Say what you will, that is a poétique young man.

A Texas gunman who called himself a “sovereign citizen” not bound by US laws was killed in a shootout with cops while livestreaming on Facebook.

Patrick Hurst, 47, told Harris County deputies who pulled him over for an expired registration and busted tailgate in Houston on Sunday that he would not comply with their orders because he was a member of the extremist movement that doesn't accept the legitimacy of government institutions.

He drove off soon after cops learned he had a possible open out-of-county felony warrant for evading police before he was stopped with spike strips.

Hurst then streamed on Facebook Live as he pulled a handgun and jumped out of his car to confront the pursuing officers — getting killed after firing first at the deputies, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.

Does WPD have the stream?

Red Lobster Considers Bankruptcy to Deal With Leases and Labor Costs

- Company working with King & Spalding for restructuring advice

- Owner Thai Union earlier wrote down its investment in business

Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster is mulling a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as it looks to restructure its debt, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Red Lobster has been getting advice from law firm King & Spalding, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. The dining chain is considering a possible Chapter 11 filing to shed some long-term contracts and renegotiate a swath of leases, the people said.

Red Lobster's cash flows have been weighed down by onerous leases and labor costs, among other issues. Restructuring discussions are ongoing and a final decision hasn't been made, they said. Filing for bankruptcy would allow the company to keep operating while it works on a debt-cutting plan.

Messages left with Red Lobster and King & Spalding were not returned.

Red Lobster traces its roots to a single restaurant in Lakeland, Florida in 1968, according to its website. The company introduced its popular cheese-flavored biscuits in 1992, and Red Lobster now boasts hundreds of locations across the US and Canada, along with international franchises.

The restaurant chain has gone through multiple owners and management changes in recent years. Thai Union Group Plc, which took control of the company in 2021, this year wrote down its stake in Red Lobster and said the company's “ongoing financial requirements no longer align with Thai Union's capital allocation priorities.”

Fortress Investment Group is a key lender to Red Lobster and is among those involved in current debt negotiations, the people said.

A representative with Fortress declined to comment.

Golden Gate Capital took over Orlando, Florida-based Red Lobster from Darden Restaurants through a leveraged buyout in 2014. Thai Union owned 25% of the chain before buying Golden Gate's stake in 2021.

At least it prevented her from getting long COVID . If she did she might accept the MAID like this other foid

https://nypost.com/2023/12/14/news/canada-woman-with-long-covid-applies-for-assisted-suicide-report/

SHARES SLIPPED ALMOST 25 PERCENT IN JUST TWO DAYS.

Boom and Bust

It was only a matter of time.

Reddit shares are cratering right now, plunging almost 25 percent in just two days, as CNBC reports.

The social media company went public last week at an IPO price of $34, and initially rallied to around $65.

This week, however, shares started slipping, following Hedgeye Risk Management releasing a report calling the stock "grossly overvalued," and expecting it to fall around 50 percent, much closer to its original price.

The drop — to about $49 by press time — highlights an expected course correction, in which initial investor enthusiasm was met by a reality check.

Reddit has centered its IPO on AI, an attempt to cash in on the hype surrounding the tech. But in its 20-year history, the company has yet to turn a profit. In 2023, the platform lost a whopping $90.8 million.

Meanwhile, the company's much-loathed CEO Steve Huffman gifted himself an eyebrow-raising $193 million compensation package, which is more than the CEOs of Meta, Pinterest, and Snap combined.

In other words, Reddit's rocky start on Wall Street shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Without a clear path to profitability, with or without AI, the company isn't exactly likely to suddenly shake off its financially shaky past.

To analysts, Reddit choosing the latter half of March was intentional, potentially foreshadowing weaker quarters to come.

"The deal was oversubscribed, the float small, valuation range looked reasonable, and they timed the IPO coincident with easy comparisons where the company is going to post accelerating revenue and user growth the first quarter out of the gate as a public company," Hedgeye analyst Andrew Freedman wrote in the report.

But the proof is in the pudding. Following this year's first quarter, all eyes will be on Reddit to see whether it can start implementing its plans to attract new users to the platform and drive up revenue.

Was Reddit's initial bump following its IPO a finite burst of enthusiasm? Is this week's tumble a sign of what's still to come?

The public offering was a bit of an outlier, following a two-year-long drought in tech companies going public — and Reddit's future is as uncertain as ever.

…. Bardfinn and other janny bag holders on suicide watch.

!nooticers why is the AfD growing in popularity?

Germany's transport minister is threatening to ban driving on weekends to meet climate goals if the ruling coalition does not pass reforms to the Climate Protection Act by July.

“The fact that the amendment is still not in force leads to considerable legal and factual uncertainties,” liberal politician Volker Wissing wrote in a letter to the parliamentary group leaders of the coalition, German outlet BILD reported Thursday.

“This serves neither the climate nor the reputation of the federal government," he said.

A reduction in traffic to help meet the climate goals would only be possible through measures that are difficult to communicate to the public, such as “comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays,” Wissing added.

The federal coalition government, made up of the center-left Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, has been at odds for months over issues including a payment card for refugees, Germany's debt brake and, lately, elephants.

The planned amendment to the emissions-reduction law allows climate goals to be reviewed for compliance by looking at all sectors together instead of individually. If the overall target is missed two years in a row, then the federal government is to decide in which sector and with which measures the permitted total amount of carbon dioxide emissions is to be achieved by 2030.

If the planned reforms are not passed through parliament by July 15, Wissing warned, the Ministry for Digital and Transport would be obliged to submit an "immediate action program that ensures compliance with the annual emission levels of the transport sector" until 2030 — which would include a driving ban on weekends.

Environmental organizations — including Greenpeace, the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation BUND, and Fridays for Future — criticize the planned abolition of individual sector targets. They fear that an overall calculation obscures the impact of certain sectors — especially the traffic sector, which frequently doesn't meet targets.

"This claim is simply wrong," Green parliamentary group leader Julia Verlinden told the German Press Agency, referring to Wissing's threat of a weekend driving ban. She added that Wissing should not aggravate people unnecessarily because there are other ways to tackle climate issues, such as a speed limit.

The highway speed limit is a controversial debate in Germany. At the beginning of April, Wissing stressed that the government isn't looking to implement a speed limit on highways.

The FDP, the right-wing Alternative for Germany and the conservative Christian Democratic Union have spoken out against it. Wissing's party rejects any disproportionate bans on mobility” in its election program.

Greenpeace mobility expert Clara Thompson told the German Press Agency that the transport minister was “shamelessly” trying to distract from his his own failures.

“Wissing has wasted two years blocking every climate protection measure in road traffic — now he is coming up with horror scenarios so that he won't have to do anything in the future either," she said.