DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Viktor Bout praises Putin, enjoys celebrity status after Griner exchange
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Mithil Aggarwal | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

He has since given high-profile interviews to state media and on Monday appeared on stage at a political event as he joined an ultranationalist party. Viktor Bout on a plane in Abu Dhabi before departing for Russia on Thursday. Russian media also showed him walking off a plane in Moscow, where relatives waiting with flowers embraced him. AFP - Getty ImagesSince his return home, Bout has given a pair of interviews to Maria Butina on the state-run TV channel RT. Like Butina, who was elected to the State Duma last year, Bout spared no time kicking off a potential political career.

☆ Al Roker shares update on 'TODAY' show after two recent hospital stays
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Scott Stump | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Al Roker says his recent hospital stints have been “a tough slog,” but he is pushing through it thanks to an outpouring of well wishes and support from his wife, three children and his "TODAY" colleagues. Roker shared an update on the "TODAY" show via video call from his home on Monday after spending most of the past month at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. I’m a very fortunate person.”Regular visits to the hospital by his colleagues have helped bolster his spirits. “You guys have been terrific coming by the hospital,” he said while wearing a shirt from his alma mater, SUNY Oswego. Roker then shared the happy news on Thursday that he was back home again from his second hospital stay.

☆ American college student reported missing while studying abroad in France
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Marie Brockling | Gabrielle Nolin | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

An American college student has been reported missing by his family while studying abroad in France. The parents of 22-year-old Ken DeLand Jr. have set up a website in an effort to share information about their son, who they say has been missing since last month. The family says they “fear the worst and want him to be located.”DeLand Jr. was studying at the University Grenoble Alpes in France through a study abroad program. DeLand Jr. was last seen making a purchase at 9 a.m. on Dec. 3, 2022. A surveillance camera captured DeLand Jr. entering a sports store in Montelimar in southeast France on Dec. 3, where he made a purchase for $8.40, according to the parents.

☆ France favourites but Morocco eye another knockout punch
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Mark Gleeson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The match against former colonial power France will take on an added edge. Morocco's exploits in Qatar have provided an outlet for marginalised migrant communities in France, who have been out on the streets celebrating their wins. After finishing top of a group that also included Croatia, Belgium and Canada, Morocco then knocked off the fancied Spaniards and Portuguese to reach the semis. France are expected to attack, Morocco resist. When you watch Rocky, you want to support Rocky Balboa and I think we are the Rocky of this World Cup.

☆ Condé Nast's CMO is exiting after 2 years of leading the company's marketing and consumer revenue business
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Claire Atkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Condé Nast CEO has lost its CMO, Deirdre Findlay, who spent two years in the role under CEO Roger Lynch. Condé Nast is looking to remake itself with new lines of business from events to membership businesses. Before joining Condé Nast in early 2019, Lynch was CEO of Pandora where Eisen had also been a corporate advisor. Condé Nast titles include Vogue, New Yorker, and Condé Nast Traveler. Hi All,As I shared in the CMO All Hands today, I have made the difficult decision to leave Condé Nast.

☆ Foreign workers on H-1B visas laid off by Meta asked to stay on the company payroll longer to avoid having to leave the US, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

H-1B workers laid off by Meta asked to stay on for two extra months, BuzzFeed News reportedLaid-off H-1B workers only have 60 days to find a new job or they have to leave the country. Hours after Meta announced plans to lay off 11,000 employees, foreign workers on the H-1B visa drafted a letter to the company's human resources department. An H-1B visa allows companies to hire foreign professionals to stay in the US temporarily, according to the USCIS. 65,000 H-1B workers are permitted to stay in the US per year. Several laid off Meta employees told BuzzFeed News that they received a packet on immigration guidance for "general information purposes only," which didn't offer access to legal advice.

☆ Human Composting Should Be an Option for New Yorkers - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Caitlin Doughty | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +12 min

Human composting — or, as it’s sometimes referred to, natural organic reduction — fulfills many people’s desire to nurture the earth after dying. In its place, Ms. Spade founded Recompose, a new for-profit company designed to bring human composting to the public. I have no stake in Recompose or any other human composting company.) Human composting, by Recompose’s reckoning, uses just an eighth of this energy and falls in total price between cremation and conventional burial at around $7,000. Human composting reframes the dead body: not something to be protected from nature and the elements, but something meant to return to them.

☆ I'm a special education teacher who can make up to $1,000 a month making jewelry and crafts as a side hustle
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Rasha Aly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It's a way for me to relax when I return home from my job as a special education teacher. My business, Teacher Mom Craft Shop, blossomed from there. Now, I display new items at the shop about once a month or every other month, alongside ten other artisans. My earrings usually range from $8 to $20. Right now, I'm working on a new line for young girls, which I'm naming in honor of my baby, Bonnie's Closet.

