For his Yakuza project, photographer Anton Kusters spent two years documenting some members of the Japanese mafia
A limited edition of a book containing the photos is available. Steward Mag recently did an interview with Kusters:
The values were almost comparable to general Japanese workplace values, actually. Most yakuza gangs actually have neighborhood offices, and the plaques they have on the door state core values like “respect your superiors,” “keep the office clean,” and so on.
One thing I noticed early on with gang life was how subtle everything was. Everything was unspoken, and will was expressed through group pressure. A pressure was constantly there. There was this innate understanding of form — if someone did something wrong, no one would say anything; he would simply be expected to apologize. And the fact everyone would be so silent about it made the pressure really intense.
Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct
The New York Times Gift Article – “Epstein Files Live Updates: Trump Named in Emails Released by Democrats and Republicans. Messages in which Jeffrey Epstein discussed President Trump were among 20,000 documents posted online. Mr. Trump blamed Democrats as the White House rushed to block further revelations.
The mocking and accusatory voice of Jeffrey Epstein emerged from a trove of more than 20,000 emails made public by lawmakers on Wednesday, including his claim that President Trump once “spent hours at my house” with a young woman who later accused Mr. Epstein of sexually abusing and trafficking her when she was a teenager. In a series of emails with friends and associates — surfacing first in a few messages selected by House Democrats and then in full by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee — Mr. Epstein described Mr. Trump as a “dirty” businessman who was “borderline insane,” untrustworthy and worse in “real life and upclose” than the image he sought to portray to the public.
Mr. Trump, White House officials and administration allies dismissed the disclosures as the utterances of a discredited sexual predator who had fallen out with Mr. Trump long before his crimes became publicly known. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the emails a “clear distraction.” The president labeled them a “hoax.” Wednesday’s document dump was the latest act in the rapidly unfolding political drama engulfing Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republican majority. They shuttered the House for the past two months, in part, to forestall a bipartisan effort to force a floor vote on a bill to force the Justice Department and F.B.I. to release a separate set of documents, this one involving their investigation into Mr. Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
House Republicans are seeking to protect Mr. Trump while trying to assuage those in the party who view the Epstein case as an issue that transcends loyalty to the president. Democrats claimed that the sheer volume of the release was intended to distract attention from their revelations about Mr. Trump’s actions during the time he and Mr. Epstein were close..Here’s what else to know:
- Trump connections: The thousands of documents include numerous references to Mr. Trump, including some in which Mr. Epstein discusses their relationship. Others are innocuous. In one exchange, Mr. Epstein is apparently pitched on a transaction related to his Boeing 727 by someone who says they previously worked for Mr. Trump.
- Pressure campaign ramps up: Top administration officials summoned Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado for a meeting in the White House Situation Room, escalating their pressure campaign against Republican lawmakers who have demanded a full release of files related to Mr. Epstein. Mr. Trump also reached out to Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of three Republican women in the House who signed a petition that calls for a vote demanding that the Justice Department within 30 days release all of its investigative files on Mr. Epstein, but she refused his pleas on the petition.
- A de facto adviser: A recurring presence in the messages is the author Michael Wolff, who acted as an adviser to Mr. Epstein. “I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity,” Mr. Wolff wrote to Mr. Epstein in March 2016, according to the emails, suggesting that “becoming an anti-Trump voice gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don’t have now.”
- Congress returns: The Republican-controlled House prepared for a vote later on Wednesday that would end the government shutdown. But the swearing in of its newest member, Adelita Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, could soon force a vote on a discharge petition demanding that the Trump administration release its investigative files on Mr. Epstein.
- See also The New York Times Gift Article – Read 3 Jeffrey Epstein Emails That Mention Trump, House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein sent messages to his longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and the author Michael Wolff suggesting that Donald J. Trump knew more about the convicted sex offender’s abuse than he had acknowledged. Our reporters are reviewing the larger trove of documents released by Republicans and are updating their findings here. House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein sent messages to his longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and the author Michael Wolff suggesting that Donald J. Trump knew more about the convicted sex offender’s abuse than he had acknowledged. Our reporters are reviewing the larger trove of documents released by Republicans and are updating their findings here…”
- See also AP – Epstein email says Trump ‘knew about the girls’ as White House calls its release a Democratic smear: Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a 2019 email to a journalist that Donald Trump “knew about the girls,” according to documents made public Wednesday, but what he knew — and whether it pertained to the sex offender’s crimes — is unclear. The White House quickly accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the president. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three emails referencing Trump, including one Epstein wrote in 2011 in which he told confidant Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with a sex trafficking victim. The disclosures seemed designed to raise new questions about Trump’s friendship with Epstein and about what knowledge he may have had regarding what prosecutors call a yearslong effort by Epstein to exploit underage girls. The Republican businessman-turned-politician has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago.
- Jeffrey Epstein claimed he could help Russia’s foreign minister “understand Trump,” according to 2018 emails. In the messages, Epstein told European official Thorbjorn Jagland that Russian envoy Sergei Lavrov should “get insight on talking to me” and said he had discussed Trump with Moscow’s late U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin. (Politico)
We analyzed 47,000 ChatGPT conversations. Here’s what people really use it for.
Washington Post – Gift Article: “More than 800 million people use ChatGPT each week, according to its maker, OpenAI, but their conversations with the artificial intelligence chatbot are private. Unlike for social media apps, there is little way for those outside the company to know how people use the service — or what ChatGPT says to them….
A collection of 47,000 publicly shared ChatGPT conversations compiled by The Washington Post sheds light on the reasons people turn to the chatbot and the deeply intimate role it plays in many lives. The conversations were made public by ChatGPT users who created shareable links to their chats that were later preserved in the Internet Archive, creating a unique snapshot of tens of thousands of interactions with the chatbot.
Analyzing the chats also revealed patterns in how the AI tool uses language. Some users have complained that ChatGPT agrees with them too readily. The Post found it began responses with variations on “yes” 10 times as often as it did with versions of “no.”…Data released by OpenAI in September from an internal study of queries sent to ChatGPT showed that most are for personal use, not work. (The Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)…”
