In the weeks since Elon Musk took over Twitter, dozens of people responsible for keeping dangerous or inaccurate material in check on the service have posted on LinkedIn that they resigned or lost their jobs. Their statements have drawn a flood of condolences — and attempts to recruit them.

Overtures arrived from rival tech services, retailers, consulting firms, government contractors and other organizations that want to use the former Twitter employees — and those recently let go by Meta and the payments platform Stripe — to track and combat false and toxic information on the internet.

Ania Smith, the CEO of TaskRabbit, the Ikea-owned marketplace for gig workers, commented on a former Twitter employee’s post this month that he should consider applying for a product director role, working in part on trust and safety tools.

“The war for talent has really been exceptional in the last 24 months in tech,” Smith said in an interview. “So when we see layoffs happening, whether it’s at Twitter or Meta or other companies, it’s definitely an opportunity to go after some of the very high-caliber talent we know they hire.”

She added that making users feel safe on the TaskRabbit platform was a key component of her company’s success.

“We can’t really continue growing without investing in a trust and safety team,” she said.

The threats posed by conspiracy theories, misleadingly manipulated media, hate speech, child abuse, fraud and other online harms have been studied for years by academic researchers, think tanks and government analysts. But increasingly, companies in and outside the tech industry see that abuse as a potentially expensive liability, especially as more work is conducted online and regulators and clients push for stronger guardrails.

On LinkedIn, under posts eulogizing Twitter’s work on elections and content moderation, comments promoted openings at TikTok (threat researcher), DoorDash (community policy manager) …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

Doug Campbell has resigned as CEO of Louisville-based Solid Power, a developer of solid-state battery cells, which are considered the next evolution in electric-vehicle technology.

Campbell also resigned Tuesday from his position on the board of directors. His resignation was effective immediately.

The board has appointed David Jansen, the company’s chairman and president, as the interim CEO and has started a search for a permanent replacement.

The company didn’t respond Friday to a question about whether Campbell’s resignation had been expected.

Campbell co-founded Solid Power in 2011 as a spinoff from a research venture of the University of Colorado-Boulder. The company joined the Nasdaq in December 2021 after a merger with  Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation III, a special purpose acquisition company.

Solid Power raised $542.9 million from the transaction.

Campbell oversaw the company during key “inflection points,” including the initial research and development of Solid Power’s battery technologies and the securing of key partnerships with government agencies and auto manufacturers, said John Stephens, the company’s lead independent director.

“As we enter the next phase in our evolution and build on our momentum as a newly public company, Doug and the Board decided that now is the right time to identify a new leader who will drive our product development and commercialization capabilities,” Stephens said in a statement.

Solid Power’s stock fell after the announcement of Campbell’s immediate resignation. It was $4.39 a share Monday and $3.25 Friday afternoon. At the end of 2021, the stock price was $8.74.

Several companies are working on commercializing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles. The technology is seen as an evolution from lithium-ion batteries because they are faster charging and don’t pose the safety risks of liquid electrolytes, which can be volatile and flammable at high temperatures.

Solid Power has partnerships with BMW and Ford Motor Co. to jointly develop all-solid-state batteries. In 2021, the …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

It had been more than three hours of tense, back-and-forth combat — projected across the massive Jumbotron at San Francisco’s Chase Center — when the sellout crowd, thumping together inflatable thundersticks and yelling with excitement, sensed victory was at hand.

A South Korean esports team, DRX, guided their video game characters into the home base of the rival T1 squad and smashed its Nexus, a blue gemstone, to pieces, clinching this year’s League of Legends world championship.

Fans roared their approval, fireworks flared, the winners embraced, and the losers sobbed into their keyboards. Executives from Riot Games, the League of Legends publisher, presented DRX with diamond rings sponsored by Mercedes, celebrating the pinnacle of the professional video game scene.

It was a perfectly choreographed event, the kind of spectacle gaming publishers had promised investors from the traditional sports world when they first pitched them on putting their money into the rapidly growing esports industry in the mid-2010s.

