Category: News and Views

How Amazon is using its massive delivery infrastructure to help L.A. wildfire relief | Fast Company

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When a red flag warning was issued in Los Angeles on January 7, a team at Amazon started reaching out to local nonprofits and fire agencies. In a warehouse outside the city—around 60 miles east, in San Bernadino County—the company had opened a wildfire disaster relief hub just months earlier, stocked with free firefighting equipment, from axes to boots to trauma kits.

The hub, which sits inside part of a regular Amazon fulfillment center, is one of 14 disaster hubs that the company now runs around the world, donating all of the supplies and logistics support. The work started in 2017, after conversations with nonprofits about the challenges of logistics in a crisis. “The more we spoke with first responders and nonprofits, we realized that it’s really, really hard to procure the right items at the speed that they’re needed,” says Bettina Stix, director of disaster relief and food security for Amazon Community Impact.

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L.A. fires: Death toll may be in thousands due to wildfire smoke | Fast Company

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The death toll from Los Angeles’ catastrophic wildfires has risen to 24 and is expected to increase further. The 16 direct fatalities from the Eaton Fire alone make it California’s fifth-deadliest wildfire, while the Palisades Fire, with eight deaths, ranks as the state’s 14th-deadliest fire.

However, the eventual death toll from the disaster is likely to be far, far, higher, once the health effects from the toxic smoke from the fires are fully realized. Additional deaths can be expected in the coming years because of the large-scale disruption to people’s lives that such a colossal disaster brings about – similar to what has been found in the aftermath of major hurricanes, which have been linked to thousands of indirect deaths up to 15 years after they hit.

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Phoenix Lender Services Launches to Revolutionize SBA and USDA Lending | Small Business Trends

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Phoenix Lender Services, a subsidiary of Community Bankshares, Inc., has launched with a mission to transform Small Business Administration (SBA) and United States Department of Agriculture lending across the United States. Based in LaGrange, Georgia, the new lender service provider aims to simplify the lending process for small businesses and financial institutions through a combination of extensive expertise and innovative solutions.

Phoenix Lender Services offers end-to-end support for SBA and USDA loans, including underwriting, closing, servicing, and liquidation. The company also provides secondary market sales and exclusive origination services for Community Bank & Trust (CB&T), its sister company.

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Justice Department Files Suit to Shut Down Florida Tax Return Preparers | Small Business Trends

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The Justice Department has filed a civil injunction in federal court in Tampa, Florida, seeking to shut down Madison & Sons Enterprises, a tax return preparation business operating as Madison Tax Services. The suit targets the business’s owner, Darryl J. Madison, along with Malik F. Eugene, Yvette Madison, and Marlesa J. Brown, alleging they engaged in fraudulent practices to inflate customer refunds.

According to the complaint, Darryl Madison oversaw operations at Madison Tax Services, where he and his associates allegedly prepared and filed tax returns that falsely reduced taxable income and inflated customer refunds. The alleged schemes included:

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5 Mistakes Managers Make When Giving Negative Feedback | HBR

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One of the toughest responsibilities people leaders must take on is confronting their direct reports about performance issues. I still remember how nervous I was giving corrective feedback to a team member as a first-time manager. I didn’t sleep much the night before and leaned heavily on the notes our HR department helped me prepare.

During my career as a CEO and people leader, I watched many new managers struggle with these conversations. We humans have an innate desire to be liked and to belong. Confrontation of any kind can threaten that, and leaders who are new to performance conversations often feel this the most. They fear that sharing critical feedback might damage their reporting relationships.

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Can Employees Be More Productive From Home? | Business

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The world has undergone many lasting changes in recent years, with one of the most notable being the rise of remote work. Many companies transitioned to full-time work-from-home setups during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift caused the number of people working remotely to triple between 2019 and 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, what was originally a temporary fix has become the norm: Gallup data shows that over 70 million U.S. full-time workers can conduct their jobs remotely.

Now, working from home is the preference of many employees across nearly all industries — even as some companies look for employees to return to the office. Many employers have retained at least hybrid work policies, in which businesses allow employees to work from home a few days per week.

But how do these arrangements impact productivity? And do hybrid and remote work policies offer help or hindrance to business goals? Here’s what the research has to say and how managers can optimize hybrid and remote work arrangements.

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The latest iMessage phishing scam is easy to fall for. Here’s how to avoid it | Digital Trends

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It’s a new year, but bad actors are still at it with an old trick repackaged for iPhone users. Bleeping Computer reports a rise in phishing attacks targeting iPhone users that involves tricking them into disabling built-in protections and clicking on malicious links.

In an increasing number of cases, text messages appear to come from fake delivery agents posing as service messages from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Two Digital Trends contributors have received such sham messages recently in North America.

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LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn | BBC News

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The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn).

In a preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected losses of between $135bn-$150bn as the blazes rip through an area that is home to some of the most expensive property in the US.

The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses of more than $8bn.

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TikTok plea live: Supreme Court hears arguments with TikTok ban looming | BBC News

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Just as the former solicitor general Noel Francisco, appearing for TikTok and ByteDance, sought to drive home their argument that the sale-or-ban law would burden the platform’s speech – current Solicitor General Elizabeth B Prelogar repeatedly returned to the government’s view that the Chinese state could, at some point, try to access sensitive US user data via the companies.

She stressed that TikTok collects more data than other platforms on an “unprecedented” scale – a claim the company has denied – and warned it represented risks of espionage and blackmail.

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Medical debt soon will be banned on credit reports under Biden administration rule | CNN Business

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Americans won’t have to worry about unpaid medical bills damaging their credit reports and scores much longer.

The Biden administration is finalizing a rule Tuesday that will end the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports and ban lenders from using certain medical information in loan decisions.

The rule will also remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million people, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a press release

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