The Trump administration has dropped a controversial plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, marking a major victory for civil rights groups.
It comes just days after the Supreme Court blocked efforts to include the question, ruling that the government’s justification seemed “contrived”.
The White House argued it would bolster protections for minority voters.
If you were so inclined, you could spend the hours equivalent to a full-time job tracking how many ways Facebook has flubbed user privacy. The company’s chutzpah rating has been relentlessly strong. For example, it asked banks for user financial information while it was getting virtually pelted for playing so fast and loose with consumer data.
Now there’s yet another issue. Facebook announced that the passwords of “millions of Instagram users” had been kept in plain text–readable by anyone who could and wanted to–the way last month tens of millions of Facebook users learned their passwords had been so mishandled.
Tired of cleaning up after take-out or getting hangry waiting at your table in restaurants? Well Uber Eats is barging into the dine-in business. A new option in some cities lets you order your food ahead of time, go to the restaurant, then sit down inside to eat, a tipster from competing dine-in app Allset tells us. We tested it, and Uber Eats Dine-In even waives the standard Uber delivery and service fees.
IT MAY BE known as the “everything store,” but there are some things, in fact, that Amazon does not sell. 
The ecommerce giant maintains a list of restricted product categories that ranges from weapons such as firearms, to booze and tobacco products, to pets, to kite strings for the niche sport of kite fighting. And as you get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July, you should also know that list includes fireworks.
It’s a well-established stereotype that large-scale companies are about as approachable as a concrete wall. The clichés say it all: Those who “sell out” to work for the “man” become corporate cogs, dedicating their working lives to the daily grind.
The language we’ve assigned to corporate work brings to mind gray cubicles, professional drudgery and drab cultures. Larger enterprises have a reputation for offering excellent salaries and poor experiences — and for some, the tradeoff might not be worth it. For all their perks and benefits, corporations’ lack of approachability may prevent company recruiters from accessing the top-tier talent that should, by all rights, be within their reach.
When thinking of Estonia, it might come to your mind that it’s close to Russia, has a medieval capital city that is also a UNESCO world heritage or that it is one of the least densely populated countries in Europe. But the small Baltic country has much more to offer than that. In fact, it is often referred to as the world’s first digital nation and has become dependent on the internet. Estonians have evolved into a digital community that does their taxes without leaving the house, votes for an election through an app and looks at their health record online. The government has made 90 percent of all its services available on the internet and they can be accessed simply with an ID-card and a personal password.
As the world teeters on the brink of suffocating from single-use products, some designers are quickly coming up with ingenious ways to reduce our waste. For example, Greek designer George Bosnas has just unveiled the Biopack, a compact egg carton made out of cleared paper pulp, flour, starch and biological legume seeds. Instead of throwing out the eco-friendly container at the end of its use, it can be planted directly into the ground to sprout green plants.
Most people who regularly use YouTube would probably admit that the site’s recommendation engine is a little wonky. For every time it shows you something you might genuinely want to see, it brings you something random at best and reprehensible at worst.
While it might take years for YouTube to fix all of its problems, it’s making one change to hopefully make the site better for its users. YouTube outlined a handful of new features that are coming soon to its website and mobile apps on the YouTube blog on Wednesday, including the ability to never see recommendations from specific channels.
Americans are splurging on food for their cats and dogs — but not snacks for them and their kids. That’s not great news for General Mills.
Shares of General Mills (GIS), the owner of Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Yoplait, fell 7% in early trading Wednesday after the company reported its latest quarterly results. That made General Mills the worst performing stock in the S&P 500.
Sales missed forecasts, despite soaring demand for the company’s Blue Buffalo pet food.
The weaker-than-expected revenue was largely because of a 2% drop in sales in its North American retail unit, the division that includes Annie’s branded cheddar bunnies, Chex, Fruit Snacks and the Fiber One and Nature Valley brands of bars.
Ah, summer. Soft breeze in your hair, grass between your toes, nasty calluses on your feet from going barefoot…
Don’t fear those calluses, though. New research has revealed that foot calluses — thickened skin that forms naturally when one walks barefoot — have evolved to protect the feet and provide for comfortable walking in perhaps ways that shoes can’t match.
Unlike shoes, foot calluses offer protection without compromising sensitivity or gait, according to a study published today (June 26) online in the journal Nature. Shoes, in contrast, reduce sensitivity in the foot and alter the way that the impact forces transfer from the foot to joints higher up the leg.
Dispatches From The Front 