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☆ South African cities scramble to keep the lights on
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Carien Du Plessis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Officials plan to procure up to 500 megawatts (MW) from private power companies by 2026 to provide roughly a third of the city's annual 1,500-1,800 megawatts (MW) electricity needs. [1/5] A woman tests LED lights on a solar panel at their factory called Ener-G-Africa, where they produce high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. The neighbouring Ekurhuleni municipality has signed deals with 46 private power companies for 700 MW, according to its 2020/2021 annual report. Hill-Lewis said Cape Town also plans to change its energy policy to allow households and businesses that produce solar power to sell the excess to the city. In Cape Town, for those wanting to sell excess power to the city, a 12,000 rand feed-in meter is required.

[1/2] U.S. Supreme Court police officers stand on the front steps of the Supreme Court building prior to the official investiture ceremony for the court's newest Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the start of the court's 2022-2023 term in Washington, U.S. September 30, 2022. The report said the Supreme Court's information security environment was "built fundamentally on trust with limited safeguards to regulate and constrain access to very sensitive information." But it called the court's information security policies "outdated" and recommended that it overhaul its platform for handling case-related documents and remedy "inadequate safeguards" for tracking who prints and copies documents. The Supreme Court's IT systems operate separately from the rest of the federal judiciary. U.S. judiciary officials have said the systems used by federal appellate and district courts also are outdated and need modernization.

☆ Salary Transparency Is Coming — so I Decided to Tell Everyone What I Make
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Aki Ito | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +37 min

But there's a glaring catch to my support for pay transparency: I haven't actually practiced it in my own life. To find out why, I decided to commemorate the dawning age of salary transparency by telling pretty much everyone in my life what I earn. Norway responded to pay transparency with yet another level of transparency, and that brought down the level of snooping.. Thanks to its nationwide experiment, Norway has been fertile ground for scholars trying to measure the consequences of extreme pay transparency. But I do believe that as more states implement pay-disclosure laws — and as Gen Z increasingly comes to dominate the workforce — salary transparency is going to become the new norm.

[1/18] U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with border patrol officers as he walks along the border fence during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border to assess border enforcement operations, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., January 8, 2023. Biden on Thursday said his administration would tighten immigration enforcement by blocking Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants at the border, expanding the nationalities of those who can be expelled back to Mexico. But that has not impressed Republicans like Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who accused him of failing to enforce immigration laws. Biden told reporters he had not yet read the letter. On the ground in El Paso, migrants greeted the new policy with trepidation.

☆ Fed-up Tesla owners say they're so sick of Elon Musk's antics that they're ditching their cars
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Some Tesla owners are done with the electric-car brand over Elon Musk's antics. We spoke to three Tesla owners who say Musk has made them rethink their relationship with the brand. Perkowitz is one of many Tesla owners rethinking their allegiance to the brand as Elon Musk becomes an increasingly erratic and polarizing figure online. "Elon was a really good reason to buy the car," Perkowitz told Insider. "I've been kind of stalling waiting for Elon to come to his senses and say something that makes sense," Perkowitz said.

☆ Elon Musk gambled big on Twitter. Tesla is going to pay the price.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Vicki Bryan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Whatever you might think of Twitter, it's hard to watch Elon Musk clumsily flay it alive to "save it." Having observed Musk in action for years there is one troubling option I suspect he may pursue: raid Tesla. But siphoning cash from Tesla, Musk's only profitable company, just as serious competition is toppling its dominance, should concern Tesla's investors. And given his obsession with Twitter, they may well ask: How far will Elon go to save Twitter at Tesla's expense? Tesla's stock is down more than 50% this year — evaporating nearly $700 billion in market-cap value since its peak in late 2021.

☆ How Elon Musk Could Use Money From Tesla to Prop up Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Vicki Bryan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Whatever you might think of Twitter, it's hard to watch Elon Musk clumsily flay it alive to "save it." But siphoning cash from Tesla, Musk's only profitable company, just as serious competition is toppling its dominance, should concern Tesla's investors. And given his obsession with Twitter, they may well ask: How far will Elon go to save Twitter at Tesla's expense? How Musk could use Tesla to try and save TwitterMusk cobbled together his Twitter funding primarily by selling off a major chunk of his stock in Tesla and taking out huge loans. Saving Twitter won't kill Tesla anytime soon, and Twitter might not survive unless it does, but Musk is draining Tesla's capacity to weather what could be its toughest challenges ahead.

☆ Creator Caleb Simpson calls himself this generation's 'MTV Cribs.' His main goal? To capture 'different walks of life.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Daysia Tolentino | Daysia Tolentino Is A Culture | Trends Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

But creator Caleb Simpson prefers to show a more realistic look into the lives of “everyday New Yorkers” with his popular video series featuring apartment tours. The creator, who first blew up on TikTok in 2019, had a number of successful videos prior to his apartment tour series, including pizza reviews, photography tutorials and comedic sketches. Other videos introduce viewers to more unfamiliar faces, like Tomo Delaney, who gave Simpson a tour of his soon-to-be former home. But her friend from high school, who is based in Chicago, is — and suggested Simpson tour Werle’s home. "I’m really, really excited about it."

☆ The Great People Shortage is coming — and it's going to cause global economic chaos
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Sebastian Dettmers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

The great labor shortage caused by the declining population will cripple our global economy unless we find innovative ways to keep things running. The German working population will have declined by a third, based on the average scenario from the researchers, and in Italy, Spain, and Greece it will have declined by more than half. We are already experiencing the beginning of this great labor shortage in industries ranging from airlines to day cares. In the US, the increase in the number of retirees compared with the working population is already straining the system. To combat the coming population bust, the world will need nothing less than a revolution of our minds.

☆ India reintroduced 8 cheetahs after the big cats were wiped out 70 years ago — but some scientists say it's more of a PR stunt than a conservation effort
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Cheetahs are being reintroduced to India after being declared extinct in the country in 1952. The reintroduction effort is aimed at creating a viable population of wild cheetahs. Some experts are critical of the plan, saying it's more like a large "zoo" than a wild population. The reintroduction plan, which is estimated to cost about $11 million, aims to establish a viable, free-ranging population of cheetahs. "The cheetah is a magnificent animal, it's a big magnet for ecotourism," Jhala told National Geographic.

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