Branson Reaches Edge of Space – Should We Be Celebrating?
British billionaire Richard Branson has successfully traveled to the edge of space, making history in the realm of private spaceflight. Attached to a larger twin-fuselage aircraft, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, a SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane, launched from New Mexico at 10:40am ET on Sunday morning. Detaching from the carrier plane at an altitude of roughly 45,000 …
Support for Sha’Carri Richardson Grows Amid Olympic Chaos
This year’s Tokyo Olympics will look unlike any Games to date. On Thursday, Japan declared a state of emergency due to the recent rise in cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant, according to The New York Times. Officials are especially concerned given the country’s low vaccination rates; only about a quarter of the population has …
TikTok Launches Video Resume Pilot Program
TikTok launched its new pilot program “Resumes” on Wednesday, inviting users to submit job application videos directly through the app, according to The Verge. About three dozen companies – including Chipotle, Shopify, Target, and media groups such as PopSugar and the Meredith Corporation – are participating in the short-term pilot. They will be accepting applications …
Spike Lee Opens Cannes Festival as First Black Jury President
The 74th Cannes Film Festival kicked off yesterday for the first time since 2019 after its cancelation last spring due to the pandemic. Spanning almost two weeks, this year’s festival features a total of 24 films in the running for the Palme d’Or, a few more than typically included in the official selection, according to …
Few Questions Answered in Pentagon UFO Report
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its highly anticipated UFO report, but what it had to say left many with more questions than answers. Officially titled “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP), the nine-page account concludes that all but one of the 144 flying object sightings recorded by the Pentagon since …
Exxon Executives Found to Have Lied About Climate Measures
Secret recordings obtained by Unearthed, the investigative unit of Greenpeace UK, reveal that at least two lobbyists for oil and gas conglomerate ExxonMobil were explicitly working against recent climate legislation, according to The Guardian. The news comes as a direct contradiction to the company’s public support of environmental policy. Posing as headhunters looking to recruit …
California Adds Five States to Travel Ban Over Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
In a rebuke of state governments that have passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, California officials announced that they will add five states to the list of places where state-funded travel is prohibited on account of discriminatory policies, according to CBS News San Francisco. Adopted in 2016, California’s Assembly Bill 1887 requires state lawmakers to act on behalf …
Federal Judge Dismisses Government Lawsuit Against Facebook
On Monday, a federal judge dismissed antitrust lawsuits that had been filed against Facebook Inc. by the Federal Trade Commission and 46 states late last year. The FTC accused Facebook of social media monopolization, claiming that the company has maintained control over more than 60 percent of the market for at least a decade, according …
Britain Bans Binance
Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned the affiliate firm Binance Markets Limited (BML) from operating in the United Kingdom, according to Reuters. The Cayman Islands-based cryptocurrency exchange is among the largest in the world. News of it follows a similar trend of crypto crackdowns in other major global markets. Binance was already in the …
Senate Poised to Block Debate on Voting Rights Bill
The Senate is expected to block a voting rights bill on Tuesday that President Biden and the Democrats have described as a vital measure to protect democracy, according to The New York Times. Known as the For the People Act, the legislation is designed to strengthen voting rights by enacting automatic voter registration and expanding …