☆ Ukraine’s Power Shortages Force Millions of Refugees Into Lengthier Exile
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Bojan Pancevski | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure are forcing millions of Ukrainian refugees who intended to return home to stay put, prolonging their ordeal and straining Europe’s ability to absorb one of the biggest flows of migrants in decades. Moscow’s repeated strikes on power stations and heating equipment have caused rolling blackouts in Ukraine and deprived millions across the country of power, heating and running water amid subzero temperature. As it struggles to keep the lights on, Kyiv is now urging Ukrainian refugees to stay where they are for now.

CNN —China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to smother mass protests that swept the country, with police patrolling streets, checking cell phones and even calling some demonstrators to warn them against a repeat. While protests over local grievances do occur in China, the current wave of demonstrations is the most widespread since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement of 1989. Some of the boldest protests took place in Shanghai, where crowds called for Xi’s removal two nights in a row. Police cars patrol Shanghai's Urumqi Road, which has been completely blocked off by tall barricades after a weekend of protests. Another Shanghai protester told CNN they were among “around 80 to 110” people detained by police on Saturday night, adding they were released 24 hours later.

☆ Russians who fled draft in no hurry to return from Georgia
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( David Chkhikvishvili | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] Travellers walk after crossing the border with Russia at the frontier checkpoint Verkhny Lars - Zemo Larsi, Georgia September 28, 2022. REUTERS/Irakli GedenidzeTBILISI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A month after Russia said it had ended a recruitment drive for its war in Ukraine, men who fled to neighbouring Georgia to avoid the draft say they are in no rush to return home. Of course I don't want to return to a country where police can arrest me for simply walking past them. Yet the arrival of so many relatively well-off Russians in a comparatively poor country of just 3.7 million has created tension. Samadashvili said she fears Putin could use the pretext of "protecting" Russians in Georgia as grounds for a further invasion, just as he did in Ukraine.

☆ Tech firms sponsored 45,000 H-1B workers in the past 3 years, report says. Many are now laid-off and struggling to stay in the US.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Major tech firms sponsored 45,000 H-1B workers in the past three years, Bloomberg reported. Some H-1B workers are staying at Twitter out of fear of being "forced out of the country," per CNN. The US allows 65,000 H-1B workers per year who are permitted to stay between three to six years. USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about H-1B workers being laid off by tech firms, made outside normal working hours. "You have to spend months preparing for some of these jobs," he told Bloomberg over the phone.

☆ Travelers are getting out of town earlier for Thanksgiving this year
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

The busiest travel days during Thanksgiving week are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and the Sunday after the holiday. It looks like the rush started early this year, as the Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 2.33 million travelers on Sunday. It’s the first year that the number of people catching planes surpassed the 2.32 million screened the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began. “As a result, we’re confident that the week is going to go well.”U.S. airlines plan to operate 13% fewer flights this week than during Thanksgiving week in 2019. The busiest day in TSA’s history came on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019, when nearly 2.9 million people were screened at airport checkpoints.

☆ Mikaela Shiffrin clinches her 75th World Cup win, breaking a Lindsey Vonn record
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Issy Ronald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Mikaela Shiffrin claimed her 75th World Cup win in Levi, Finland on Saturday, sealed with an electrifying second run, as she broke Lindsey Vonn’s record for the most podiums in a single discipline by a female skier. She is now just seven World Cup wins shy of her fellow American’s record 82 wins for a female skier and 11 behind the all-time leader, Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. “On the second run I made adjustments and it felt like a really good pace and tempo. Alessandro Trovati/AP“Today was a really good day. And, as well as the gold medal, Shiffrin will return home from Levi with her fifth Lapland reindeer, the traditional prize at Levi.

☆ Who is Viktor Bout, the arms dealer who could be swapped for Griner?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Felix Light | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Russia wants the jailed arms dealer back in Moscow and is discussing a prisoner swap with the United States that could see him exchanged for Americans imprisoned in Russia including basketball star Brittney Griner. Reed was ultimately freed in return for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot jailed in the United States on drug trafficking charges. For some experts, the Russian state's continued interest in Bout, plus his skills and connections in the international arms trade, hint strongly at Russian intelligence ties. In interviews, Bout has said he attended Moscow's Military Institute of Foreign Languages, which serves as a training ground for military intelligence officers. “His case has become totemic for the Russian intelligence services, who are keen to show that they don’t abandon their own people,” Galeotti added.

☆ Elon Musk abruptly shut down Twitter offices as workers resign en masse
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter employees were told to leave offices immediately on Thursday, Insider confirmed. All offices were closed and employees' badge access was revoked, possibly until Monday. Insider confirmed that Twitter employees' badge access was suspended and that they were being told to leave the offices, which are expected to reopen on Monday. The latest closure came just over one week after Musk put an end to remote work at Twitter. In his first company-wide email since taking over, Musk told employees they would no longer be allowed to work remotely and needed to return to the office within days.

