If you’ve ever received a parcel from a shopping platform that you didn’t order, and nobody you know seems to have bought it for you, you might have been caught up in a “brushing” scam.
It has hit the headlines after thousands of Americans received unsolicited packets of seeds in the mail, but it is not new.
It’s an illicit way for sellers to get reviews for their products.
And it doesn’t mean your account has been hacked.
Officials have blamed a gender reveal party for one of several wildfires raging in the US state of California.
A “smoke-generating pyrotechnic device” at the event sparked the El Dorado fire, which has now spread over 7,000 acres.
It is one of more than two dozen blazes across the state.
California is currently experiencing a record heatwave, with Los Angeles reporting its highest ever temperature of 49.4C (121F).
The National Weather Service described Sunday as “one of the hottest days since weather records began across much of south-western California”.
At its global developer conference in June, Apple said its forthcoming iOS 14 update would allow users to opt out of in-app ad tracking, a privacy feature that quickly drew ire from advertising giants over fears that it would make it harder to deliver targeted ads to users.
But now Apple is delaying enforcing the feature until “early next year”, the company confirmed.
iOS 14, expected out later this year, will contain a new prompt that asks users whether they would like to opt into this kind of targeted ad tracking. Developers will be able to integrate this prompt into their apps as soon as iOS 14 is released, but they will not be required to, as Apple indicated they would earlier.
We’re now 61 days away from the U.S. presidential election, and Facebook is once more ramping up its efforts to level the playing field and attempt to keep its platform from being manipulated to influence how people vote.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced a series of new measures, including the news that it will block new political and issue ads in the final week of the campaign — although campaigns can still run ads to encourage people to vote, and they can still run older political ads. Other announcements today detailed more work to counter misinformation, and stronger rules to counter voter suppression, including misleading references to COVID-19 at the polls.
Tesla shares are much, much cheaper Monday after the stock’s 5-1 split.
Even though Tesla’s stock closed 12.5% higher at $498.32 a share Monday, that’s still around $1,800 cheaper than where it was trading on Friday. The company announced the stock split earlier this month, making shares more affordable for average investors.
The split will not change the value of investors’ total holdings of the company. It will just grow the number of shares making up their portfolios. Tesla (TSLA) stockholders are getting four shares for each share they held last week.
It’s not 100,000 electric delivery vans from new car company Rivian, but Amazon is adding nearly 2,000 new Mercedes vans to its fleet. Instead of diesel or gas-powered vans, however, every vehicle making Amazon deliveries from the German carmaker will be fully electric.
Amazon recently announced a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to incorporate 1,800 new delivery vans into its delivery service across Europe by the end of 2020. Those vans include 1,200 eSprinter vans and 600 eVito vans.
The electric Sprinter van is the newest commercial electric vehicle from Mercedes and is a bigger version of its eVito van, which has 93-mile range. Rivian’s e-vans are supposed to start delivering for Amazon in 2021. Its first two vehicles, an electric pickup truck and SUV with 400-mile range, still haven’t arrived yet.
Locusts are large grasshoppers that live on almost every continent of the world and are known for their propensity to gather in large, destructive swarms. However, locusts often live for several generations, spanning decades, in the solitary, sedentary style that’s characteristic of other species of grasshoppers. It’s when locusts come together that their behavior changes.
Locusts are able to sense when their population density begins to increase, said Hojun Song, an entomologist at Texas A&M University. And in response, “they become gregarious, attracted to each other. They eat more [and] develop faster,” he said.
Attention, retail and service industry workers: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now has your backs when it comes to customers not covering their faces.
Concerned about workplace violence, the CDC has released a list of tips for employees dealing with people who refuse to listen to stated rules about masking, social distancing, and the number of individuals allowed inside at a time.
Among the suggestions are:
Postal workers in Washington State have reinstalled high-speed mail sorting machines—dismantled after controversial orders from the U.S. Postal Service— despite USPS orders not to put machines back in use. U.S. Postal Service
After embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he would pause recent controversial changes to U.S. Postal Service protocol, the service told workers not to reinstall removed equipment.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today implemented President Trump’s memorandum extending relief on federally held student loans to borrowers through the end of the year. Her actions also addresses collections on defaulted loans and whether non-payments during this time will qualify for forgiveness under an income-driven repayment plan or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Here’s what we know.
Presidential Memorandum on Student Loan Relief
The CARES Act passed earlier this year suspends payments on federally held student loans until September 30, 2020. During this time, collections on defaulted loans were halted, and the non-payments counted toward the 120 payments required by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and as payments required for other forgiveness under an income-drive repayment plan.
Dispatches From The Front 