“I remember seeing a team come out, and the fans were going crazy and asking for autographs. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is just like our experience,’” said Zach Leonsis, the son of Ted Leonsis, who owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. The younger Leonsis invested in an esports team in 2016.

But despite the industry’s growth and appeal to the young consumers traditional sports owners are desperate to attract, the money has not followed. Some sports owners have soured on the industry’s short-term prospects after discovering that the methods that make money in traditional sports — like building fan bases in specific cities and striking lucrative deals with television networks — don’t always apply in esports.

Most have not yet turned a profit or seen a return on their investments, and the gaming publishers that control the biggest competitive leagues in North America, …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

Arapahoe County is ready to focus on helping a subset of the homeless population that is often the hardest to house — those who regularly get into trouble with the law and find themselves moving in and out of jail.

This week, the county announced plans to build a new 80- to 100-bed facility to provide permanent supportive housing to “justice-involved” people — in other words, the folks who are on a first-name basis with police and no stranger to the inside of a detention center.

“We had seen a pretty steady 13% to 14% of the jail population being released who were unhoused and have high needs,” said Kathy Smith, director of Arapahoe County’s Community Resources Department. “Then, through the pandemic, it got worse.”

In 2022, 21% of jail releases were homeless at the time they were originally booked, Smith said. And returning people to the streets only increases their chances of winding up back behind bars.

According to a four-year study by the County Criminal Justice Planning Office, homeless jail releases were 46% more likely than non-homeless releases to return to jail on a new charge. And those without a home spent 44% more time in jail than those with a home address.

“For the justice-involved, who upon release from jail are typically required to comply with conditions of probation, and many of whom are struggling with mental health or substance use disorder, find that lack of affordable housing is a significant barrier to recovery and rehabilitation,” Smith said. “Lack of housing for this population is therefore causing high recidivism rates amongst the unhoused.”

According to Metro Denver Homeless Initiative data and the organization’s point-in-time surveys of those living without a home, Arapahoe County’s homeless population increased from 198 in 2018 to 245 in 2020. Then it leapfrogged to 514 in January of …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

By Kate Ruder, Kaiser Health News

GRAND JUNCTION — During her 12-hour overnight shift, Brianna Shelton helps residents at BeeHive Homes Assisted Living go to the bathroom. Many of them have dementia, and some can’t get out of bed on their own. Only a few can remember her name, but that doesn’t matter to her.

“They’re somebody’s mom, somebody’s grandma, somebody’s great-grandmother,” Shelton said. “I want to take care of them like I would take care of my family.”

Shelton trained to be a personal care aide through an apprenticeship program designed to meet the increasing need for health care workers in rural western Colorado. Here, far from Denver’s bustling urban corridor, worker shortages mount as baby boomers retire, young people move away from these older communities, and demand for health care in homes and facilities rises.

Rural areas often have larger shares of residents who are 65 or older than urban areas do. And the most rural regions have relatively fewer direct care workers, like personal care aides, to help people with disabilities than less-rural regions do, according to a recent study in the journal Health Affairs.

Besides increasing the number of direct care workers, the Colorado apprenticeship program offers opportunities for improving earning power to residents who live at or below the poverty line, who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, or who are unemployed or underemployed. They train to become personal care aides, who help patients with daily tasks such as bathing or housekeeping, or certified nursing assistants, who can provide some direct health care, like checking blood pressure.

Apprentices take training classes at Western Colorado Area Health Education Center in Grand Junction, and the center pays for students who live in more rural areas to attend classes at Technical College of the Rockies in Delta …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

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During a recession, look closely at how you’re spending money.

boonchai wedmakawand/Getty Images

During an economic downturn, it’s crucial to control your spending.
Try to avoid taking on new debt you don’t need, like a house or car.
Look critically at smaller expenses, too — there’s no reason to keep paying for things you don’t use.

With a looming recession and the Federal Reserve set to raise interest rates again, it’s important to pay attention to your spending. A recession can be a major disruption to your personal finances. Preparing your finances, setting up a budget, and keeping spending to a minimum can help you weather an economic downturn. 