☆ Japanese filmmaker jailed in Myanmar to be released Thursday -Kyodo
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

TOKYO, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota, who had been jailed in Myanmar on charges of sedition and violating immigration and other laws earlier this year, will be released on Thursday and return home, Kyodo News reported. Kubota was arrested in July at a protest in Myanmar's main city of Yangon and last month was sentenced to a total of 10 years. Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Himani SarkarOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Qatar World Cup: 'Our dreams never came true.' These men helped build Qatar's tournament, now they are struggling to survive.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Aimee Lewis Pramod Acharya Sugam Pokharel | Aimee Lewis | Pramod Acharya | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +31 min

It will be a historic event, the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, but one also mired in controversy. He had dreamed of watching World Cup matches from the rooftop of the hotel he had helped build. In Qatar, migrant workers can now change jobs freely without permission from their employer. However, a number of European federations have issued a joint statement saying they would campaign at the tournament on human rights and for a migrant workers center and a compensation fund for migrant workers. The motto for Qatar’s bid team in 2010 was ‘Expect Amazing.’ In many ways, this year’s World Cup has replicated that maxim.

As at other recent international forums, the United States and its allies were seeking a statement from the two-day G20 summit against Moscow's military actions. But Russia, whose forces pounded cities and energy facilities across Ukraine even as the G20 met, said "politicization" of the summit was unfair. [1/12] Leaders gather during the G20 leaders summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. China and Russia are close, but Beijing has been careful not to provide any direct material support for the Ukraine war that could trigger Western sanctions against it. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed concern for the health of other world leaders - including Biden - after a positive COVID-19 test forced him to return home early.

☆ Cambodia PM leaves G20 after positive COVID test, worried about other leaders
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

PHNOM PENH, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday expressed concern for the health of other world leaders after a positive COVID-19 test forced him to cancel meetings at the G20 Summit in Indonesia and return home early. It was not immediately clear if any of the leaders at the G20 meeting have tested positive for COVID-19. U.S. President Joe Biden, who is tested regularly for COVID-19, had a negative test on Tuesday morning, according to the White House. Biden and Indonesian President Joko Widodo attended several meetings on Tuesday, among other leaders who were also in Cambodia. Hun Sen had been scheduled to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, among others.

☆ A failed war helped bring down the Soviet Union. Now Putin's failing war in Ukraine might set Russia up for a bleak future.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Joy Neumeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

The Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan and Russia's current war in Ukraine have obvious similarities in their disastrous planning and execution. In the 1990s, Afghanistan veterans' sense of aggrievement fused with that of veterans returning from Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Putin's war, Russia's futurePutin meets soldiers at a military training center outside the town of Ryazan in October. While glasnost-era revelations about the Soviet war shocked the country into supporting withdrawal, these days there is little left to expose. Public self-criticism surrounding the Soviet war in Afghanistan, however brief and contested, shows that reassessment of imperial ambitions is possible.

☆ New Zealand's Williamson rues poor performance rather than result
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Nick Mulvenney | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SYDNEY, Nov 9 (Reuters) - New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson was frustrated by his team's sub-par performance as their Twenty20 World Cup dream ended with defeat to Pakistan in Wednesday's semi-final. The loss means Black Caps will return home without a trophy from a fifth straight white-ball World Cup, despite reaching at least the semi-finals in all of them. "The journey in this tournament has been a lot of good but it's just frustrating not put out a better performance today," he told reporters. Asked about again failing to get his hands on any silverware, Williamson reverted to his focus on performance. "And then we've got met by a side that's played a little bit better or about equal.

☆ Americans convicted in Japan on Carlos Ghosn’s escape return home
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

TOKYO — An American father and son convicted in Japan on charges of helping former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn escape to Lebanon by hiding in a box have been returned to the U.S., their lawyer said Tuesday. The U.S. and Japan have an extradition treaty, while Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan. Peter Taylor has already been released, and is back with his family in Massachusetts, said Kelly, whose office is based in Boston. During their trial in Tokyo, Michael and Peter Taylor apologized and acknowledged guilt, saying they had been misled by Ghosn. He says he fled because he could not expect a fair trial in Japan.

☆ From Russia with cash: Georgia booms as Russians flee Putin's war
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Jake Cordell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), for example, predicted in March the Ukraine conflict would deal a major blow to the Georgian economy. "On the contrary, we see the Georgian economy growing quite well this year, double digits." Business leaders also worry that the country could face a hard landing should the war end and Russians return home. TO GEORGIA WITH $1 BILLIONGeorgia itself fought a short war with Russia in 2008 over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, territories controlled by Russian-backed separatists. 'THE CRISIS COULD HIT'TBC's Butskhrikidze said he saw potential in the new arrivals to fill skills gaps in the Georgian economy.

The company's content moderation team is expected to be a target of the cuts, tweets from Twitter employees suggested on Friday. Twitter employees vented their frustrations about the layoffs on the social network, using the hashtag #OneTeam. User Rachel Bonn tweeted: "Last Thursday in the SF (San Francisco) office, really the last day Twitter was Twitter. The company's office in Piccadilly Circus, London, appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. Employees told Reuters they were left to piece together information through media reports, private messaging groups and anonymous forums.

Search resuls for: "Return Home"

25 mentions found