Senators Want to Know Amazon Retaliated Against Coronavirus Whistle-Blowers

Democratic senators on Thursday questioned whether Amazon retaliated against whistle-blowers when it fired four employees who raised concerns about the spread of coronavirus in the company’s warehouses.In a letter sent to Amazon, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent critic of the e-commerce giant, and eight other senators asked Amazon to provide more information about its policies for firing employees.“In order to understand how the termination of employees that raised concerns about health and safety conditions did not constitute retaliation for whistle-blowing, we are requesting information about Amazon’s policies regarding grounds for employee discipline and termination,” the letter said.The letter was also signed by Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, as well as Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Edward J. Markey, Richard Blumenthal, Kamala Harris and Tammy Baldwin. It asked Amazon if it tracked unionization efforts in its warehouses and whether it tracked employees who participated in protests or spoke to the news media.The letter increased pressure on Amazon and its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, who has been called to testify before Congress in an antitrust investigation and has been a frequent target for criticism from President Trump. A number of senators and representatives have already written to Mr. Bezos expressing concern about warehouse safety.An Amazon spokeswoman said: “These individuals were not terminated for talking publicly about working conditions or safety but, rather, for violating — often repeatedly — policies, such as intimidation, physical distancing and more.”She added that while Amazon supported employees’ right to criticize or protest working conditions, “that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.”“We look forward to explaining in more detail in our response to the senators’ letter,” the spokeswoman said.Cases of the coronavirus have been reported in more than 100 Amazon warehouses, and several workers have died. State and local officials in Kentucky and New Jersey have asked Amazon to close facilities where workers have fallen sick.Despite the sophistication of Amazon’s vast e-commerce business, it depends on warehouse workers to keep shipments flowing, and many of those workers fear their warehouses are contaminated by the coronavirus.Mr. Bezos said during a call with Amazon investors last week that the company expected to spend $4 billion on safety measures and other expenses related to the coronavirus during the current quarter.In March, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, a worker in its Staten Island facility who had organized a protest to demand stronger safety protocols there. Amazon said Mr. Smalls had violated a quarantine order to attend the protest.In an email to other Amazon executives, the company’s top lawyer, David Zapolsky, called Mr. Smalls “not smart or articulate.” Mr. Zapolsky, who also suggested that Amazon portray Mr. Smalls as the leader of a movement to unionize Amazon workers, apologized for the remarks after they were published by Vice News.Two weeks later, Amazon fired two designers, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham. Ms. Costa and Ms. Cunningham had pressed the company to reduce its carbon footprint, and had announced an internal event for warehouse workers to speak to tech employees about their workplace conditions shortly before they were fired. Amazon said the two employees had repeatedly violated corporate policies.“Warehouse workers have been under incredible threat,” Ms. Cunningham said in an interview Wednesday evening. “We wanted to give space for warehouse workers to be able to talk openly and honestly about the conditions they were facing and why they felt so unsafe.”In late April, Amazon fired Bashir Mohamed, a warehouse worker in Shakopee, Minn. Mr. Mohamed said he had raised concerns about workers’ inability to remain socially distant inside the warehouse. Amazon said Mr. Mohamed had violated several policies, including one that required workers to follow social distancing guidelines. Read the full article

Vallejo Official's Removal Is Sought After He Throws Cat During Zoom Meeting

The city Planning Commission meeting in Vallejo, Calif., last week followed the same humdrum pattern of so many municipal meetings: There was the Pledge of Allegiance and a roll call, followed by various reports.That posed the usual challenges: Commissioners with microphones muted when they were trying to be heard, some of them appearing half offscreen at times or talking over one another.But things took an unexpected turn about 2 hours and 24 minutes into the session after one of the commissioners, Chris Platzer, was asked if he had any comments after reviewing a project application.“Yes, this is the section where you can, Commissioner Platzer,” the commission’s chairman said.The cat meowed loudly again. “OK, first, I’d like to introduce my cat,” Mr. Platzer said, lifting it close to the camera and then, with two hands, tossing it off screen.The cat squeaked as it was being thrown, and a thud could be heard.One commissioner on the videoconference put his hands to his forehead and covered his eyes in response.The meeting concluded 26 minutes later, but that was hardly the end of it.Bob Sampayan, the mayor of Vallejo, which is about 30 miles north of San Francisco, and Robert McConnell, a City Council member and the liaison to the commission, have asked for the council to consider Mr. Platzer’s immediate removal at a meeting on Tuesday, a city spokeswoman, Christina Lee, said on Monday.“The city does not condone the behavior that Vallejo Planning Commissioner Chris Platzer exhibited during the April 20th Planning Commission meeting,” she said. “This type of behavior does not model the core values of the City of Vallejo.”After the planning meeting adjourned, Mr. Platzer was heard using expletives, she said, adding that the mayor and Mr. McConnell discussed his behavior immediately after the episode and called for his removal within 48 hours.Stephanie Bell, senior director of cruelty casework for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the group was prepared to place the cat “in an understanding, loving home” if Mr. Platzer’s “lack of patience or understanding” made cat guardianship inappropriate.“The cats in our care rely on us for everything, including food, respect and affection, and no one should ever punish them for seeking our attention,” she said. “While cats are known for agility, this cat was thrown and could have slammed into furniture, the wall or the ground.”As of Monday morning, the city had not received a formal resignation from Mr. Platzer, Ms. Lee said; however, The Times-Herald of Vallejo reported on Saturday that it had received an email from him suggesting that he was stepping down.Mr. Platzer, who could not be reached on Monday, was appointed to the volunteer position in August 2016 and his term was set to expire in June.“I did not conduct myself in the Zoom meeting in a manner befitting of a planning commissioner and apologize for any harm I may have inflicted,” he wrote in the email, The Times-Herald reported. “I serve at the pleasure of the council and no longer have that trust and backing.”He added, “We are all living in uncertain times and I certainly, like many of you, am adjusting to a new normalcy.”The Zoom episode was one of the latest to surface as officials adjust to remote working. In Florida, a judge this month admonished lawyers for getting too lax in their dress during their videoconference court appearances. Read the full article

