DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Our experts answer readers' student loan questions and write unbiased product reviews (here's how we assess student loans). My husband and I aggressively paid of $80,000 in student loans during the pandemic. I would have stopped conflating net worth with my self-worthI've spent so much energy demonizing debt in the past, especially student loans. I wish I could reach out to my younger self and remind her that student loans are an investment in the future. Tons of people have student loans, and they don't have to be a huge psychic weight.

Persons: Ramsey, we'd, David Bach, I've Organizations: Service, PMI Locations: Wall, Silicon, Dave

☆ These 9 House Democrats voted against a resolution declaring Israel is 'not a racist or apartheid state'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

House Republicans teed up a vote on a resolution saying Israel is "not a racist or apartheid state." It came days after Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a top progressive, said Israel is a "racist state." Nine progressive House Democrats voted against the resolution. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy PolicyNine progressive House Democrats on Tuesday voted against a resolution declaring that Israel is neither a racist nor an apartheid state. In a floor speech earlier on Tuesday, Tlaib made clear she would vote against the resolution, stating that Congress was "re-affirming support for apartheid."

Persons: Republicans teed, Pramila, Jayapal, —, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Pfluger, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Tlaib, Omar, Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez, Andre Carson, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Delia Ramirez, Jamaal Bowman, Rashida, Summer Lee of, Betty McCollum, Isaac Herzog, Robert F, Kennedy Jr Organizations: Republicans, House Democrats, Service, Democrats, House Republicans, Democratic Rep, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democratic, New York Times, Israel, Republican Rep, Congress, Cortez of New York Rep, Indiana Rep, Massachusetts, Missouri Rep, Illinois Rep, Minnesota Rep, New York Rep, Michigan Rep, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania Democratic, Minnesota Locations: Israel, Wall, Silicon, Washington, Chicago, Congress, Texas, Palestinian Territories, South Africa, Alexandria, Cortez of, Missouri, Minnesota

☆ Don't say anti-gay: As GOP approval for same-sex relationships plummets, Republican senators insist they're only coming after trans rights, not gay rights
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

GOP senators insist they don't hear about it from their voters — and that trans issues are different. "You mentioned that eight years ago, the Obergefell decision created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage," said Graham. Since the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, same-sex marriage has largely faded as an issue targeted by Republicans, at least at the national level. "To be honest, I don't hear a lot about that issue," Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the more eager Republican culture warriors, said of same-sex marriage. Still, support for the legality of same-sex marriage remains broadly popular — it's not the potent wedge issue it once was, such as during the 2004 presidential campaign when President George W. Bush campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Persons: —, Sen, Lindsey Graham of, Graham, Hodges, Josh Hawley, Hawley, George W, Bush, Cynthia Lummis, Ron DeSantis, Lummis, Drew Angerer, Thom Tillis, Republican Sen, you've, JD Vance, Ohio, Vance, it's, Anita Bryant's, Biden, Dr, Roger Marshall, Roger Marshall of, Marshall, I've Organizations: Pride, Service, Republican, Republicans, Gallup, Gov, Getty, Rights, House Locations: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Wyoming, Florida, North Carolina, United States, statehouses, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Kansas

☆ Opinion: ‘No Hard Feelings’ with Jennifer Lawrence is a sex worker romcom that won’t admit it
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Opinion Noah Berlatsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Friday’s debut of “No Hard Feelings,” a sex work romcom that doesn’t want to admit to its own subgenre, is very much of our era. Noah Berlatsky Noah BerlatskyThe Jennifer Lawrence vehicle from Sony Pictures revolves around a sex worker who, like the film, doesn’t want to admit what she’s doing. In sex worker romcoms, you’re supposed to be scandalized at the sordidness — but in a fun way. Anti-sex and anti-porn advocates have put a lot of effort into (falsely) conflating sex work and sex trafficking. Every film, sex worker romcom or otherwise, doesn’t have to be enthusiastically political, or, for that matter, sexual.

