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[1/2] The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken SS Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, dives in an undated photograph. OceanGate Expeditions/Handout via REUTERSJune 21 (Reuters) - Around the world, the story of the missing Titanic submersible and its rescue operation's race against time has been riveting onlookers. Erin Geary, a 27-year-old research assistant in Atlanta, Georgia, described feeling sad, anxious and mystified as she watched the rescue operation for the Titan submersible unfold. Geary grew up as a fan of the 1997 movie the "Titanic" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which cemented the ill-fated ship's tale in modern popular imagination. "Some people think the Titanic is kind of cursed, so why would you purposely put yourself in that situation?"

Persons: Erin Geary, Geary, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman, Paul, Henri Nargeolet, Jenna Roat, Gabriella Borter, Tim McLaughlin, Sandra Maler Organizations: OceanGate Expeditions, REUTERS, Google, Stockton Rush, OceanGate, Coast Guard, Thomson Locations: Newfoundland, Atlanta , Georgia, Chile, Pakistani, French, Greece, Boston

☆ Opinion | Dobbs Could Mark the End of the American Bargain
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Katherine Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The proof of the existence of this bargain is the way people talk about prospective trades: Would you give up this for that? But the table feels like it’s tilting like that in the 21st century, the bargain rebalancing in unpredictable ways, even when unwanted by the public. Governors who sign laws that reverse older laws sometimes stay quiet; Republican presidential candidates remain vague about what policy should look like. We didn’t know if we’d be fined,” a Florida woman told CNN. A Republican participant said, “If they are demanding control here, where does it end?”

Persons: Roe, Wade, we’d, something’s, ”, “ Organizations: South, Republican, ”, CNN, Arizona Republican, Politico Locations: Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Arizona

☆ Wall Street Journal insiders are bracing for more changes under its new top editor, including layoffs that could hit as early as this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoff news as early as this week and other changes under its new EIC. Emma Tucker has shaken up the top editor ranks, and insiders expect changes to the editing process. Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoffs and broader changes under new top editor Emma Tucker. People expect Tucker to overhaul the cumbersome front-page editing process for top enterprise stories and deemphasize commodity news in favor of more investigative pieces, with specifics to come as early as June. "She's not afraid to ask questions that are challenging Wall Street Journal orthodoxy," a second insider said.

☆ Newsroom insiders are bracing for changes at The Wall Street Journal under its new top editor, including layoffs that could hit as early as this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoff news as early as this week and other changes under its new EIC. Emma Tucker has shaken up the top editor ranks, and insiders expect changes to the editing process. Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoffs and broader changes under new top editor Emma Tucker. One audio staffer was laid off last week, in keeping with Journal practice to quietly shed people in small numbers. "She's not afraid to ask questions that are challenging Wall Street Journal orthodoxy," a second insider said.

☆ Picket Line and Chill
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Gina Cherelus | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The man apologized, but a friend of hers saw an opportunity. “My friend was like, ‘Now you owe her a drink,’” Ms. Starks said. I would be open to doing that.’”Matthew Rasmussen admitted that he had, on occasion, checked Grindr while at the picket lines to see who was nearby. He hit it off with a fellow picketer at CBS, and they spent most of the afternoon getting to know each other. He almost gave up searching for him after not finding him on Grindr and social media, but the man soon sent him a message.

☆ Senators unveil bipartisan legislation to ban kids under 13 from joining social media platforms
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The proposed legislation by a bipartisan group of US senators aims to address what policymakers, mental health advocates and critics of tech platforms say is a mental health crisis fueled by social media. “Social media companies have stumbled onto a stubborn, devastating fact,” Schatz said. But it would represent a potentially vast expansion of the government’s role in regulating websites where age verification is a requirement. Tech companies could still develop their own in-house age verification technology or hire third party companies to perform the verification, lawmakers said. Violations of the proposed law could mean millions of dollars in Federal Trade Commission fines for social media companies.

