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☆ Alphabet’s self-driving car unit has cut 8% of its staff this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google (GOOGL)’s parent company Alphabet, said on Wednesday that it has cut approximately 8% of its staff across two rounds of layoffs this year. Some 209 jobs were eliminated in total, after cuts in late January and another more recent round, the company confirmed on Wednesday. “We took a thoughtful approach and feel confident that we’re providing for each of these former teammates through this transition,” the company said in a statement to CNN Wednesday. Rising interest rates have also dried up the easy access to funding tech companies used to fuel ambitious projects and bets on the future. The cuts to Waymo highlight how even Alphabet’s most ambitious and high-profile long-term bets are not immune to its renewed focus on reining in costs.

☆ Premarket stocks: It's bulls vs. hawks on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

New York CNN —There’s a new tussle brewing in the animal kingdom of Wall Street: Hawks vs. Bulls. The question is, will the Fed be able to break through and convince Wall Street to finally give in to market pessimism? “Setting aside what financial market participants expected us to do, I saw a compelling economic case for a 50 basis-point increase,” she said at an event in Florida. Asda told CNN that it was temporarily limiting purchases of some items to three packs per customer. Morrisons told CNN that it had imposed a cap of two packs per customer on the same products.

☆ UK supermarkets Tesco, Aldi and Asda are rationing fruit and salad vegetables
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Asda told CNN that it was temporarily limiting purchases of some items to three packs per customer. These include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. Morrisons told CNN that it had imposed a cap of two packs per customer on tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. Sainsbury’s (JSAIY), the United Kingdom’s second-largest food retailer, told CNN it had no plans to ration the sale of fruit and vegetables. The high-end supermarket chain told CNN that it was “monitoring the situation” but had no plans to introduce rationing.

☆ Meta and Twitter decided to restore Trump’s account. Will other platforms follow suit?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

The decisions by Twitter and now Facebook-parent Meta to bring back Trump could push — or at least provide cover for — a number of other platforms to make similar moves. Facebook and Twitter restricted Trump’s accounts in the aftermath of the January 6 attack. Many other platforms followed suit by banning or restricting Trump, including YouTube, Snapchat and game streaming platform Twitch. On Wednesday, Snapchat parent Snap indicated that it is not planning to revisit its decision to ban Trump’s account two years ago. “In January 2021, Donald Trump’s Snapchat account was terminated for violating our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines,” a Snap spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

Eight of France’s largest unions - covering transportation, education, police, executives and public sectors - called for Thursday to be the “first day of strikes and protests” against the proposed pensions reform. Widespread strikes are expected, and it may be “a hellish Thursday” on public transport networks, Transport Minister Clement Beaune warned French broadcaster France 2 Tuesday. Paris’ transport authority predicts “very disrupted” service on the city’s transport network. But many have blasted the reforms as ill-timed at best; at worst, an insult to hard-working people in France. “This reform falls at a moment where there is lots of anger, lots of frustration, lots of fatigue.

☆ Aging, outdated technology leaves air travel at risk of meltdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

As early as 2012, the FAA decided it wanted to replace aging legacy voice switches used in air traffic control communications with new, internet-based communications technology. Trying to integrate old systems with newer ones — always in real time, because the global aviation industry never sleeps — can also create its own opportunities for catastrophic mistakes. Many more things can go wrong than you might expect — highlighting the sheer complexity of the aviation industry, and underscoring how there isn’t a quick easy fix for IT-related travel disruptions. But it has had lasting effects on FAA technology. That bureaucratic myopia is its own cause of today’s technological malaise in the aviation industry.

The debate comes less than two months after Twitter restored Trump’s account, but Meta’s intention to reevaluate the decision predates Twitter’s reversal. “I can’t think of what that rigorous standard would be that would make this policy be applied fairly, not just to former President Trump, but to any politician.”Is Trump bound to Truth Social? A phone screen displays the Truth Social app in Washington, DC, on February 21, 2022. Trump now has his own rival social media platform, Truth Social, which he launched in February. Despite his desire for a bigger megaphone and aides encouraging him to rejoin Twitter, Trump has said he is committed to Truth Social.

☆ Twitter suspends account that tracked Elon Musk's private jet, despite billionaire's 'free speech' pledge
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The move comes after Musk has reinstated previous Twitter rule-breakers and stopped enforcing the platform’s policies prohibiting Covid-19 misinformation. Sweeney woke up Wednesday morning to a message from Twitter informing him @ElonJet had been permanently suspended. Later in the day his personal account and other jet-tracking accounts he ran were also shut down by the company. According to screenshots Sweeney shared with CNN, Musk reached out to him last December through a Twitter private message asking, “Can you take this down? “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation.

Two current Twitter employees told CNN on Thursday that they plan to reject the ultimatum, citing a toxic work environment they say the billionaire has introduced. Musk told employees his goal is to build “Twitter 2.0” and that employees who choose to stay will be required to commit to working “long hours at high intensity” and presumably agreeing to Musk’s demand for Twitter employees, who have been largely working remotely, to return to in-office work. Another Twitter employee, who asked not to be quoted, shared similar concerns and said they planned to also exit the company. “People can’t overlook the public mockery and firing of other employees,” the former employee told CNN. Employees working in the United States from other countries could also risk losing their work visas if they leave the company.

☆ Brittney Griner begins transfer to Russian penal colony, attorneys say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Abphillip Rhea Mogul | Rhea Mogul | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner is in the process of being moved to a Russian penal colony where she is due to serve the remainder of a nine-year drug smuggling sentence that was upheld in late October. Griner “is now on her way to a penal colony,” her attorneys said in a statement to CNN Wednesday. “We do not have any information on her exact current location or her final destination,” said attorneys Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov. “In accordance with the standard Russian procedure, the attorneys, as well as the US Embassy, should be notified upon her arrival at her destination. Last month, Griner lost her appeal against a nine-year drug sentence.

☆ Adam Kinzinger said Kevin McCarthy was giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy' and fodder to Russian media by suggesting GOP may not send more aid to Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said if the GOP wins the House they may not be as forthcoming with Ukraine aid. His comments suggested bipartisan support for aiding Ukraine could be waning. "I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine," McCarthy told Punchbowl News. Some saw the comments as a sign that the broad bipartisan support for aiding Ukraine could be waning. Kinzinger said he thought McCarthy's comments were intended to appeal to the extreme members of the Republican party.

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