Turkey's 'Imperial Inclinations Not a Good Thing' for Regional Stability, Macron Says

Late last week, Paris recalled its ambassador to Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, needed to undergo "mental checks" because of his treatment of "millions of members" of France's Muslim community.

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Two Reported Dead and Five Wounded After Stabbing Attack in Quebec - Photos, Video

According to preliminary reports from police in Quebec City, they are searching for a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a bladed weapon after he attacked multiple people.

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Offices, Cafes Boarding Up in Washington DC Ahead of Election Day

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Businesses in Washington DC are temporarily closing and boarding up ahead of election day, amid concerns about possible violence, a Sputnik correspondent reports.

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This Dog’s Halloween Costumes Will Make You Forget About Everything Bad That Has Occurred in 2020

Wildfires, extreme heat, a record number of hurricanes, increased global tensions, locusts that destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, a devastating economic crisis, and of course, the pandemic – 2020, we can’t wait to bid you farewell.

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Gunmen Attack Convoy of Deputy Head of Afghanistan's Reconciliation Council - Source

KABUL (Sputnik) - Deputy head of Afghanistan's High Council for National Reconciliation (HNRC) Haji Din Mohammad has been attacked by gunmen, an anonymous source told Sputnik.

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DEA Seized Second Laptop of Hunter Biden in February - Report

An article was published in mid-October alleging that e-mails retrieved from another laptop belonging to Hunter Biden showed his correspondence with foreign officials, which included organising meetings with then vice president Joe Biden, Hunter's father.

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Death Toll From Earthquake in Turkey Surpasses 40, Emergency Management Agency Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey’s western Izmir province has gone up to 42, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD).

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EU Parliament, Council Heads Condemn Lyon Attack, Ankara Wishes Swift Recovery to Victim

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - President of the European Council Charles Michel and David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, as well as Turkey, have all condemned the Saturday attack on a Greek Orthodox priest in the French city of Lyon.

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Police Report Clash Between Trump Supporters and Counterprotesters in Beverly Hills

A "USA Freedom Rally" in support of the president was supposed to take place at Beverly Gardens Park, but was apparently disturbed by counterprotesters, reportedly including Black Lives Matter activists.

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Heidi Klum Does Halloween Again: Model Shares Own Horror Movie Featuring Zombie Family Members

Although the German model was unable to host her traditional Halloween party due to the novel coronavirus pandemic that has cancelled most festive plans, she still found a creative way to celebrate Halloween even in 2020, making her own film.

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Spanish Prime Minister Condemns Unrest in Several Cities, Calls for Unity Amid Pandemic

Anti-lockdown protests have swept through several of the biggest cities in Spain following the re-imposing of strict coronavirus measures amid the surge in COVID-19 infections.

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Trump Moves to Protect Fracking, US Jobs and Energy Industry

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump says he has signed an order to protect the American energy industry and hydraulic fracturing.

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Super gross pig eyeballs Halloween time-lapse video

You're welcome! Happy Halloween, here's a pair of pig eyeballs disintegrating over time. [Video Link]

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'They don't catch it,' lies Trump on kids and COVID

"They don't catch it," lied impeached president Donald Trump just now, about children getting COVID.

Speaking on the campaign trail just days before the Election Day, Trump demanded that all schools in the United States be open for in-person classes, and all children now learning at home should go to those in-person classes. — Read the rest

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Trump glorifies Texas attack in which MAGA drivers tried to push Biden/Harris bus off road

CNN reports that Trump supporters in Texas tried to run a Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road earlier today. Trump's response was to share video of the attack, with an all-caps, "I LOVE TEXAS!"

Impeached and progressively wacked-out president Donald J. — Read the rest

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Happy Samhain! Dig Julie Driscoll's deeply groovy "Season of the Witch" (1968)

Happy Samhain! Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger & The Trinity doing a smoking cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch," available on their 1968 album Open.

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Police Pepper Spray Demonstrators in North Carolina - Reports

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Police used pepper spray on several participants in the "I Am Change" rally to encourage citizens to participate in the upcoming voting in Graham, North Carolina, local media report.

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Obama, Biden Slam President Trump at Their First Joint Campaign Event in Michigan

The two made a stop in Flint first before heading for Detroit, where Obama again blasted Donald Trump for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic and said how "better" the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tandem would be for America compared to the president.

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Canadian Armed Forces Soldier Shot Dead in Live-Fire Exercise at Alberta Base

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces lost his life during a training exercise at CFB Wainwright late Friday at the base in Wainwright, Alberta, according to the Department of National Defence. The department has not yet confirmed either the identity or the age of the soldier, as they first seek to confirm the wishes of the deceased's family.

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Seven Parties Make it Into Georgia's Parliament, Early Results From Election Commission Show

TBILISI (Sputnik) - Georgia's ruling party, Georgian Dream, is leading in the parliamentary election with 54.72 percent of the votes, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said after 28.2 percent of the votes had been counted.