According to financial group BMO’s latest Real Financial Progress Index, 84% of consumers said they are concerned about a recession happening before the end of the year and 76% said they were making lifestyle changes in preparation for the downturn. 

The No. 1 financial adjustment is delaying major purchases such as a house or a car, followed by paying down debt and planning to cut back on holiday spending. 

Given this financial uncertainty, there are several purchases that you may want to avoid depending on your circumstances and lifestyle needs. From new houses and cars to Hulu and other subscription services, here are purchases to think twice about during a recession.

 1. A new house

Houses tend to get cheaper during a recession due to falling demand. People tend to be wary of making this big purchase during uncertain economic times, so prices fall to entice …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

The Chicago Bears will finally hit their bye week after Sunday’s meeting with the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field, a chance to recharge for the stretch run, four games at the end of a season that — when it kicked off — was about building for the future.

The Bears are likely to have a top-five pick in the April draft and, if the order were based on current standings, they would select No. 2. That and a massive amount of salary-cap space — spotrac.com projects the Bears to have north of $115 million — creates a world of possibilities for general manager Ryan Poles in the offseason.

Poles reset the team’s cap with moves that strapped the Bears with more than $85 million in dead money this season, creating a clean slate moving forward. The franchise has a ridiculous amount of available room when considering the Atlanta Falcons are second with an estimated $66 million followed by the New York Giants at $51 million.

It’s a good time to offer a reminder that the Bears spent the 2010s attempting to build the roster and fill many core positions through free agency. They hit with defensive linemen such as Julius Peppers and Akiem Hicks and found some other nice players in Willie Young, Jermon Bushrod and Danny Trevathan. But the list of players whose production didn’t come near to matching their pay is too long to list. That’s one reason the team had more last-place finishes in the NFC North (four) than winning seasons (three) in the 2010s.

Poles should be aggressive in free agency, but more importantly, he needs to be calculated. There wasn’t a quick fix for the roster he inherited in January and there aren’t corners to cut now. He’s not going to buy his way into …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

Mark Kerr, 40, was jailed for six years and put on the sex offenders’ register (Pictures: Police Scotland/Google Maps)

A former SNP councillor who assaulted teenagers and tried to rape one boy has been jailed.

Mark Kerr was seen as a ‘mentor’ by one of his victims before he took advantage and abused him, a court heard.

He was found guilty of nine charges involving offences that took place between May 2012 and May 2020 in Lanarkshire.

The 40-year-old committed most of the crimes before he was elected to represent the Kilsyth ward in Croy in 2017.

Jurors heard how a target looked up to him as an openly gay man while he was coming out himself.

Kerr touched him sexually for the first time when he was just 15-years-old at a disused quarry.

On a different occasion in 2015, the boy was asleep in Kerr’s house when he woke up to the predator trying to rape him.

The victim, who is now in his mid-20s, said: ‘I froze once I understood what was happening. I could not control my body. It did not allow me to do anything.’

He went on to publicly confront Kerr at knifepoint in the presence of his mother, saying: ‘Tell my mum what you done to me.’

Another boy said he was targeted from around 2012 and touched inappropriately.

One one occasion after explicitly describing sex acts, Kerr said to him: ‘Don’t knock it until you have tried it.’

The High Court in Paisley accepted that Kerr was a ‘predator hiding in plain sight’ (Picture: Google Maps)

Kerr also molested a boy in a tent on a camping trip in Croy. He was accused of raping a second boy on the same trip but acquitted of this charge.

However, the High Court …read more

Source:: Metro News

Prince William and Kate Middleton greeted celebrities and award-winners in Boston.

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

Prince William awarded five Earthshot Prizes of $1.2 million on Friday to fund climate innovation.
Notpla, one of this year’s winners, uses seaweed to produce “naturally biodegradable” packaging.
The climate startup has also produced an edible bubble that can hold liquids called the “Ooho.”

Notpla, a startup that makes sustainable plastic-like packaging out of seaweed, was awarded one of Prince William’s annual Earthshot Prizes on Friday.

