In California Jails, a Rash of Homicide and Negligence
The jails of Riverside County are plagued with unusually high murder rates and recurring security failures by an inexperienced staff.
What Do You Look for in an Apartment? Tell Us About It.
As the busy summer rental season approaches, The New York Times wants to hear your must-haves and absolutely-nots when you’re looking for a place to live.
Pope Francis Brought Progressives Optimism, but Not Long-Lasting Changes
Pope Francis proved to be far more cautious and conservative than many progressive Catholics had hoped for.
After the Wildfires, This High School Needed a Campus. It Found a Sears.
Palisades Charter High School in California has held classes online since the fire in January. On Tuesday, students gathered at a new, temporary home, a retrofitted Sears.
Lorde Planned a Surprise Show in New York. Surprise: There Was No Show.
The singer summoned fans to an impromptu performance in Washington Square Park Tuesday night. She neglected to get a permit. But there was one more surprise to come.
Catholics Expected a Revolution From Pope Francis, Just Not the One He Gave Them
Liberals hoped he’d ordain women or allow gay marriage. Conservatives thought he’d tear up Church doctrine. But his papacy favored debate over radical action.
Birthrates Languish in Record Lows, C.D.C. Reports
Despite a 1 percent increase in 2024, U.S. birthrates remained in a historic slump, a trend that worries demographers and cultural critics.
Yahoo Will Give Millions To a Settlement Fund For Chinese Dissidents
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A lawsuit to hold Yahoo responsible for "willfully turning a blind eye" to the mismanagement of a human rights fund for Chinese dissidents was settled for $5.425 million last week, after an eight-year court battle. At least $3 million will go toward a new fund; settlement documents say it will "provide humanitarian assistance to persons in or from the [People's Republic of China] who have been imprisoned in the PRC for exercising their freedom of speech." This ends a long fight for accountability stemming from decisions by Yahoo, starting in the early 2000s, to turn over information on Chinese internet users to state security, leading to their imprisonment and torture. After the actions were exposed and the company was publicly chastised, Yahoo created the Yahoo Human Rights Fund (YHRF), endowed with $17.3 million, to support individuals imprisoned for exercising free speech rights online.
The Yahoo Human Rights Fund was intended to support imprisoned Chinese dissidents. Instead, a lawsuit alleges that only a small fraction of the money went to help former prisoners. But in the years that followed, its chosen nonprofit partner, the Laogai Research Foundation, badly mismanaged the fund, spending less than $650,000 -- or 4% -- on direct support for the dissidents. Most of the money was, instead, spent by the late Harry Wu, the politically connected former Chinese dissident who led Laogai, on his own projects and interests. A group of dissidents sued in 2017, naming not just Laogai and its leadership but also Yahoo and senior members from its leadership team during the time in question; at least one person from Yahoo always sat on YHRF's board and had oversight of its budget and activities.
The defendants -- which, in addition to Yahoo and Laogai, included the Impresa Legal Group, the law firm that worked with Laogai -- agreed to pay the six formerly imprisoned Chinese dissidents who filed the suit, with five of them slated to receive $50,000 each and the lead plaintiff receiving $55,000. The remainder, after legal fees and other expense reimbursements, will go toward a new fund to continue YHRF's original mission of supporting individuals in China imprisoned for their speech. The fund will be managed by a small nonprofit organization, Humanitarian China, founded in 2004 by three participants in the 1989 Chinese democracy movement. Humanitarian China has given away $2 million in cash assistance to Chinese dissidents and their families, funded primarily by individual donors.
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A Simpler Funeral for Pope Francis, Who Shunned Many Papal Trappings
A funeral will be held on Saturday for the pope, who changed the rules to make such ceremonies simpler than those traditionally observed.
Climate Activists Interrupt New York City Ballet Performance
Protesters interrupted an all-Balanchine program on the company’s spring season opening night, which coincided this year with Earth Day.
Some Harvard Donors Still Want It to Strike a Deal With Trump
Harvard frantically tried to avoid a showdown with the Trump administration. Now many of its big donors are pushing the university’s leaders to back down and renew talks with the White House.
Marco Rubio Shares Plans for Overhaul of State Department
The secretary of state aims to eliminate an office that advances American values abroad in a plan aligning the agency with President Trump’s foreign policy approach.