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This massive cyber security bundle with over 65 courses is available now for under $30

We're all confronted with hyperbole and grand exaggerated statements every day. However, it's without a hint of embellishment to say that cybersecurity has never been more important — and could shape the direction of world events.

Just days ago, cybersecurity experts identified a hacker selling personal information about nearly 186 million American voters. — Read the rest

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'CCP Propaganda': Leading Indian Daily Comes Under Fire Over Four-Page China Watch Supplement

Public sentiment in India has increasingly turned against China amid the ongoing standoff along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC). The clashes between the two militaries in the Galwan Valley in June, which left 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese troops dead, were the bloodiest since the 1962 border war.

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Joe's 'Basket of Deplorables' Moment? Biden Blasted Online for Dubbing Trump Supporters 'Ugly Folks'

On Friday, President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden barnstormed across Midwestern battleground states in a bid to rally support just days ahead of the 3 November election.

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Russia Proposes US to Consider Putin's Arms Control Initiative

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Moscow is offering the United States to consider an arms control initiative proposed by President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Embassy in Washington has said.

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'Great for Israel': Ahead of US Elections, Most Israelis Would Like to See Trump Re-elected

Pollsters predicting a victory for Biden are wrong, thinks the vice president of Republicans Overseas. The reason for this is the inaccuracy of polls in the 2016 presidential race and Trump's list of achievements during his four years in office.

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Nap Time! Golden Retriever Pup Caught Falling Asleep While Sitting Up Leaves People in Splits

Dogs love to play all day and when it’s time for them to snooze, they can't help but fall asleep sitting up. One such video of a golden retriever pup is winning people’s hearts and has gone viral, garnering over 80,154 views.

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How Failure to Integrate Muslim Migrants Backfired on France as It Strives to Protect Core Values

On Thursday, a brutal assault on parishioners of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice has shaken a French society already shocked by the beheading of a French teacher in the northern Paris suburb of Éragny earlier this month. European politicians and academics have discussed EU migrant policies and the need to protect core European values.

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Some 50 Young People With Turkish Background Rampage in Catholic Church in Vienna – Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Some 50 young people with a Turkish background have rushed into the St Anthony of Padua Church in the Austrian capital of Vienna and staged a rampage there, Austrian media reported.

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EU Sues UK to Force Westminster to Lower Import Standards on Crop Pest Control

The UK's environment ministry imposed new rules in April to stop the spread of two destructive plant bugs from the continent, Xylella and Ceratocystis. But in June the European Commission issued EU legislation in an attempt to block the move by Britain, which had already left the bloc months earlier.

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France's Current Terror Wave Unlikely to Be Defeated Soon With Macron at Helm, MEP Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Ekaterina Chukaeva - France is now in the middle of a terror wave, and with President Emmanuel Macron in charge, the country is unlikely to defeat it, French Member of the European Parliament Virginie Joron told Sputnik, adding that with the EU’s current open-door policies, the situation in the bloc will only get worse.

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Trump Restrictions on TikTok Halted by Federal Judge Once Again

The set of rules, proposed by the White House, was supposed to come into effect on 12 November and would ban the video-sharing app owned by Chinese company ByteDance from operating in the United States.

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Corbyn Suspended for Telling the Truth – A New Socialist Party Is Required

The other day a thoroughly decent and honest man suffered a grave injustice. A man who has a peerless record in opposing racism and anti-Semitism was suspended by the political party he has been a member of for over fifty years, has represented it in the British Parliament since 1983 and was its leader from 2015-20.

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Walmart Says Will Return Firearms, Ammunition to Sales Floors of US Stores

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – US retailer Walmart said it would return firearms and ammunition to sales floors after their removal over the fears of civil unrest.

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New Delhi Rejects Report Claiming US Warned India over 'Hesitant' Border Posture with China

The Times of India reported on Friday that the US believes New Delhi’s hesitation on the border standoff with China will "demoralise and hurt efforts to check Beijing’s expansionist agenda.” Washington is said to have conveyed this view to New Delhi during the just concluded 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, according to the report.

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Photo: US Court Summons Saudi Crown Prince via WhatsApp in Attempted Assassination Lawsuit

In a modern twist, a US federal court used WhatsApp to deliver a summons to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who stands accused of hiring a 50-man assassination squad to eliminate an ex-Saudi security adviser.

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These noise-cancelling wireless headphones have a world of extra features — and they're over 25% off

Headphone quality often comes down to that old axiom of consumerism — you get what you pay for. When you try to cheap out and get a $20 pair of over-ear headphones while premium brands sell for $150 to $200…well, there's a better than decent chance that your cut-rate tech won't have great sound, won't have the features you want, and definitely won't stand up to the rigors of the everyday world to live a long, productive life. — Read the rest

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About 100,000 People Protest in Warsaw Against Boosted Anti-Abortion Measures - Videos

WARSAW (Sputnik) – Around 100,000 people took part in Friday protests in the Polish capital of Warsaw over the government's decision to outlaw access to abortion in the event of fetal defects, a spokeswoman for the city administration said.

