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☆ Disneyland reopens Toontown, designed to be inclusive of 'every single guest'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Sarah Whitten | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Parkgoers at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, will finally be able to return to Mickey's Toontown this weekend after a yearlong closure for refurbishment. The reimagined Toontown honors the space that first opened in 1993, keeping existing structures like Mickey and Minnie's houses in tact, albeit with a paint touch-up. But there's also quite a bit of new infrastructure for kids to explore — with an eye toward inclusivity. "We wanted Toontown to not only be exciting, but also decompressing and relaxing and welcoming." With that in mind, the Imagineers have introduced more green spaces within the land, places to have picnics, sit and unwind, or play freely.

☆ Salesforce engineers are about to be hit with new performance metrics, while some salespeople are being pressured to quit
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Some Salesforce employees have been offered a "Prompt Exit Package" instead of a layoff, with less severance. Employees say the company is ratcheting up performance expectations as activist investors invade. "The company is pushing hard for productivity tracking and metrics on all facets," one employee told Insider. Salesforce cut a few hundred salespeople in November, a person familiar with the matter told Insider, and the company told Insider the cuts were made for "accountability," implying that performance was a consideration. In some cases, the company has presented employees with PEP offers in the same week it has executed mass layoffs, employees told Insider.

A message from a hacked friend on Facebook meant my information was out in the open for anyone. But one day, last summer, I decided to check my Facebook account and had a message from an old friend asking, "Is this you?" Someone had charged almost $200 in Facebook ads to my PayPal account. I set up notifications from PayPal and my bankI set up notifications for all of my accounts, including PayPal. What I've learned is they try your email and password for the most popular websites where you can order things and link your account information.

☆ A secret Russian satellite has broken apart in orbit, creating a cloud of debris that could last a century
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A secretive Russian satellite broke apart in Earth's orbit, the US Space Force said on Monday. Kosmos 2499 launched secretly and made "suspicious" maneuvers to complete a mysterious mission. The 18th Space Defense Squadron said on Twitter Monday that it had confirmed a satellite called Kosmos 2499 had broken apart into 85 pieces. The bizarre behavior led to speculation that Russia was testing technology to follow or wreck other satellites, according to Space.com. The first secret satellite, Kosmos 2491, broke apart in 2019.

☆ Microsoft is giving Google the kick in the butt it's needed for years
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Win or lose, Microsoft is giving Google the kick in the rear end it's needed for a long time. Competition is ultimately good for consumers, but AI still has a long way to go. And yet, Google has never faced a real challenge to its search engine empire. Microsoft's Bing has endured for years as a consistent but distant second-place search engine — despite the tech titan's best efforts. What's not clear is whether Microsoft will end up being the company to lead the charge through the disruption of search engine technology.

☆ I was working toward a promotion at Amazon when my manager started emailing me about needing coaching. Now I'm worried about losing my job.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

An Amazon marketing manager was told they were a high-value contributor. I started my promotion doc [a document explaining why an Amazon employee is ready for a promotion]. One thing that's in the ethos at Amazon is you're supposed to be allowed to make mistakes. So if it's something as simple as, "Hey, let's all try this new thing in Asana," and then the next day you're told you're horrible at Asana and that you're being put on a coaching action, it just seemed un-Amazonian. 'I started getting strange communication from my manager'By the end of December, I started getting strange communication from my manager.

☆ The inquiry Trump launched to clear his name on Russia collusion ended up investigating him for potential financial crimes: NYT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Special counsel John Durham's team reportedly opened up a criminal probe into Trump's financial dealings. It is not clear what happened to the probe, which started as a result of a tip by Italian officials. Instead, a tip from Italian officials led the Justice Department to quietly open a probe into shady financial deals linked to then-President Donald Trump. But, according to the Times, Italian officials responded by telling Durham's team about allegations of financial crimes that were serious enough that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation. At the time, vague reports about Durham's new criminal probe lit up conservative media.

☆ Ronaldo v Messi: the last dance in Saudi Arabia or a fresh start?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Shady Amir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Messi's Paris St Germain take on a combined Al Hilal-Al Nassr team in an exhibition match, giving Ronaldo and Messi a chance to rekindle their old 'El Clasico' rivalry when they played for Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively. Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Finance, had recently indicated that the door was open for moves by Saudi clubs to try and sign both of soccer's biggest stars. Messi and Ronaldo won every Ballon d'Or award from 2008-2017 until Real Madrid midfielder Luka Modric broke their hegemony and the Argentine has since won two more to lead 7-5 over his Portuguese rival in the race to be the world's best player. Should the Argentine move to Saudi Arabia, Thursday's encounter between the sport's two biggest stars of the modern era could signal the dawn of a new age in Asian football. Reporting by Shady Amir; Editing by Ken FerrisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ This is what I want to buy from Twitter's HQ auction
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Twitter headquarters is seen in San Francisco, California, United States on October 28, 2022 Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency1. $44 billion for Twitter — going once, going twice, sold. But a 6-ft. @ symbol, office chairs, a pizza oven, and more remain on sale from the Twitter San Francisco headquarters. Corvette, Corvette, hop in an electric jet by jet. Email dsiu@insider.com or tweet @diamondnagasiu) Edited by Matt Weinberger (tweet @gamoid) in San Francisco and Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.