Persons: Noah Berlatsky, we’re, Noah Berlatsky Noah Berlatsky, Jennifer Lawrence, Maddie, Lawrence, Uber, Laird, Matthew Broderick, Allison, Laura Benanti, Percy, Andrew Barth Feldman, ” Percy, romcoms, Billy Wilder’s “ Irma La Douce, Ron Howard’s, Vivian Ward, Julia Roberts, Edward Lewis, Richard Gere, Stock, Pixie “, Richard Gere’s Edward isn’t, Rebecca De Mornay’s Lana isn’t, revel, ”, you’re, Rebecca de Mornay, Lana, she’s, Irma La Douce, Barbara Stanwyck, Leo Grande ”, Nancy, Emma Thompson, Leo Grande, Daryl McCormack Organizations: CNN, Sony Pictures, Pictorial Press, Library, Twitter Locations: Chicago, Montauk , New York

LONDON, June 1 (Reuters) - Even if the U.S. dollar's singular dominance as global currency of choice is in fact ebbing, it may not automatically lead to a weaker dollar exchange rate - and could periodically mean the opposite. The big advantage of large dollar reserve holdings alongside wide commercial usage and trade in dollars overseas was clear. But the issue is typically read in markets as a reason to bet on a weakening dollar exchange rate - or even to pump alternatives such as gold or crypto tokens. Of course, that was a global economy riven with fixed dollar exchange rate pegs that supercharged the transmission of Fed policy, most of which have since been dismantled. That may be a world many countries prefer if they are sure of viable alternatives - but may not mean a weaker dollar.

Persons: chomping, Alan Greenspan's, Janet Yellen, Yellen, Mike Dolan, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: Federal, OASIS, Fed, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Reuters, Twitter, Thomson Locations: U.S, United States, Washington, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Iran, Venezuela, outflows

☆ New York City choking death revives debate over subway crime
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Julia Harte | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The overall subway crime rate spiked in April 2020, as COVID-19 gripped New York, but city statistics show the daily rate fell back to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2021. Robbery and grand larceny, the other most common types of major subway crime, dropped during the same period. But the data does not show how often the assailants or victims are homeless, according to Herrmann. "The problem is people are conflating homelessness with crime," said Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, a grassroots organization that advocates for city subway reform. Republican Lee Zeldin highlighted grisly city subway crimes in last year's gubernatorial election, prompting Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul to also focus on anti-crime policies in her campaign.

☆ Fact Check-Compounds in Apeel’s edible food coating deemed safe by FDA
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Edible food coatings from U.S. company Apeel Sciences are made of monoglycerides and diglycerides that are not “toxic” to humans, contrary to posts on social media. The company received funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but is not owned by Bill Gates, as also claimed online. This is a Bill Gates founded company using toxic mono & diglycerides to make you SICK!” alongside a photo of an avocado with an Apeel label (here). Reuters has debunked posts conflating the edible food coating with a UK-manufactured cleaning product (here). The edible food coating known as Apeel is made of monoglycerides and diglycerides, compounds that are generally recognized as safe by the FDA and a nutritional expert in the quantities proposed by the company.

☆ What is ESG investing? A beginner's guide to choosing a sustainable fund
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Ryan Ermey | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

So-called ESG investing is a big deal. In other words, 1 in every 8 U.S. investor dollars is in a sustainable fund. The growing prominence of and demand for ESG investments has attracted the attention of politicians and regulators. ESG has become a catch-all acronym for what asset management industry pros would call sustainable investing — strategies that seek to deliver a financial return while providing for societal good. ESG funds This is where conflating ESG funds and "boycotting" the energy industry gets a little spurious.

☆ Fact Check-Safety data sheet of surface cleaner unrelated to Apeel Sciences
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

I couldn’t find data safety sheets from the US but did from other countries” (here). The screenshots shared in the viral posts show the safety data sheet for a hard surface cleaning product called “APEEL” (here), manufactured by UK-based company Evans Vanodine. The APEEL product is a hard surface cleaner and not suitable for vegetable coating, Jonathan Kings of Evans Vanodine told Reuters in an email. Apeel Sciences did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment. The safety data sheet for APEEL cleaner describes health hazards upon coming into direct contact with the concentrated product and is not related to the safety of an edible food coating manufactured by Apeel Sciences.

☆ Changes are coming to some mortgage fees next month
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Anna Bahney | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Broadly, the fees will go down for many with lower credit scores and will increase for many with higher credit scores. But that doesn’t mean people with lower credit scores will pay less than those with higher credit scores. The changes mean that people with higher credit scores will still pay less based on lower risk to the lenders, but having a lower credit score will now come with less of a penalty. For those with higher credit scores, more price tiers have been put in place, which in some cases may increases fees. The difference in assessed fees is about $4,000 more for a buyer with a 640 credit score than for a buyer with a 740 credit score, based on a $300,000 mortgage.

☆ Florida prosecutor blamed an 'entry-level' staffer after a document surfaced from his office outlining harsher penalties for 'Hispanic' defendants
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Florida prosecutor has confirmed to Insider the authenticity of a document that outlined a racist policy in his office. The document called for "Hispanic" defendants to receive stricter penalties for "No Valid Driver's License." The prosecutor, Jack Campbell, blamed the document on a junior staffer who has been "reprimanded." First elected in 2016, Campbell, is the state attorney for the 2nd Judicial District, making him the chief prosecutor for six counties in northern Florida. Hayes, who worked for Campbell as an assistant state attorney, left Florida in January and now works as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia.