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Russia Hopes OPCW Chief Participates in UNSC Meeting on Syria Chemical Attacks, Envoy to UN Says

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said he would welcome the participation of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Director-General Fernando Arias in the next UN Security Council open meeting on the Syrian chemical dossier.

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Protests Against COVID-19 Quarantine in Barcelona Result in Clashes, Law Enforcement Says

MADRID (Sputnik) – The rally against the coronavirus-linked quarantine in the Spanish city of Barcelona has resulted in clashes between protesters and police, the Catalan law enforcement body Mossos de Escuadra said.

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US Approves Sale of 200 Javelin Missiles to Australia

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US government has approved the sale of an additional 200 Javelin missiles to Australia for $46 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced in a press release.

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Canada Betting on Increased Immigration Targets to Boost Economic Recovery, Minister Says

TORONTO (Sputnik) - Canada is counting on increased immigration targets to boost the economic recovery following the novel coronavirus-induced downturn, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino said in a statement.

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TikTok stars got a judge to block Trump’s TikTok ban

TikTok has won another battle in its fight against the Trump administration’s ban of its video-sharing app in the U.S. — or, more accurately in this case, the TikTok community won a battle. On Friday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania has issued an injunction that blocked the restrictions that would have otherwise blocked TikTok from operating in the U.S. on November 12.

This particular lawsuit was not led by TikTok itself, but rather a group of TikTok creators who use the app to engage with their million-plus followers.

According to the court documents, plaintiff Douglas Marland has 2.7 million followers on the app; Alec Chambers has 1.8 million followers; and Cosette Rinab has 2.3 million followers. The creators argued – successfully as it turns out — that they would lose access to their followers in the event of a ban, as well as the “professional opportunities afforded by TikTok.” In other words, they’d lose their brand sponsorships — meaning, their income.

This is not the first time that the U.S. courts have sided with TikTok to block the Trump administration’s proposed ban over the Chinese-owned video sharing app. Last month, a D.C. judge blocked the ban that would have removed the app from being listed in U.S. app stores run by Apple and Google.

That ruling had not, however, stopped the Nov. 12 ban that would have blocked companies from providing internet hosting services that would have allowed TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S.

The Trump administration had moved to block the TikTok app from operating in the U.S. due to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, claiming it was a national security threat. The core argument from the judge in this ruling was the “Government’s own descriptions of the national security threat posed by the TikTok app are phrased in the hypothetical.”

That hypothetical risk was unable to be stated by the Government, the Judge argued, to be such a risk that it outweighed the public interest. The interest, in this case, was the over 100 million users of TikTok and the creators like Marland, Chambers and Rinab that utilized it to spread “informational materials,” which allowed the Judge to rule that the ban would shut down a platform for expressive activity.

“We are deeply moved by the outpouring of support from our creators, who have worked to protect their rights to expression, their careers, and to help small businesses, particularly during the pandemic,” said Vanessa Pappas, Interim Global Head of TikTok, in a statement. “We stand behind our community as they share their voices, and we are committed to continuing to provide a home for them to do so,” she added.

The TikTok community coming to the rescue on this one aspect of the overall TikTok picture just elevates this whole story. Though the company has been relatively quiet through this whole process, Pappas has thanked the community several times for its outpouring of support. Though there were some initial waves of ‘grief’ on the app with creators frantically recommending people follow them on other platforms, that has morphed over time into more of a ‘let’s band together’ vibe. This activity coalesced around a big swell in voting advocacy on the platform, where many creators are too young to actually participate but view voting messaging as their way to participate.

TikTok has remained active in the product department through the whole mess, shipping elections guides and trying to ban Qanon conspiracy spread. Even as Pakistan banned and then un-banned the app.

Trump administration’s TikTok ban has been delayed

 

 

 

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Cough-scrutinizing AI shows major promise as an early warning system for COVID-19

Asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 is a huge contributor to the pandemic, but of course if there are no symptoms, how can anyone tell they should isolate or get a test? MIT research has found that hidden in the sound of coughs is a pattern that subtly, but reliably, marks a person as likely to be in the early stages of infection. It could make for a much-needed early warning system for the virus.

The sound of one’s cough can be very revealing, as doctors have known for many years. AI models have been built to detect conditions like pneumonia, asthma, and even neuromuscular diseases, all of which alter how a person coughs in different ways.

Before the pandemic, researcher Brian Subirana had shown that coughs may even help predict Alzheimer’s — mirroring results from IBM research published just a week ago. More recently, Subirana thought if the AI was capable of telling so much from so little, perhaps COVID-19 might be something it could suss out as well. In fact, he isn’t the first to think so.