The prestigious Earthshot Prizes were awarded on Friday in Boston. Each winner will receive £1 million ($1.2 million) to develop their climate innovations.

The star-studded ceremony, hosted by Prince William and Kate Middleton, had various celebrities in attendance including Billie Eilish, Ellie Goulding, Annie Lennox, Rami Malek, Catherine O’Hara, and David Beckham.

Notpla was founded in a London kitchen by university students Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez and Pierre Paslier in 2014.

The pair’s first product was the “Ooho” — an “edible bubble” designed to hold liquids. According to its website, the startup aims to combat plastic waste by producing “naturally biodegradable and home-compostable” packaging.

According to the startup’s website, Nopla partnered with the sports-drink brand Lucozade during the 2019 London Marathon. The partnership replaced single-use plastic cups and bottles with 36,000 “Ooho” capsules to keep athletes hydrated without excessive plastic waste.

Notpla’s “Ooho” is an “edible bubble” capable of holding liquids — an alternative to plastic.

Justin Tallis/Getty Images

Notpla has since created a water-resistant coating for takeaway boxes, paper, and film, as well as a rigid plastic alternative, all made using seaweed.

The company made more than a million takeaway boxes for the delivery platform JustEat in 2022, BBC News reported.

The Earthshot Prizes were launched in 2020 by Prince William and Sir David Attenborough. The name is a reference to President John F Kennedy’s “moonshot” ambition to get …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

Mark Geiger gave a red card to Panamanian player Luis Tejada in a 2015 Gold Cup match that ended in a 2-1 victory for Mexico.

Getty Images

Mark Geiger is a former math teacher turned soccer referee who’s presided over World Cup games.
He reflects on difficult decisions and the experience of making calls in front of huge crowds. 
He’s training referees on the controversial VAR system that “makes the game as fair as possible.”

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Mark Geiger, a 48-year-old referees’ instructor who is at the 2022 men’s soccer World Cup in Qatar. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was 13 when I took my first refereeing course in 1988. Doing under-8 matches back then, I never expected I’d be going to a World Cup.

Getting started can be difficult. You can have parents and coaches yelling and giving you nonsense. You need to develop a thick skin and understand that soccer is a very passionate but great game to be a part of.

I started moving up the ranks, got my state referee badge, and was doing amateur soccer. I got my national badge in 2003 and worked in Major League Soccer as a referee from 2004 to 2018. I’m a two-time MLS Referee of the Year. Since 2018, I’ve been the director of senior match referees, basically overseeing the MLS referees, assistant referees, and video match officials.

I spent 17 years as a math teacher

I taught at Lacey Township High School in New Jersey, then I’d hop on a plane Friday afternoon, do my match, come back on Sunday and start the process all over again.

I hung the flags of the countries I’d been in the classroom, places like Guyana and all through Central America.

I enjoyed it, but didn’t realize how tired I was …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

For the Chicago Bulls, the last week on the road against hot-handed Western Conference opponents has brought the team’s concerns from the 3-point line into sharper focus.

Despite their middling efficiency from behind the arc — 35.4% — the Bulls take the fewest 3-point attempts in the league (28.9 per game) and tally the fourth-lowest makes (10.2). But their issue doesn’t just derive from makes or misses.

Teams who don’t shoot many 3-pointers have a clear formula — if you’re not a long-range team, you can’t allow opponent to produce from behind the arc. Take for instance, the Golden State Warriors, who outshot the Bulls 60-27 from behind the arc for a 119-11 win on Friday night. The Warriors give up the sixth-most 3-pointers per game but still manage to outscore their opponents by an average of 3.1 made baskets from behind the arc.

The Bulls, however, have suffered the opposite in the opening quarter of the season. Opponents average 12.7 made 3-pointers against the Bulls, who allow the fourth-highest shooting accuracy from behind the arc at 37.9%.

This means the Bulls are being outshot by an average of 2.5 3-pointers per game, creating a significant 7.5-point deficit. Only two other teams have lower 3-point scoring margins: the New York Knicks (minus-2.6) and Minnesota Timberwolves (minus-2.8).

