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☆ OpenAI CEO wows lawmakers at closed dinner: 'Fantastic…forthcoming'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke to an engaged crowd of about 60 lawmakers at a dinner Monday about the advanced artificial technology his company produces and the challenges of regulating it. The wide-ranging discussion that lasted about two hours came ahead of Altman's first time testifying before Congress at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology hearing on Tuesday. The dinner discussion comes at a peak moment for AI, which has thoroughly captured Congress' fascination. "There isn't any question where he pulls back on anything," she said, adding that lawmakers had very thoughtful things to ask. Khanna said the question of openness of the model is something he's discussed with Altman before, though not at Monday's dinner.

☆ These are the top 3 cities for new grads to launch their lives and careers: 'I can afford the house I want and the life I want'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Jennifer Liu | In Jljenniferliu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

1 best metro area for new grads in 2023 is the area surrounding Lubbock, Texas. Data is one thing, but what is it actually like to be a young person living in these areas? "Other cities did great in one or two areas max, but Lubbock offers the whole package," DeJohn says. Many of the clients Douglas works with are young homebuyers around her age and just out of college or grad school. "Here, I know I can afford the house I want and the life I want," she adds.

☆ Michigan School District Bans Backpacks Over Safety Concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Lauren Mccarthy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On the back of a door in a home in Flint, Mich., there hangs a black Trailmaker backpack that belongs to Jaxon Williams, a third grader at Freeman Elementary. That’s because Jaxon and over 2,800 other students across 11 campuses in the Flint Community Schools are subject to a ban on backpacks that began this week after district officials were alarmed by threats to students’ safety. It will remain in effect at least until the end of the school year in mid-June. After the first week under the ban, Dr. Lewis and other parents in the district expressed frustration and skepticism, saying that determined students would carry weapons under their clothing. At a special meeting of the Flint Board of Education, educators voiced their growing concerns about school safety after a series of school shootings around the country, including one in Oxford, Mich., a community about 30 miles outside Flint, where a student shot and killed four classmates at a high school in 2021.

☆ Medical Device Maker Stryker Faces New Bribery Concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Dylan Tokar | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Stryker said it was contacted by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission and is cooperating with both. Photo: JHVEPhoto/ShutterstockMedical-device maker Stryker disclosed an investigation by U.S. authorities into potential violations of antibribery law, the third such probe into the company in the past decade. In a securities filing this week, the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based company said it was contacted by the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission and is cooperating with both agencies.

☆ Michigan Students Sue School District Over ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Lauren Mccarthy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A mother of two students in Howard City, Mich., filed a lawsuit claiming the public school district violated her sons’ First Amendment rights by asking them to remove sweatshirts with the slogan “Let’s go Brandon” on them. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday against the Michigan Tri County Area Schools district, an assistant principal and a teacher, claims that their school censored her sons’ “peaceful, non-disruptive politics” by having them take off the sweatshirts, causing them “to suffer irreparable injury.”The phrase “Let’s go Brandon,” born of a viral NASCAR race moment in October 2021, is understood to be code for swearing at President Biden, the lawsuit confirms.The slogan conveys the same opposition as saying a four-letter expletive and then “Joe Biden,” just “sanitized to express the sentiment without using profanity or vulgarity,” the suit said. In February of 2022, the mother’s sixth-grade son wore a “Let’s go Brandon” sweatshirt to Tri County Middle School. The assistant principal at the school stopped him in the hallway and asked him to take it off, according to the lawsuit, telling him the slogan was equivalent to “the F-word.” He took it off because he feared getting in trouble.

☆ How Joe Biden Can Win in 2024 - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Lis Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For months, Democrats have been frustrated with the gap between Mr. Biden’s accomplishments and the public’s awareness of them. The timing is right, because these programs are starting to have a big impact on the lives of many Americans. The administration says it has financed over 4,600 bridge repair and replacement projects across the country. Since his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, his grip on the party, at least based on recent polling evidence, has grown tighter. That may be good news for his campaign, but he has significant vulnerabilities in a general election.