☆ As Russia's only aircraft carrier falls apart, some Russians want to undo a shady ship deal with China 25 years ago
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Michael Peck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Russia's sole aircraft carrier has been sidelined for years and may not see action again. A Russian lawmaker has proposed trying buying China's Liaoning aircraft carrier as a replacement. Liaoning began life as a Soviet carrier, but China acquired it in a shady sale in the late 1990s. Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning during a drill in the western Pacific in April 2018. A 40-year-old aircraft carrier in the Black Sea won't provide much value.

☆ George Santos hit with 3 new ethics complaints over his campaign spending, fundraising, and financial disclosure
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Santos was sworn into office on Friday despite a record of alleged fraud and lies about his background. Now, End Citizens United is filing complaints against Santos with the FEC, OCE, and DOJ. Santos faces a slew of other campaign finance-related complaints and is under investigation in 2 countries. The trio of complaints add to a barrage of other complaints the congressman is already facing. Santos' history and finances are also under investigation by prosecutors at the federal level, in New York state, and in Brazil.

☆ Iowa woman believed to be the oldest person in the U.S. dies at 115
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

LAKE CITY, Iowa — An Iowa woman who was believed to be the oldest living person in the U.S. has died at the age of 115. Bessie Laurena Hendricks, of Lake City, died Tuesday at the Shady Oaks Care Center, according to Lampe & Powers Funeral Home in Lake City. Hendricks celebrated her 115th birthday at the home on Nov. 7 and was listed last year by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group as the country’s oldest living person until her death. A funeral service for Hendricks will be held at Lampe & Powers Funeral Home on Saturday. The Gerontology Research Group reports that Hendrick’s death leaves 114-year-old Edie Ceccarelli of California as the country’s oldest living person.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX collapse is a nightmare of shady finances - and these bizarre schemes emerged recently
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Recently, it emerged that FTX reportedly told customers to wire money to a little-known, fake electronics retailer website. One SEC complaint said FTX told customers to wire money to a subsidiary that was a little-known fake online electronics retailer. "FTX was an opaque company that was so centralized it relied entirely on one person," Andrew Yeoh, chief marketing officer of Web3 firm Nillion, told Insider. He has denied criminal liability and is due to appear in a New York federal court on January 3 for charges of wire fraud and conspiracy. "The point of crypto is that it's fully decentralized and trustless," he told Insider.

Last year, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign, labeled 2021 the “worst year” for LGBTQ rights in modern U.S. history, citing a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. “The LGBTQ+ community is really under siege right now,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. One bill that was successfully implemented, and gained national headlines for months, was Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers. Those losses came after some conservative groups ramped up misleading or inflammatory campaign ads targeting transgender rights.

☆ The Sinaloa Cartel's 'narco juniors' have big plans for marijuana, and they're borrowing ideas from California's dispensaries
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Luis Chaparro | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Sinaloa Cartel members want to get a jump on the potential legalization of marijuana in Mexico. The key to their new business, according to Sinaloa Cartel operatives who spoke with Insider, is marketing. Marijuana cigarettes inside a manufacturing house in Culiacán. The "godfather" said that the organization has at least 20 different manufacturing houses under different brands. Its logo has an astronaut eating a slice of pizza — the pizza is used by the Sinaloa Cartel to reference "La Chapisa," the people working for "El Chapo" and his sons.

☆ House Democrats vote to make material related to Trump's personal tax returns public
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Warren Rojas | Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The Democratic-majority House Ways and Means Committee voted to make materials related to Trump's tax returns public. Some of this was already revealed in 2020 when The New York Times obtained decades of Trump's tax information. "If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause," Cheung wrote. US Treasury officials gave Neal Trump's tax filings for 2015-2020 in late November. Neal and other Democratic tax writers have been deliberating about how to handle Trump's tax documents for weeks.

☆ Nonstop partying, lavish spending, and sexual-harassment accusations: Inside the self-destruction of Pollen, the music startup once worth $800 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Melkorka Licea | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

About 400 Pollen employees were camped out in Mendocino County, California, for five straight days of partying. Two former Pollen employees told Insider that they recalled the assistant telling them about Callum's inappropriate comments at the time. (The Pollen representative said Callum and Bedi didn't date at Pollen or at any other company connected to Pollen. Out of 360 events Pollen announced over the past 12 months, 39 were canceled, the Pollen representative said. (The Pollen representative said that "out of hundreds of thousands of customers, fewer than 100 people were moderated" online.)

