Elon Musk‘s SpaceX must operate at the “highest level of safety,” the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday as he defended a proposed $633,000 fine against the company for violating the agency’s rules ahead of two launches in 2023.

“SpaceX has been a very innovative company,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee. “They’ve been around 20 years, and I think they need to operate at the highest level of safety and that includes adopting (safety management system) program, that includes having a whistleblower program.”

“They launched without a permit,” Whitaker said, referring to SpaceX launches in June and July of last year in Cape Canaveral, Florida. “It’s the only tool we have to get compliance on safety matters … I think safety is in the public interest, and that’s our primary focus.”

The FAA said SpaceX’s violations included a failure to obtain approval to revise the communications plan related to its license for the June 2023 launch of a rocket carrying an Indonesian telecommunications satellite.

Whitaker also defended a delay of the forthcoming Starship 5 launch, noting that SpaceX had failed to complete a timely sonic boom analysis. The FAA said this month that it did not expect a determination on a license before late November.

“The delay of the Starship (launch) had to do with SpaceX filing an application and not disclosing that they were in violation of Texas and federal law on some matters, and that’s a requirement to get a permit,” Whitaker said.

Asked how SpaceX could move up the launch, Whitaker said: “Complying with the regulations would be the best path.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Equal treatment

Musk attacked FAA leaders last week, saying they were penalizing SpaceX “for petty matters that have nothing to do with safety, while neglecting real safety issues at Boeing. This is deeply wrong and puts human lives at risk.”

Whitaker told reporters he had not seen Musk’s social media post and declined to say if he had spoken to the billionaire. But Whitaker agreed that space companies should be treated equally.

“I think Boeing and SpaceX should have the same oversight. They should all have SMS (safety management systems). They should all have whistleblower programs,” Whitaker said.

Boeing has SMS and whistleblower programs.

Musk has chafed for years at what he sees as government inefficiency and has battled with federal regulators. SpaceX must obtain FAA signoffs for rocket launches and new technology.

Whitaker said SpaceX’s July 2023 launch failed to comply with launch requirements, did not have a necessary permit, and did not complete a risk analysis before launching.

In February 2023, the FAA proposed a $175,000 civil penalty against SpaceX for failing to submit some safety data to the agency prior to an August 2022 launch of Starlink satellites. The company paid the penalty.

—David Shepardson, Reuters

The new CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol, who only came on board weeks ago, says he is open to negotiating with Workers United. The union, which represents more than 10,500 employees, has been pushing for change for nearly three years. 

“I deeply respect the right of partners to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union,” Niccol wrote on Tuesday in a letter addressed to union members and posted on its website. “If our partners choose to be represented, I am committed to making sure we engage constructively and in good faith with the union and the partners it represents.”

The letter comes after Niccol received a letter from union members on Monday, asking the CEO to embrace “the spirit of mutual respect” and pressing that Starbucks should strive to be more “forward thinking” and should be “best-in-class” when it comes to setting the standard for its employees. 

Tensions between Starbucks and the union have been high over the past several years after the brand fired seven employees who were leading unionization efforts in Tennessee. It was determined by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that the firings were illegal, and the company was forced to rehire them. Still, Starbucks didn’t back down, even asking the Supreme Court to step in and protect companies from scrutiny from the NLRB.

The company reopened talks with Workers United earlier this year. However, the new CEO’s appointment drew concerns due to how he handled unionization as CEO of Chipotle. Under Niccol, the brand was accused of violating federal labor law when it refused to grant raises to unionized employees and denied them pay increases given to other employees. 

Another red flag? The new CEO did not choose to relocate to Seattle, the home of Starbucks Headquarters when stepping into the role. Instead, he will frequently (constantly) use the company’s private jet to commute back from Newport Beach, California. Of course, plenty of CEOs partake in weekly private jet commutes. However, as Starbucks has recently ramped up efforts to curb its environmental impact, the costly commute doesn’t suggest he’s one with workers—he’s soaring above them.

Niccol attempted to quell concerns about his entry in his first memo to customers and shareholders, asserting that he wanted to bring back the “golden age” of the company and make Starbucks a more “welcoming coffeehouse” in which to hang out. “There’s a shared sense that we have drifted from our core. We have an opportunity to make the store experience better for our partners and, in turn, for our customers,” he wrote.

Starbucks saw sales lagging earlier this year, but since Niccol was announced, shares have advanced 23%, suggesting that the stock market already has faith in the new CEO. On the other hand, workers are waiting to see if Niccol’s plans pan out or if his memos are just nothing but talk. 

Companies are increasingly highlighting their support for diversity, but that can backfire if consumers sense tokenism, a recent analysis from my team found.

I’m an assistant professor of marketing who specializes in digital platforms and consumer behavior. My recent research focuses on DEI initiatives by brands on social media. I’m specifically interested in how brands use influencers and minority representation.

An influencer is someone who has built a large following on social media and can affect the opinions or behaviors of their audience. Influencer marketing is when brands partner with these people to promote their products or services to the influencers’ online followers.

For an example of influencer marketing, consider this post from the influencer Thamarr Guerrier promoting Old Navy:

Can you party in pixie pants?! I say yes! I'm rocking the newest pixie pant winter styles from @OldNavy now on #MusingsofaCurvyLady. This versatile piece comes in a bunch of cheerful fun prints that will elevate your look this season. #OldNavyStyle #ad pic.twitter.com/efbXpSbIEA

— Thamarr Guerrier (@IAmTheCurvyLady) February 5, 2019

Influencer marketing has become one of the main channels for brands and consumers to interact, and minority representation among influencers is one way a company can display its commitment to DEI.

To understand how consumers have been responding to this trend, my colleagues Amy Pei and Keran Zhao and I collected data from the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Our unique dataset included sponsored content from about 150 brands between 2018 and 2022, as well as details about influencers and reactions from consumers.

We found that brands with either very low or very high levels of minority representation among influencers experienced higher consumer engagement. Meanwhile, brands with moderate levels of minority representation saw a dip in engagement. These effects were particularly pronounced for large companies and those that demonstrated a prior vocal commitment to DEI initiatives.

In other words, we found a U-shaped relationship: Low levels are accepted, intermediate levels may backfire, and high levels are well received. We believe this may stem from consumer perceptions of tokenism at intermediate levels.

In contrast, we found that high minority representation convinces consumers of a brand’s genuine commitment and effort.

Why it matters

When brands showcase their support for diversity initiatives on social media, it doesn’t always win over consumers. In fact, DEI policies have been a source of controversy for many brands, including Chick-fil-A, Disney and Bud Light.

Since DEI initiatives from brands often provoke mixed reactions from consumers, it’s important to understand why. Our research offers a clue.

DEI is a sensitive issue, and consumers value genuine commitment. Our work suggests that brands—especially larger ones—should avoid taking moderate stances and instead adopt a clear position.

We also found that customers had stronger reactions to brands’ diversity efforts when those brands had previously expressed strong support for DEI. That suggests brands should be cautious about excessive public signaling if they don’t plan to back it up with action.

What still isn’t known

More research is needed to understand how consumers respond to diversity messaging from brands. For example, previous work has shown that consumer boycotts are often short-lived. But the Bud Light boycott, sparked by the use of a trans influencer to promote the brand, lasted for eight months.

Several things could explain the discrepancy, including political polarization among Bud Light’s consumer base and the fact that there are many light beers on the market.

