it would be very difficult for the Ukrainians to continue to defend themselves. Russia has a bigger war machine, a bigger army, more wherewithal in terms of munitions. Let’s not kid ourselves. If we walk away this week, it’s highly likely that Russia will control Ukraine within a few months. We can’t have this fantasy that somehow this isn’t a big deal and oh, it will all get fixed. We’re sending ammunition. They’re sending lives. They’re not asking us to fight their battles. They’re not asking us to send troops. They’re asking is for the is the means to defend themselves. And by the way, most of the money we’re sending for the arms and ammunition ends up back in our states, in our communities.

What’s another argument not to do it? Corruption. I hear this. Corruption. I’ve been there. I spent an entire day in Kyiv and my principle mission was what about corruption? How serious is it? And met with everybody from Zelenskyy to officials that were running software to keep track of every bullet that goes into their war effort. I’m satisfied that it’s one of the best and strongest and most closely accounted for provisions of aid ever. Does that mean it’s perfect or there might not be a scandal here or there? I don’t think there will be, but nothing is ever perfect. But I looked President Zelenskyy in the eye. My question was, if you have a scandal, Mr. President, it’s going to kill us—we wouldn’t be able to support you. I didn’t know what he was going to say, but his answer was: I know. President Zelenskyy understood.

Another point that I think is important is what countries are supporting Ukraine, and how much they are contributing. People think that we’re giving all the money. They say, what about the rest of Europe? According to the Institute for the World Economy, the U.S. is ranked 14^th in Ukrainian support as a percentage of GDP. In Poland, they’ve taken in millions of refugees. Ukrainians are in their schools, in their communities. Poland has made an enormous commitment. It’s up to 2.5% of their GDP. The idea that nobody else is contributing and Europe isn’t doing its part is ridiculous.

At the end of the day: Democracy matters. Values matter. Freedom of expression, the rule of law matter, and that’s what’s at stake. This is a historic struggle between authoritarianism, arbitrariness, surveillance, and the radical idea that people can govern themselves. That’s what this is all about. This is a battle for the soul of our democracy in the world. Democracy is an anomaly in world history. It’s unusual — the norm is dictators, pharaohs, emperors, kings. What we’re doing in this country is an anomaly, but it’s a glorious idea. It’s a huge, radical idea. It was radical in 1776. It had to be fought for in 1865. And it had to be fought for in the plains of Europe and the pacific and World War II. It’s worth fighting for. And in this case, we don’t even have to do the fighting. We just have to supply the arms and ammunition.

So I have a question for my colleagues. When the history of this day is written, as it surely will be, do you really want to be recorded as being on the side of Putin? All those in favor of Putin, say aye. That’s what’s at stake here. Or on the side of China, as they contemplate the invasion of Taiwan. All those in favor of the invasion of Taiwan, say aye. No. We don’t want that. But history’s going to record this vote as one of the most important votes that any of us has ever made.

One final note: people say, well, secure our border before we worry about Ukraine’s border. Right now, the best negotiators of the Senate have been working in good faith on that issue for months. I’m told that the agreement they are finalizing is the strongest border security legislation in something like 40 years. So yes, we can both secure our border and aid Ukraine in the bill the Senate is likely to consider soon. If we don’t address the situation the border now, who knows when this opportunity will come again? Meanwhile, the dictators around the world are betting we can’t pass this bipartisan agreement; they’re betting against our system. They’re betting that democracy can’t work, that we can’t make tough decisions and tough commitments and live up to them. I want to stand on the side of resisting authoritarianism, on the side of democracy, on the side of the values that the country has stood for and that people have been fighting for 250 years.

There’s a wonderful hymn that we sing in my church, and it starts like this: once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side. This is Congress’ moment. On December 1, 1862, in the midst of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln came to the Congress, to focus on the crisis of the civil war and what it really meant. Here’s what Abraham Lincoln said: “My fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this Administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”

I deeply hope we choose honor.

Adapted from a speech given by Senator King on the Senate Floor on Jan. 31, 2024

source https://time.com/6591083/america-support-ukraine-angus-king/

A Texas Town’s Misery Underscores the Impact of Bitcoin Mines Across the U.S.

Every night, the nurse anesthetist Cheryl Shadden lies awake in her home in Granbury, Texas, listening to a nonstop roar. “It’s like sitting on the runway of an airport where jets are taking off, one after another,” she says. “You can’t even walk out on your back patio and speak to somebody five feet away and have them hear you at all.” 

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The noise comes from a nearby bitcoin mining operation, which set up shop at a power plant in Granbury last year. Since then, residents in the surrounding area have complained to public officials about an incessant din that they say keeps them awake, gives them migraines, and seemingly has caused wildlife to flee the region. “My citizens are suffering,” says Hood County Constable John Shirley. 

