Thursday, June 23rd, 2022
Gas Tax Holiday?, Alexa Mimics Humans & Best in Show
All the news you need in about 10 min:
This episode is brought to you by kiwico.com (Listen for the discount code) and Rothys.com/newsworthy
Story Summaries
All the news stories mentioned in today's episode are listed with links below, so you can spend as much -- or as little -- time as you want to peruse the latest happenings.
Biden Calls for Gas Tax Holiday
To help with rising gas prices, President Biden is calling on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months. This would save Americans about 18 cents a gallon on gas and 24 cents a gallon on diesel. Biden also asked states to suspend their gas taxes since those run an average of 30 cents on the gallon. However, a lot of economists and lawmakers from both parties don’t like the idea. They say it won’t do much to help people and could increase demand, making the problem worse in the long run. Plus, they say the money from those taxes is necessary to pay for things like highways and other infrastructure projects.
Read More: White House, CBS News, Axios, ABC News, Fox Business
Uvalde Police Commander on Leave
There is new action against the Uvalde school district’s police chief. Pete Arredondo was put on leave. However, it’s not clear if he’s still being paid. Arredondo’s response to the elementary school shooting in Texas has been widely criticized since law enforcement waited more than an hour to confront the shooter. Top officials say that was Arredondo’s decision since he was the commander on the scene, but Arredondo denied that he was in charge. Federal, state, and local investigators are still looking into exactly what happened.
Read More: Texas Tribune, AP, Fox News, NBC News
Deadly Afghanistan Earthquake
Afghanistan is now dealing with the aftermath of a massive earthquake. Government officials say more than 1,000 people were killed, and more than 1,600 were hurt. Rescue efforts have been difficult since, in the aftermath of the 5.9-magnitude quake, the country has been dealing with aftershocks, rain, and landslides. This comes as the country was already struggling with widespread hunger, a severe drought, terror attacks, and an economic crisis. Now, President Biden is directing USAID and other agencies to figure out how they can help. Other countries have already sent aid or pledged support.
Read More: NBC News, WaPo, NY Times, WSJ, Axios, White House
Russia Steps up Hacking Efforts
Russian intelligence agencies have stepped up their efforts to hack the U.S. and other Ukrainian allies. That’s according to Microsoft, which published new findings yesterday. The tech company says American organizations have been Russia’s top target outside Ukraine. Overall, it says Russia has targeted anyone that might have valuable information related to the war in 42 countries. They include governments, think tanks, businesses, and humanitarian groups. Microsoft says most of the breaches have been stopped, but Russia was able to steal at least some data. So far, the Russian government hasn’t commented on Microsoft’s report.
Read More: Microsoft, AP, CNN, The Hill, PCMag
Meta Oversight Board First Annual Report
Meta needs to be more transparent about its content moderation decisions. That’s one of the findings in the Facebook Oversight Board’s first annual report. The board says there has been some progress, but it’s not enough. The report says more than a million Facebook and Instagram users appealed to the board last year, mostly over content that was removed. The board chose 20 of those cases it considered “significant”. In 14 of them, the advisory group overturned Meta’s initial decision. One of the decisions the board upheld was suspending former President Trump. However, the report criticized the penalty for being indefinite.
Read More: Oversight Board, WaPo, TechCrunch, BBC
Alexa Voice Mimicking
Amazon showed off a big upgrade to the company’s voice assistant, Alexa. It wants Alexa to be able to mimic anyone’s voice. That means it can even sound like people who have passed away. Amazon says it needs less than a minute of sample audio to go off of. Then, it can produce a high-quality voice that can say anything Alexa can. However, not everyone likes this idea. Some critics worry it could be used to trick people or make political deepfakes. So far, Amazon hasn’t said when it might roll out the feature to the public.
Read More: Reuters, CNBC, TechCrunch, Gizmodo
First Fully-Autonomous Amazon Warehouse Robot
Amazon also showed off its first fully autonomous warehouse robot. It’s named Proteus. It looks a lot like the robots Amazon already has, but the old ones can only work in a caged area away from human workers. Amazon says Proteus can roam free in a warehouse, safely dodging employees as it goes. With computer vision and artificial intelligence, it can read, pick things up, move them to the right places, and put them down. Amazon says the new robots will start getting to work this fall.
Read More: Amazon, CNET, Business Insider, The Verge, Forbes
Panel’s Findings on Commanders Owner
There are new accusations against the owner of the Washington Commanders. A congressional panel released its findings of an investigation looking into the workplace culture of the team and how the NFL handled accusations of sexual harassment by team executives. The panel accused Commanders’ owner Dan Snyder of running a “shadow investigation”. The panel said Snyder wanted to discredit former employees who spoke up, used private investigators to intimidate witnesses, and more. Snyder’s spokesperson called the report “politically charged”. The committee reportedly plans to issue a subpoena to compel Snyder to testify.
Read More: US House, ESPN, AP, WaPo, NPR
‘The’ Ohio State Trademark
If you’ve ever watched the NFL Draft or Monday Night Football, you might have noticed how former OSU players announce their school as "The Ohio State University," with an emphasis on the word "the". Now, that three-letter article is trademarked. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved OSU’s application this week. To be clear, this doesn’t mean the Buckeyes own the word “the”. However, it does mean it will be added to any application on clothing and other apparel. And it will probably become even more embedded into the OSU culture.
Read More: USPTO, Columbus Dispatch, ESPN, NBC News, AP, WSJ
Westminster Best in Show
His name is Trumpet, and he made dog show history this week. Trumpet is the first bloodhound to win the top prize, Best in Show, at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Trumpet’s handler said she was “shocked” and considers the bloodhound an underdog. Trumpet is four years old and competed in a dog show for the first time in January. A french bulldog named Winston took second place.
Read More: WKC Dogs, NY Times, AP, Fox News, CNN
Planet Alignment
Starting today, stargazers will get to see something that hasn’t happened since 1864. The moon will line up with five planets in the predawn sky: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The planets will appear in their order of distance from the sun, with Mercury closest to the horizon and the others arced neatly behind. A small crescent moon will sneak between Venus and Mars as if it were standing in for Earth in the lineup. Scientists say you’ll be able to see them all if you look up roughly 30-45 minutes before sunrise. The lineup should be visible each morning until Saturday.
Read More: LiveScience, CBS News, Space.Com, The Hill
Thing to Know Thursday: Summer School Could Become The Norm
For a lot of kids, summer vacation might be a thing of the past. The school tracking site Burbio told Axios that more students are starting to go to school year-round. Summer school programs increased last year. Back then, they were mostly focused on getting kids caught up after a year of the pandemic interrupting their education. Now, Burbio says the same programs are available this year with more offerings. For example, there are learning and development camps, skills courses for high schoolers, tutoring programs, and more. Burbio sees the summer school trend getting even more common in the future.
Read More: Axios, Burbio