☆ A Rallying Cry or a Rant? ‘Pity City’ CEO Comments Show Perils of Video Meetings
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Vanessa Fuhrmans | Joseph Pisani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

MillerKnoll Chief Executive Andi Owen in her Grand Rapids, Mich., home office. Photo: Sylvia Jarrus for The Wall Street JournalIt wasn’t the plan, but MillerKnoll Chief Executive Andi Owen passed on a crucial lesson to bosses everywhere this week: Zoom calls are a tricky venue for giving tough love to staff. Ms. Owen may have learned the hard way. In a video that sparked viral furor on social media, she gives a staff pep talk that shifts in tone as she addresses some employees’ “not-so-nice” questions about staying motivated if bonuses aren’t paid this year.

☆ Help! Spirit Airlines Left Us Behind in Guatemala City
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Seth Kugel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Dear Tripped Up,My two sons and I checked in at the Guatemala City airport three hours before the first leg of our return flight to Detroit. When we returned to our gate at 3:40, we were told the plane had been readied earlier than expected and the doors had closed. The gate staff said it would be three days before another flight was available, and they refused to book us on another airline. We eventually received a partial $297 credit from Spirit, but we want them to reimburse us for the JetBlue flight, since they should have alerted us when the departure time was again revised. “They always tell you not to go too far,” said one wizened veteran, a consultant who flies nearly every week.

☆ Ford F-150 Lightning fire footage highlights a growing EV risk
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Michael Wayland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

EV fires have become a growing concern as automakers push to increase sales of electric vehicles and meet tightening emissions standards. An electric Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire on Feb. 4, 2023 due to a battery issue traced back to one of the automaker's suppliers. A bill that requires them to complete a training program about the risk of electric vehicle fires passed unanimously this year. There's also the risk of reignition: Lithium-ion battery fires can re-engage weeks later with little to no warning. An electric Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire on Feb. 4, 2023 due to a battery issue traced back to one of the automaker's suppliers.

☆ Man Sentenced to 10 Months for Leaving Nooses and Racist Notes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Livia Albeck-Ripka | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Michigan man who tried to intimidate Black Lives Matter supporters by leaving nooses and threatening notes around his community and making racist phone calls in the summer of 2020 has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and a year of supervised release, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday. The man, Kenneth D. Pilon, 62, pleaded guilty in December to two misdemeanor counts of willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, according to federal prosecutors. On June 14, Mr. Pilon, a retired optometrist, made nine phone calls to Starbucks stores in Michigan in which he told the employees who answered to make racist slurs toward their colleagues who wore Black Lives Matter T-shirts, prosecutors said. He also told one employee that he planned to lynch a Black person, they added. Happy protesting!” the Justice Department said.

☆ What the Boston Marathon Finish Line Means Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Talya Minsberg | Matthew Futterman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +14 min

The Boston Marathon is arguably the most elusive finish line of all, and not just anyone can cross it. In 2013, on a cool, partly sunny day, this ebullient scene was shattered when two bombs exploded near the finish line. On Monday, nearly 30,000 runners will journey, down and up and down, toward the finish line of the 127th Boston Marathon. Volunteer, runner I used to volunteer at the finish line, reading information about runners as they finished for the announcer. It means something so different crossing that finish line compared to other marathon majors.

☆ These are the top 10 cities to find a remote job
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Jennifer Liu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Fewer people are working from home today compared with the last few years, but remote work is continuing to reshape major cities across the U.S. Nationally, roughly 12% of job openings explicitly allow remote work at least one day a week, according to data from WFH Map, a group of economists and researchers measuring the lasting impacts of remote work, and Lightcast, a labor-market analytics firm with access to online job postings across the nation. Markets with labor shortages and a high share of job vacancies are more likely to have openings that will allow remote work, compared with cities where hiring has returned to pre-pandemic levels. When compared with international counterparts, the share of remote job openings in the U.S. is similar to what's being offered in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, hovering around 11% to 12%. The U.K., meanwhile, stands out with about 18% of jobs open to remote work as of February.