NWU researchers develop a throat-worn wearable that could offer early warnings for COVID-19 patients

He and his team set up a site where people could contribute coughs, and ended up assembling “the largest research cough dataset that we know of.” Thousands of samples were used to train up the AI model, which they document in an open access IEEE journal.

The model seems to have detected subtle patterns in vocal strength, sentiment, lung and respiratory performance, and muscular degradation, to the point where it was able to identify 100 percent of coughs by asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers and 98.5 percent of symptomatic ones, with a specificity of 83 and 94 percent respectively, meaning it doesn’t have large numbers of false positives or negatives.

“We think this shows that the way you produce sound, changes when you have COVID, even if you’re asymptomatic,” said Subirana of the surprising finding. However he cautioned that although the system was good at detecting non-healthy coughs, it should not be used as a diagnosis tool for people with symptoms but unsure of the underlying cause.

I asked Subirana for a bit more clarity on this point.

“The tool is detecting features that allow it to discriminate the subjects that have COVID from the ones that don’t,” he wrote in an email. “Previous research has shown you can pick up other conditions too. One could design a system that would discriminate between many conditions but our focus was on picking out COVID from the rest.”

For the statistics-minded out there, the incredibly high success rate may raise some red flags. Machine learning models are great at a lot of things, but 100 percent isn’t a number you see a lot, and when you do you start thinking of other ways it might have been produced by accident. No doubt the findings will need to be proven on other datasets and verified by other researchers, but it’s also possible that there’s simply a reliable tell in COVID-induced coughs that a computer listening system can hear quite easily.

The team is collaborating with several hospitals to build a more diverse dataset, but is also working with a private company to put together an app to distribute the tool for wider use, if it can get FDA approval.

FluSense system tracks sickness trends by autonomously monitoring public spaces

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Apple acknowledges AirPods Pro issues, will replace those that crackle and rattle

Are your AirPods Pro earbuds making weird noises? You’re not imagining it — and you’re not the only one.

Just a few months after Apple started shipping AirPods Pro, some users started noticing that one or both of their earbuds were rattling or crackling. The noises would reportedly get worse whenever the user moved, and would sometimes only develop after months of use.

Apple didn’t say too much about it at first, but would usually replace crackling earbuds if you took the time to hit up support. A few folks here at TechCrunch have had the rattle rear its head on our own AirPods Pro buds… only to have it pop up again in the replacements.

It seems the problem has become widespread enough for an official acknowledgement: today Apple launched an “AirPods Pro Service Program” (as first pointed out by Mark Gurman) specifically for swapping out crackling buds.

A newly published support page outlines the potential symptoms, both of which suggest the issue has to do with the noise cancellation system:

• Crackling or static sounds that increase in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone
• Active Noise Cancellation not working as expected, such as a loss of bass sound, or an increase in background sounds, such as street or airplane noise

Apple notes that only units made before October 2020 are affected, suggesting they’ve fixed the issue in units now coming off the line. The support page repeatedly says faulty units will be “replaced” rather than “repaired” — so for the most part, it sounds like turnaround should be pretty quick.

Apple is bringing spatial audio to AirPods Pro

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Roman Gold Coin Minted to Commemorate Caesar’s Assassination Sold for About $3.5Mln

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The rare Roman golden coin, minted by Marcus Junius Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar, has been sold in the United Kingdom for 2.7 million pounds (about $3.5 million), the Roma Numismatics auction house said.

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Trump, Biden Slam Each Other at Rival Rallies in Florida

Florida is one of the battleground states in the looming election on 3 November, where, according to the latest polls, the former vice president holds a 4-6-point lead over President Trump.

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Modi Gov’t Should Have Debated India-US Geospatial Data Sharing Pact in Parliament, Ex-Minister Says

The finalisation of the crucial pact on the sharing of sensitive military information comes at a time when the Indian Army has been involved in a seven-month-long military standoff with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the disputed de-facto Line of Actual Control (LAC) border.

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Arson, Violence Erupt in Poll-Bound Bihar Over Killing of Men in Police Firing - Video

An 18-year-old man was killed and dozens of others were injured on 26 October after police opened fire during clashes which broke out between cops and the general public during an idol immersion procession of the Hindu Goddess Durga. The killing kicked off a political row in Bihar, where elections are underway.

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Lil Jon has the best response when asked to support Donald Trump's re-election campaign

Just because Lil Pump and Lil Wayne decide to suck up to Trump, don't mean Lil Jon is an idiot. The rapper let folks know exactly where he stands, in a tweet replying to a suggestion that Lil Jon join the ranks of the lesser Nyquil-swilling rappers. — Read the rest

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Twitter finally cracks down on Kremlin-controlled RT

Twitter labeled a video from the Russian-state controlled broadcaster RT as election misinformation on Thursday.