Friday’s loss showcased the futility of attempting to win a shootout with a massive 3-point margin. The Warriors took 50 shots from behind the arc. The Bulls took 27. While it’s rare to see a team accomplish the deadly accuracy that the Warrior provide at that volume (40% against the Bulls), any gulf that large between 3-point shooting rates makes it nearly impossible to outscore an opponent.

“We’ve got to take more threes and we’ve got to generate more threes,” coach Billy Donovan said after Friday’s loss. “It’s got to …read more

Source:: The Denver Post

The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580.

Tim Levin/Insider

I drove Mercedes-Benz’s challenger to the Tesla Model S. 
The six-figure EQS delivers awe-inspiring range, flashy technology, and a cushy interior fit for royalty. 
Mercedes lent me a well-optioned EQS 580 that came out to $141,000. 

Mercedes-Benz has seen Elon Musk’s success. And it’s had enough. 

The German brand recently launched the EQS, a luxurious electric sedan that takes direct aim at Tesla’s long-running Model S. I recently drove a $141,000 EQS 580, the top dog of the EQS lineup. And while I loved its palatial interior and extra-long range, it has a few shortcomings too. 

Pro: Super luxurious interior
The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580.

Tim Levin/Insider

Shut yourself inside the EQS and you’re instantly insulated from the chaotic outside world. Its cushy seats, high-end finishes, ambient lighting, and solid build quality meld to create a classy interior that makes a guy wonder: Is Goldman hiring?

You don’t need to lift a finger in the EQS, which basically doubles as your personal butler. Ask it to activate your massaging seat, and it obliges dutifully. 

Pro: A comfortable, silky-smooth ride

The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580.

Tim Levin/Insider

Even cheap electric cars are pretty quiet and smooth to drive as compared to typical gas vehicles. But the EQS is a cut above. It glides down the road like a hovercraft, totally unbothered by bumps and cracks in the pavement. 

Con: Weird, mushy brakes

The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580.

Tim Levin/Insider

Like all EVs, the EQS slows itself down when you lift off the accelerator using regenerative braking, a process which captures energy from a car’s motors and feeds it to its battery pack. But Mercedes didn’t quite nail the interplay between the regen and the brake pedal. 

Stopping the car, particularly on short notice, can be nerve-racking, as you often need to stomp harder and farther than …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

Overworked junior banker

zwawol/Getty Images

Junior bankers at Goldman Sachs work an average of 98 hours per week, according to a new survey.
That means they are being paid around the same as a Starbucks manager before bonuses.
In 2021, Goldman’s junior bankers protested similarly long work hours, calling it “workplace abuse.”

Junior bankers at Goldman Sachs are working an average of 98 hours a week — 18 hours more than their peers, according to a new survey.

This means first-year bankers at the firm are making about $22 an hour, around the same as a manager at Starbucks, according to calculations by Insider’s Emmalyse Brownstein. This number does not include bonuses, and assumes junior bankers are taking two weeks of vacation.

While end-of-year bonuses can be a large chunk of Wall Street pay, they are slated to dwindle this year due to a decline in IPOs and M&A. Bonus pools, which hit record levels last year, are on track to be slashed by about 30% at banks like JPMorgan and Citigroup, Bloomberg reported.

A spokesperson from Goldman Sachs told Brownstein that the “data does not match ours” in response to an email sharing the findings of the survey. The spokesperson also declined to share the firm’s own findings about how many hours its junior bankers are clocking a week.

At an average of 98 hours a week, Goldman’s junior bankers are working 18 hours more than their fellow junior bankers who reported working an average of 80 hours per week, the survey found. Junior bankers at the runner up to Goldman averaged about 86 hours a week.