‘60 Minutes’ Chief Resigns in Emotional Meeting: ‘The Company Is Done With Me’
The news program has faced mounting pressure from both President Trump and its corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.
Intel To Slash Over 20% of Workforce in Major Restructuring Move
Intel plans to cut more than 20% of its workforce this week, marking the first major restructuring under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, according to Bloomberg. The cuts aim to eliminate bureaucracy and restore an engineering-centric culture at the struggling chipmaker. This follows last year's reduction of approximately 15,000 positions, with Intel's headcount already down to 108,900 employees from 124,800 a year earlier.
The Santa Clara-based company has suffered three consecutive years of declining sales while losing technological ground to competitors, particularly Nvidia in the AI computing sector. Tan, who took over last month, has already begun divesting non-core assets, recently selling a 51% stake in Intel's programmable chips unit Altera to Silver Lake.
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Measles Surge in Southwest Is Now the Largest Single Outbreak Since 2000
Growing case numbers suggest that the national total will surpass that seen during the last large outbreak in 2019.
Trump Administration Continues to Defy Judge’s Orders in Abrego Garcia Case, Lawyers Say
The sharp rebuke by a federal judge in Maryland suggested that she had lost her patience with the Trump administration’s recalcitrance in the case.
Tesla Profits Drop 71% Amid Backlash to Elon Musk’s Role Under Trump
The carmaker reported the sharp decline in quarterly earnings after its brand suffered because of its chief executive’s role in the Trump administration.
UN Says Asian Scam Call Center Epidemic Expanding Globally Amid Political Heat
The UN warns that scam call centers, once concentrated in Southeast Asia, are rapidly expanding worldwide like a "cancer" as organized crime groups exploit weak governance in regions like Africa, South America, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Europe. The Register reports: Previous UN reports flagged growing activity in regions like South America and the Middle East. The latest update expands that scope, citing overseas crackdowns and evidence of scam operations tied to Southeast Asian crime syndicates in Africa, South Asia, select Pacific islands, and links to related criminal services -- such as laundering and recruitment -- as far as Europe, North America, and beyond. These spillover sites, as the UN calls them, allow Asian OCGs to expand their pool of victims by hiring/trafficking locals with different language skills and "dramatically scale up profits," according to the UN's latest report [PDF].
"We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organized crime groups," said Benedikt Hofmann, acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific at the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging strategy against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in the region." Previously, the hotspots for this type of activity have been in places like Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Laos since 2021 when the UN and Interpol started tracking the phenomenon.
"It spreads like a cancer," Hofmann added. "Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear; they simply migrate. This has resulted in a situation in which the region has essentially become an interconnected ecosystem, driven by sophisticated syndicates freely exploiting vulnerabilities, jeopardizing state sovereignty, and distorting and corrupting policy-making processes and other government systems and institutions." The UN said these scam gangs typically relocate to jurisdictions with weak governance, allowing them to expand operations -- and rake in between $27.4 and $36.5 billion annually, according to estimates based on labour force size and average haul per scammer.
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Details Hegseth Shared on Signal Came From a Secure Site
Information about U.S. strikes in Yemen that the defense secretary put in two group chats came from Central Command, according to two people familiar with the chats.
Warner Bros. Discovery Starts Max Password-Sharing Crackdown
As Warner Bros. Discovery prepares to crack down on password sharing, its Max streaming service is rolling out a new feature called the Extra Member Add-On. "Similar to Netflix's paid sharing model, the new feature allows users to add an extra person who does not live in the same household as the primary account holder to their subscription for a monthly fee," reports CNBC. From the report: Priced at $7.99 a month, the friend or family member of the account owner gets their own stand-alone account under the same subscription. Existing profiles attached to customers who do not live within the primary household can be transferred to these new account types, which means their watch history and recommendations will follow them to the new account. At least for now, the option is limited to one add-on profile per subscription.
"Extra Member Add-On and Profile Transfer are two key Max advancements, designed to help viewers with a new way to enjoy our best-in-class content at an exceptional value, and offer subscribers greater flexibility in managing their accounts," said JB Perrette, CEO of global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement Tuesday.
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