An Official’s Removal Is Sought After He Throws Cat During Zoom Meeting

The city Planning Commission meeting in Vallejo, Calif., last week followed the same humdrum pattern of so many municipal meetings: There was the Pledge of Allegiance and a roll call, followed by various reports.That posed the usual challenges: Commissioners with microphones muted when they were trying to be heard, some of them appearing half offscreen at times or talking over one another.But things took an unexpected turn about 2 hours and 24 minutes into the session after one of the commissioners, Chris Platzer, was asked if he had any comments after reviewing a project application.“Yes, this is the section where you can, Commissioner Platzer,” the commission’s chairman said.The cat meowed loudly again. “OK, first, I’d like to introduce my cat,” Mr. Platzer said, lifting it close to the camera and then, with two hands, tossing it off screen.The cat squeaked as it was being thrown, and a thud could be heard.One commissioner on the videoconference put his hands to his forehead and covered his eyes in response.The meeting concluded 26 minutes later, but that was hardly the end of it.Bob Sampayan, the mayor of Vallejo, which is about 30 miles north of San Francisco, and Robert McConnell, a City Council member and the liaison to the commission, have asked for the council to consider Mr. Platzer’s immediate removal at a meeting on Tuesday, a city spokeswoman, Christina Lee, said on Monday.“The city does not condone the behavior that Vallejo Planning Commissioner Chris Platzer exhibited during the April 20th Planning Commission meeting,” she said. “This type of behavior does not model the core values of the City of Vallejo.”After the planning meeting adjourned, Mr. Platzer was heard using expletives, she said, adding that the mayor and Mr. McConnell discussed his behavior immediately after the episode and called for his removal within 48 hours.Stephanie Bell, senior director of cruelty casework for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the group was prepared to place the cat “in an understanding, loving home” if Mr. Platzer’s “lack of patience or understanding” made cat guardianship inappropriate.“The cats in our care rely on us for everything, including food, respect and affection, and no one should ever punish them for seeking our attention,” she said. “While cats are known for agility, this cat was thrown and could have slammed into furniture, the wall or the ground.”As of Monday morning, the city had not received a formal resignation from Mr. Platzer, Ms. Lee said; however, The Times-Herald of Vallejo reported on Saturday that it had received an email from him suggesting that he was stepping down.Mr. Platzer, who could not be reached on Monday, was appointed to the volunteer position in August 2016 and his term was set to expire in June.“I did not conduct myself in the Zoom meeting in a manner befitting of a planning commissioner and apologize for any harm I may have inflicted,” he wrote in the email, The Times-Herald reported. “I serve at the pleasure of the council and no longer have that trust and backing.”He added, “We are all living in uncertain times and I certainly, like many of you, am adjusting to a new normalcy.”The Zoom episode was one of the latest to surface as officials adjust to remote working. In Florida, a judge this month admonished lawyers for getting too lax in their dress during their videoconference court appearances. Read the full article

Australia’s Fire Season Ends, and Researchers Look to the Next One

“Nine times out of 10,” he said, manual analysts produce more accurate results than the model. Using their experience, analysts are able to incorporate the uncertainty inherent in fire behavior, something “the computer just isn’t able to grasp.” But where the computer model excels, Dr. Heemstra said, is in analyzing several fires at once and determining which one poses the greatest risk — and therefore which one manual analysts should focus on.Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, has developed computer software called Spark, which aims to improve upon Phoenix.Phoenix was built to predict fire behavior in forest and grass, Dr. Heemstra said, so for several other fuel types, like shrub land, “it’s a bit like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.” Spark, because it uses unique equations for each fuel type, is more intuitive and reliable. It could be “the next evolutionary step” in firefighting models, Dr. Heemstra said, and the NSW Rural Fire Service hopes to use it as early as the next fire season.Whereas fire behavior models like Phoenix and Spark help predict the spread of a fire, drone technology may be able to predict where fires are likely to start. For the moment, drones are used mainly to monitor grassland fires. Forest fires burn particularly hot, and are volatile, making them unsafe for drones to fly over or for anyone nearby to operate the devices.The wildfire conditions in Australia are sufficiently severe that they verge on otherworldly. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif., has been exploring, with the CSIRO, the possibility of testing artificial intelligence for drones, rovers and satellites — not yet developed but intended for future space exploration — on the fires. This software would need to withstand extreme conditions on other planets, like “hot temperatures, low visibility and turbulent winds,” said Natasha Stavros, a science system engineer at J.P.L., in an email.A November 2019 study by J.P.L.’s Blue Sky Thinktank, on which Dr. Stavros was an author, found that the fire-management technologies offering the highest return on investment were autonomous micro-aerial vehicles — small drones typically weighing less than a quarter of a pound — that would be able to navigate themselves through wildfires. Eventually, these drones would operate in autonomous groups or “swarms,” which could monitor wider areas. Their ability to communicate with one another and a distant control center could potentially be used in exploring other planets. Read the full article