Another key factor appears to have been the visibility of consumption: People often drink beer in social settings, which allowed boycotting consumers to publicly signal their stance, further strengthening the movement. These and other factors warrant more investigation.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Pankhuri Malhotra is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Oklahoma.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sam Altman may be right that a bright AI future is coming, but the benefits may not be evenly distributed.

In a rare post on his personal blog on Monday, the OpenAI CEO heralded the coming of an AI-induced “Intelligence Age.” We’re verging on this new prosperity because “deep learning worked,” he writes. And OpenAI proved that by training large language models with more and more computing power you get predictably smarter AI.

With these new abilities, we can have shared prosperity to a degree that seems unimaginable today,” he writes. According to Altman’s vision, we’ll all have our team of virtual experts, personalized tutors for any subject, personalized healthcare valets, and the ability to create any kind of software we can imagine. “With these new abilities, we can have shared prosperity to a degree that seems unimaginable today,” he writes. And most amazing of all: This utopia can start in just “a few thousand days.”

Sure, AI might accelerate human progress for the greater good. But it seems more likely to simply concentrate unprecedented intelligence in the hands of the few who have the resources and skill sets to apply it. 

Altman, for his part, suggests that ensuring even distribution is just a matter of producing enough computing power, computer chips, and energy. “If we don’t build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that wars get fought over and that becomes mostly a tool for rich people,” he writes.

But as several people have pointed out on X, OpenAI itself is a purveyor of “closed AI.” That is, the company doesn’t open-source its models so that other developers can modify or customize them for specific use cases, or host them within their own domains for data security. That’s partly because building huge frontier models is extremely costly, and the company and its investors have interest in making sure that the research is protected as intellectual property. 

People in the open-source community, meanwhile, believe that AI models can be made better, safer, and more equitable when its raw materials—the models, parameters, code, training data, etc.—are put in the hands of a lot of people throughout the ecosystem. And many of the AI models in production over the next decades will indeed be open-source, but most of today’s largest and highest-performing frontier models are closed. Altman, as a member of OpenAI’s board, was the driving force behind tightly controlling access to the models, and focusing the company on monetizing them. His approach doesn’t square with his company’s original “AI for all” ethos.

“I’m a firm believer that closed source would do net [sic] more harm than good overall, in the long term,” Hugging Face engineer Vaibhav Srivastav posted on X. “Concentration of intelligence is not the way forward!”

The benefits of the Intelligence Age are more likely to gradually “trickle down” from well-monied corporations to the rest of us. Large tech companies developing and selling AI will benefit, infrastructure companies such as Nvidia will benefit, and large corporations of all kinds will benefit by replacing human information workers with less expensive AI. A broad elevation of our standard of living may be a macro effect that comes much later.

Hurricane Helene is picking up speed as it moves northeast toward the Florida panhandle from its current location off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

Helene, now a Category 1 hurricane, could turn into a Category 3 hurricane. It was upgraded from a Tropical Storm midday on Wednesday.

Preparation and evacuations are underway in Florida and Georgia as locals brace for the storm, which is predicted to hit late Thursday night or early Friday morning. It could be the worst hurricane in the U.S. in more than a year.

Helene began to intensify in the Caribbean Sea on Tuesday morning, due to unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. It is currently just off the Northeast Coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula with sustained winds of 80 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm brings potential for flooding, damaging winds, and heavy rain. In Florida, thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate coastal areas. Most of the state is under storm alerts, bracing for what Helene will bring in its wake.

How to track Hurricane Helene’s path in real time

The storm’s current path shows Helene heading directly toward the Florida panhandle with Tallahassee, the state’s capital, dead center in its path.

Current predictions show it speeding through that area late Thursday night and onto Albany, Georgia, early Friday morning, according to CNN’s storm tracker.

The rest of the storm is forecast to move through Huntsville, Georgia, and Atlanta on Friday as it heads north to Tennessee, through Chattanooga, and into the Midwest over the weekend. 

Helene is expected to be the fifth hurricane to hit Florida since 2022, and the fourth to make landfall in the U.S. this year alone.

Hurricanes can change paths quickly, which is why tracking the storm is so important. For updated information, advisories, and maps showing projected and traveled paths, check out these resources below:

• National Hurricane Center
• CNN Storm Tracker
• Esri’s Hurricane Aware

We’ve all spoken in front of many types of crowds. On a sunny October day, I faced a particularly tough crowd with some insightful questions: a classroom of third graders.

In my role as CEO of a large commercial general contractor, there are certain accepted long-standing challenges in our industry. One of these is the skilled labor shortage. While DPR Construction is fortunate to have nearly 5,500 employees in the skilled trades, we know, industrywide, more workers are retiring than coming in. This is an existential issue for our industry.

I visited the classroom to share with kids the possibilities open to them in the construction industry. What I learned from them made a big impact on me. Following are the three things third graders taught me about construction:

1. Keep the excitement going: Many of the third graders I spoke with were excited about construction but didn’t know much about career paths within the industry. As one child piped up, “Construction?! That’s so cool!” But something happens between third grade and the time they’re seniors graduating from high school. How do we keep that sense of excitement about construction and building as future generations grow up?

There are many influences at play. In a recent McKinsey report, “Tradespeople wanted: The need for critical trade skills in the U.S.” a survey of 1,000 18- to 20-year-olds found that 74% of them felt there was a negative perception around choosing a trade school over a traditional four-year college program. Those same respondents—79% of them—indicated that their parents wanted them to go to college, while just 5% said the same about a trade school.

How do we change perceptions and emphasize the exciting aspects of construction careers? We can work on it through education and mentorship, and through continued advancement in the industry. When we as an industry work within our communities to provide real-world examples of the great things that can be accomplished, we show future generations that construction is a worthwhile, exciting, and rewarding career path filled with opportunities. For example, how many kids realize that cutting edge technology like robotics and virtual reality are now a part of many construction projects? How many know the salaries of roles from the skilled trades to project management? As construction advances, new career paths open up, and the possibilities to build a career in construction are endless.

2. Cultivate connection: At the heart of every building is teamwork, a shared vision. The kids underscored for me how important teams are in everything we do. In the classroom that October day, we handed out measuring tapes to the kids and small pieces of two-by-fours and explained the process of measuring to them. They split into teams and naturally built great camaraderie, without competition. Kids started measuring everything around the room, helping one another and getting inspiration from other teams. They were excited to do something tactile and accomplished much more together than they could have done alone.

That sense of connection and accomplishment is key to nurturing belonging and the feeling that they are part of something larger than themselves. Belonging is a basic human need: It exists when we feel valued, accepted, and encouraged to participate fully. When we show future generations that we as an industry are committed to cultivating and nurturing a sense of belonging, they in turn can see themselves in that profession.  

Cultivating belonging is one of the reasons that we and our industry partners established Construction Inclusion Week (CIW), because we know that changing an industry takes conscious, collaborative work, and deep commitment. It’s that demonstrated commitment that has helped inspire our industry to join together every October to focus on boosting workplace culture and taking action to drive change. In 2023, the third annual CIW grew to more than 5,000 U.S. contractors and affiliate firms. 

Some perceptions in our industry are challenging. One of these is around the lack of flexible work hours. The previously mentioned McKinsey report found that when deciding to stay in a job, Gen Z and millennials prioritize workplace flexibility. The on-site and highly structured nature of typical construction jobs often doesn’t speak to these preferences.

