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☆ A one-time $6 billion donation from Musk, Bezos, and other billionaires could save 42 million people from starvation, World Food Programme director says
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-04 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The director of the World Food Programme says 42 million people are at high risk of starvation. "Billionaires need to step up," he told CNN in an interveiw that aired Tuesday. "The governments are tapped out," David Beasley, the executive director for the UN's World Food Programme, told CNN in an interview that aired Tuesday. "This is why and this is when the billionaires need to step up now on a one-time basis. "The top 400 billionaires in the United States, the net-worth increase was $1.8 trillion in the past year," Beasley told CNN.

Persons: David Beasley, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, I'm, Beasley, it's, Tesla, David Beasley's Organizations: CNN, Service, UN, Amazon, SpaceX, Forbes, Hertz, Integrated Locations: Wall, Silicon, United States

☆ The Supreme Court justices paid an average of $42,539 to go to college. Today, they'd have to pay around $320,531.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Supreme Court struck down Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. Student loan payments will likely resume in October. For the justices behind the decision, the cost of an undergraduate degree was much cheaper when they were in school. According to EDI, there was a 2,807% increase in the average student loan debt at graduation between 1970 and 2021 before adjusting for inflation. Student loan borrowers gathered at the Supreme Court today to tell the court that student loan relief is legal on January 2, 2023.

Persons: —, Joe Biden's, Biden, Clarence Thomas, Wally McNamee, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, John Roberts, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Roberts, Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Larry French, Thomas, Gorsuch Organizations: Service, Republicans, White, Education Data Initiative, The College of, Princeton University, Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Rhodes College, Associated Press, AP

☆ A Texas bill could ban trans athletes from playing college sports
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Greg Abbott is expected to pass a bill that would ban trans athletes from college games. The bill would only allow athletes to play on teams corresponding to their sex at birth. Greg Abbott is poised to sign a bill that would ban trans athletes from playing in college sports on the team that aligns with their gender identity, the HuffPost reported. 15 is yet another invasive, impractical measure mandated by the Texas legislature to 'fix' a problem that does not exist," Melodía Gutiérrez, Texas director for the Human Rights Campaign said, according to the Texas Tribune. The Tribune reported that Abbott has already said he would sign the bill when it lands on his desk.

☆ A Trump spokeswoman mocked Pete Buttigieg's military service in a Memorial Day weekend spat with Ron DeSantis
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

On Saturday, a Trump spokeswoman took jabs at DeSantis for his political ambitions. She also dragged Pete Buttigieg into the crosshairs while using a photo of his military service. On Saturday, Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington tweeted a clip of her criticizing DeSantis' political ambitions. The apparent attacks came during Memorial Day weekend, and Twitter users took notice, slamming Harrington for disparaging the DeSantis and Buttigieg service. Emailed the Trump campaign, DeSantis campaign, and Dot for comment

☆ A lawyer apologized after ChatGPT made up case law in an affidavit he submitted
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A lawyer used ChatGPT to write an affidavit in a personal injury lawsuit against an airline. However, the tool is at the heart of a case to discipline a New York lawyer. Steven Schwartz, a personal injury lawyer with Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, faces a sanctions hearing on June 8, after it was revealed that he used ChatGPT to write up an affidavit. The affidavit that used ChatGPT was for a lawsuit involving a man who alleged he was injured by a serving cart aboard an Avianca flight, and featured several made up court decisions. "Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations," Castel wrote.

☆ A judge temporarily halted South Carolina's law that would ban most abortions at 6 weeks, a day after it was signed
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Henry McMaster signed a new restrictive abortion law on Thursday without any notice. Just a day later, a state judge ruled to temporarily halt the new restrictive law. By Friday, Judge Clifton Newman ruled to temporarily revert back to the state's previous law of banning abortions after 20 weeks. South Carolina's restrictive law is just one of many across the country after the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last June. The law signed by McMaster was first passed in the state's General Assembly earlier in the week.

☆ A nearly $4 million AI-powered weapons scanner sold to a New York school system failed to detect knives
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An AI-powered weapons scanner meant to create "weapons-free zones," fails to detect knives. A New York school district bought the nearly $4 million system and then found out it didn't fully work. It spent close to $4 million to buy an AI-powered weapons scanner from Evolv Technology that the company bills as "proven artificial intelligence" able to create a "weapons-free zone." Evolv Technologies claims on its website that its weapons detection system can scan for weapons 10 times faster than traditional metal detectors. Evolv co-founder Anil Chitkara told WRAL, a news station in North Carolina, that the "AI algorithm is trained on thousands and thousands of different items, different weapons, different guns and also, different personal items, phones, keys, and other things."