In 2019, Cambodia supplied 8,571 of the 33,818 research monkeys imported to the U.S., or 25%. In 2021, the number of monkeys from Cambodia more than doubled to 18,870, making up nearly 60% of the 31,844 research monkeys brought to America. Earlier this year, long-tailed macaques and pig-tailed macaques were listed as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The decades long effort by animal rights groups to derail the monkey trade has made some impact. The incident shined a rare spotlight on the monkey trade, which largely goes on outside the view of the public.

☆ What to know about a judicial privacy bill Congress is passing with a major defense package
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

But the legislation is also rankling court watchdogs who contend the bill could complicate efforts to scrutinize the judicial branch for ethics issues. The bill does not displace the ethical disclosure requirements judges already face, the congressional aide noted to CNN. And it extends the threat-monitoring programs that are being offered to Article III judges to administrative judges as well. Now that the bill has been added to the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive defense package that Congress passes annually, Paul’s options for scuttling it are limited. “Because, if I am sued, someone is going to be bringing it to a federal judge.

☆ Portugal young gun Ramos faces tough test from wily Saiss
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Shady Amir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Ramos, 21, made headlines when the teams were announced, picked to lead the attack in place of Portugal's all-time leading scorer Cristiano Ronaldo who was relegated to the bench. It did not take long for the youngster to become one of the biggest stories of the Qatar World Cup. Ramos made his debut in Portugal's 4-0 win over Nigeria in a warm-up game before the World Cup and played a total of 10 minutes as a substitute in two of the three group matches. Perhaps Ramos, who helped Benfica reach the Champions League last 16 this season, benefited from being the third striker in the squad behind Ronaldo and Andre Silva. He will now be firmly in the spotlight when Morocco coach Walid Regragui considers his tactics.

☆ Mr Avocado Head has Morocco daring to dream
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Shady Amir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

When the appointment of Regragui following the departure of Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic was announced in August, underwhelmed pundits branded him "avocado head" as a belittling term of derision. Morocco first grabbed attention at the World Cup with a goalless draw against Croatia, the runners-up four years ago. Unfortunately, I did not play in the World Cup. "I think Africans can go far, why not dream of winning the cup? The Moroccan people made us united on the field," Regragui told Bein Sports.

☆ Morocco's 'avocado head' plots another World Cup shock
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Shady Amir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Spain, who humbled Costa Rica 7-0 in their opening game, finished second in Group E behind Japan while Morocco defied the odds to win Group F ahead of Croatia and Belgium. The Spanish, world champions in 2010, lost their last group match to Japan and face a difficult test from a Moroccan side growing in confidence under coach Walid Regragui. Spain drew 1-1 with Germany following their rout of Costa Rica and after the loss to Japan coach Luis Enrique was critical of his team. This was impossible because in five minutes, Japan scored two goals ... we were out, we were dismantled," he said. In the first half against Costa Rica, Spain's 537 successful passes set a World Cup record but they will need to show more cutting edge to stay on course for a second world title.

“I was just so thirsty to get a BBL,” Velasco said. 7Q Spa also has positive reviews on Yelp and Google, where it averages a 4.5 star rating. The front door of 7Q Spa is side-by-side with Vitality Medical Center, which, according to California business registration documents, has the same CEO as 7Q Spa. After the surgery, Velasco said she felt great and, at first, she couldn’t feel her stitches at all. The California Medical Board revoked her license as part of the settlement, but stayed the revocation and granted her a 35-month probation.

☆ A generation that won't be forgotten by the Saudis
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Shady Amir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Nov 22, 2022; Lusail, Qatar; Saudi Arabia midfielder Salem Al-Dawsari (10) is congratulated by teammates after scoring a goal against Argentina during a group stage match during the 2022 World Cup at Lusail Stadium. read moreOnly the heroics of Saudi goalkeeper Mohamed Al-Owais prevented a humiliating defeat, though they still finished bottom of Group C, three points behind group winners Argentina. Yes, in Saudi Arabia we know the players well, but they are unknown to fans around the world," Renard said. Saudi Arabia has been playing a bigger role in sport globally. Saudi's football federation is also hoping Cristiano Ronaldo can be lured to a local club after the Portuguese forward had his contract terminated by Manchester United.

☆ The SEC is suing real-estate mogul Kent Swig's shady crypto partner for perpetuating a 'pump-and-dump' scheme with a different gold-backed crypto currency
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Alex Nicoll | Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Now the SEC is suing the CEO of Swig's company for an earlier, separate gold-backed crypto scam. According to the SEC, Braverman was said to be the chief operating officer of one of two companies the regulator targeted in the complaint. When Swig's company announced Digau, cryptocurrencies were on a sugar high, with bitcoin trading above $60,000. Neither Swig nor Dignity Gold would reveal to Business Insider any of the specific site locations where the company plans to mine. To extract the gold, Swig partnered with a mining company called Apache Mill Tailings.

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