☆ Angry crowd heckles France's Macron over pensions legislation
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Elizabeth Pineau | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/4] French President Emmanuel Macron talks to a person opposed to the pension reform, in Selestat, eastern France, April 19, 2023. and one man told him: "We don't want this pension (reform), what don't you get?" Another man told him he was leading a corrupt government and added: "You'll fall soon, just wait and see." There were also some cheers - one man told Macron to "hang in there," a woman thanked him for his work and others asked for selfies. In Paris, a free climber known as the "French Spiderman" scaled a 38-storey skyscraper to demonstrate his opposition to the pension law.

☆ One of the oldest restaurants at Downtown Disney in California is closing down
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Catal Restaurant and Uva Bar at Disneyland California's Downtown Disney are closing on 14 April. The restaurant has been in business since the Downtown Disney District opened in 2001. Catal Restaurant and its accompanying outdoor bar – Uva Bar – have been permanent fixtures since the opening of Downtown Disney in 2001. The theme park says that the restaurant and bar are closing "to make way for an exciting new addition to the Downtown Disney District." The change is part of a large redevelopment of the Downtown Disney District, which is home to a number of restaurants, shops, and entertainment options.

☆ Google is bringing AI chat to Gmail and Docs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Google is deepening its push into generative artificial intelligence, introducing features Tuesday that will let users create text in Gmail and Docs using the company's AI technology. The company is testing the AI products and making them accessible for a limited number of users of Workspace, which includes Gmail and Google's productivity tools. Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, will discuss AI and productivity software at an online event hosted on LinkedIn on Thursday. Google said that later this year it plans to bring out additional AI features to Workspace, including formula generation in Sheets, automatically generated images in Slides and note-taking in Meet. Last month, Google said it will add AI features to its dominant internet search engine.

Burton makes a living selling one-of-a-kind raps on freelancer site Fiverr. "I love writing for artists. I love writing songs for companies, for businesses," he says of some of the commissions he's gotten. He's also written personalized love songs, birthday songs and songs for podcasts and YouTube channels. Having seen that people offer customized rapping as a service on Fiverr, Burton decided he'd try offering it himself in 2015.

☆ Meta's oversight board to review moderation of Arabic word 'shaheed'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 9 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms' (META.O) oversight board said on Thursday it would review the moderation of the Arabic word "shaheed", which means "martyr" in English, as it accounts for more content removals on its platforms than any other single word or phrase. Meta has asked the board for advice on whether it should continue to remove posts that use the word "shaheed" to refer to individuals designated as dangerous, or use a different approach, the board said. "This is a complex moderation issue that impacts how millions of people express themselves online and whether Muslim and Arabic-speaking communities are subject to over-enforcement of their content because of Meta's enforcement practices," said Thomas Hughes, director of oversight board administration. The oversight board was created in late 2020 to review Facebook and Instagram's decisions on taking down or retaining certain content and make rulings on whether to uphold or overturn the social media company's actions. Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'SilvaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Another 70 Olaplex customers just joined the hair-loss lawsuit against the trendy hair care brand
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Dozens more customers have joined an ongoing lawsuit against the TikTok-famous brand Olaplex. More than 100 customers now say in an amended suit that they suffered physical injuries like hair loss. Olaplex has said clinical tests have shown its hair products to be "safe and effective." Dozens of customers have joined an amended complaint filed Thursday night in California federal court, adding to a rising volume of allegations that Olaplex products can cause hair loss and scalp problems. "However, Olaplex products do not cause hair loss or hair breakage."

☆ TikTok sets automatic one-hour screen time limit for teens
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

TikTok said Wednesday it will implement an automatic 60-minute screen-time limit for all users under the age of 18. Teens will be able to opt out of the feature if they want, but TikTok said that the app will prompt teens to set a limit if they spend "more than 100 minutes on TikTok in a day." TikTok is taking steps to curb screen time for its younger users as it stares down growing scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers over its security and the safety of children on the platform. A study from the Pew Research Center last August found 67% of American teenagers used TikTok, with 16% of all teens saying they used it "constantly." TikTok parent ByteDance faces a probe from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, also known as CFIUS, over national security concerns.

