Latest news with #MikeBaker
Time Out
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Henry Sugar
It's no secret that Carlton North, Brunswick East, Northcote and Fitzroy North are Melbourne's holy quadrants for wine bar -seeking pilgrims. On every corner in these parts, it seems, there's a reliably schmick one that can be counted on. Eight years on, Henry Sugar – a wine and cocktail bar named after a character from a Roald Dahl short story – stands up to the quality of its Northside neighbours both old and new. There's an appealing edginess to the bar; gloomy industrial '80s new wave music murmurs out onto the street and the lighting inside is dim but tastefully warm. It's three parts quaint, elegant and a little punk, and you can't help but wonder why more people aren't talking about it. Especially when you consider Henry Sugar's cracker 'No Waste' Monday night deal. Since a different $45 menu is served every Sunday lunch ('because it's fun and keeps us on our toes,' executive chef Mike Baker explained), a snack menu is then created from the leftovers the following day. These small plates range in price from just $5 (a bowl of braised chickpeas) to $14 (a kangaroo skewer with tomato chutney). Now I wouldn't normally recommend starting your week with a whole lot of liquor, but the drinks list at Henry Sugar is hard to resist. By-the-glass options lean Victorian, while signature cocktails make creative use of local ingredients and producers. I'm especially smitten with the $10 half-glass pours of 'old wine' bought on auction; tonight the bar has a 1998 Campbells durif and upon tasting, it's a gorgeously full-bodied, sticky-rich drop. Nevertheless, I opt for the House Spritz: an Aussie native amaro blend, fermented orange, mandarin and prosecco. Despite a finish that dangerously edges too bitter, a well-iced glass of sexy salty-citrus is just what I need on my lips at the end of a workday. My friend is running quite late, so I'm already about two bevs down by the time he arrives (I've also enjoyed the $10 full glass of Bertrand Bespoke's mourvedre, which is probably the best house red I've enjoyed at this price, anywhere, ever); safe to say, food is very much needed by this point. A round of oysters with Henry Sugar's punchy Ho Chi Mignonette starts us off, before mini pocket-sized pies of flaky pastry encasing a crumbly rabbit and cavolo nero mixture are brought to the table. Rustic yet robust in flavour, they're suggestive of pitch-perfect chef technique. There's a lot of good-looking options on the a la carte, too – Shark Bay scallops with corn custard and jalapeno tajin; rock flathead with confit garlic, turmeric, dill and gai lang; cheese and local honeycomb – but it's the charcoal chicken thigh with enoki and charred leek that wins our selection. It's a smoky, fire-licked bite, grounded by the earthiness of a velvety 'shroom sauce. Admittedly with Henry Sugar, there is a touch of roughness around the edges. Even though I'm there only about two hours after the bar has opened, the Monday special chicken karaage has 'run out' according to the bartender. And while our portion of braised chickpeas with fennel is somewhat cleansing in its nourishing simplicity, it could do with a dash of panache (even in the form of just a little more seasoning). Nevertheless, a freshly made tarte tatin at the end is an autumn treat well worth the 20-minute wait and the fun drinks – an ode to buttery toast in the form of a sweet Milk Punch and a medicinal-leaning Corpse Reviver – keep my friend and I kicking on long after others have left. Whether you pop in for Henry Sugar's $3 oyster hour (5 to 6pm), luxuriate over a long Sunday lunch or do what I did and get tipsy with a mate on a Monday night, there's no disputing that this lil' old local can still play new tricks.
Bloomberg
14-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
PGIM, Zurich North America and Fifth Third Bancorp on AI
Mike Baker, Senior Vice President, Chief Information & Technology Officer, PGIM; Kristen Bessette, Chief Data Officer, Zurich North America; and Jude Schramm, Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Fifth Third Bancorp speak with Bloomberg's Niraj Patel about how AI is driving innovation and transforming industries at the Winning the Innovation Game: Modernizing IT Without Disruption event in New York. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Radio-collared Pronghorn shot, left to rot in Oklahoma
BOISE CITY, Okla. (KSNW) — Authorities in Oklahoma are looking for whoever shot and killed a Pronghorn in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Oklahoma Game Wardens say a Pronghorn was shot with a high-powered rifle around 11 a.m. Monday. It happened in a field near the intersection of N0250 Road and E0150 Road, northwest of Boise City. Game wardens say the animal, sometimes referred to as the American Antelope, was shot, killed, and left to rot. Her dead twin fawns were found with her. Still no new judge for suspect in murdered moms case The doe was wearing a radio collar and was being monitored by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and Oklahoma State University. A cash reward is being offered to anyone who comes forward with information about who killed the doe. Callers can choose to remain anonymous. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact Lt. Mike Baker, Game Warden, at 580-651-9135. The fastest land mammal in North America and the second fastest animal in the world, next to the cheetah, pronghorns are not related to deer or antelopes, but they are in the same family as giraffes. Although not directly considered endangered, their numbers have declined from historic levels. Two subspecies of pronghorn are listed as endangered: the Peninsular and Sonoran. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Yahoo
CIA file about aliens attacking Soviet forces goes viral