Granbury is one of many towns across the U.S. feeling the negative impacts of bitcoin mining, an energy-intensive process that powers and protects the cryptocurrency. Those impacts include carbon and noise pollution, and increased costs on consumers’ utility bills. According to the New York Times, there are 34 large scale bitcoin mines across the U.S. In 2022, the crypto market tumbled, in part due to high-profile collapses of crypto companies like Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. But in 2023, prices rebounded once again, and mining companies decided to expand their operations in order to cash in, causing global energy consumption for mining to double, according to one study. Critics say that mining is causing both long-term environmental damage, due to its energy use, as well as local harm. “We’re at a loss here,” Granbury resident Shadden says. “We want our lives back.”

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Bitcoin is so energy-intensive because it relies on a process known as proof-of-work. Rather than being overseen by a single watchdog, bitcoin is designed to disperse the responsibility of the network’s integrity to voluntary “miners” around the globe, who prevent tampering through a complex cryptographic process that consumes a vast amount of energy. Over the last few years, Texas has become a global leader in crypto mining because miners can access cheap energy and land there, as well as benefit from friendly tax laws and regulation. Bitcoin miners consume about 2,100 megawatts of the state’s power supplies, and companies like Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital Holdings have recently expanded in the state. (Other states, conversely, have pushed back on the industry: In 2022, New York imposed a moratorium on bitcoin mining over concerns that miners were overusing renewable energy resources.) 

More From TIME

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In December, Marathon paid $178 million to purchase bitcoin mines in Kearney, Nebraska and Granbury from Generate Capital. But with the Granbury purchase, Marathon also inherited a swath of angry nearby residents across Hood County whose lives have been upended by the mining facility. Generate Capital started operating the 300-megawatt facility, which sits about an hour southwest of Fort Worth, in 2023. Initially, many residents were unaware what, exactly, was causing the noise. Shannon Wolf, who lives about 8 miles from the plant, first assumed that the rumble was coming from a nearby train. “It has woken me from a dead sleep before,” she says. 

The rumble, it turned out, comes from the massive cooling fans that the facility runs to keep their computers from overheating. Data centers, like bitcoin mines, also run massive cooling fans that have drawn the ire of nearby residents. 

As residents learned what had caused the din, social media platforms like NextDoor and Facebook flooded with complaints. “This sound has been driving me to the point of insanity. I have continuous migraines, I can barely get out of my head, vomiting, nosebleeds, painful knots on my scalp,” wrote one commenter. “All the birds have left, only [buzzards],” wrote another poster. 

As complaints swelled, local officials brought their concerns to the site’s operator, US Bitcoin Corp. Over the summer, the company agreed to construct a 24-foot sound barrier wall on one end of the property at the cost of $1 to $2 million. But while the wall reduced sound in some areas, it actually amplified it in others. “To be honest, the complaints have gotten louder for us since the mitigation efforts,” Constable John Shirley says. 

Shirley says that he is monitoring the decibel levels of the facility. Texas state law stipulates that a noise is considered unreasonable if it exceeds 85 decibels. For comparison, vacuum cleaners often run at around 75 decibels—and a cardiologist told TIME in 2018 that chronic exposure to anything over 60 decibels had the potential to do harm to the cardiovascular system. Shadden took her own readings at her house near the Bitcoin mining facility that reached 103 decibels. 

But the maximum penalty for breaking that Texas law is a $500 fine, Shirley says, adding: “The state law is inadequate.” He says that he has been talking to the county attorney’s office about options for recourse. “If we have a repeated violation problem, he will be looking into potential injunctive relief,” he says. 

The community’s ire boiled over at a town hall on Jan. 29, hosted by Shirley and Hood County Commissioner Nannette Samuelson. About 75 people filled the room to complain about the facility. Complaints from attendees included migraines that required trips to the emergency room and a vertigo diagnosis. One attendee said she had been forced to put her chihuahua on seizure medication. Others claimed that their windows rattled from the vibrations, and that the noise made their homes unsellable. 

“How does Hood County benefit from having such a ridiculous thing?” asked one woman. “What does this community gain from having them there?” 

Charlie Schumacher, the vice president of corporate communications at Marathon Digital Holdings, wrote in an email to TIME that the company was unaware of the noise issues when it purchased the site. He said Marathon was commissioning a third party to conduct a sound study as early as next week. 

“Marathon deeply values our relationships with the communities in which we live and work, and we appreciate the candid input our neighbors have shared with us in recent weeks,” he wrote. “We are currently gathering information. If there is a problem that we can influence, then we will do everything we can to address it.” 

US Bitcoin Corp did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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While the constant noise has become a major irritant in the county, residents also worry about the facility’s impact on their power supply and the surrounding environment. Texas has a notoriously fragile grid that becomes strained in cold weather: a 2021 deep freeze caused millions of people to lose power. Wolf Hollow, the gas plant that supplies the Granbury bitcoin mine with energy, failed during both that crisis and the 2011 storm. (The plant changed ownership in between the two storms.)

This year, parts of Texas were hit with a frigid arctic front in mid-January, with temperatures dropping into the teens. The state’s grid operator, ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), asked Texans to conserve electricity. The grid mostly held up under strain, and Wolf Hollow continued to operate at full capacity, as did the mining operation. 