☆ A laid-off Twitter exec who went viral for sleeping on the office floor says people who are afraid of being 'dunked on' should stay 'small and invisible'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A laid-off Twitter exec said people who are afraid of criticism should stay "small and invisible." Esther Crawford had become known for her commitment to Elon Musk's "Twitter 2.0." During her time at Twitter, Crawford was seen as an embodiment of Musk's "hardcore" work culture. "If you can't take being publicly dunked on then be sure to avoid taking any risks and stay away from all leadership roles," Crawford tweeted. Stay small and invisible and most of all, be silent and afraid of what others think."

HALF MOON BAY/MONTEREY PARK, California, Jan 24 (Reuters) - America was supposed to be a place of safety for Jose Romero when he arrived some two years ago to work on a California farm alongside other immigrants from Mexico and China. Romero was killed on Monday, shot dead by a gunman along with six other farm workers in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. Antonio Perez, who now lives in Half Moon Bay after moving from Mexico in 1983, said he feels stuck between cartel violence in his homeland and gun violence in the United States. “What a tragedy.”People gather for a candlelight vigil after a mass shooting during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Monterey Park, California, U.S. January 24, 2023. About 9.3% of Asian immigrants keep guns in their homes in California, compared with 5.6% of Latino immigrants and 12% of white immigrants, said Ninez Ponce, the lead researcher on the UCLA study.

☆ Cheating on your college essay with ChatGPT won't get you good grades, say professors — but AI could make education fairer
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Stephanie Stacey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some fear college students will use it to cheat, but these professors say they're not too worried. ChatGPT won't replace original writing, said Selber, but it might help college students refine their work. Dr Leah Henrickson, a lecturer at the University of Leeds, thinks that artificial intelligence, if used carefully, might even make education fairer. Artificial intelligence tools like Grammarly, which analyzes and improves written sentences, are already widely used by college students. According to Henrickson, the University of Leeds is already looking at modifying its assessments in reaction to the rise in artificial intelligence.

☆ Chinese cities announce further easing of COVID curbs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Martin Quin Pollard | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

REUTERS/David 'Dee' DelgadoBEIJING, Dec 4 (Reuters) - More Chinese cities including Urumqi in the far west announced easing of coronavirus curbs on Sunday, as China tries to make its zero-COVID policy more targeted and less onerous after extraordinary protests against restrictions last weekend. A deadly apartment fire last month in Urumqi had sparked dozens of protests against COVID curbs in over 20 cities, a show of civil disobediance unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012. On Saturday in Beijing, local authorities said purchasing fever, cough and sore throat medicines no longer requires real name registration. "We shouldn't shut down COVID testing stations until we get rid of the COVID test pass." GLOBAL OUTLIERXi's zero-COVID policy has made China a global outlier nearly three years into the pandemic, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

☆ China's sophisticated censorship engine is being pushed to 'its max' as it struggles to keep protest videos off the internet, experts say
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

China is struggling to censor videos of protests against the country's zero-COVID policy, experts say. The country's censorship apparatus has been overwhelmed by the high volume of protest content. Experts told the Times that the high volume of videos has overwhelmed China's censorship software and teams of human censors. Protesters in Chengdu were seen shouting "Step down, Xi Jinping"and "Opposition to dictatorship," according to videos reviewed by CNN. Some internet users are reportedly evading content censorship by flipping videos on their side, adding filters, and recording videos of videos to confuse the censorship algorithms, reported the Times.