When Facebook Is More Trustworthy Than the President

“Pandemic does not mean panic-demic,” he said Friday afternoon. He was seated cross-legged on a black leather sofa., trying out lines. “Do you like that? Or is that corny?” He decided it was good and corny.Dr. Varshavski delivers solid health information to young people, much of it through videos of him reacting to memes and TV shows. When the coronavirus crisis began, he responded. And because YouTube's system now favors authoritative voices, videos like his “The Truth About the Coronavirus” rank high in recommendations. It has drawn more than five million views.Mr. Varshavski also debunks misinformation from many directions. One of his targets Friday was an influencer who talks to deer. Another is the TV star Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has been recommending zinc tablets and elderberry syrup. (A spokesman for Dr. Oz said the products have been shown to be helpful with the common cold.) Then, of course, there’s President Trump.Responsible voices like Dr. Varshavski’s and a whole generation of researchers, reporters, and even tech company employees seem, at least right now, to be breaking through. Mr. Zuckerberg, the industry’s most committed optimist, says the power of social media will be viewed “as a bigger part of the story if we do our job well over the coming weeks.”When I talked to Mr. Zuckerberg and other social media executives last week, I kept returning to the same point: Will the flow of responsible information last beyond this crisis? Could it extend into our upcoming presidential campaign?“I hope so,’’ Twitter’s Mr. Dorsey wrote. “Up to all of us.”Mr. Zuckerberg was less sanguine. Right now, Facebook is tackling “misinformation that has imminent risk of danger, telling people if they have certain symptoms, don’t bother going getting treated …. things like ‘you can cure this by drinking bleach.’ I mean, that’s just in a different class.”That black and white clarity cannot easily be extended back into the grays of political battles, he said. While social media may be mirroring the solidarity of the moment, it’s hard to see how it would prolong it.“It’s perhaps a positive sign that, despite how polarized people are worried that society is, people can pull together and try to get things done and support each other and recognize people who are heroes on the front lines fighting this stuff,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. Given that the pandemic is likely to go on for a while, he said: “It’s hard to predict exactly how it plays out beyond that. And that’s not really my job, anyway.” Read the full article

Get the Most Out of Your Fancy Smartphone Camera

It’s getting harder to take a truly bad photo on a good smartphone. Thanks to better lenses, robust processors and integrated computational photography software to process images under the hood, even scenes in low-light, no-flash situations that used to be hopelessly murky can now turn out nicely.Your phone’s native camera app makes it simple to grab a picture with just a couple of taps. But if you’ve recently upgraded your device and want to dive deeper into the latest hardware and software, here are a few tips — illustrated by two current models, Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro Max and Google’s Pixel 4 XL.

Zooming Around

Each member of the iPhone 11 family has at least two cameras for ultrawide and wide shots, but the iPhone 11 Pro line adds a third telephoto lens. To quickly jump between the cameras in Photo mode, tap the screen and select the .5x (ultrawide), 1x (wide) or 2x (telephoto) buttons. To zoom up to 10x, pinch the screen or press a zoom option and slide your finger on the dial that appears.The Pixel 4 has a telephoto lens in addition to its main 1x camera. Tap the screen twice to jump right to the 2x zoom. For manual zoom, tap the screen and move the slider. The Pixel 4 can zoom digitally up to 8x. Although the image typically loses some quality the higher you push it, Google’s Super Res Zoom technology works to enhance the look of the photo.

Shooting in Dark Times

On the iPhone 11 line, the Night mode activates when the Camera app is open in low light and on the standard 1x zoom setting. A small crescent moon icon appears on the screen showing the capture time calculated to pull in enough light for the image. To override Night mode’s math, tap the moon icon and use the on-screen slider to adjust the capture time. Not fidgeting is important, so consider a tripod for long exposure times in dark environments.Along with the Night mode, iPhone 11 models running at least iOS 13.2 have Deep Fusion, Apple’s machine-learning technology that snags nine versions of a shot in low to medium light and blends the best parts together into one detailed photo. Deep Fusion kicks in automatically, as long as you are not using the ultrawide-angle lens and not shooting in burst mode. The Camera app’s Photos Capture Outside the Frame setting needs to be disabled as well.Google has its own low-light setting, Night Sight. To use it on a Pixel 4, open the Camera app and select the Night Sight mode. The shutter button then shows a moon icon. Tap the moon and a circular timer appears, instructing you to hold still while the camera is capturing the image.Google’s Night Sight mode includes an Astrophotography feature to capture long exposures of the night sky; it works best away from places with light pollution, like large cities. To use the phone for shooting stars, make sure you are in Night Sight mode and have the device secured in a tripod or on a stable surface. When the “Astrophotography on” message appears, tap the moon icon and wait until the onscreen timer is finished.

Fine-Tuning Portraits

For the past few years, many smartphones have included a “portrait” mode that keeps the person, pet or object in the foreground in sharp focus while gently blurring the background.To use that mode on an iPhone 11, open the Camera app and select Portrait. On-screen instructions guide you on framing the shot, and you can apply lighting effects from the pop-up Portrait mode menu — before or after you’ve snapped the photo. To adjust background blur on a portrait in your camera roll, open the image, tap the Depth Control button (f) at the top of the screen and adjust the slider that appears below.Google also made improvements to the Portrait mode on its Pixel 4 phones, which now have two cameras working the shot instead of just one. To use it, open the Camera app and select Portrait. If you want to further edit a finished portrait, open the image, tap the Edit icon and adjust the sliders for light, color and blur.