3. Shine a light on industry issues: Many kids do have direct knowledge of the construction industry. Several excited kids were eager to share that their parent or family member worked in construction and had built buildings nearby. They proudly shared that those parents and family work very hard at what they do. These kids’ direct experiences have formed powerful associations that build their perception of the industry.

When we talk about shining a light on industry issues, this is one of them. Those Gen Z and millennial individuals are the aunts, uncles, parents, and other family members that kids interact with. How can we change the experience to take care of people in our industry and inspire future generations? One consideration is more flexible work hours. When we allow for a flexible start time or end time or other options on a given workday, we are giving people the space they need to grow and thrive. It’s a long-standing issue that will take time to make headway, but it’s something we can all strive for.

Another aspect of changing the generational experience involves improved benefits, such as paid time off. Tackling this issue takes industrywide attention and cooperation. More importantly, it takes a different mindset. Last year, we rolled out robust benefits for our craft employees, which have helped move the needle for expectations in our industry. This includes things like paid time off, holiday pay, educational assistance, and family planning assistance. We need more than this to be successful as an industry, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Lesson learned

At DPR, events like what I’ve described are part of a larger focus on communities. In 2024 thus far, employees have participated in 48 events and engaged with over 26,000 under-resourced youths. These events include classroom time, career fairs, hands-on activities in our own warehouses, activities in schools and clubs, and mentorships. Events are ongoing, with more planned during Construction Inclusion Week this year, October 14-18. DPR’s programming each year culminates in the Build Up High School Internship, which gives students the opportunity to build the skill sets needed to pursue a career in the construction industry.

Community involvement is a simple approach that other industries experiencing long-term labor shortages, such as manufacturing, might want to consider. Not only does it inspire kids about the opportunities available to them as they grow older, but it also has the power to shine a light on the industry issues that need changing. Younger generations can teach us a lot, if we’re willing to go out into our communities and learn.

George Pfeffer is CEO of DPR Construction.

Prince Harry said today’s youth is in the midst of an “epidemic” of anxiety, depression, and social isolation due to negative experiences online, as he brought his campaign to help children and their parents navigate cyberspace to this week’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

“These platforms are designed to create addiction,” Harry, 40, said in remarks Tuesday in New York City. “Young people are kept there by mindless, endless, numbing scrolling—being force-fed content that no child should ever be exposed to. This is not free will.”

Beyond supporting parents and youth throughout this advocacy, the Duke of Sussex stressed the need for corporate accountability. He asked why leaders of powerful social media companies are still held to the “lowest ethical standards”—and called on shareholders to demand tangible change.

“Parenting doesn’t end with the birth of a child. Neither does founding a company,” said Harry, who revealed that his smartphone lock screen is a photo of his children, five-year-old Prince Archie and three-year-old Princess Lilibet. “We have a duty and a responsibility to see our creations through.”

Harry’s remarks arrive as pressures continue to mount on tech giants like Meta, Snap, and TikTok to make their online platforms safer, particularly for younger users. Many children on these platforms are exposed to content that is not age appropriate, such as violence or misinformation. Others face unrealistic beauty standards, bullying, and sexual harassment.

Companies have made some changes over the years—with Instagram, for example, announcing last week that it would be making teen accounts private by default in a handful of countries. But safety advocates have long-stressed that there’s more work to be done. Many also maintain that companies still put too much responsibility on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media.

Harry’s contribution to this year’s CGI annual meeting was part of the “what’s working” theme, in a panel that included former President Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton, and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés.

The Archewell Foundation, which Harry founded with his wife, Meghan Markle, to carry out their philanthropic work, recently launched an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. Harry highlighted the work of that initiative, called the Parents Network, in his speech Tuesday.

The foundation has also partnered with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and Meghan outlined during a recent trip to Colombia. Harry on Tuesday pointed to the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which is set to take place in Bogotá this November. He said that this meeting could result in the first global agreement for prioritizing child safety and protection online.

His CGI address was part of a string of appearances for Harry in New York at the growing number of humanitarian and philanthropic events that run alongside the United Nations General Assembly Week.

On Monday, he appeared at an event for the HALO Trust, where he discussed how the work of the landmine clearing charity was influential by his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as at the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit, where he spoke with winners of The Diana Award.

“The HALO Trust’s work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother,” he said. “Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take seriously. And I think we all know how much she would want us to finish this particular job.”

Harry’s message on Tuesday was generally well-received at the conference.

Nia Faith, 22, cofounder of the Canadian nonprofit Revolutionnaire, which works to empower youth and uses social media to mobilize members, said she saw his presentation as a “call to action” on an issue that does not get enough attention.

“I was incredibly moved by Prince Harry’s speech,” she said. “At Revolutionnaire, we use digital advocacy and social media to empower youth to make a positive impact. We also recognized that social media is being used in a way that is harmful and detrimental to the mental health of young people.”

Faith hopes that Harry’s work will convince companies and governments to take action to protect children while encouraging the use of platforms to drive more positive action.

Ashley Lashley, 25, whose Ashley Lashley Foundation works to address environmental challenges in her native Barbados by motivating young people to take action in their communities, said she was impressed by his remarks, even though she also worries about the digital divide in her country.

“His message really hit home that parents, teachers, and students really need to unite to educate each other about the safe usage of digital technology,” she said. “I really believe that there needs to be a multi-sectorial approach. That’s what we’re seeing here at CGI where different persons from different sectors—from governments, from private sectors, from philanthropy organizations—can really work together to ensure that there is peace and equity across all social media platforms.”

—Glenn Gamboa and Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Associated Press

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Taking photographs used to be a careful, conscious act. Photos were selective, frozen moments in time carefully archived in albums and frames. Now, taking a photograph is almost as effortless and common as breathing – it’s something that people do all the time in the age of smartphone cameras with seemingly endless digital film.

But the downside to capturing every moment is that it creates a mountain of those moments to save for the future. Those photos can be easily lost if they’re not archived properly. All it can take is one accidental dip in the toilet for your phone, and all that data is lost forever.

So what’s a practical backup strategy for the average person? Here are a few ways to make sure memories are never lost:

Cloud storage

The simplest way to archive your photos is cloud storage. For Apple users, there’s iCloud, which starts at US$0.99 per month for 50 gigabytes all the way to $59.99 per month for 12 terabytes with various tiers in between. With an average iPhone photo clocking in at 3 megabytes, that’s a little over 16,000 photos for the cheap plan and 4 million or so for the largest plan. Google’s Google One cloud storage is most cost effective for yearly plans, with 2TB going for $99.99 per year and 5TB going for $249.99 per year.

The actual amount you can store in that space does vary greatly with how a file is shot. Video has larger file sizes than photos. HEIF files, a newer format on Apple phones, compresses files into smaller packages, but long-term compatibility is unknown since the format hasn’t been in use for as long as the standard JPG file, which has been around since 1992.

While cloud services from big providers generally provide the easiest way for most average folks to back up their photos, and operate with little to no intervention via apps that are already on the phone constantly uploading every photo taken, there are risks involved.

Big companies often change their policies about how photos are saved. For instance, depending on what phone and when it was bought, Google’s cloud storage may have saved photos in a “storage saver” format that lowers the quality of images by sizing them down or compressing them differently. This affects your ability to make high-quality prints or view the photos on high-resolution screens down the road. Unless someone is astute enough to notice small text here and there that mentions it, most users won’t even realize it’s happening.

And what happens to cloud services when things go badly wrong? Users of photo backup service Digital Railroad found out the hard way. In 2008, the company abruptly shut down and gave its users 24 hours to download everything before the servers were shut down. Photographers rushed for the exits, trying to grab their photos on the way out, only to strain the servers to the point where few were able to recover anything at all. If this was the only way photos were backed up, it’s a lost cause.