Today for the first time, reports CNN, Twitter took action against the Kremlin-controlled network RT for spreading misinformation about the 2020 U.S. election. RT had posted a 4-minute segment amplifying Trump's false claims of widespread fraud and election rigging. — Read the rest

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Don Jr. lies that U.S. coronavirus death numbers are down to "almost nothing." FACT: 228,636 deaths and counting

In this clip, the president's son Donald Trump Jr. claims coronavirus death numbers in the United States are down to "almost nothing." But 228,636 coronavirus deaths and counting in America isn't "almost nothing." More than one thousand people in the nation died TODAY of coronavirus. — Read the rest

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US Supreme Court Rejects 2nd Bid to Block Mail-In Ballot Deadline Extension in N Carolina

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Supreme Court has rejected a second bid from the Republican Party to block the deadline extension for mail-in ballots in the battleground state of North Carolina, a court filing revealed.

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Amazon pegs COVID-19 costs at an estimated $4 billion next quarter

Amazon expects to incur $4 billion in COVID-related costs next quarter, an estimate that provides a bellwether for other businesses, large and small, trying to stay operational and control expenses amid the pandemic.

The upshot: Amazon is planning for COVID to remain an unwelcome companion through the end of the year with costs higher than the previous quarter.

The company said Thursday in its third-quarter earnings call that it logged $7.5 billion in COVID-related costs since the disease took root earlier this year. Amazon previously said its COVID costs were about $600 million in the first quarter and more than $4 billion in the second. The company’s COVID costs in the third quarter were about $2.5 billion, CFO Brian Olsavsky told an analyst during an earnings call. While Amazon was able to lower its costs in the third quarter due to efficiencies that number is on rise for next quarter.

Olsavsky said the majority of the increase in costs is due to the expansion of its operations. Amazon has hired 100,000 new workers in October.

Amazon crushes Q3 expectations even without Prime Day bump

COVID-19 along with other uncertainties related to the economy, holiday sales and even weather patterns weighed on its guidance for operating income in the fourth quarter. Amazon provided a wide-ranging guidance of between $1 billion and $4.5 billion in operating income in the fourth quarter compared with $3.9 billion in the same period last year.  This guidance assumes about $4 billion of costs related to COVID-19.

But what is most telling is that even after providing a lengthy list of possible uncertainties in the fourth quarter, Olsavsky noted that COVID still trumps them all.

“So there’s a whole host of issues that generally come to bear in Q4,” Olsavsky said. “I think the fact that COVID is dwarfing all of those is causing us a lot of uncertainty on our top line range.”

Olsavsky said costs were related to productivity losses caused by changing how it operates as well as expenses related to personal protective equipment and other upfront costs.

“The largest portion of these costs relate to continuing productivity headwinds in our facilities, including process revisions to allow for social distancing and incremental costs to ramp up new facilities, and the large influx of new employees hired to support strong customer demand also includes investments in PPE for employees and enhanced cleaning of our facilities,” Olsavsky said during Thursday’s earnings call.

Amazon said Thursday it also continues to ramp up its in-house COVID-19 testing program with capacity reaching 50,000 tests a day across 650 sites by November.

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Kim Kardashian's birthday present from Kanye was this nightmarish hologram of her dead dad

If you have ever lost a loved one, you'll know that grief is an unending process — a hole in your heart and life that can never be filled, a bittersweet love forever within you with nowhere to go, a lifetime of cherished moments trapped in amber.

So we don't want to judge Kim Kardashian too harshly for this, but... good lord.

For my birthday, Kanye got me the most thoughtful gift of a lifetime. A special surprise from heaven. A hologram of my dad. ✨🤍 It is so lifelike! We watched it over and over, filled with emotionpic.twitter.com/jD6pHo17KC

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) October 29, 2020 Read more...

More about Kim Kardashian, Hologram, Culture, and Celebrities

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Delta Air Lines Reaches Preliminary Deal With Pilot Union to Avoid Furloughs

Initially, the company intended to furlough up to 1,941 pilots, but delayed the decision citing the need for more time to negotiate with the pilots and to get clarification on whether they will be able to get additional federal aid due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Mayor Bowser Says US Capital Preparing for Possible Unrest After Presidential Election

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a press conference that the city authorities are preparing to respond to any potential civil unrest after the November 3 presidential election.

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US DoJ Confirms Active FBI Money Laundering Probe on Hunter Biden, Associates - Report

A new report cites a US Department of Justice official who confirmed Hunter Biden and a number of his associates have been the subjects of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe regarding money laundering that has remained active since 2019.

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Lil Wayne Shares Picture From Meeting With President Trump, Hailing His Criminal Reform Efforts

The post with the image attached was also retweeted by the US president, but received a mixed response on social media, as some users were thrilled that their favourite star supported Trump, while others were disappointed.

