Category: News and Views

Deadly California earthquake leaves thousands without power | BBC News

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Two people have died and tens of thousands of households were left without power after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked northern California.

The tremor, 215 miles (350km) north of San Francisco, has caused widespread damage to roadways.

“Anything that was on the walls broke off the walls,” said JB Mathers, a resident of the coastal city of Eureka.

Authorities have closed several roads and warned the public to brace for aftershocks.

The quake struck at 02:34 PST (10:34 GMT) on Tuesday. It spawned up to 80 smaller quakes between magnitude 4.6 and 2.5, according to the US Geological Survey.

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Tired, Filthy, and Overworked: Inside Amazon’s Holiday Rush | WIRED

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TYLER HAMILTON HAS optimized his every waking minute. Between Black Friday and Christmas, five nights a week, he pulls himself out of bed, brushes his teeth, and rushes to his car just before sunset. On his drive to the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, he stops at Wendy’s to buy two bourbon bacon burgers, two large chilis, fries, and a drink.

Hamilton eats the burgers as he drives and then punches in to start his shift arranging incoming product inventory just before 5 pm. In the middle of the night, he takes thirty minutes of unpaid break time and reheats the chilis. By the time he clocks out at 5:30 am, his car has frozen, so Hamilton sits huddled in the dark until it warms enough that he can drive home.

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Apple will allow third-party app stores, because the EU mandates it | Mashable

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The European Union isn’t having any of Apple’s exclusionary business practices.

First, Apple was forced to make iPhones USB-C compatible by 2024, and now the company must allow third-party app stores on its iPhones and iPads. Per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is complying with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, a series of strict rules aimed at breaking down anti-competitive practices from Big Tech and improving interoperability for consumers.

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The Fed lifts rates by half a point, acknowledging that inflation is easing | CNN Business

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The Federal Reserve approved a half-point interest rate hike on Wednesday, a smaller increase than in recent months and an acknowledgment that inflation is finally easing.

The increase marks a shift for the central bank after an unprecedented year that includes seven-straight rate hikes as part of an aggressive campaign to try and bring down the highest inflation since the early 1980s.

While lower than the four consecutive three-quarter-point hikes approved at the Fed’s previous meetings, Wednesday’s rate hike is still twice the size of the central bank’s customary quarter-point increase and will likely deepen the economic pain for millions of American businesses and households by pushing up the cost of borrowing even further.

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Golden Globes returning 2023: Will people care? | Fast Company

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The 2022 Golden Globes were anything but glitzy. After a 2021 report from the Los Angeles Times revealed that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) included no Black journalists and demonstrated questionable ethics, powerhouse publicists, companies like Netflix and WarnerMedia, and many stars turned against the group. NBC canceled the 2022 awards show, and the HFPA resorted to presenting winners through Twitter.

Today, nominations dropped for the 2023 Golden Globes. NBC will once again air the awards (and stream the ceremony on Peacock) as part of a “one-year agreement,” according to a statement from the HFPA, Dick Clark Productions, and the network. The red carpet will once again roll out at the Beverly Hilton.

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SBA Waives Disaster Loan Interest and Payments for First Year | Small Business Trend

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The U.S. Small Business Administration recently announced it will be waiving the interest rate for the first year on new disaster loans by extending the initial payment deferment period automatically to 12 months.

SBA Waives Disaster Loan Interest and Payments for First Year

This means new disaster loan borrowers will now have up to one year from the date of the note to begin making payments, instead of the usual five months.

Interest on such loans will not begin to accrue until 12 months from the date of the initial loan disbursement.

This is great news for borrowers as they will no longer need to pay interest accrued on all disbursed loan funds during this new initial payment deferment period.

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Sunny Balwani: Former Theranos executive gets nearly 13 years in prison | BBC News

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Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the business partner of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison.

Balwani was convicted in July of 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in the failed blood-testing start-up.

Theranos executives falsely claimed the product could diagnose illnesses with a few drops of blood from a finger prick.

Holmes was sentenced to over 11 years (135 months) in prison last month.

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FDA approved a 1st-of-its-kind treatment made from human poop. What does it do? | Live Science

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For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a treatment that’s made using donated human poop, the agency announced(opens in new tab) Wednesday (Nov. 30). The treatment, called Rebyota, contains gut bacteria collected from the stool of healthy human donors and is approved for the prevention of a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection.

By administering the liquid treatment into a patient’s rectum through a tube, doctors can help restore balance to the patient’s gut microbiome, the community of microbes living in the lower digestive tract.

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