Digging Deeper

No matter which phone you have, be sure to explore all its camera menus, image-editing tools and settings for optional features like compositional aids and shortcuts.The phone itself may offer tips onscreen, but the online help guides for the iPhone 11 and the Pixel 4 also have plenty of information to share for those wanting to get the most out of mobile photography. Read the full article

Cloud Computing Is Not the Energy Hog That Had Been Feared

The computer engine rooms that power the digital economy have become surprisingly energy efficient.A new study of data centers globally found that while their computing output jumped sixfold from 2010 to 2018, their energy consumption rose only 6 percent. The scientists’ findings suggest concerns that the rise of mammoth data centers would generate a surge in electricity demand and pollution have been greatly overstated.The major force behind the improving efficiency is the shift to cloud computing. In the cloud model, businesses and individuals consume computing over the internet as services, from raw calculation and data storage to search and social networks.The largest cloud data centers, sometimes the size of football fields, are owned and operated by big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.Each of these sprawling digital factories, housing hundreds of thousands of computers, rack upon rack, is an energy-hungry behemoth. Some have been built near the Arctic for natural cooling and others beside huge hydroelectric plants in the Pacific Northwest.Still, they are the standard setters in terms of the amount of electricity needed for a computing task. “The public thinks these massive data centers are energy bad guys,” said Eric Masanet, the lead author of the study. “But those data centers are the most efficient in the world.”The study findings were published on Thursday in an article in the journal Science. It was a collaboration of five scientists at Northwestern University, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an independent research firm. The project was funded by the Department of Energy and by a grant from a Northwestern alumnus who is an environmental philanthropistThe new research is a stark contrast to often-cited predictions that energy consumption in the world’s data centers is on a runaway path, perhaps set to triple or more over the next decade. Those worrying projections, the study authors say, are simplistic extrapolations and what-if scenarios that focus mainly on the rising demand for data center computing.By contrast, the new research is a bottom-up analysis that compiles information on data center processors, storage, software, networking and cooling from a range of sources to estimate actual electricity use. Enormous efficiency improvements, they conclude, have allowed computing output to increase sharply while power consumption has been essentially flat.“We’re hopeful that this research will reset people’s intuitions about data centers and energy use,” said Jonathan Koomey, a former scientist at the Berkeley lab who is an independent researcher.Over the years, data center electricity consumption has been a story of economic incentives and technology advances combining to tackle a problem.From 2000 to 2005, energy use in computer centers doubled. In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency forecast another doubling of power consumed by data centers from 2005 to 2010.In 2011, at the request of The New York Times, Mr. Koomey made an assessment of how much data center electricity consumption actually did increase between 2005 and 2010. He estimated the global increase at 56 percent, far less than previously expected. The recession after the 2008 financial crisis played a role, but so did gains in efficiency. The new study, with added data, lowered that 2005 to 2010 estimate further.But the big improvements have come in recent years. Since 2010, the study authors write in Science, “the data center landscape has changed dramatically.”The tectonic shift has been to the cloud. In 2010, the researchers estimated that 79 percent of data center computing was done in smaller traditional computer centers, largely owned and run by non-tech companies. By 2018, 89 percent of data center computing took place in larger, utility-style cloud data centers.The big cloud data centers use tailored chips, high-density storage, so-called virtual-machine software, ultrafast networking and customized airflow systems — all to increase computing firepower with the least electricity.“The big tech companies eke out every bit of efficiency for every dollar they spend,” said Mr. Masanet, who left Northwestern last month to join the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara.Google is at the forefront. Its data centers on average generate seven times more computing power than they did just five years ago, using no more electricity, according to Urs Hölzle, a senior vice president who oversees Google’s data center technology.In 2018, data centers consumed about 1 percent of the world’s electricity output. That is the energy-consumption equivalent of 17 million American households, a sizable amount of energy use — but barely growing.The trend of efficiency gains largely offsetting rising demand should hold for three or four years, the researchers conclude. But beyond a few years, they say, the outlook is uncertain.In the Science article, they recommend steps including more investment in energy-saving research and improved measurement and information sharing by data center operators worldwide.The next few years, they write, will be “a critical transition phase to ensure a low-carbon and energy-efficient future.” Read the full article

Foldable Phones Are Here. Do We Really Want Them?

To make gadgets bend, you have to sacrifice some hardness. The flexible displays of foldables are generally covered by a plastic layer, which can be scratched up or penetrated more easily than the tough glass protecting traditional phone displays. (Samsung said its Z Flip uses an ultrathin, foldable glass that would let you fold and unfold your phone 200,000 times.)“If you take a ballpoint pen and you push really hard on the iPhone screen, it’ll be fine,” said Kyle Wiens, the chief executive of iFixit, a company that provides instructions and parts to repair gadgets. “If you do the same thing on the foldable displays, you’ll kill it.”In theory, the clamshell designs of the Z Flip and the Razr offer a partial solution to the durability problem. That’s because the main screens are not exposed when folded up. Yet if you drop the phones while using them — say, when you are walking and texting and trip over something — you will have a problem.“There’s no protecting the foldable display in a real-world environment the way that consumers treat their smartphones,” said Raymond Soneira, the founder of DisplayMate, who advises tech companies on screen technology.Foldables also have a design flaw. In general, when they are unfolded, the screen has a visible crease — an eyesore compared with the seamless displays on our smartphones and tablets.Last but not least, it remains to be seen whether the mechanical hinges of folding phones will survive the test of time. There are early reports of potential problems with the hinge on the Razr: Some reviewers said the hinge is extremely tight, making it cumbersome to fold and flip open the phone. CNET, the tech reviews site, said the hinge of its Razr test unit broke after 27,000 cycles using a robot.Motorola said in a statement that it was confident in the durability of Razr, adding that CNET’s test method put undue stress on the hinge. Read the full article