So while the cloud is easy, costs can add up and terms of service can change at a moment’s notice. What are some ways for photographers to control their own fate?

Hard drives and network-attached storage

Manually taking photos off a phone may take some extra time, but the approach offers peace of mind that cloud services can’t necessarily match.

Almost all phones can plug into a computer’s USB port and use the built-in photos app on both Windows or MacOS to download photos to a computer. Apple users can use a method called AirDrop to send photos wirelessly to other Apple devices as well, including laptop and desktop computers.

Now loading photos onto a local hard drive built into the machine can fill it up quickly, but there is a cost-effective way to get around that – namely, external hard drives. Theses are storage devices that you can plug into your computer as needed. They can be of the older and less expensive type with spinning platters or more modern solid-state drives that can survive a drop and greater temperature changes than the older drives can.

These are different than flash drives, more commonly known as thumb drives because of their small size, that are designed as temporary storage to shuffle photos from one place to another.

It’s easy to buy more than one hard drive to have duplicate backups in case of failure or catastrophe, but the downside is that there’s no easy access from the internet to your photos, and backup is generally a process that users must remember to do.

Network-attached storage is one way to solve the cloud storage problem while retaining the ability to access photos from the internet. These are essentially hard drives – sometimes multiple hard drives linked together for even greater or faster storage – that are connected to a router that allows for access to the internet through specialized software.

While not as easy as most third-party cloud storage services, once it’s set up, a network-attached storage unit is a flexible way to store your photos safely and accessibly. There are even companies that specialize in fireproof and waterproof units for extra insurance in case of disaster.

Printing photos

If cloud storage and hard drives seem too complicated, there’s always the old-fashioned approach of printing. There’s still something magical about seeing a photo on a wall or in an album, and thankfully there are ways to print professional-quality archival prints without having to go to a drugstore.

The easiest and most cost-efficient types of printers are dedicated 4×6 printers using a technology similar to professional labs called dye-sublimation. These yield high-quality, waterproof prints that cost about the same as what one would pay for drugstore developing. HP makes its popular Sprocket line of printers, though those require a phone and an app to print from, which makes plugging in a memory card from a professional camera out of the question. However, Canon’s Selphy lineup includes many models with screens and a card slot to make that possible.

The rabbit hole goes very deep, and there are many professional printers that can print even larger sizes. Canon and Epson dominate this space, marketing a range of pigment- and dye-based printers that can emphasize archival needs or color saturation, respectively.

Another option is ordering a photo book, which, as the name suggests, is a physical bound book of your photos. However, photo books are probably more appropriate for memorializing an event – trip, wedding, project – than general archiving, given the typical costs and number of photos involved.

There’s little reason to not make some sort of backups of photos in 2024, whether that’s on printed media, hard drives or in the cloud. The important thing is not which method to use, but to do it at all.

Wasim Ahmad is an assistant teaching professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Social media platform X on Wednesday published its first transparency report since the company was purchased by Elon Musk. The report, which details content moderation practices, shows the company has removed millions of posts and accounts from the site in the first half of the year.

X, formerly Twitter, suspended nearly 5.3 million accounts in that time, compared with the 1.6 million accounts the company reported suspending in the first half of 2022. The social media company also “removed or labeled” more than 10.6 million posts for violating platform rules — about 5 million of which it categorized as violating its “hateful conduct” policy.

Posts containing “violent content” — 2.2 million — or “abuse and harassment” — 2.6 million — also accounted for a large portion of content that was labeled or removed. The company does not distinguish between how many posts were removed and how many were labeled.

In an April 2023 blog post published in lieu of a transparency report, by contrast, the company said it required users to remove 6.5 million pieces of content that violated the company’s rules in the first six months of 2022, an increase of 29% from the second half of 2021.

Some have blamed Musk for turning a fun platform into one that’s chaotic and toxic. Musk has previously posted conspiracy theories and feuded with world leaders and politicians. X is currently banned in Brazil amid a dustup between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court judge over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.

To enforce their rules, X said, the company uses a combination of machine learning and human review. The automated systems either take action or surface the content to human moderators. Posts violating X’s policy accounted for less than 1% of all content on the site, the company said.

When Musk was trying to buy Twitter in 2022, he said he was doing so because it wasn’t living up to its potential as a “platform for free speech.” Since acquiring the company that October, Musk has fired much of its staff and made other changes, leading to a steady exodus of celebrities, public figures, organizations and ordinary people from the platform.

—Sarah Parvini, Associated Press technology writer

Meta hosted its annual Connect conference on Wednesday, which highlighted the social media giant’s push into its artificial intelligence and metaverse ambitions. CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the developer-centric event to reveal a slew of new hardware and AI features.

Fast Company rounded up a few key updates to come out of the flagship event.

Orion AR glasses

Among the most exciting announcements of the day, Meta unveiled its Orion augmented reality glasses. The glasses, which aren’t quite ready to hit the shelves, are composed of trendy frames that use projectors inside the frames to beam holographic displays.

Meta says that beginning Wednesday and continuing throughout the year, it will open up access to its Orion product prototype for Meta employees and select external audiences to share feedback with its development team. It plans to begin shipping them in the near future.

“These glasses exist, they are awesome, and they are a glimpse of a future that I think will be exciting,” Zuckerberg said during the presentation.

Quest 3S headset

Meta’s latest VR headset, the Quest 3S, was a feat.

The mixed reality device is launching at a lower starting price point of $300, yet with many of the same capabilities of its predecessor. And it’s about $200 less than the cost of the Meta Quest 3, which also got a price drop.

To be sure, there are some concessions to the Quest 3 due to the price point. The Quest 3S has a bit less storage (though you can buy a model with additional storage for $100 more), and has a lower-resolution display.

“Quest 3S is the best headset for those new to mixed reality and immersive experiences, or who might have been waiting for a low-cost upgrade from Quest and Quest 2,” the company said in a blog post that went up alongside the event.

The Quest 3S is available for preorder now and will be out on October 15. Meta is also discontinuing the Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses update

Meta announced a series of software updates to its Ray-Ban smart glasses, including new features such as reminders and the ability to scan QR codes. For example, if you’re looking at a pair of shoes in a store, you can tell your glasses to remind you to buy them next week, and Meta’s AI will do so.

“We keep updating the software and building out the ecosystem, and they keep on getting smarter and capable of more things,” Zuckerberg said at Connect.

California avocado growers are fuming this week about a U.S. decision to hand over pest inspections of Mexican orchards to the Mexican government.

Inspectors hired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been guarding against imports of avocados infected with insects and diseases since 1997, but they have also been threatened in Mexico for refusing to certify deceptive shipments in recent years.

Threats and violence against inspectors have caused the U.S. to suspend inspections in the past, and California growers question whether Mexico’s own inspectors would be better equipped to withstand such pressure.

“This action reverses the long-established inspection process designed to prevent invasions of known pests in Mexico that would devastate our industry,” the California Avocado Commission wrote in an open letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday.

At present, inspectors work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, known as APHIS. Because the United States also grows avocados, U.S. inspectors observe orchards and packing houses in Mexico to ensure exported avocados don’t carry pests that could hurt U.S. crops.

“It is well known that their physical presence greatly reduces the opportunity of others to game the system,” the avocado commission wrote. “What assurances can APHIS provide us that its unilateral reversal of the process will be equal to or better than what has protected us?”

