©AFP WASHINGTON — Thousands of scientists and people from other walks of life turned out in Washington and New York on Saturday for Earth Day events that organisers have framed as a “celebration” of science to counter a growing disregard for evidence-based knowledge. The “March for Science” festivities included “teach-ins” on the National Mall and parades in midtown Manhattan and hundreds of other cities and towns. The […]
“Thousands of new doors opened and rents soared. This created a bubble, and like housing, that bubble has now burst.” – Richard Hayne, Urban Outfitters CEO, March 2017 The devastation in the US retail sector is accelerating in 2017, and in addition to the surging number of brick and mortar retail bankruptcies, it is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the soaring number of store closures. […]
By Brian Ellsworth | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s opposition prepared to march in silence on Saturday to honor a dozen people killed in three weeks of protests demanding that the government of President Nicolas Maduro hold delayed elections and address a growing economic crisis. Twelve people have been killed in a renewed wave of demonstrations this month in incidents primarily involving security forces or armed civilians. Another eight […]
More than half of the pupils in UAE schools are classed as overweight or obese. Weight problems are even being identified in infants. Warnings such as these are becoming alarmingly common and leave little doubt that childhood obesity in the country has reached epidemic proportions. These particular findings come from a 2015 study by Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government. As well as discovering that 14 per […]
Researchers found that certain search terms revealed AI bias. Credit: Princeton University In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. Common machine learning programs, when trained with ordinary human language available online, can […]
By Michelle Martin | COLOGNE, Germany COLOGNE, Germany The co-leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) suffered an embarrassing defeat on Saturday when delegates refused to discuss her motion to shift the party into the “mainstream”, putting it on course to turn further right. The party, a pariah in German politics, has seen its support drop in recent months, and thousands turned up to protest the […]
This article is part of an ongoing series on digital tools for journalists. We’ve spent the past few weeks talking about tools for keeping reporters and their sources safe. This week, Poynter’s Ren LaForme is focusing on a tool that will help you find which information about you is on the internet, what you may want to clean up and what you can discover about sources. So, […]
Data-driven analytics applications are eating the world and transforming every domain. But the world is also being eaten up in a different way by several non-sustainable practices. On Earth Day, we look at what we know about the relation between big data and the environment: how big data is used to measure sustainability and inform action, and what is the impact they have on the environment as […]
BOSTON Officials of two large California public retirement systems said Friday they are voting against nine of 15 Wells Fargo & Co directors up for election at the bank’s annual meeting next week, citing the bank’s phony-account scandal. Leaders of the largest U.S. state pension system, known as CalPERS, said in an email it is voting about 13.9 million shares against the bank nominees, including its chairman, […]
After sitting through a course in table manners last week, I’m confident I have previously ruined many chances to impress at formal dinners simply because I did not sit down properly or forgot to place my napkin to the left of the plate when I was ready to leave the table. Participants at the Dining Like A Diplomat workshop, organised by the Protocol School of Washington in […]
The recent split judgment of the Pakistan Supreme Court, giving the country’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif breathing space by appointing a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe the Panama Papers’ claims of financial irregularities by him and his family, has changed the strategic scenario in the country. The JIT comprises members of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan […]
COLOGNE, Germany Two police officers were injured and a police car was set ablaze during protests in Cologne on Saturday, police said, as some 600 delegates of the deeply divided anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party met to discuss policy for September’s national elections. AfD co-chief Frauke Petry suffered a crushing blow at the start of the congress when delegates voted down her motion calling for efforts […]
April 22, 2017 by: Kathrin Hille in Krasnoyarsk When Kremlin officials are asked about Alexei Navalny, they like to laugh off the Russian opposition politician’s chances of challenging president Vladimir Putin. But this week the Kremlin appeared to signal that it does take Mr Navalny seriously after all. In a video published on YouTube on Wednesday, the politician who organised protests in more than 80 Russian cities […]
By Ian Simpson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. scientists will stage an unprecedented protest on Saturday, a March for Science provoked by steep cuts President Donald Trump has proposed for science and research budgets, and growing disregard for evidence-based knowledge. The march in Washington, timed to coincide with the Earth Day environmental event, will put Trump’s questioning of climate change and proposed cuts to federal science programs at […]
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at Market dislocations occur when financial markets, operating under stressful conditions, experience large widespread asset mispricing. Welcome to this week’s edition of “World Out Of Whack” where every Wednesday we take time out of our day to laugh, poke fun at and present to you absurdity in global financial markets in all its glorious insanity. While we enjoy a good laugh, the truth is that the first step to […]
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Will a robot take away my job? Many people ask that question, yet policymakers don’t have the kind of information they need to answer it intelligently, say the authors of a new study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). “Policymakers are flying blind into what has been called the fourth industrial revolution,” said Tom M. Mitchell, the E. Fredkin […]
There were five huge boxes sitting at the loading dock of The Poynter Institute yesterday, waiting for the FedEx truck to pick them up. They are filled with more than 125 file boxes containing the literary effects of Donald M. Murray, in my opinion the most influential writing teacher America has ever known. The precious content of those boxes — including 100 of Murray’s experimental daybooks — […]
Good news! Soon, Gmail users can get their hands on the newest Windows 10 Mail & Calendar apps, according to Microsoft. Windows 10 Mail & Calendar Over the years, Microsoft has worked relentlessly to come with up architectural improvements to enhance and speed up Windows 10 Mail & Calendar apps’ performance. Earlier this year, the company excitedly announced several new features, which included: • Color categories for calendar […]
The three cases are part of a campaign by Saudi women, who have been broadcasting daring videos with their cellphones, using Facebook to organize street protests and posting Twitter messages to challenge the very idea of male supremacy in their famously patriarchal society. Continue reading the main story The campaign, started by a loose network of activists who have enlisted young, media-savvy women, has gone far beyond […]
About six months ago, we bought a drone to help us cover stories at the Yakima Herald-Republic, a daily newspaper in Yakima, Washington. We’d seen other people’s drone footage of fires and floods and protests, and wanted to get our own. We knew that a drone had a lot of potential to contribute to our news coverage, but we didn’t know exactly what rules apply to journalists, […]
The list of celebrities coming out as cannabis users is growing like a weed. Anne Hathaway appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Thursday, which just so happened to be the unofficial stoner holiday 420. While on the show, Hathaway played a game called “Plead The Fifth.” The game is simple, Cohen asks her three questions, she has to answer two of them, and […]
Elon Musk has been working on a human-computer brain interface called Neuralink, aiming to link human brains to artificial intelligence. Neuralink aims to hook up the human brain to AI through micron-sized devices and the potential applications hold great promise. For instance, AI could serve as an extension of the human brain and help with certain brain injuries stemming from a stroke, cancer lesions, or other health […]
It is clear now that from the very start, the hunters’ abduction was linked to the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in regional powers in an increasingly complicated proxy war. On one side of the hostage negotiations were Shiite powers — Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah — which firmly support the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. On the other were the Sunni powers Qatar […]
While geopolitical concerns and French election uncertainty are factors, The Wall Street Journal notes that many markets are flashing red on growth as investors begin to return to pre-election bets on the ol ‘new normal’ – a persistently weak economic expansion. There are clear signs that the sugar rush of Donald Trump’s victory and global-growth hopes has faded, raising doubts among some investors about whether stocks can […]