Clearview’s Facial Recognition App Is Identifying Child Victims of Abuse

“We thought it was too controversial of a feature because it was too easy to use that functionality for abuse,” said Mr. Burns. “And also it’s just a legal nightmare.”Still, Mr. Burns said, he understood why investigators would want to use facial recognition software. “They are faced with a very grim task, and if there’s a tool that gives them an opportunity to safeguard victims, I don’t blame them for trying to grab it with both hands,” he said.Since Clearview’s practices have come to light, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Venmo and YouTube have sent the company cease-and-desist letters, asking it to stop scraping photos from their sites and delete existing images in its database. The attorney general of New Jersey banned the use of Clearview by officers in the state and called for an investigation into how it and similar technologies were being used by law enforcement. A class-action lawsuit seeking certification was filed in Illinois, where a strong biometric privacy law prohibits the use of residents’ faceprints without their consent, and another was filed on Feb. 3 in Virginia.Bills banning the use of facial recognition by police have recently been introduced in New York and Washington. And Clearview received a letter from Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, asking for a list of law enforcement agencies that have used the app and whether biometric information has been collected for children under 13 years old.“While this type of technology has existed for quite some time, we believe we have created something that enables law enforcement to solve previously unsolvable crimes and, most importantly, protect vulnerable children,” Mr. Ton-That said in his email. “At the same time, we are responding to requests for information from government and other interested parties as appropriate, and look forward to engaging in constructive discussions with them as we work to make our communities safer.”In October, law enforcement groups sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to not ban the use of facial recognition for their investigations. “We understand the public’s concern about protection of their privacy and civil rights,” they wrote. “With clear, publicly available policies we believe those concerns can be addressed.”Many agencies had been using Clearview for months at the time the letter was sent, but the letter made no mention of it.Michael H. Keller and Aaron Krolik contributed reporting. Read the full article

The Only Safe Election Is a Low-Tech Election

But Democrats should also blame their party’s leadership for entrusting such an important process to new technology in the first place — not just in Iowa, but in places like Nevada, where Democrats are reportedly planning to use a similar mobile app to tally votes in the state’s primary election later this month.It’s enough to make you wonder: Have these party officials ever been to a polling site or a caucus venue? They are not pristine WeWorks with blazing fast internet connections and an army of Geek Squad workers on call. They are mostly high school gyms, nursing homes and church basements with cinder-block walls and horrible cellphone service. The people who work at them are volunteers, and many are — how can I put this delicately? — members of the generation that still refers to the TV remote as “the clicker.”Using a proprietary app to report vote totals is the kind of thing that sounds simple on a start-up’s whiteboard, but utterly falls apart in a chaotic real-world environment, where connections drop, phones malfunction and poorly tested apps strain under a surge of traffic. Add an army of frenzied poll workers, impatient voters and twitchy news media, and you might as well have asked the caucus workers to whip up their own JavaScript.I’m not opposed to technology in political campaigning. Want to use Facebook ads to drum up donors? Go for it. Want to put your voter database on the blockchain? Be my guest.But when it comes to the actual business of registering and counting people’s votes, many of the smartest tech experts I know fiercely oppose high-tech solutions, like “paperless” digital voting machines and mobile voting apps. After all, every piece of technology involved in the voting process is a possible point of failure. And the larger and more interconnected the technical system, the more vulnerable it is to an attack.“Many of the leading opponents of paperless voting machines were, and still are, computer scientists, because we understand the vulnerability of voting equipment in a way most election officials don’t,” said Barbara Simons, a computer scientist and board chair of Verified Voting, an election security nonprofit, in an interview with The Atlantic in 2017.In Iowa, there is a silver lining: The caucus system doesn’t use voting machines at all, and its public, open-air nature means that it is less susceptible to tampering than a secret ballot. In addition, state officials this year required caucusgoers to fill out paper “presidential preference cards,” which could be used in case of a recount. So despite the delays, there is at least some certainty that the results will be accurate when they are finally announced. Read the full article