The letter added, “We are looking for specifics as to why you have concluded that substituting APHIS inspectors with Mexican government inspectors is in our best interest.”

The decision was announced last week in a short statement by Mexico’s Agriculture Department, which claimed that “with this agreement, the U.S. health safety agency is recognizing the commitment of Mexican growers, who in more than 27 years have not had any sanitary problems in exports.”

The idea that there have been no problems is far from the truth.

In 2022, inspections were halted after one of the U.S. inspectors was threatened in the western state of Michoacan, where growers are routinely subject to extortion by drug cartels. Only the states of Michoacan and Jalisco are certified to export avocados to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said at the time that the inspector had received a threat “against him and his family.”

The inspector had “questioned the integrity of a certain shipment, and refused to certify it based on concrete issues,” according to the USDA statement. Some packers in Mexico buy avocados from other, non-certified states, and try to pass them off as being from Michoacan.

Sources at the time said the 2022 threat involved a grower demanding the inspector certify more avocados than his orchard was physically capable of producing, suggesting that at least some had been smuggled in from elsewhere.

And in June, two USDA employees were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Michoacan. That led the U.S. to suspend inspections in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to questions about why the decision was made, or whether it was related to the threats.

Mexico currently supplies about 80% of U.S. imports of the fruit. Growers in the U.S. can’t supply the country’s whole demand, nor provide fruit year-round.

Elon Musk and X asked a federal judge to dismiss former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s lawsuit claiming they defrauded him by canceling a partnership on the social media platform following a contentious interview.

In a Monday night filing in San Francisco federal court, Musk said he did nothing wrong by allegedly telling Lemon there was “no need” to sign a contract, and that he and X would give Lemon “full authority and control” over his work even if they did not like his views.

Musk called it unreasonable for Lemon to rely on a vague statement that a written contract was unnecessary for a multimillion-dollar partnership.

The billionaire also blamed the collapse of the partnership in March on Lemon, saying he genuinely believed it would work before Lemon “soured the relationship by conducting an invasive and inappropriate interview of him.”

Lemon’s interview addressed content moderation, hate speech and Musk’s drug use, among other subjects.

X also sought a dismissal of the lawsuit, saying a breakdown of a high-profile business arrangement “may be grounds for upset feelings” but did not entitle Lemon to prevail. It also objected to what it called his “invasive and charged interview” of Musk.

Carney Shegerian, a lawyer for Lemon, said in an email: “X’s response confirms the company terminated its contract with Don after he asked interview questions that Musk didn’t like. This comes after months of X courting Don relentlessly to boost their tanking ad sales.

“This filing is clearly about Musk’s ego, not the facts,” Shegerian added. “We look forward to our day in court.”

Lemon sought a minimum $1.5 million plus a share of advertising revenue in the first year, and potentially millions of dollars more for drawing followers and advertisers to X.

Many advertisers concerned about hate speech and misinformation on X fled the platform once known as Twitter following Musk’s $44 billion takeover in 2022.

Musk’s other businesses include Tesla and SpaceX.

In seeking a dismissal of Lemon’s lawsuit, Musk also said the case did not belong in California, originally in a state court, because he was a Texas resident while Lemon lived in New York. He said the case could alternatively be moved to Texas.

Lemon spent 17 years at CNN, becoming one of its most recognizable personalities.

He was fired in April 2023, two months after making on-air comments about women and then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley that were widely perceived as sexist. Lemon later apologized.

The case is Lemon v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-06487.

—Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said Wednesday that she is leaving the high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) company after six and a half years.

“There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right,” Murati wrote in a statement she shared on X.

Murati has been a key player at OpenAI, which captured the attention of the world in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. She served as temporary chief executive of the company after its board of directors temporarily ousted CEO Sam Altman last year.

Murati wrote that she is leaving “because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

She’s the latest of a number of high-profile executives to leave the startup, including cofounder John Schulman.

Prior to joining OpenAI, Murati worked on Tesla’s Model X and was VP of product and engineering at Leap Motion, which was working on an augmented reality system to replace keyboards and mice with hand gestures.

OpenAI is currently fundraising a new round that could value the company at more than $150 billion, according to reports. Investors reportedly include Thrive Capital, Tiger Global, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.

Delta Apparel Inc., parent company of the Salt Life activewear brand, was sold in a bankruptcy auction for $38.74 million on September 16 to brand management firm Iconix International and business management consultancy Hilco. The sale, approved by the court, includes the Salt Life brand and its assets. 

Iconix plans to shift Salt Life’s focus toward e-commerce and wholesale, marking a significant change in the brand’s business model. As part of the restructuring, Salt Life’s 28 retail stores, spread across Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, began liquidation sales on Friday, according to a statement by Hilco. 

The Chapter 11 filing, submitted in Delaware court on June 30, showed Delta Apparel had $337.8 million in assets and $244.5 million in debts. The company’s top five creditors were owed a combined $29 million. 

Grassroots beginnings

Founded by “four watermen” from Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Salt Life began as a grassroots apparel brand before expanding into performance wear, swimwear, accessories, and even branching out into restaurants and beer. (Salt Life Food Shack buinesses were not owned by Delta and are not effected by the bankruptcy court proceedings.)

In 2013, Delta Apparel acquired the brand for $15 million, when it had an annual revenue of $20 million. (By October 2023, Delta disclosed receiving an unsolicited offer for the brand, though the terms were not revealed.) Under Delta's ownership, Salt Life grew into a profitable business, generating over $60 million in revenue through a combination of over 1,700 wholesale outlets across 48 states, as well as direct-to-consumer sales via its website and branded retail stores.

However, Delta Apparel faced significant financial challenges in the last two years. Chief Restructuring Officer J. Tim Pruban pointed to reduced demand and liquidity issues, which were worsened by a surge in cotton prices in 2022 that increased production costs. 

Despite attempts to cut expenses by reducing severance obligations and downsizing offshore manufacturing operations, the company continued to struggle with declining sales. Delta reported $78.9 million in sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, down from $110.3 million the previous year. As liquidity worsened, Delta defaulted on its loan terms, leaving it with over $80 million in outstanding credit and just $2 million in cash when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Michael Hutto, one of Salt Life's cofounders, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2023 after pleading guilty to the 2020 fatal shooting of his teenage girlfriend and leaving her body to decompose in a Florida hotel, the Florida Times-Union reported at the time.

What happens next?

Hilco stated that “the Salt Life brand has widespread brand awareness and loyalty with ocean enthusiasts worldwide,” as liquidation sales began on September 20. In addition to merchandise, store fixtures and equipment are also for sale.

Gift cards will be accepted until October 20, and merchandise purchased before September 20 can be returned until then; all sales made after September 20 are final.