Persons: —, Brian Nolan, Evolv, Anil Chitkara, WRAL, Chitkara Organizations: New, Service, Evolv Technology, BBC, Teachers, Police, Utica Schools, Evolv Technologies Locations: New York, Utica, North Carolina, Evolv

☆ Thousands of Afghans who worked for the US have made a perilous 16,000-mile journey to the US-Mexico border to seek asylum in the last year
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Thousands of Afghans have traveled across the world to seek asylum at the US border in the last year. For thousands of Afghans, that escape has led them on a daring 16,000-mile journey, which includes traversing the treacherous Darién Gap in Panama, to reach the US-Mexico border. Taiba and her family were among them, The New York Times reported. And for Afghans who worked with the United States, there is the ever-present fear of retaliation. "If 10 times I am sent back," one Afghan refugee, who is a doctor, told The New York Times.

☆ Spain has produced enough renewable energy to power its entire country for a 9-hour work day
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

For nine hours on Tuesday, Spain was able to power itself entirely with renewable energy. Wind, solar, and water energy powered mainland Spain from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. one day last week. The record shows the expanding use of renewable energy. Renewable energy has grown in the past few years, according to Scientific American. The shift to green energy not only helps address the climate crisis by reducing emissions, it is also profitable and reduces costs.

☆ These 3 investors bought an abandoned high school for $100,000 and turned it into 31 luxury apartments. Take a look around.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Jesse Wig, Adam Colucci, and Dan Spanovich are the investors behind the project. Adam ColucciThe project was on hold for about a year after the trio purchased the school, as they couldn't agree on what to do with the building. "We were talking to some larger tenants — a gymnastic crew, a basketball crew, renting out rooms for a recording studio," Colucci said. It took them about 18 months to complete and cost around $3.3 million, according to Wig. "The beauty of this building was worth what we paid," Colucci said.

☆ Ukraine colonel dismisses reports that Russians are poorly equipped as 'more TikTok propaganda than reality'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Ukraine colonel told The New York Times that reports of Russian shortages are "TikTok propaganda." Col. Biletsky detailed Ukraine's counteroffensive in Bakhmut, where Ukraine has regained ground. But it has more recently lost some of those gains to a Ukraine counteroffensive. He said Ukrainian soldiers advanced on Russian forces as they were rotating units, allowing them to gain an upper hand. 1 task was to push back the enemy on the flanks of Bakhmut," Biletsky told the Times.

☆ Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch calls COVID-19 response "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime history"
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

In a statement, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made it clear where he stands on the pandemic-era emergency response. The US Supreme Court last week rejected a push by Republican-led states to keep it in place. In an eight-page statement in response to the case, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch didn't mince words. He called the country's response to the COVID-19 emergency "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country." In Thursday's statement, Gorsuch warned that the "concentration of power in the hands of so few" won't lead to "sound government."

☆ Amy Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate judiciary committee, says Clarence Thomas' undisclosed lavish gifts from billionaire GOP donor is 'serious' and callsfor stronger ethics rules
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose ties to a GOP megadonor, ProPublica reported. Klobuchar called for "ethics rules in the Supreme Court that are clear and enforceable." A ProPublica investigation found that Thomas had taken luxurious vacations with Harlan Crow, a billionaire real estate magnate, and GOP megadonor, among other things. Klobuchar on Sunday said there needs to be "ethics rules in the Supreme Court that are clear and enforceable." Every federal judge in the country comes under these ethics rules.

☆ Sen. Lindsey Graham, who once called Saudi Arabia's crown prince 'toxic' and refused to set foot in the country, is now heaping praise on the country after a recent visit
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Sen. Lindsey Graham said he wouldn't do business with Saudi Arabia in 2018. ABC 'This Week' host Johnathan Karl on Sunday asked Graham about his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In 2018 in the aftermath of Khashoggi's death, Graham said he wouldn't do business with Saudi Arabia or visit the country. "If you get nothing else out of this interview, things in Saudi Arabia are changing very quickly for the better. He noted that Saudi Arabia bought $36 billion worth of 787 Boeing jets made in Charleston, South Carolina, his home state.

☆ Marjorie Taylor Greene says climate change is a 'scam' and that fossil fuels are 'amazing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that climate change is a "scam." The Georgia GOP lawmaker then championed fossil fuels, calling them "natural and amazing." Countless scientific studies say that burning fossil fuels has played a major role in the warming climate. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 15, 2023The Georgia lawmaker went on to celebrate fossil fuels. "Don't fall for the scam, fossil fuels are natural and amazing," she wrote.

☆ Biden strolled on stage to Irish punk band Dropkick Murphys as he greeted fans in Ireland. The band's frontman famously called Trump "the greatest swindler" in history.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ireland cheered Biden as he made his entrance to a song by the Dropkick Murphys on Friday. The president came out to the song "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" in Ballina, Ireland. The band's frontman once called Trump the "greatest swindler" in history. The hard-driving punk song, "I'm Shipping to Boston," by the band Dropkick Murphys is an Irish-American anthem beloved in both countries. During a show in September last year in Allentown, Penn., Casey unleashed on Trump, calling him the "biggest swindler" in history.

