Author: Aron Solomon

First appeared in Substack By Aron Solomon This image went viral over the weekend: People went nuts over it and for good reason. The Pope had, in the words of the most fashion-forward among us, some crazy drip (translation: he looked very stylish).  Yet after a day or so of reveling in the look, asking whether the Pope had collaborated with Drake, and similar observations, word slowly began to leak that this was perhaps not a “real” photo, at least in the sense that we have come to know the term. Here lies the problem from the perspective of all things…

First appeared in NewsBreak By Aron Solomon On January 11, 2021, the City of New York enacted a new law that requires retailers and other commercial establishments that collect, retain, convert, store, or share customers’ “biometric identifier information” to notify their customers of these practices before customers enter those establishments. This law, known as “The Biometric Identifier Information Law,” went into effect in July 2021 and is designed to protect the privacy and security of individuals’ biometric data. Under the law, businesses that collect biometric data from customers must provide notice in the form of a sign that is visible and legible. The…

First appeared in NewsBreak By Aron Solomon Dick Van Dyke is a beloved American TV star, particularly for those of us of a certain vintage. We remember his work as a trailblazer in TV comedy, star of his eponymous show, and all-around excellent comedian Yet the 97-year-old Van Dyke was in the news this month for a decidedly un-comedic reason – running his Lexus into a gate near his Malibu home. This has once again brought an important legal issue into the spotlight, the correlation between older drivers, accidents, and the need to review licensing procedures as drivers get older. There have…

First appeared in DC Journal By Aron Solomon If you consume literally any media you’ve seen commercials for Ozempic. They’re intentionally vague, in that all we see is people doing things and looking happy. If you’re unfamiliar with what Ozempic is, the commercials really don’t help. There’s a reason for this – Ozempic is a drug with multiple uses. It had an original use and now has a far more popular secondary use. The problem is that there are dangers in how Ozempic is being prescribed and used for that very popular secondary use. Ozempic (semaglutide) is a medication used to…

First appeared in Florida Daily By Aron Solomon Mifepristone, a medication that is used to terminate early pregnancies, is all over our news cycles as a federal court judge in Texas heard arguments last week about whether it should be sold in the United States. The lawsuit was filed by an anti-abortion group in Texas based on an argument that mifepristone’s safety was never adequately or properly studied. Yet looking at the history of the drug makes this a difficult argument. The drug was first developed in the 1980s by a French pharmaceutical company, Roussel-Uclaf. The drug is also known…

First appeared in Western Journal By Aron Solomon The pace of change with artificial intelligence is truly remarkable but pales in comparison with how quickly we jump on and off new AI bandwagons, as this week has highlighted. Much of last week’s technology news was driven by the release of magical Meta-developed code that was great and cheap and would help AI researchers and developers for a long time to come. Yet as The Register reported late Monday night, Stanford University researchers have taken down the web demo of Alpaca, a small AI language model based on Meta’s LLaMA system, citing safety and…

First appeared in BOXSCORE By Aron Solomon On Thursday at the Miami Open, a very important WTA and ATP 1000-level tournament event, Russia’s Anastasia Potapova defeated Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3, in a match that never should have been played. If you were waiting for the traditional handshake at the net today, you’re still waiting. By her words and actions, Marta Kostyuk has been one of the heroes of the Ukrainian athletic scene; conversely, Anastasia Potapova has been a self-styled lightning rod for controversy. This barely touches the surface of this important story – one that highlights the WTA’s ongoing failure…

First appeared in NewsBreak By Aron Solomon Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, providing us with a constant source of information, entertainment, and connection. However, the use of social media has been known to be addictive, with many people struggling to control their usage. This issue is hitting another peak in our news clucks this week with what Axios described as a “slew of lawsuits” being filed by school districts across the country against social media companies, “alleging that the tech giants are contributing to a youth mental health crisis.” The root cause of that crisis…

By Joseph Coffman I recall tossing the football and meandering on the leaf-strewn field as the other boys flew ahead and formed around the receiver, tripping and falling in the leaves before finally rolling with the ball into the largest pile and laughing for a minute at the fall, not caring if we got closer to a touchdown or turnover. Blocking was minimal due to the leaves and the most you got was a twisted ankle or jammed finger. That sensibility moved to larger fields in parks or grass playgrounds as we got older and in high school without gear…

First appeared in Florida Daily By Aron Solomon Just hours before a vote to subpoena him, Howard Schultz agreed last week to testify about Starbucks’ alleged violations of labor laws before Congress on March 29th. As I have written about at length in Fortune, Schultz’s apparent war against unions has put the future of Starbucks in jeopardy and destroyed decades of goodwill between Starbucks and its labor force. Instead of Starbucks being the shining star it once self-identified as in how it treated employees, it is now a business school case study of exactly what not to do when your workers want to unionize. While…