How to Run a Business in 2020

In recent years, stars have lent their names to all kinds of sneaker collaborations. Puma had Rihanna. Reebok had Gigi Hadid. Adidas had Kanye West. Nike had … Jesus Christ?Not exactly. In October, a pair of “Jesus shoes” — customized Air Max 97s whose soles contained holy water from the River Jordan — appeared online for $1,425. They were designed by a start-up called MSCHF, without Nike’s blessing.The sneakers quickly sold out and began appearing on resale sites, going for as much as $4,000. The Christian Post wrote about them. Drake wore them. They were among the most Googled shoes of 2019.The only thing that didn’t happen, said Kevin Wiesner, 27, a creative director at MSCHF, was a public disavowal of the shoes by Nike or the Vatican. “That would’ve been rad,” he said.Now, in the MSCHF office in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a pair stands like a trophy.MSCHF isn’t a sneaker company. It rarely even produces commercial goods, and its employees are reluctant to call it a company at all. They refer to MSCHF, which was founded in 2016, as a “brand,” “group” or “collective,” and their creations, which appear online every two weeks, as “drops.”Many of those drops are viral pranks: an app that recommends stocks to buy based on one’s astrological sign (which some observers took seriously), a service that sends pictures of A.I.-generated feet over text, a browser extension that helps users get away with watching Netflix at work.As Business Insider recently noted, the present and future profitability of these internet stunts is dubious. Yet, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, MSCHF has raised at least $11.5 million in outside investments since the fall of 2019.In the high-risk, maybe-reward world of venture capital, the group’s antics are well known. Nikita Singareddy, an investment analyst at RRE Ventures, compared MSCHF to Vine and Giphy. All three, she said, offer “lots of delight” and encourage content sharing.“Sometimes investors are a little too serious about monetizing something immediately,” Ms. Singareddy said. “With MSCHF, there’s faith that it’ll pay off. There’s an inherent virality and absurdness to all the projects that they’ve created, and it’s something people want to share and ask questions about.”For starters: What is it?

‘This Is How We Live’

The MSCHF office says as much about the company as any of its products.A giant white pentagram covers the entrance floor. On a visit in December, an inflatable severed swan’s head dangled from a ceiling beam, and a rubber chicken bong — a recent drop — sat on a coffee table, full of weed.“My mom thinks we make toys,” said Gabriel Whaley, 30, the chief executive.MSCHF has 10 employees, nine of whom are men. The company Twitter and Instagram pages are private, so most of its direct marketing takes place not on social media but through text messages from a mysterious phone number.Though the team used to run a marketing agency, working with brands like Casper in order to fund MSCHF projects, they stopped taking on clients last year. Now, they pretty much do whatever they want.“The cool thing that we have going for us is we set this precedent that we’re not tied to a category or vertical. We did the Jesus shoes and everyone knows us for that, and then we shut it down,” Mr. Whaley said. “We will never do it again. People are like, ‘Wait, why wouldn’t you double down on that, you would have made so much money!’ But that’s not why we’re here.”The point, he said, is to produce social commentary; the “story” the sneakers told was more important than turning a profit. “There are several youth pastors that have bought a pair, and even more who are asking, like, ‘I love sneakers, and I love God. I would love a pair of these,’ and that wasn’t the point,” Mr. Whaley said. “The Jesus shoes were a platform to broach the idea while also making fun of it: that everybody’s just doing a collaboration now.”In order to prepare each drop — be it an object, an app or a website — MSCHF’s employees log long hours. Most mornings, Mr. Whaley gets to the office around 7; the rest of the team arrives by 10. They often stay late into the evenings, conducting brainstorms, perfecting lines of code, shooting live-streams or assembling prototypes. Weekends, Mr. Whaley said, aren’t really a thing.“It’s not just a full-time job,” he said. “This is how we live. The distinction between your work and normal life doesn’t really exist here, and it’s just because this is what we were all doing whether we were getting paid or not in our former lives. So nothing has really changed, except we have more power as a unit than we did as individuals.”Though Mr. Whaley eschews corporate titles, functional groups exist within MSCHF: idea generation, production, distribution and outreach. In their past lives, most of the staffers were developers and designers, some with art backgrounds, working at their own firms and for companies like Twitter and BuzzFeed. The oldest employee is 32, and the youngest is 22.Some C.E.O.s of Fortune 500 companies have tried to mentor Mr. Whaley and “shoehorn�� MSCHF into a traditional business, he said. They insist MSCHF is building a brand, that it needs a logo, a mission, a go-to product that people recognize.But MSCHF doesn’t have a flagship product, or market its releases traditionally. “It just happens that anything we make tends to spread purely because people end up talking about it and sharing it with their friends,” Mr. Whaley said.That’s part of the appeal for V.C. firms. With software companies, for example, there are “very clear metrics and paths to monetization that are tried and true,” Ms. Singareddy said. For MSCHF, that path is less obvious.“Some of the best investments, even early on it wasn’t clear what the result would be, but you’re making an investment in the team,” she said. “That’s what makes a company like MSCHF so exciting. Venture is about taking reasoned risk — it’s a true venture capital opportunity.”

Banksy for the Internet

Mr. Whaley talks a lot about what MSCHF is and who the people who work there are — and aren’t. Running ads on subways, or trying to build a social media following, or landing a spot on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list isn’t who they are. He cringes at the word “merch.” (“The day we sell hoodies is the day I shut this down.”)To observers, critics and followers, the company’s portfolio may amount to a very successful string of viral marketing campaigns, a series of jokes or something like art.“I don’t see anybody doing exactly what MSCHF is doing,” said Frank Denbow, a technology consultant who works with start-ups. “Everybody is able to get a one-off campaign that works, but to consistently find ways to create content that really sticks with people is different. It reminds me of Banksy and his ability to get a rise out of people.”On Twitter and Reddit, users trade theories and tips about MSCHF’s more cryptic offerings, such as its most recent, password-protected drop, Zuckwatch — a website that looks like Facebook and appears to be commentary on data privacy.Among these ardent fans, the drops are treated as trailheads, or entry points, setting off mad, winding dashes in search of cracking the code. Other followers, less devoted, may only know MSCHF for its Jesus shoes, which Mr. Wiesner said have been knocked off by sellers around the world. He is happy about it. “If we can make things that people run away with, that’s absolutely the dream,” he said. “Most of what we make is us personally running away with stuff.”Ahead of the presidential election, MSCHF’s employees plan to take on more political projects. (A drop in November, involving a shell restaurant, enabled users to mask political donations as work expenses; it was promptly shut down.) The company also hopes to expand beyond apps and objects to experiences and physical spaces.“Everything is just, ‘How do we kind of make fun of what we’re observing?’” Mr. Whaley said. “Then we have as much fun with it as possible and see what happens.” Read the full article

Someone Tried to Hack My Phone. Technology Researchers Accused Saudi Arabia.