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Forge abstract art in Low Grade Fraud Shop

The title "Low Grade Fraud Shop" drew my eye, and it turned out to be an unusual and joyously cynical art-making game. As a harried art forger's new apprentice, you must make copies of valuable artwork as quickly as possible using various crude brushes and a limited palette. — Read the rest

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This advanced data analytics trading can set you up for a great new career in 2021

If you want to understand the job market, there's no source more reliable than LinkedIn. So when data science and data analysis roles dominate the LinkedIn list of the fastest-growing jobs in the world, it's probably worth some consideration for job seekers. — Read the rest

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WhatsApp is now delivering roughly 100 billion messages a day

WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app owned by Facebook, is now delivering roughly 100 billion messages a day, the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said at the quarterly earnings call Thursday.

For some perspective, users exchanged 100 billion messages on WhatsApp last New Year’s Eve. That is the day when WhatsApp tops its engagement figures, and as many of you may remember, also the time when the service customarily suffered glitches in the past years. (No outage on last New Year’s Eve!)

At this point, WhatsApp is just competing with itself. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp together were used to exchange 60 billion messages a day as of early 2016. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in May that iMessage and FaceTime were seeing record usage, but did not share specific figures. The last time Apple did share the figure, it was far behind WhatsApp’s then usage (podcast). WeChat, which has also amassed over 1 billion users, is behind in daily volume of messages, too.

WhatsApp hits 2 billion users, up from 1.5 billion 2 years ago

In early 2014, WhatsApp was being used to exchange about 50 billion texts a day, its then chief executive Jan Koum revealed at an event.

At the time, WhatsApp had fewer than 500 million users. WhatsApp now has more than 2 billion users and at least in India, its largest market by users, its popularity surpasses those of every other smartphone app including the big blue app.

“This year we’ve all relied on messaging more than ever to keep up with our loved ones and get business done,” tweeted Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp.

Sadly, that’s all the update the company shared on WhatsApp today. Mystery continues for when WhatsApp expects to resume its payments service in Brazil, and when it plans to launch its payments in India, where it began testing the service in 2018. (It has already shared big plans around financial services in India, though.)

“We are proud that WhatsApp is able to deliver roughly 100B messages every day and we’re excited about the road ahead,” said Cathcart.

WhatsApp to pilot projects to deliver credit, insurance and pension to users in India

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Rudy Giuliani Urges Attorney General Bill Barr to Subpoena Joe Biden's Personal Records

Hunter Biden was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while his father was the Obama administration's point man on US-Ukrainian relations. Hunter was also a board member at private equity fund BHR Partners, which is backed by some of China's largest state banks and local governments.

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Canadian Ethics Chief Partially Dismisses Probe of Ex-Finance Minister Morneau

TORONTO (Sputnik) - Canada’s Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion partially dismissed the conflict of interest investigation into former Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s relationship with WE Charity, the Office of the Ethics Commissioner confirmed to Sputnik.

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Snail Mail Fail

Fox News television host Tucker Carlson recently claimed that bombshell documents had been uncovered regarding the alleged Hunter Biden scandal that would damage Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but there was a problem: they got lost in the mail.

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Crime in Canada Rose for Fifth Consecutive Year in 2019, Statistics Canada Says

TORONTO (Sputnik) - Crime in Canada increased for a fifth consecutive year in 2019, Statistics Canada said in a report.

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PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in every home

What does a hologram-obsessed entrepreneur do for a second act after setting up a virtual Ronald Reagan in the Reagan Memorial Library, or beaming Jimmy Kimmel all the way from Hollywood to the Country Music Awards in Nashville?

If that entrepreneur is David Nussbaum, the founder of PORTL Hologram, the next logical step is to build a machine that can bring the joy of hologram-based communication to the masses.

That’s the goal thanks to a new $3 million round that Nussbaum’s company raised from famed venture investor Tim Draper, former Electronic Arts executive Doug Barry, and longtime awards-show producer Joe Lewis.

Barry is not only backing the company, he’s also coming on board as its first chief operating officer.

Much of this interest can be traced back to the hologram performance given posthumously by Tupac Shakur back at Coachella about eight years ago.

Nussbaum turned the excitement generated by that event into a business. He bought the patents that powered Tupac’s beyond-the-grave performance, and used the technology to beam Julian Assange out of the Ecuadoran embassy he had been holed up in during his years in London and making dead stars live (and tour) again.

Those visual feats were basically just an updated version of the Pepper’s Ghost technique that stage illusionists and moviemakers have been using since it was invented by John Pepper in the 19th century.

The PORTL is a significant upgrade, according to Nussbaum.

The projector can transmit images any time of the day or night, and using PORTL’s capture studio-in-a-box means that anyone with $60,000 to spend and a white background can beam themselves into any portal anywhere in the world.

The company has sold a hundred devices and already delivered several dozen to shopping malls, airports and movie theater lobbies. “We’ve manufactured and delivered several dozen,” Nussbaum said.

Part of the selling point, beyond just the gimmick of the hologram’s next-level verisimilitude, is its interactivity. Through the studio rig and PORTL hardware, users can hear what people standing around the PORTL are saying and then respond.

For its next trick, PORTL is looking to build a miniaturized version of its system that would be about the size of a desktop computer and could be used to both record and distribute the holograms to anyone with a PORTL device.