☆ Why Is Chartreuse Hard to Find Right Now? Ask the Monks Who Make It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Becky Cooper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

According to Chartreuse Diffusion, the business arm of the monks’ operation, it took more than 150 years for the Carthusians to “unravel the secret of the manuscript.”Chartreuse became “a mixologist’s ace in the hole,” said Joe Kakos, an owner of Kakos Market, a liquor store in Birmingham, Mich. Many credit Murray Stenson, a bartender at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, with repopularizing the liqueur in 2003 when he resurrected the century-old Last Word cocktail, a mixture of gin, Chartreuse, lime juice and maraschino liqueur. “I almost feel a little bit guilty,” said Ben Dougherty, the cafe’s owner. In 2020, as the pandemic turned many people into at-home mixologists, sales of Chartreuse in the United States doubled, a pattern that held true worldwide, according to Chartreuse Diffusion. Global sales topped $30 million in 2022.

☆ Opinion: Gun control after Louisville shooting has a chance
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Max Burns | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Meanwhile, Democrats — once wary of mentioning gun control at all — have finally rediscovered their voice. See heated gun control discussion between lawmakers in the halls of Congress 01:19 - Source: CNNDemocrats’ rising confidence in fighting for gun reform comes against a backdrop of tireless coalition-building from gun safety activists and community organizers across the country. Everytown credits at least 51 pieces of state-level gun safety legislation passed in 2022 to their state-by-state strategy. Over the summer, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 59% of American adults think it’s more important to control gun violence than to protect gun rights (35%) — “its highest point in nearly a decade.” These figures have surely factored into Democrats new assertiveness on gun control. “Republicans look completely unreasonable when they won’t even discuss background checks, gun safety measures like storage or red flag laws,” Del Percio warned.

☆ Inside the Online Market for Overseas Abortion Pills
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Allison Mccann | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

A selection of abortion pill kits available online from overseas sellers. A chart of the estimated number of abortion pills provided outside the U.S. health care system from July through December 2022. For most patients, the cost of the service remains the most important factor in deciding where to get pills online. A chart showing the minimum, average and maximum cost of abortion pills from overseas providers: Aid Access, Las Libres and for-profit online sellers. A chart showing the minimum, average and maximum delivery speeds of abortion pills from overseas providers: Aid Access, Las Libres and for-profit online sellers.

☆ Lawmakers meet with Apple, Disney CEOs as part of talks on competition with China
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

High-profile tech and media executives shared their experiences of working in and competing with China with lawmakers who visited California this week. Over the three-day trip that kicked off on Wednesday, lawmakers were scheduled to meet with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as high-level executives from Google , Microsoft , Palantir and Scale AI. The trip highlights the key role tech and media industries play in America's increasingly complex relationship with China. In Hollywood, the group of lawmakers from the select committee learned about a range of topics related to competition with China. The group was also slated to meet with venture capitalists on Thursday, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and SV Angel.

☆ How to Stylishly Bring More Sunlight Into Your Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Lauren Joseph | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As Americans have grown more interested in walls, but no less interested in airiness, a new-old solution has emerged: interior windows. These apertures let light jump from room to room while creating a soothing sense of separation. When renovating her historic 1902 home in Grand Rapids, Mich., interior designer Jean Stoffer found 100-year-old storm windows there. She then painted the windows’ wood sashes black, in keeping with the home’s exterior windows. “The style of an interior window should be the same as or complementary to the home’s exterior windows,” Ms. Stoffer advised.

House lawmakers tore into top U.S. bank regulators Wednesday, questioning their competency and saying examiners were asleep at the wheel, at a second day of congressional hearings this week about how Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed practically overnight on March 10 and March 12. "We need competent financial supervisors, but Congress can't legislate competence," House Financial Services chairman Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told top officials at the Federal Reserve, Treasury and FDIC at the beginning the hearing. "The light touch cautions from the Fed to SVB management are clearly not what Congress intended for bank supervision," said Waters. Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga, Mich., demanded raw, confidential supervisory information about the banks, available to regulators ahead of the collapses. Members of the Republican majority House challenged many of the decisions made by regulators in the hours and days after SVB collapsed and Signature Bank followed 48 hours later.