☆ Fact Check-‘15-minute city’ is an urban planning concept that promotes easy access to essential amenities
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

A “15-minute city” is an urban planning model that envisions an environment where people can access amenities within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transport journey from their homes. However, multiple experts who spoke to Reuters said the urban planning idea has been widely misinterpreted online. WHAT IS A 15-MINUTE CITY? Versions of a 15-minute city have been implemented in Paris and Melbourne, while other areas like Ottawa (here) and Scotland (bit.ly/3Hil13x) (page 61) have proposals in place. The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept that envisions a living environment with easily accessible essentials.

☆ Tennessee governor will sign bills restricting drag, transgender youth treatment
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Jonathan Allen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Feb 28 (Reuters) - Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he would sign into law bills that passed the legislature last week banning gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth and restricting drag performances in public. Lee said the drag bill, which comes into effect April 1, would protect children from being "potentially exposed to sexualized entertainment, to obscenity." Modern drag performances, which have long flourished in LGBT venues before becoming a more mainstream entertainment in recent years, typically do not involve nudity. One of the bills Lee will sign bans doctors from providing gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery, for transgender minors. The Tennessee bills are part of an upswing in recent months in Republican efforts to regulate the conduct of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence linking clouds to earthquakes, contrary to claims following Turkey-Syria quake
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Experts contacted by Reuters dismissed claims shared online conflating the events that occurred weeks apart and emphasized that there is no evidence linking cloud formations to quakes. “Lenticular clouds form from a natural interaction of the air with mountains,” Mark Wysocki, senior lecturer in Cornell University’s Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department, told Reuters by email. A diagram illustrating this process provided by Wysocki is viewable (ibb.co/PmKM019)“And earthquakes form from the natural movement of the Earth’s crust. Experts contacted by Reuters say there is no evidence linking clouds to earthquakes. The science behind the formation of lens-like-shaped clouds, or lenticular clouds, has been documented.

☆ Walter Mosley Thinks America Is Getting Dumber
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times Talk Walter Mosley Thinks America Is Getting DumberWalter Mosley is best known as one of contemporary literature’s pre-eminent crime novelists, but he’s actually four or five different writers rolled into one. You have to tell stories about real people experiencing it and not real people with a Ph.D. People who are not stupid but ignorant, who don’t know things about the world. There are people who don’t know how to spell, they don’t know how to think. You have these people coming out into the world, and they don’t know what to do. That’s going to happen.

☆ 5 questions to ask before buying your first electric car
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Alexa St. John | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Today's electric car buyers have a lot of questions. Potential EV drivers have plenty of questions, and there's plenty you need to know before buying an electric car. Regardless, here are some tips on what to ask your dealer or sales advisor if you're considering buying an EV. It's important for car-buyers considering an EV to ask about how it fits into an average driver's lifestyle. But given how much this market depends on improvements in battery tech, dealers should still be ready to talk about what separates their EV's battery from competitors.

☆ White House aides were reportedly blindsided by AG Garland's appointment of a special counsel to investigate Biden
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Many in the White House were blindsided when AG Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden, WaPo reported. The GOP has accused the special counsel Robert Hur of being partisan, but a former Trump lawyer disagreed, saying he's "smart and experienced." That's why many in the White House were blindsided, according to The Washington Post, when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden's mishandling of classified information. Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized the Biden White House for failing to disclose the existence of the DOJ's investigation for two months, despite having known about it since November. But Ty Cobb, who once served as Trump's White House counsel, dismissed those concerns.

☆ Trump claims documents found at Mar-a-Lago were empty folders labeled 'classified' that he'd kept because they were 'cool'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Trump claimed that government records seized from Mar-a-Lago last year were empty folders marked "classified" or "confidential." He went on to say that he kept the "ordinary, inexpensive folders" because they were a "'cool' keepsake." He added: "Remember, these were just ordinary, inexpensive folders with various words printed on them, but they were a 'cool' keepsake." Documents seized by FBI at Mar-a-Lago. Following that discovery, Biden's legal team undertook an "exhaustive" search and uncovered a second batch of classified documents at another location, NBC News reported last week.