Over 2,500 first-year investment bankers from around 50 US firms were asked their pay, what they like and don’t like about their job, and their perks, in a survey by Odyssey Search Partners. The results from the …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

Heather Cope, a 35-year-old special education teacher in Ohio, created earrings to mark the Cincinnati Bengals’ Super Bowl run as part of her crafting side hustle

Heather Cope

I love crafting. It’s a way for me to relax when I return home from my job as a special education teacher.
I started by watching YouTube videos to learn how to make wreaths. Now I also make jewelry and other crafts. 
I usually make anywhere from $1 to $200 a month. During the Bengals’ Super Bowl ride, I made more than $1,000.  

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Heather Cope, a 35-year-old special education teacher in the Northwest Local School District in Cincinnati, Ohio who has a craft business on the side. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I love crafting. It’s a way for me to relax when I return home from my job as a special education teacher for kindergarten through fifth grade at Pleasant Run Elementary in Cincinnati. I adore my school kids, but sometimes I need to leave that stress in the classroom.  

I leveled up my crafting game after I purchased my Cricut, an electronic cutting machine that looks like a printer and can be used to cut different shapes and designs on materials like paper, vinyl, leather and fabric. After buying it, I explored making new items. My first creation was a set of leather earrings.

Meanwhile, I had also been experimenting with other handmade items. I watched YouTube videos and learned how to make wreaths and shadow boxes.

But I never thought my passion would turn into a side business.

My business path

It started small. I sold my designs to friends and family. Somebody would see a wreath I made and say, “Hey, can you make one for my front door?” 

My business, Teacher Mom Craft Shop, blossomed …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

Dawid Wiacek.

Courtesy of Dawid Wiacek

Dawid Wiacek is a résumé writer and coach who got started helping out friends on the side.
He said when he started taking his work seriously and charging more he saw more success.
He also kept his skills and personal brand fresh with trainings and by networking.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dawid Wiacek, a 37-year-old executive career coach and résumé writer and the founder of Career Fixer, who’s based in White Plains, New York. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Like most kids, I didn’t even know résumé writing was a profession. I ended up in this career entirely by accident. 

My first job out of college was as a customer-service representative for a tech startup — specifically, an online job board for executives. I was in my early 20s with no corporate experience, and I was helping managers and senior-level professionals find jobs. But it taught me a lot, and so I started applying those skills by writing résumés on the side for family and friends, often for free. 

This initial job was mostly editing, but sometimes it meant rewriting a résumé because the original document I received was a faxed copy, or so outdated and irrelevant that it just made sense to start fresh. Occasionally, I’d have to create a résumé from scratch because someone didn’t have one.

Sometimes, I’d charge a nominal fee, maybe $50, that I called my “ice cream money”  — since my full-time job covered my main expenses (but barely), this extra money I made from résumé writing would be used for nonessential “extras.” I have a bit of a sweet tooth, and I like ice cream, so that’s why I chose that phrase, but I didn’t spend all of it on ice cream — I would …read more

Source:: Businessinsider

DEAR ABBY: Two and a half years ago we lost my dad, who was 94. He and Mom had been married 72 years. She entered assisted living right before COVID — with all its difficulties — set in. We made it through that, we’re all vaccinated now and her facility has opened back up.

Mom has met and befriended a similarly aged widower. They eat together, walk, attend activities and enjoy sitting and talking together every day. He always walks her back to her room and nicely bids her a good night. They reach for one another’s hands to hold while talking about their departed spouses and are a source of great comfort for each other. I learned about this friendship from facility staff, so I had time to digest it alone before talking with my mother about it.

At first, I was nervous because I did not want her to be hurt. But I quickly realized that this relationship is very good for both of them, as they share similar histories and circumstances.

Mom has recently found out that this man’s daughters are upset about their friendship, and she feels badly about it. She says she would never do anything to hurt him. I’ve told her she needs to give his daughters time to wrap their minds around their friendship. Abby, what can I do to help the daughters build trust in this situation? — DELICATE SITUATION IN ARKANSAS

DEAR DELICATE SITUATION: Your mother’s is not the first romance to blossom in a situation like this, and it won’t be the last. What has happened is a blessing, and I hope the man’s daughters will come to regard it as one. Reaching out to them isn’t a bad idea, if you think it may calm the situation and you can …read more

Source:: Chicago Sun Times