☆ The No. 1 best U.S. city to live in is Cambridge, Massachusetts—see which other cities made the list
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Celia Fernandez | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Niche released its list of the best U.S. cities to live in 2023. This month, Niche released its ranking of the best cities to live in America in 2023. The list ranked 228 cities by using data from the U.S. Census, FBI, Bureau of Labor Statistics and CDC in combination with millions of resident reviews. Like Cambridge, the second city on the list, Arlington, Virginia, is home to top-class universities like Georgetown and George Washington University. Arlington, Virginia also ranks as one of the best cities to raise a family and retire.

☆ Ford to Build 500,000 EV Trucks a Year at Tennessee Plant
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Nora Eckert | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Ford built about one million trucks overall at several plants in North America last year. Ford Motor Co. plans to build 500,000 electric trucks a year at its forthcoming manufacturing complex in Tennessee, one of the auto maker’s largest commitments yet to expanding battery-powered options in the highly competitive pickup-truck market. The Dearborn, Mich., car company said Friday it plans to start production of its next-generation electric truck in 2025 at a new factory campus, called Blue Oval City, located about 50 miles from Memphis. This truck will follow the rollout last year of the Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric version of its bestselling full-size pickup.

☆ TikTok CEO says China-based ByteDance employees still have access to some U.S. data
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Lawmakers and intelligence officials fear that U.S. user data could get into the hands of the Chinese government via ByteDance. TikTok said Thursday that Project Texas is already in action but there are many steps to reach its completion. The data on those servers is the kind that could theoretically still be accessed by China-based ByteDance employees for the time being. Once that data is deleted, according to TikTok, those employees will no longer have access to U.S. user data from the app. WATCH: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew: I don't condone effort by former employees to access U.S. user data

☆ For These Stranded Real-Estate Pros, a Backhoe, AAA and a Mom Van Saved the Day
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Robyn A. Friedman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

It was about 1,100 feet off a dirt road. We took pine branches and put them under the tires to give them some grip, but it didn’t work. I had to call an excavator because we were so far off the road that a regular tow truck couldn’t reach us. The excavator actually drove a backhoe from his farm down the dirt road to find us. And they didn’t buy the property, so all of that trouble didn’t result in a sale.

☆ As Ford Carves Out Its EV Unit, Reporting by Region Gets Ditched
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

With Ford Motor Co. splitting its electric-vehicle business out as a separate division, it becomes the first of the Big Three auto makers in the U.S. to change how it reports its financial results to acknowledge the fast-growing EV future alongside the legacy business of making gasoline-powered vehicles. Ford has already been selling electric vehicles, including its Mustang Mach-E sport-utility vehicle and the F-150 Lightning, and it has said it would spend more than $50 billion on EVs through 2026. The Dearborn, Mich.-based auto maker also expects electric vehicles to account for one-third of global sales by 2026, or about two million EVs total, and half of its global sales by 2030, compared with a previous target of 40%.

☆ Mary Hilton, Champion of Cloth Diapers, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Around the time that Procter & Gamble Co. was introducing Pampers in the early 1960s, Mary Hilton and her husband, William Hilton , had a different idea: They decided to go into the business of laundering cloth diapers. For the next 40 years, Ms. Hilton fought a valiant rearguard action against P&G and other makers of disposable diapers. Based in Kalamazoo, Mich., her family-owned company at its peak in the mid-1990s had about 10,000 customers in three states and more than 150 employees. Ms. Hilton, who took charge of the company after her husband died in 1978, became one of the biggest operators in a mostly mom-and-pop business and a spokeswoman for diaper-cleaning trade groups.

☆ Sorry, Too Busy! Why It’s So Hard to Get Together Right Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Rachel Feintzeig | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It was supposed to be a holiday get-together. Then came a round of illnesses, and another. After a total of five cancellations, Veronica Farley-Seybert managed to meet up with friends in mid-February, exchanging gifts that had been languishing in a closet for six weeks. Merry Christmas,” the lawyer and mother of three in Pleasant Ridge, Mich., said. She mostly couldn’t believe the date happened at all.

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