☆ Biden's mishandling of classified records isn't as legally perilous as Trump's, but may pose serious national security risks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Trump's former White House lawyer told Insider that AG Garland should appoint a special counsel to investigate Biden. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Lausch has finished the initial part of his investigation and presented his preliminary findings to Garland. Still, he criticized the White House for waiting more than two months to disclose the existence of the inquiry. "It appears that at least two of the aggravating factors, obstruction and willfulness, are present in the Trump case, but absent in the Biden case." Cobb, Trump's former White House counsel, went further, saying that drawing a distinction between the two cases is akin to "putting lipstick on a pig."

☆ A group of laid off Twitter employees finally got paltry severance agreements. Now they must decide whether to sign, or pursue legal action against Elon Musk's company.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

After two months of waiting, laid off Twitter employees got severance agreements from Elon Musk. By comparison, laid off workers at Facebook received six months of severance when that company enacted mass layoffs in November. The website also uses Twitter's official blue and white bird logo and the official separation agreements are said to show Musk's signature. As for the separation agreements, they appear to be mostly boilerplate, offering one month of pay to laid off employees as severance. Such clauses are typical for severance agreements.

☆ 2022 was the year the Overconfidence Man fell back to earth
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Maureen Tkacik | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

Naturally, Elon Musk, the platonic ideal of the peculiar self-aggrandizing, self-parodying personality type that thrived during the Trump years and peaked during the pandemic, tops this list. By 2022, the media had pronounced him variously the next Warren Buffett, J.P. Morgan and Charles Koch. "bye bye @trussliz Congrats to lettuce", tweeted Putin's one-time stand-in Dmitry Medvedev, to which Elon Musk could not resist replying, "pretty good troll tbh." Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in March 2020. Elon MuskIt's weird to recall now that Elon Musk once seemed like, graded on the billionaire curve anyway, a net positive for a cursed American society.

☆ Judge appoints independent monitor to oversee Trump Org financial reporting in NY AG fraud suit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

A New York court Monday appointed retired Judge Barbara Jones to oversee some of the Trump Organization's financial statements as part of a lawsuit alleging widespread fraud by former President Donald Trump, his businesses and his family members. Both Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the sweeping fraud suit in September, had recommended Jones as their top pick to serve as independent monitor in the case. New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron had earlier this month approved James' request to appoint a third-party entity to oversee a range of Trump Org financial statements and other records. She noted that the Trump Organization had registered a new entity called Trump Organization II on the same day the lawsuit was filed. The judge ordered the defendants to provide the monitor with financial statements, statements of financial condition, asset valuation disclosures and other disclosures to lenders, insurers and other financial institutions.

Among the provisions being challenged is one that gives a preference to Native Americans seeking to foster or adopt Native American children, which those challenging the law say discriminates on the basis of race. The challengers are led by Chad and Jennifer Brackeen — a white evangelical Christian couple who sought to adopt a Native American boy — as well as the states of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana. Tribes have also warned that a ruling striking down provisions of the law on racial discrimination grounds would threaten centuries of law that treat Native American tribes as distinct entities. Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court after the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. The Supreme Court has been closely divided in two major recent cases on Native American issues.

☆ The secret to a successful job search? 'Don't care so much,' says career coach
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Although rejection is inevitable in the job search, it's hard not to feel defeated or hopeless when it happens, to take it as a sign of personal deficiency. A fear of rejection and failure is the single greatest obstacle holding people back from landing their dream job, career coach Emily Liou tells CNBC Make It. When you let fear override confidence in the job search, you risk sounding "desperate," Liou warns. Many jobseekers fall victim to the scarcity mindset, Liou explains, which comes from the feeling that there are finite jobs and seeing limitations instead of opportunities. "It's a vicious cycle because the less confident you feel, the more self-doubt creeps in, and it becomes tempting to lower your standards in the job search or stop altogether," Liou warns.

☆ 'British Bake Off' episode is getting heat for stereotyping Mexican culture
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-07 | by ( Harmeet Kaur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —A recent episode of “The Great British Bake Off” is drawing criticism from some viewers for its depictions of Mexican culture. At another point, Fielding muses, “So, is Mexico a real place?” while Lucas, in turn, likens the country to Xanadu. 🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽 #GBBO pic.twitter.com/A4aX43H5rd — British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) October 4, 2022The episode’s flippant tone and use of stereotypes rubbed many viewers the wrong way. “But that would have called for more actual knowledge about Mexican culture and cuisine which is clearly lacking here.”CNN has reached out to “The Great British Bake Off” for comment. Since the first episode aired in 2010, “The Great British Bake Off” – which streams stateside as “The Great British Baking Show” – has become a cultural phenomenon, soothing viewers with its spirit of camaraderie and offering them an escape.

Search resuls for: "conflating"

25 mentions found