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.BEIRUT, Lebanon — On June 21, 2018, I received an Arabic text message on my cellphone that read: “Ben Hubbard and the story of the Saudi royal family,” with a link for a website, arabnews365.com.I had been writing extensively about Saudi Arabia, including its royal family, and at first glance the link appeared to be a Saudi news story about my coverage — a subject that would normally grab my attention.But it also struck me as fishy, so I refrained from clicking and decided to investigate. That led me to the booming market among governments for hacking technologies and a lesson in how easily the most intimate information on our phones — chats, contacts, passwords and photos — could become a target.This type of hacking grabbed headlines last week in connection with a forensic report commissioned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, that asserted with “medium to high confidence” that Mr. Bezos’ phone had been hacked after he received an encrypted video via WhatsApp from Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.Other technology researchers have questioned the report’s conclusions, but two United Nations experts gave it their stamp of approval, saying that the hack aimed to “influence, if not silence” The Post’s critical coverage of the kingdom.The attempt on my phone, a month after the reported hack of Mr. Bezos, was less dramatic, but no less scary in its implications. An examination of my phone turned up no indications that it had been compromised, but technology researchers who inspected the message I received concluded that I was targeted with powerful software sold by NSO Group, an Israeli company, and deployed by hackers working for Saudi Arabia.A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.When asked if its products had been used to target my phone, a spokesman for NSO Group said in a statement that it was “entirely deceptive” to suggest that its technology was responsible for all such phone hacking attempts, since other companies offered similar tools.The researchers, at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, have in recent years identified 36 operators that have used NSO Group’s technology on hundreds of targets in 45 countries. These targets include four people whom the researchers were able to identify by name and could confirm were hacked by operators that appeared to be working for Saudi Arabia.I was the fifth — and the first case the group had found of the technology being used against an American journalist.As people have begun carrying more and more of their personal and professional lives on their phones, an industry has sprung up to sell tools to get that information. Many of the companies that sell the technology say they market only to governments for use in law enforcement and antiterrorism operations.But critics, like the Citizen Lab researchers, say the lack of regulation of such technologies allows the companies’ often authoritarian customers to use the software against dissidents, activists, journalists and others.The attempt on my phone came after I had covered Saudi Arabia for five years, most recently with a focus on Prince Mohammed, who had rocketed to power after his father became king in 2015.Prince Mohammed was a lightning rod. His backers praised him for weakening the kingdom’s once-feared religious police, vowing to diversify the economy away from oil and lifting restrictions on women, while critics took him to task for cracking down on dissidents, coercing the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister and locking hundreds of princes and businessmen in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton on accusations of corruption.I had written about all of those topics when my phone dinged one evening and I read the suspicious text message.To figure out if it was malware, I first searched the web for the headline in the message, and found that the article didn’t exist.Then I asked the editor of the real Arab News, an English-language newspaper in Saudi Arabia, if it used arabnews365.com.“It is not us,” he replied.The first tech security experts I consulted didn’t know what the message was but agreed it looked suspicious and warned me not to open the link. So I moved on, though I kept wondering what it was, who had sent it and why.I got a clue a few months later when Citizen Lab published a report about Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi dissident in Canada whose phone had been hacked with a text message similar to the one I had received.Mr. Abdulaziz had political asylum in Canada and was well known in Saudi Arabia for criticizing its leaders on social media. He was also friends with Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi writer and Washington Post columnist who was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents in Istanbul in October 2018.The report on Mr. Abdulaziz contained a table with domain names used by an operator that the researchers had determined was linked to Saudi Arabia. It included arabnews365.com.I sent the message to Citizen Lab, whose researchers drew two conclusions.First, since they had previously obtained a copy of NSO Group’s software, they were able to use it to scan the internet for connected servers and compile lists of web domains being used by various operators, including 20 that had pursued targets related to Saudi Arabia. One of these domains was arabnews365.com.“We know for certain that the domain that was in the text was part of that command and control infrastructure that is connected to NSO Group,” said Ron Deibert, the director of Citizen Lab.But determining who had used the software to send the message was harder, he said, and relied on circumstantial evidence.“They don’t leave business cards when they do this kind of thing,” Mr. Deibert said. “This is something that is designed precisely to avoid detection.”Citizen Lab concluded that this operator was connected to Saudi Arabia through a combination of the web addresses it used — some of which employed language that pointed to Saudi Arabia — and who its known targets were, said Bill Marczak, a Citizen Lab senior researcher.So far, Citizen Lab has identified five people who were targeted by this operator. All five were targeted in May and June of 2018, and were involved in activities related to Saudi Arabia: Yahya Asiri, the head of a Saudi human rights organization based in Britain; an unnamed researcher for Amnesty International; Ghanem al-Masarir, a Saudi dissident with a sarcastic YouTube show; Mr. Abdulaziz, the Saudi dissident in Canada; and me.“If the proposition is that one operator tried to hack all these people, what do they have in common?” Mr. Marczak asked. “The Saudi angle is it. There is really nothing else.”Although the reported hacking of Mr. Bezos’ phone happened during this same period, it used a different technology: an encrypted video sent by WhatsApp, not a web address sent by SMS.In his statement, the spokesman for NSO Group said it licensed its technology to law enforcement and intelligence agencies “under strict protocols and governance for proportionate operation for the sole purpose of preventing and investigating terror and crime.”“Where misuse is alleged to have occurred, we have and will take action to investigate and suspend the capabilities,” the statement concluded.Human Rights experts and campaigners argue that hacking technologies have become so powerful that governmental regulation is necessary to make sure they are being used ethically.“We are facing a technology that is very difficult to track, extremely powerful and effective, and completely unregulated,” said Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on summary executions and extrajudicial killings, after the reported hack of Mr. Bezos’ phone. “That to me is unbelievable, that we have a technology that we absolutely cannot control or trace.”She added that Mr. Bezos’ case should sound alarms because it took experts hired by one of the world’s richest men months to investigate what happened — a luxury most people don’t have. “It basically means that we are all extremely vulnerable,” Ms. Callamard said. Read the full article