Here's the full list of store locations that will close:

Alabama

• Salt Life, 2601 S McKenzie St. #448, Foley, AL, 36535

California

• Salt Life, 207 Main St, Huntington Beach, CA, 92648
• Salt Life, 157 Avenida Del Mar, San Clemente, CA, 92672

Delaware

• Salt Life, 34986 Midway Outlet Dr. #123, Rehoboth Beach, DE, 19971

Florida

• Salt Life, 410 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL, 33432
• Salt Life, 1100 Cornerstone Blvd #910, Daytona Beach, FL, 32117
• Salt Life, 10676 Emerald Coast Pkwy W Space 136, Destin, FL, 32550
• Salt Life, 10801 Corkscrew Rd. #164, Estero, FL, 33928
• Salt Life, 713-A E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33301
• Salt Life, 240 3rd St., Jacksonville Beach, FL, 32250
• Salt Life, 128 Breakwater Ct, Suite 200, Jupiter, FL, 33477
• Salt Life, 404 Duval St., Key West, FL, 33040
• Salt Life, 2312 Grand Cypress Dr. Suite 852, Lutz, FL, 33559
• Salt Life, 8001 S Orange Blossom Trail #252, Orlando, FL, 32809
• Salt Life, 3101 PGA Boulevard Suite P237, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33410
• Salt Life, 421 SW 145th Terrace, Pembroke Pines, FL, 33027
• Salt Life, 3405 Pier St, Pompano Beach, FL, 33062
• Salt Life, 16 S Boulevard of the Presidents, Sarasota, FL, 34236
• Salt Life, 2700 FL-16 Suite 713, St. Augustine, FL, 32092
• Salt Life, 1104 Broadway, Columbus, GA, 31901

New Jersey

• Salt Life, 80 Ocean Ave. N., Long Branch, NJ, 07740

New York

• Salt Life, 1215 The Arches Cir., Deer Park, NY, 11729
• Salt Life, 1220 Tanger Mall Dr., Riverhead, NY, 11901

South Carolina

• Salt Life, 1256 Fording Island Rd. Suite 275, Bluffton, SC, 29910
• Salt Life, 316 King St. Suite A, Charleston, SC, 29401
• Salt Life, 10835 Kings Rd #720, Myrtle Beach, SC, 29572

Texas

• Salt Life, 5855 Gulf Fwy, Texas City, TX, 77591

Virginia

• Salt Life, 5711 Richmond Rd. Suite B030, Williamsburg, VA, 23188

Energy facilities along the U.S. Gulf Coast scaled back operations and evacuated some production sites as Hurricane Helene is expected to bring catastrophic winds and storm surges to the northeastern Gulf Coast.

On the forecast track, Helene will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and cross the Florida Big Bend coast this evening, the National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Helene is forecast to be a powerful Category 4 storm, packing sustained wind speeds of up to 156 miles per hour (251 km per hour), forecasters said.

Officials issued dire warnings, pleading with residents in coastal areas along the hurricane’s path to evacuate ahead of catastrophic winds and a potentially deadly storm surge.

About 29% of crude production and 17% of natural gas output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico were shut in response to Helene, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said on Wednesday.

Offshore production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico accounts for approximately 1.8 million barrels per day or about 15% of the nation’s total crude output. Disruptions have the potential to affect U.S. oil supplies, leading to upward pressure on prices for domestic oil and offshore crude grades.

KinderMorgan
Sept. 25
All Kinder Morgan bulk terminals in the Tampa area have prepared for the storm and have been shut down.

Shell
Sept. 22
Stones and Appomattox facilities

Evacuating non-essential personnel from its assets in the Mars Corridor, have paused some of their drilling operations, and shut production at its Stones and Appomattox facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
Chevron
Sept. 23, Sept. 25
Blind Faith, Petronius, Anchor, Big Foot, Jack/St. Malo, and Tahiti platform

Evacuated all personnel from Blind Faith and Petronius platforms and the facilities have been shut-in.

Non-essential personnel were also being transported from Anchor, Big Foot, Jack/St. Malo, and Tahiti platforms.

Shut-in production and evacuated all associated personnel at the platforms, which includes the Anchor, Big Foot, Blind Faith, Jack/St. Malo, Petronius and Tahiti facilities.

Equinor
Sept. 23
Titan oil production platform

Evacuated some staff from its Titan oil production platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

BP
Sept. 23, Sept. 25
Argos, Atlantis, Mad Dog, Na Kika and Thunder Horse platform

Removed non-essential personnel from Argos, Atlantis, Mad Dog, Na Kika and Thunder Horse platforms. Shut in production at Na Kika and Thunder Horse platforms, and curtailed production from Argos and Atlantis platforms.

Working toward safely ramping up production across Gulf of Mexico portfolio.

—Bangalore Commodities and Energy team, Reuters

A federal judge on Wednesday approved a $600 million class-action settlement Wednesday that Norfolk Southern railroad offered to everyone who lived within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of last year’s disastrous derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Judge Benita Pearson gave the deal final approval after a hearing where the lawyers who negotiated it with the railroad argued that residents overwhelmingly supported it, attorneys for the residents and railroad spokesperson Heather Garcia told The Associated Press. Roughly 55,000 claims were filed. Only 370 households and 47 businesses opted out.

Those who did object to the deal were vocal in their concerns that the settlement won’t provide enough and that the deal was rushed through so quickly that they can’t possibly know what the potential health impact from the derailment will be. They say it’s hard to know all the risks, given the way test results have been reported by the EPA and the fact that the lawyers haven’t disclosed everything they learned in their investigation.

The objectors had hoped the judge would order the plaintiff’s lawyers to release the tests their own expert did after the derailment and address their concerns about a toxicologist who told them at one of the lawyers’ town meetings that they shouldn’t worry because he doesn’t think anyone will develop cancer. That angered residents who have been complaining about unexplained ailments since the derailment and talking with doctors who are conducting studies to try and determine what the health impacts will be. Experts say it’s too soon to know the health impacts.

“These attorneys were bullying people and telling them they were never going to get any money if they didn’t take this. People felt backed into a corner,” resident Jami Wallace said.

The judge’s approval clears the way for payments to start going out quickly. The lawyers had previously said they hoped to get the first checks in the mail before the end of the year.

As part of the settlement, any aid residents received from the railroad will be deducted from their final payments. Wallace and others who had to relocate for an extended period while the railroad paid for hotels or rental homes likely won’t get anything.

Anyone who lived within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of the derailment can get up to $70,000 per household for property damage plus up to $25,000 per person for health problems. The payments drop off the farther people lived from the derailment down to as little as a few hundred dollars at the outer edges.

“This outcome would not have been possible without the resilience and support of the East Palestine community and the broader class of impacted residents and business owners,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a statement. “We look forward to beginning the distribution of funds in the coming weeks to help this community rebuild and move forward.”

When the train derailed late on Feb. 3, 2023, tank cars full of hazardous chemicals ruptured and spilled their contents that caught fire just outside the small town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Then three days later officials decided to needlessly blow open five tank cars of vinyl chloride and burn the toxic plastic ingredient inside because they feared they would explode.

Since the derailment, the railroad has offered residents and the community $108 million in assistance and paid for the massive cleanup that has cost more than $1 billion.

“We made a promise to make things right and this is just one piece of that commitment,” the railroad said in a statement. “We remain committed to this community for the long haul and look forward to continuing our relationship with the Village as we work to help the area recover and thrive.”

Tamara Lynn Freeze said she and her husband ultimately decided to accept the deal despite their concerns about giving up the right to ever sue even if someone eventually develops cancer. She said the idea of having to go it alone against the railroad’s army of lawyers one day is daunting.

“It seems like everybody kind of just wanted it to be over with. like the attorneys and obviously Norfolk,” Freeze said.

She and her husband live in his childhood home, which is some 175 yards (160 meters) from the derailment site. They will now decide whether to give up that house that’s paid for or find somewhere they can feel comfortable planting a garden and living their lives normally again.

—Josh Funk, Associated Press

For decades, Jeff Card’s family company was known for manufacturing the once ubiquitous tin boxes where people could buy newspapers on the street.

Today, reach into one of his containers and you may find something entirely different and free of charge: Naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.