☆ DeSantis wants to eliminate in-state college tuition for undocumented students and beneficiaries of the Obama-era DACA program
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ron DeSantis wants to repeal their access to in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. At least 12,000 DACA recipients benefit from in-state tuition in Florida. Ron DeSantis's extensive immigration reform legislative package, undocumented students could lose access to in-state tuition rates. The legislation would repeal a 2014 law that gave undocumented students and beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects those who came as children from deportation, access to in-state tuition rates. DeSantis' proposal has garnered pushback from business groups, who say the move is not only "unfair" but could hurt the workforce.

☆ Former AG Bill Barr says Trump should be 'most concerned' about the classified documents investigation: 'He was jerking the government around'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last year and found a cache of classified documents. The investigation into those documents is only one of several legal controversies surrounding Trump. Former AG Bill Barr said the classified documents investigation should be the one Trump's "most concerned" about. "He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents. The FBI seized dozens of classified documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate during a raid last year.

☆ A Wisconsin town settled an election tie with a dice roll after also considering pulling names from a hat and drawing straws
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A village in Wisconsin had a tie in their April election for village board president. Sister Bay decided to determine the next president with a dice roll. Nate Bell beat incumbent Rob Zoschke as the Sister Bay Village Board president after the dice rolled 6-2 in his favor, the BBC reported. "All of us wish that one more person had voted," Village Board of Canvassers member Mary Smythe told NBC26. "It's drawn a lot of interest because it's such an unusual thing," Teich told the BBC.

☆ DeSantis says he's considering hotel taxes and highway tolls to hit back in his feud with Disney
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ron DeSantis and Disney have been at odds since the company opposed the "Don't Say Gay" bill. In February, the Florida legislature voted to strip Disney of its self-governing ability. Now, in response to moves by Disney, DeSantis says he's considering another approach: tolls and taxes. It is in this context that DeSantis has proposed new taxes and tolls in and around Disney. "They are not superior to the people of Florida," DeSantis said during a speech at Hillsdale College, a conservative liberal arts college in Michigan, on Thursday.

☆ Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says those in AI industry have to 'make sure' the technology 'doesn't harm but just helps'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AI Technology has advanced rapidly and gained popularity in recent years. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told ABC News the technology has promise, but there are concerns. He said the industry has to work to find "guardrails" to prevent negative impacts on democracy. Schmidt, who was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011 and the company's executive chairman from 2011 to 2015, laid out the promise and peril of AI technology during the interview. The tech leader said the entire industry needs to come together to figure out appropriate "guardrails" because the technology is only going to get bigger.

☆ The Taliban has detained a British influencer who says he travels to 'dark' and 'extreme' places for fun
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Taliban has detained a British man who says he likes to travel to extreme places for fun. The Taliban has not given details publicly about why they detained Routledge. Miles Routledge, 23, has posted on YouTube and Twitter about his travels in dangerous places, including in parts of Afghanistan. According to the BBC, in unrelated incidents, the Taliban also detained 53-year-old Kevin Cornwell, who is a British paramedic working for a charity. The Telegraph reported that the Taliban detained Routledge on or around March 2, alongside two Polish nationals.

☆ Russia is again the president of the UN Security Council. Last time Russia held the position it invaded Ukraine.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Russia was the president of the UN Security Council when it invaded Ukraine last February. The last time that Russia held the position of president — in February 2022 — it invaded Ukraine, the BBC noted. The UN Security Council is made up of 15 members, 10 of which are voted in for two-year stints. Russia's term as Security Council president comes less than two weeks after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrest. Ukraine's presidential adviser, Mykhaylo Podolyak, called Russia's presidency of the Security Council another "rape of international law."

☆ Staring down a possible indictment, Trump holds a rally in Waco. A Texas newspaper said the choice isn't a dog whistle but an 'air horn' to far-right groups.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Thirty years ago, federal agents seized the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Trump's scheduled rally in Waco falls in the middle of the anniversary of the months-long standoff. The New York Times reported that Trump's visit to Waco falls on the 30-year anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege. Although no indictment has been announced, Trump has continued to rally his supporters and make allusions to violence. Trump supporters like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida as well as conservative pundits like Dan Bongino have spoken out in support of Trump.

☆ Idaho becomes 5th state after Utah, South Carolina, Mississippi and Oklahoma to allow death by firing squads as companies limit use of drugs for lethal injections
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The ban has created a shortage of drugs necessary to execute death row inmates by lethal injection, the AP reported. Amid the shortage, Idaho became the 5th state to reinstate death by firing squad. Brad Little signed HB 186 The bill would allow the use of the firing squad when lethal injection isn't available. The Associated Press reported that Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, and South Carolina also allow for the use of the firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed at Utah State Prison after he was convicted of killing an attorney during a courthouse escape attempt.

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