Nevertheless, some residents in rural Hood County lost power. That included Hunter Sims, who lives a mile and a half from the plant and lost power for 9 hours, relying on a backup generator for his well. Sims was angered that he was without power while the mining operation continued unabated. Overall, he says his quality of life has worsened due to the facility’s noise pollution. “When I’m sitting in my living room, I can hear a loud humming,” he says. “You can’t really relax.” 

A representative for Constellation Energy, the company that runs Wolf Hollow, said that any power outages were not a result of any issues at the plant, but rather on the local level of transmission or distribution. 

Read More: Fact-Checking 8 Claims About Crypto’s Climate Impact

Erik Kojola, a senior Climate Research Specialist for Greenpeace USA, says he’s monitored similar complaints from residents near new bitcoin mining centers across the country, in Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, and upstate New York. He also contends that bitcoin mining poses a much larger threat to the environment. “Bitcoin mining is essentially a lifeline for fossil fuels,” he says. “It’s ultimately creating a new industrial scale demand for energy at a time where we need to be reducing our energy use.” 

Back in Granbury, the discomfort caused by the plant is causing some consternation for a region that largely prides itself on being pro-industry and anti-regulation. “I agree with people having the right to own a business if it’s not illegal or amoral,” says Granbury resident Wolf. “But when you’re harming a group of people, there needs to be some type of remedy.”

source https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Reveals a Sweeter Side of Donald Glover

Donald Glover is known as a provocateur, taking aim at pieties around race, celebrity, and the entertainment industry in dark comedies like the shape-shifting Atlanta and last year’s stan satire Swarm. But he also has a romantic side. It has fueled Atlanta story lines about his character Earn’s relationship with his daughter’s mother (Zazie Beetz) and some of the best music he’s released as Childish Gambino.

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Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Glover and co-creator Francesca Sloane’s reimagining of the 2005 action romp that birthed Brangelina, is his first series to foreground that sweeter sensibility. In fact, it’s more reminiscent in tone of Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s (mostly) lighthearted detective dramedy Poker Face than of its high-octane inspiration about two married assassins who lie to each other about their professions until they’re assigned to kill one another.

In this version, Glover’s John and Pen15 star Maya Erskine’s Jane are desperate strangers united by a mysterious employer in a sham marriage. She’s a super-smart risk taker who got rejected from the CIA due to “antisocial tendencies.” He’s an affable military vet with a dishonorable discharge. Together, they risk their lives in missions that are equal parts glamorous and awkward. One episode has them spying on the collapse of a mogul’s (Sharon Horgan) marriage during a ski vacation in the Dolomites. In another, they indulge the perverse sexual appetites of a billionaire played by John Turturro in a quest to inject him with truth serum.

There’s plenty of action on offer. But, as in Poker Face, the show’s real emphasis is on the characters—and a list of delightful guest stars that includes Michaela Coel, Parker Posey, Alexander Skarsgård, and more. John and Jane fall in love fast, yet their relationship is tested by job-related stress, incompatible priorities, and their very different personalities. Through goofy pillow talk as well as angry confrontations, they hash out violently heightened versions of the problems any couple trying to build a life together might face.

As a metaphor for the us-against-the-world hubris of marriage, it mostly works. Glover and Erskine have a playful sort of chemistry. Yet despite all the combat and chase scenes, the pace sometimes drags; episodes that feel flabby at 45 minutes might’ve been more captivating at a half hour. At the same time, there’s something endearing about the story’s shagginess. Mr. & Mrs. Smith may not be a classic like Atlanta, but it can be a whole lot of fun.

source https://time.com/6588667/mr-and-mrs-smith-review-donald-glover/

Robots Created to Help Elderly in Hospitals Pass Patient Testing Phase

A collection of eight robots designed by PAL Robotics and trialed by researchers collaborating across multiple universities in Europe and the Middle East have successfully passed the testing phase with patients. The robots, referred to as SPRING (Socially Assistive Robots in Gerontological Healthcare), are designed to provide comfort to elderly patients and alleviate their anxiety, while reducing the burden placed on nursing staff in busy environments. 

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“We believe that the SPRING project marks a significant milestone in the development of interactive robotics, and we are proud of its achievements, while recognising the exciting challenges that lie ahead,” Oliver Lemon, a professor of AI and academic co-lead at the National Robotarium stated in a press release.

The results of the tests showed that robots were able to perform routine tasks like greeting patients, provide directions, and answer questions during the initial trials in Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Paris in France. They were also able to understand group conversations and facilitate assistance based on what patients asked of them. These advances were made possible by the progress seen in large language models in recent years, the type of artificial intelligence technology that powers ChatGPT. 

The use of robots also reduced the amount of physical contact healthcare workers had with patients, which could help reduce the spread of infections in hospital settings. 

The SPRING project began nearly four and half years ago and is funded by Horizon 2020, a research and innovation initiative by the European Union. 

“The prospect of robots seamlessly collaborating with hospital staff to enhance the patient experience is now closer to reality” said Lemon.

source https://time.com/6590440/robots-hospital-patient-testing-phase-ai-assistance/