Naloxone distribution containers have been proliferating across the country in the more than a year since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its sale without a prescription. Naloxone, a nasal spray most commonly known as Narcan, is used as an emergency treatment to reverse drug overdoses.

Such boxes — appearing in neighborhoods, in front of hospitals, health departments and convenience stores — are one way those supporting people with substance use disorder have sought to make Narcan, which can cost around $50 over the counter, accessible to those who need it most. Not unlike little free libraries that distribute books to anyone who wants one, the metal boxes used formerly as newspaper receptacles aren’t locked and don’t require payment. People can take as much as they think they need.

Advocates say the containers help normalize the medication — and are evidence of steadily reducing stigma around its use.

Sixty Narcan receptacles were distributed across 35 states in honor of Thursday’s “Save a Life Day” — a naloxone distribution and education event started by a West Virginia nonprofit in 2020. Containers were purchased from Card’s Texas-based Mechanism Exchange & Repair, which still serves newspaper customers but has expanded to manufacturing other products amid the newspaper industry’s decline.

“It’s fortunate and unfortunate,” said Card, who started making the Narcan containers over two years ago. “Fortunate for us that we’ve got something to build, but unfortunate that this is what we have to build, given how bad the drug problem is in America.”

Opioid deaths were already at record levels before the coronavirus pandemic, but they skyrocketed when it hit in early 2020. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were about 85,000 opioid-related deaths in the 12 months that ended in April 2023. But since then, they fell. The CDC estimate for the 12 months that ended in April 2024 was 75,000 — still higher than any point before the pandemic.

The reasons for the decline are not fully understood. But it does coincide with Narcan, a medication that’s been hard to get in some communities, becoming available over the counter, as well as with the ramping up of spending of funds from legal settlements between governments and drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved use of Narcan to treat overdoses back in 1971, but its use was confined to paramedics and hospitals for decades. Narcan nasal spray was first approved by the FDA in 2015 as a prescription drug, and in March, it was approved for over-the-counter sales and started being available last September at major pharmacies.

“That took the barriers away. And that’s when we realized, ‘OK, now we need to increase access. How can we get naloxone into the communities?'” said Caroline Wilson, a West Virginia social worker and person in recovery who coordinated this year’s Save a Life Day.

Last year, all 13 states in Appalachia participated in the day spearheaded by West Virginia nonprofit Solutions Oriented Addiction Response. Community organizations in hundreds of counties table in parking lots, outside churches and clinics handing out Narcan and fentanyl test strips and training people on how to use it. They also work to educate the public on myths surrounding the medication, including that it’s unsafe to have in easily accessible places. Narcan has no effect on people who use it without opioids in their system.

This year, with the effort expanding to 35 states and a theme of “naloxone everywhere”, the group sent out 2,000 emergency kits containing one Narcan dose to be placed in locations like convenience store bathrooms or parks. The 60 tin newspaper boxes — which sell for around $350 apiece — were purchased with grants.

Aonya Kendrick Barnett’s harm reduction coalition Safe Streets Wichita installed one of the Kansas’ first Narcan receptacles — which she refers to as “nalox-boxes” — in February. The boxes, now sold by a few different companies, can look different, too. Some look like newspaper boxes, while others look like vending machines.

Since installing a vending machine Narcan container — which just requires a zip code be entered on the keypad to access the medication — it’s distributed around 2,600 packages a month.

“To say, ‘Hey, we have a 24-hour vending machine, come over here and come get what you need — no judgment,’ is so bold in this Bible belt state and it’s helping me break down the the stigma,” she said.

Kendrick Barnett said there’s no place for judgment when it comes to what she calls live-saving health care: “People are going to use drugs. It’s not our job to condemn or condone it. It’s our job to make sure that they have the necessary health care that they need to survive.”

The Save a Life Day box her organization received is going to go in front of their new clinic, scheduled to open in October.

In Eerie, Pennsylvania, 74-year-old stained glass artist Larry Tuite said he grew concerned seeing overdoses increasing in his city. He began leaving Narcan packages on the windowsills of 24-hour markets in town that sell products like pipes and rolling papers. He was shocked at how quickly they disappeared.

“As many as I give out, I run through them really quickly,” said Tuite, who keeps cases of the drugs stacked along the walls of his studio apartment.

The Save a Life Day container, which he got permission to put outside one such store, has helped him to disperse even more Narcan. At least a dozen people have been saved by the medication he’s distributed, he said.

Tasha Withrow, a person in recovery who runs a harm reduction coalition based out of Putnam County, West Virginia, said Narcan wasn’t something she ever had access to when she was using opioids.

“People can just reach in and grab what they need — we didn’t have that back then,” she said, while stocking a container in a residential neighborhood earlier this week. “To actually see that there is some access now — I’m glad that we’ve at least moved forward a little bit in that direction.”

AP journalist Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this report.

—Leah Willingham, Associated Press

Climate change is among the more difficult but important topics to teach to young people. It involves complicated science and data, and it can be really depressing, given the bleak picture it paints of Earth’s future.

So how do educators get students more engaged in lessons about climate change? One way that works is to make the lessons into a game.

As a professor of educational psychology, I conducted an experiment that found that high schoolers are more interested and absorb more information about climate change when it’s presented as a game.

In the study, 248 high school students throughout the U.S. were randomly assigned to either read a text about climate science or to play a number estimation game — that is, a game in which they guessed 12 numerical facts about climate change. I found that the number estimation game improved high schoolers’ climate change understanding, interest in science and willingness to take actions to help solve climate change.

For instance, one question asked: “What is the change in percentage of the world’s ocean ice cover since the 1960s?”

After students submit an estimate, a window pops up showing the true value—a “40% decrease” in the ice cover question. Gold stars appear to indicate their accuracy, as does a short explanation of the true value. The answers also list actions that people can take to address the issue and links to the sources of the information.

I found that students who played the game had a better understanding than those who did not that there is a scientific consensus around human-caused climate change. Students who played the game also thought the activity was more interesting and reported less boredom. These boosts in positive emotions and motivation were linked to reduced sense of hopelessness about climate change and improved willingness to act on climate change.

Why it matters

Climate change is a tricky topic for secondary students to learn. Not only is the science conceptually difficult to comprehend, but it can be psychologically difficult for them to accept and address the looming threat of climate change.

Compounding this problem, a 2020 report suggests that 20 U.S. states do not address these challenges in their state science standards, as they were found to insufficiently address the scientific climate consensus: that climate change is real, severe, caused by humans, but that there is hope for change. Findings from my study provide some principles for addressing this curricular gap.

What other research is being done?

Researchers are actively trying to find approaches that promote accurate climate change education that helps students understand the causes and explores solutions for the challenges ahead.

One promising approach emphasized in this study, in my prior research and by other researchers, is to present a handful of surprising climate change numbers to students after they estimate them. However, there are several alternative approaches that are also effective. For example, some research found success by breaking down complicated ways to evaluate evidence, while other research engaged students taking photographs of their local environment to depict climate science and reflect on possible solutions.

What still isn’t known

One big remaining question is how to encourage teachers to implement effective climate change education in their classrooms. Evidence suggests that teachers sometimes feel pressured to teach to “both sides” of the continuum of climate change perspectives, despite one side having more supporting evidence. Such inconsistent messages can diminish needed urgency and confuse students in the process. I think it’s worthwhile to investigate the specific challenges and rewards that teachers encounter when implementing clear and consistent climate curriculum in their classrooms.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Ian Thacker is an assistant professor of educational psychology at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Eating in is in and eating out is out.