“The minis will have all of the features to capture your content and rotoscope you out of our background and have the studio effects that is important in displaying your realistic volumetric like effect and they will beam you to any other device,” Nussbaum said.

To build out the business, the PORTL minis will have more than just communications capabilities, but recorded entertainment as well, Nussbaum said.

“The minis will be bundled with content like peloton and mirror bundled with very specific types of content. We are in conversations with a number of extremely well known content creators where we would bundle a portal but will also have dedicated and exclusive content… [and] bundle that for $39 to $49 per month.”

It’s a vision that Nussbaum admits is far more expansive than his intentions — and the person he has to thank for the more ambitious vision of the business is none other than Draper.

“When I started this I thought it was going to be a novelty company,” he said. “When the pandemic hit he knew we needed to do much more than that.”

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Tesla has increased the price of its ‘Full Self-Driving’ option to $10,000

Tesla has made good on founder and CEO Elon Musk’s promise to boost the price of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software upgrade option, increasing it to $10,000 following the start of the staged rollout of a beta version of the software update last week. This boosts the price of the package $2,000 from its price before today, and it has steadily increased since last May.

The FSD option has been available as an optional add-on to complement Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance technology, even though the features themselves haven’t been available to Tesla owners before the launch of the beta this month. Even still, it’s only in limited beta, but this is the closest Musk and Tesla have come to actually launching something under the FSD moniker — after having teased a fully autonomous mode in production Teslas for years now.

Despite its name, FSD isn’t what most in the industry would define as full, Level 4 or Level 5, autonomy per the standards defined by SAE International and accepted by most working on self-driving. Musk has designed it as vehicles having the ability “to be autonomous but requiring supervision and intervention at times,” whereas Levels 4 and 5 (often considered “true self-driving”) under SAE standards require no driver intervention.

After release of Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ beta, Elon Musk promises roughly $2,000 price hike

Still, the technology does appear impressive in some ways according to early user feedback — though testing any kind of self-driving software unsupervised via the general public does seem an incredibly risky move. Musk has said that we should see a wide rollout of the FSD tech beyond the beta before year’s end, so he definitely seems confident in its performance.

The price increase might be another sign of his and the company’s confidence. Musk has always maintained that users were getting a discount by handing money over early to Tesla in order to help it develop technology that would come later, so in many ways it makes sense that the price increase comes now. This also obviously helps Tesla boost margins, though it’s already riding high on earnings that beat both revenue and profit expectations from analysts.

Tesla wows on latest numbers

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Khloe Kardashian confirms she had Khoronavirus

In a video released Wednesday night, "Keeping up with the Kardashians" star Khloe Kardashian confirms she had the Khoronavirus.

Khloe Kardashian said in the video her KHOVID-19 symptoms included coughing, shaking, vomiting, and headaches. She also experienced intense waves of cold and hot, and said she had a burning sensation while coughing. — Read the rest

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Cybersecurity agency warns of 'imminent, increased cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers"

On Wednesday night less than one week before the election, as COVID-19 cases spike throughout the United States, the nation's cybersecurity agency says: "there is an imminent and increased cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers."

Here's the tweet tonight from CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency:

⚠️ There is an imminent and increased cybercrime threat to U.S.

— Read the rest

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Listen to 6 American regional accents as they were spoken in 1958

In this video from 1958, we hear 6 speakers of standard English from different areas of the United States: Smithfield, Virginia; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Brooklyn, New York; North Andover, Massachussets; and Dallas, Texas.

Presented by linguist Henry Lee Smith Jr., From ika Grape Snack on YouTube.

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Sage Vaughn's illustrated interview with Sam i about his new film "Heaven"

A Boing Boing exclusive: Sage Vaughn interviewed Grammy-nominated DJ, music producer, composer and music/film director Sam i (formerly known as Sam Spiegel)'s new self- directed short film "Heaven."

A note from Sam i:

"To Whom It May Concern" feat Ceelo Green, Theophilus London, and Alex Ebert is the longest time from conception to completion that it's ever taken me to create a song. — Read the rest

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LinkedIn’s Career Explorer helps you identify new kinds of jobs based on the skills you have

One of the key side-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been how it has played out in the economy. There are currently 12.6 million people out of work in the U.S. alone, with estimates from the International Labour Organization noting that globally number some 245 million full-time jobs have been impacted.

To meet some of that challenge, today, LinkedIn is launching a new Career Explorer tool to help people find new jobs. Out in beta today in English (and adding further languages soon), this is not another job search engine. It’s a tool that matches a person’s skills with jobs that she or he might not have otherwise considered, and then provides pointers on what extra skills you might want to learn to be even more relevant.

Alongside this, LinkedIn is launching a new skills portal specifically to hone digital skills; subtle profile picture “frames” to indicate when you’re looking for work, or when you are hiring; and interview prep tools.