☆ China accused a BBC journalist of acting 'as if he were a victim' after he was beaten and arrested while covering mass COVID-19 protests in the country
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

China accused a BBC journalist of playing "victim" after he was beaten and arrested by police. Top UK officials and the BBC slammed China for the move, which China has defended. "This BBC journalist refused to cooperate with the police's law enforcement efforts and then acted as if he were a victim," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a Tuesday press conference. BBC journalist Edward Lawrence was covering mass anti-government protests in Shanghai on Sunday when he was arrested and detained for several hours by local police before getting released. The arrest of BBC journalist [Edward Lawrence] in China is deeply disturbing.

☆ China's lockdown protests spread to campuses and cities abroad
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jessie Pang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Expatriate dissidents and students staged small-scale vigils and protests in cities around the world including London, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney, according to a Reuters tally. In most cases, dozens of people attended the protests, though a few drew more than 100, the tally showed. The protests on the mainland were triggered by a fire in China's Xinjiang region last week that killed 10 people who were trapped in their apartments. On Monday evening, dozens of protesters gathered in Hong Kong's Central business district, the scene of sometimes-violent anti-government demonstrations in 2019. BLAME, SLOGANSIt has been common in recent years for overseas Chinese students to rally in support of their government against its critics, but anti-government protests have been rare.

☆ Photos show the true scale of the anti-COVID protests sweeping China
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Protests have erupted across China as anger over strict COVID policies boils over. Photos show massive groups of people carrying symbols of defiance — a rare rebuke of Chinese rule. Loading Something is loading. Locals allege the strict COVID measures kept people from fleeing the burning building, the BBC reported. The protests — while not as intense as the deadly Tiananmen Square rallies — are still the largest since 1989 and photographs show the scale of the demonstrations.

"Number one is that we want to be extremely supportive of free speech," Zhao said at the opening event of Europe's largest tech conference, the Web Summit, in Lisbon, adding that Twitter is "where people express their opinions". "It is an important free speech platform - that's the number one reason," he added. Binance said last week it is creating a team to work on how blockchain and crypto could be helpful to Twitter. "I'm a heavy Twitter user," Zhao said, adding Binance planned to be a long-term investor in the platform. Asked about other ideas Musk has for the platform, Zhao said: "Elon Musk is a very hard guy to predict."

HONG KONG — Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to obtain a historic third term in power as the twice-a-decade congress of his ruling Chinese Communist Party wraps up this weekend. Since Xi took power in 2012, the country's GDP has more than doubled, from $8.53 trillion to $17.73 trillion. Much of that growth was based on manufacturing, turning China into the world’s second-largest economy after the United States since 2010. The government attributes 100 million of them to Xi, who made poverty alleviation one of his signature initiatives. Last February, he proclaimed that he had eliminated extreme poverty altogether, though experts have questioned how China defines it.

If Democrats elect more senators and keep control of the House, Biden said he would sign a law in January to ensure women's right to abortion across the country. Republicans largely oppose abortion rights, while Democrats largely support them. Some 20% of Democratic women cite the end of national abortion rights as their top issue for the midterms, compared with 22% who cite inflation. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that Biden would support a carveout of the filibuster reform in order to codify abortion rights. Biden and top White House officials this month announced new guidelines and grants to protect abortion and contraception rights.

☆ Man says LGBTQ people 'deserve death' at school board meeting in Arkansas
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Zachary Schermele | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

A man was recorded on video Tuesday night saying LGBTQ people “deserve death” during a school board meeting in Arkansas where several anti-LGBTQ policies were passed. The video was recorded by a person attending the meeting and verified by NBC News. “While the Conway School Board appreciates the insight and perspectives given in these comments, the personal narratives of individual patrons do not represent the school district or school board’s feelings or stances on issues.”The school board approved anti-transgender policies and bans on two books with LGBTQ themes at the meeting. Minutes from a meeting last month show at least one board member agreed with challenges to remove the books. “Tonight the Conway School Board voted to ban books — and worse — to single out students for unfair treatment,” the group tweeted.

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