That’s the message that inflation-squeezed consumers have been sending to fast-food companies and other restaurants. Meanwhile food producers are benefitting from more palatable prices in grocery store aisles.

Inflation has been easing broadly for more than a year now, and it’s been cooling faster for grocery items since the middle of the year. The current trend marks a reversal from previous years when grocery inflation outpaced restaurants as food producers raised prices, often fattening their profit margins.

The shift has been weighing on McDonald’s, Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants, and similar chains.

Orlando-based Darden reported a 1.1% sales drop at restaurants open for at least a year. The decline was a more severe 2.9% at the Olive Garden chain. July was especially weak.

McDonald’s reported a 1.1% drop for that same sales measure during its second quarter, compared with an 11.7% jump a year prior.

“You are seeing consumers being much more discretionary as they treat restaurants,” said McDonald’s CEO Christopher J. Kempczinski, in a call with analysts following the earnings report. “You’re seeing that the consumer is eating at home more often. You’re seeing more deal seeking from the consumer.”

Both Darden and McDonald’s are offering more bargains to entice cautious consumers. Olive Garden has brought back its “never ending pasta bowl,” while McDonald’s introduced its $5 value meal deal.

Consumers have been focusing more on groceries and eating at home, and that’s driving sales volumes for companies like General Mills, which makes Cheerios cereal, Progresso soups and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

“We did anticipate that might be the case as we see consumers taking value,” said General Mills CEO Jeffrey L. Harmening in a call with analysts. “Consumers are still economically stressed, so that played out the way we thought.”

General Mills and other food producers had raised prices to offset rising inflation, resulting in profit margin boosts for many of them. Now they are among food producers trimming some prices to ease the squeeze on consumers.

Grocery stores have also reaped more of the benefits from consumers dining at home. Kroger reported a 1.2% rise in sales at stores open at least a year during its most recent quarter. It expects it to rise 1.8% during its current quarter and 2.1% during the final quarter of its fiscal year.

“We are cautiously optimistic about our sales outlook for the second half of the year and expect customers to continue prioritizing food and essentials,” said Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen.

—Damian J. Troise, AP Business Writer

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.

OpenAI CTO Murati departs as company is set to abandon its nonprofit roots

It was just last year that Fast Company featured OpenAI CTO Mira Murati on the cover of its magazine. Inside was a revealing exposé, where Murati talked about her part in building  game-changing products like ChatGPT. Later that year Murati would briefly become CEO of OpenAI, when Sam Altman was forced out of the role. (He quickly reassumed the title.) Now Murati is gone, the latest in a string of executive departures at the hottest and best-funded AI startup in the world. 

Murati announced her departure on Thursday with a thankful and diplomatic letter to her coworkers, but left no hint as to her reasons for leaving. She did, however, mention that her exit comes just after the company passed an important milestone: “Our recent releases of speech-to-speech and OpenAl o1 mark the beginning of a new era in interaction and intelligence—achievements made possible by your ingenuity and craftsmanship,” she wrote.

Nobody knows what Murati will do next, but she certainly has the name recognition and résumé to attract large sums of money from venture capitalists, should she have the desire to start something new. 

Murati is the latest in a string of executive departures over the past year from OpenAI. One of the company’s cofounders, John Schulman, who led OpenAI’s alignment sciences team, departed in August to join Anthropic. Cofounder Andrej Karpathy left (again) in February. Another cofounder, the company’s research mastermind and spiritual leader Ilya Sutskever, left in May after losing a boardroom fight with CEO Sam Altman and a group of investors last year. Safety chief Jan Leike also left in May. Cofounder Greg Brockman left in August to go on an extended leave through the end of this year to “relax and recharge.” 

Other departures this year include William Saunders, who managed the “superalignment group”;  fellow superalignment teammates Leopold Aschenbrenner and Pavel Izmailov; and safety team member Daniel Kokotajlo (who  said nearly half the so-called artificial general intelligence safety team had departed by August 2024). 

Sources close to OpenAI tell me that some people within the company worry that OpenAI has become too focused on pushing new and profitable AI products out into the world, and not focused enough on safeguarding it from doing harm. This focus on profit never fit with the company’s current nonprofit status. Now, just hours after news of Murati’s departure, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI will change itself from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, and that Altman will own a financial stake in the company for the first time. 

Google paid megabucks to get back AI pioneer Noam Shazeer

An AI company’s most important asset is its research talent: very smart mathematicians who know how to build, train, and improve large language models. And we’re seeing big tech companies strike licensing agreements with smaller startups for the underlying purpose of poaching one of those elite researchers. 

In August, news broke that Google had welcomed AI researchers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas back into the fold. The two had left Google in 2021 to found Character.AI, but had run into trouble monetizing the company, whose app offers AI personas that users can talk to. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports, key details have emerged around the return of Shazeer and De Freitas, namely that Google paid $2.7 billion to license Character.AI’s software, but its real aim was very likely to recruit Shazeer. 

Shazeer is an AI pioneer. He worked at Google until 2021, and during his time there he was one of the authors of the seminal 2017 “Attention is All You Need” paper, which proposed the Transformer model architecture that set off the current generative AI craze and powers most of the language models we use today. 

Now Shazeer is back at Google with a VP title. He’s one of three people guiding the development and application of the company’s Gemini model, the Journal reports. For $2.7 billion, Google also got De Freitas and around 30 other Character.AI employees.

In March Microsoft did something similar to recruit Google DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman to lead its consumer AI division. It paid $653 million in a licensing deal with Suleyman’s startup, Inflection AI, for which it got Suleyman and most of Inflection’s employees, along with the right to sell access to the Inflection AI model through its Azure cloud. 

Why don’t these big tech companies get the researchers they want by buying the smaller AI companies outright? Because that has a look of anticompetitive consolidation in the AI industry, and could draw a suit from the Federal Trade Commission. 

Meta announces new Llamas that can see, new AI glasses tricks

At its Meta Connect developers event Wednesday, Meta announced a new generation of Llama AI models and some cool AI advancements in its AR glasses.

Meta debuted a couple of new Llama 3.2 models—one with a billion parameters and the other with 90 billion. Earlier Llama models could only process text, but the new 3.2 models can process images too. 

Meta is also releasing a pair of smaller models (one is a million parameters and the other is three million) that can run on mobile devices. The models can run on Qualcomm and MediaTek hardware, and are optimized for ARM processors, Meta says, and can be downloaded at llama.com and Hugging Face. They’re also available on a large number of cloud platforms, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Databricks.

Meta announced some AI-related improvements to its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The glasses can now remind the user of things they see that they need to remember, like the almost-empty carton of milk in the fridge. They can scan QR codes or phone numbers. 

Meta said it’ll soon be adding video to Meta AI, so the glasses will be able to see what the wearer sees in real time. That will let the AI assist the user when they’re doing things like exploring a city or preparing a meal. ideo capability is coming later this year.

The best thing Meta unveiled was a new, working prototype of its Orion augmented reality glasses, which can display data and entertainment in the lenses, label things the user sees in the world, and even create life-size holograms of people.  

More AI coverage from Fast Company: 

• The problem with Sam Altman’s vision for a ‘shared prosperity’ from AI
• California’s controversial AI bill’s fate will be decided this week
• Here’s what happens when humans and AI dance together
• After helping pro athletes hone their game, Uplift Labs launches an app for everyday gymgoers

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