The Career Explorer tool is perhaps the most interesting of the new features.

Built with flexibility in mind, LinkedIn is leaning on its own trove of data to map some career paths that people have taken, combining that with data it has on jobs that are currently in higher demand, and are extrapolating that to help people get more creative about jobs they could go for.

This would be especially useful if there are none in their current field, or if they are considering using the opportunity of a job loss to rethink what they are doing (if Covid-19 hasn’t done the rethinking for them).

The example that LinkedIn gives for how this works is a notable one. It notes that a food server and a customer service specialist (an in-demand job) have a 71% skills overlap.

Neither might be strictly considered a “knowledge worker” (interesting that LinkedIn is positioning itself in that way, as it’s been a tool largely dominated by the category up to now), but both interface with customers. LinkedIn uses the Explorer to then suggest what training you could undertake (on its platform) to learn or improve the skills you might not already have.

The Career Explorer is a development on the skills assessment tool that LinkedIn launched last year, which were tests that people could take to verify what skills they had and what skills they still needed to learn for a particular role.

In the midst of a pandemic, that effort took on a more pointed recovery role, with skills training developed in partnership with Microsoft (which owns LinkedIn) specifically to address digital gaps in the employment market, which when filled could help the economy rebuild. LinkedIn said that to date, around 13 million people have used the those tools to learn new skills for the most in-demand jobs.

The idea with these new tools is that while people may be losing their jobs, there is still work out there. LinkedIn itself says it has more than 14 million positions open right now, with close to 40 million people coming to the site to search for work every week, and three people getting hired each minute. So the aim is to figure out how best to connect people with the opportunities around them.

And given that LinkedIn, now with 722 million users, has long made recruitment and job searches a central part of its business — both in terms of traffic and in terms of the revenue it makes from those services; I often think of it as the place where professionals go to network and look for work — launching these tools not only can help LinkedIn be a more useful partner in the job-search process. It helps keep that jobs business evolving at a time when it otherwise might feel somewhat stagnant. And after all, despite the activity on LinkedIn, unemployment remains high and some believe will get worse before it gets better again.

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Over 300 Foreign Observers to Monitor Elections in Venezuela, President Maduro Says

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - More than 300 foreign observers have confirmed their participation in the elections to the Venezuelan National Assembly in December, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said.

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US Intentions to Deploy Missiles in Europe Increase Potential for Confrontation - Russian Envoy

Earlier in the day, the Trump Administration announced Washington would deploy its ballistic missiles in Europe if necessary to deter Russia.

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Russia Asks Dutch Supreme Court to Halt Enforcement on Ex-Yukos Shareholders' Lawsuits

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia asked the Supreme Court of the Netherlands to suspend the enforcement of rulings on lawsuits by ex-shareholders of the Yukos oil company, hearings are scheduled for 30 October, the Russian representative at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Deputy Justice Minister Mikhail Galperin told Sputnik.

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Eric Trump claims his social media 'likes' are being throttled (reader, he is lying)

President Donald Trump's lesser failson Eric Trump claims his social media likes are being throttled and he thinks that's become the number one issue in politics over the past few weeks.

Eric Trump claims his social media likes are being throttled and he thinks that's become the number one issue in politics over the past few weeks pic.twitter.com/mzbrPjD8rX

— Read the rest

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Marriott International announces partnership with Grab in six Southeast Asian countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the hospitality industry especially hard, and hotels around the world are looking for ways to regain revenue. Today, Marriott International and Grab announced a partnership that will cover the hospitality giant’s dining businesses in six Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

Instead of room bookings, Marriott International deal with Grab focuses on about 600 restaurants and bars at its properties in the six Southeast Asian countries, which will start being added to GrabFood’s on-demand delivery platform in November. A joint announcement from the companies said the deal represents Marriott International’s “first extensive integration with a super app platform in Southeast Asia and Grab’s most comprehensive agreement with a hospitality group to date.”

Marriott International is the world’s largest hotel company. During the second quarter, as the pandemic curtailed travel and in-person events, it reported a loss of $234 million, compared to the profit of $232 million it had recorded a year earlier. Chief executive Arne Sorenson called it “the worst quarter we have ever seen,” even though business is gradually recovering in China.

Ride-hailing was hit hard by COVID-19 — Grab’s Russell Cohen on how the company adapted

The Marriott-Grab integration means the two companies will link their loyalty programs, so GrabRewards points can be converted to Marriott Bonvoy points, or vice versa. Marriott International’s restaurants and bars that accept GrabPay will also have access to Grab’s Merchant Discovery platform, which will allow them to ping users about local deals and includes a marketing campaign platform called GrabAds.

Other hospitality businesses that Grab already partners with include Booking.com and Klook. Klook is among several travel-related companies that have recalibrated to focus on “staycations,” or services for people who can’t travel during the pandemic, but still want a break from their regular routines.

COVID-19 pivot: Travel unicorn Klook sees jump in staycations

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