A declassified CIA report about an alleged UFO attack on Soviet soldiers in the dying days of the USSR has gone viral after being posted to the agency's website. The document is a single-page summary of newspaper articles from Canadian Weekly World News and the Ukrainian paper Holos Ukrayiny dating back to March 1993, which describe a hostile encounter between the Russian Army and a flying saucer that is said to have taken place in 1989 or 1990. The story – headlined 'Cosmic Revenge' in the Ukrainian source and said to derive from an extensive 250-page KGB file, complete with witness testimony and documentary photographs – recounts how 25 Soviet troops were participating in training drills when a 'low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer' passed over their base in Siberia. The sighting prompted the men to react 'for unknown reasons' by launching a surface-to-air missile at the craft, which they successfully brought down. 'Five short humanoids with 'large heads and large black eyes'' emerged from the wreckage, the file reports, before fusing together into a 'single object': a spherical shape that emitted a sinister buzzing sound. The sphere then burst in an explosion of brilliant white light, leaving 23 of the men 'turned into stone poles' while the remaining two, shielded from the blast by virtue of being stood in the shade, escaped unharmed. The bodies of the victims were reportedly recovered by the Red Army and taken to a secret research laboratory outside Moscow, where it was discovered their molecular structure was now identical to that of limestone, with the light that petrified them attributed to a 'source of energy' not currently known to humanity. 'If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case,' an unnamed CIA analyst is quoted as saying in response to the tale. 'The aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked.' Ex-CIA agent Mike Baker, for one, has expressed skepticism about the encounter, which reads like a scene from a pulp science fiction novel or 1950s B-movie. 'If there was an incident, regardless of the nature of the incident, I suspect that the actual report doesn't look much like what has now come out from five or six or seven iterations of what originally was [written],' he told Fox News Digital. 'I'm sure there's something out there. I just don't think that they landed decades ago, turned Soviet soldiers into limestone, and we're just now hearing about it. I don't think that's the case.' UFOs nevertheless continue to be a subject of huge fascination in the United States and around the world. President Donald Trump said he did not believe in extraterrestrials when he appeared on Logan Paul's podcast during last year's presidential campaign. However, in the first few months of his presidency, he signed an executive order demanding that all federal documents pertaining to them be declassified to expose or dispel rumors of any 'cover-up' that may or may not have taken place. The Pentagon, meanwhile, issued a report last year detailing the 757 tip-offs it had received from members of the public between May 2023 and June 2024 regarding unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena, ultimately conceding that none had delivered proof of life beyond the stars. That said, among the hundreds of misidentified balloons, birds, and satellites it received, there were also a number of episodes that defied easy explanation, including a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York.
The Independent
14-04-2025
- The Independent
CIA file about aliens attacking Soviet forces goes viral
A declassified CIA report about an alleged UFO attack on Soviet soldiers in the dying days of the USSR has gone viral after being posted to the agency's website. The document is a single-page summary of newspaper articles from Canadian Weekly World News and the Ukrainian paper Holos Ukrayiny dating back to March 1993 that describe a hostile encounter between the Russian Army and a flying saucer that allegedly took place in 1989 or 1990. The story – headlined 'Cosmic Revenge' in the Ukrainian source and said to derive from an extensive 250-page KGB file, complete with witness testimony and documentary photographs – recounts how 25 Soviet troops were participating in training drills when a 'low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer' passed over their base in Siberia. The sighting prompted the men to react 'for unknown reasons' by launching a surface-to-air missile at the craft, which they successfully brought down. 'Five short humanoids with 'large heads and large black eyes'' emerged from the wreckage, the file reports, before fusing together into a 'single object,' a spherical shape that emitted a sinister buzzing sound. The sphere then burst in an explosion of brilliant white light, leaving 23 of the men 'turned into stone poles' while the remaining two, shielded from the blast by virtue of being stood in the shade, escaped unharmed. The bodies of the victims were reportedly recovered by the Red Army and taken to a secret research laboratory outside of Moscow, where it was discovered their molecular structure was now identical to that of limestone, with the light that petrified them attributed to a 'source of energy' not currently known to humanity. 'If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case,' an unnamed CIA analyst is quoted as saying in response to the tale. 'The aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked.' Ex-CIA agent Mike Baker, for one, has expressed skepticism about the encounter, which reads like a scene from a pulp science fiction novel or 1950s B-movie. 'If there was an incident, regardless of the nature of the incident, I suspect that the actual report doesn't look much like what has now come out from five or six or seven iterations of what originally was [written],' he told Fox News Digital. 'I'm sure there's something out there. I just don't think that they landed decades ago, turned Soviet soldiers into limestone, and we're just now hearing about it. I don't think that's the case.' UFOs nevertheless continue to be a subject of huge fascination in the United States and around the world. President Donald Trump said he did not believe in extraterrestrials when he appeared on Logan Paul 's podcast during last year's presidential campaign. However, in the first few months of his presidency, he signed an executive order demanding that all federal documents pertaining to them be declassified to expose or dispel rumors of any 'cover-up' that may or may not have taken place. The Pentagon, meanwhile, issued a report last year detailing the 757 tip-offs it had received from members of the public between May 2023 and June 2024 regarding unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena, ultimately conceding that none had delivered proof of life beyond the stars. That said, among the hundreds of misidentified balloons, birds, and satellites it received, there were also a number of episodes that defied easy explanation, including a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York.