I Quit My Smartphone - The New York Times

Thanks to the Allen Carr technique for quitting smoking. Jan. 20, 2020 About a year ago, I noticed a distressing tendency in myself to drift off while the people I loved were talking. It didn’t matter if they were talking about a book they had read or recent health problems or crushing grief or revelations from therapy. Never before had I struggled to listen, but now I couldn’t help checking out. Several times in the last year, my husband has had to ask in the middle of a conversation, “Where did you go?” Where did I go? Nowhere good. Usually my mind returned me to the small computer in my pocket, to an unanswered email, to a “like” or a retweet, to a comment I found threatening or flattering (though increasingly, any kindness I received through a device acted on my nervous system like derision). Suffice to say, I went away. In giving my attention to the device, I withheld it from the person I value most. And there were other troubling symptoms. It was hard to read or write for sustained periods, which is concerning because that is my job. I was forcing myself to push through a handful of pages before reaching for the phone as reward — orienting toward the activities I loved as if they were chores, and toward the object as a source of pleasure (though it was more often a source of anxiety). I hadn’t deliberately chosen to worship my smartphone, but when you repeatedly bow your head to something, stroking it thousands of times a day, it begins to shine like an idol. I tried to moderate, leaving the phone off or at home when I went for a walk. But rather than feeling free, I felt more tightly leashed, worried about missing phantom emergencies. I’d reflexively pat my body down, like I did when I first quit smoking: the addiction policing the addict. Come to think of it, this was all beginning to feel very familiar. Once upon a time, I smoked a half a pack a day. Sometimes I smoked more, sometimes less, but I was a smoker through and through. Before I quit, I couldn’t imagine life without cigarettes, my constant companion, my carcinogenic security blanket! I leaned on them for everything. They calmed my stress, anger and fear. They underscored celebration and increased pleasure. I used them as an excuse to be outdoors, to escape socializing, or as entree to a circle of others. I loved the good will fellowship of smokers, the gift economy of bumming. I loved the ceremony of packing a fresh pack, undressing the cellophane, lighting up, stubbing out. I loved it all. Frankly, I still think smoking looks cool, and quite often sexy. No one thought I would quit smoking — least of all me — but I did. Not because I was fed up with smelling bad, or being sick all the time, or because I knew smoking caused cancer and heart disease. Instead, it was because every hour on the hour, no matter where I was, who I was talking to or what I was doing, an internal timer would go off alerting me to my master’s need, pulling my focus away no matter how desperately I wanted to stay in the moment. “Each cigarette causes the craving for the next, to fill the emptiness caused by the nicotine leaving your body.” I had read this in “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking,” a 1985 book by Allen Carr that helped me (and purported millions of others) to quit cold turkey. To paraphrase a key point: You do not smoke because you need something to do with your hands, or because you love the ritual of it, or any of the other excuses people make. You smoke because you’re addicted to a powerful drug called nicotine. “Get it clear in your mind,” he writes. “CIGARETTES DO NOT FILL A VOID. THEY CREATE ONE!” I wound up kicking nicotine by never smoking another cigarette. It was that simple. It was hellish at first, and then I got used to it. Smartphones are not cigarettes (I’d argue their charms are fewer), but like cigarettes, those who design and peddle them have worked hard to cultivate addiction in their users, creating voids that only they can fill. I don’t deny the convenience and timesaving benefits in having a smartphone, but I don’t think convenience is what is driving people to stroke their screens about 2,600 times a day. So I got rid of my smartphone. And brother, it was approximately one million times easier than quitting smoking. I can check my email and social media platforms on a laptop as needed, but now that they are out of my pocket they no longer nag at me. Turns out using a dumbphone is like riding a bike; T9 (the old-fashioned texting we used to do using the nine numerical buttons) is not nearly as bad as I’d remembered. I have a gazetteer in the car, and when that fails, I ask people for directions. (This typically prompts the Samaritan to pull out a smartphone.) It took about 72 hours to teach my body that we had gone back to the old ways, and though I had assumed it would take much longer, the change was almost instantaneous. Moderation requires effort and will power, but when the device is gone there is nothing to resist. I can read a book for hours in a sitting, and when my loved ones speak I hear the story they’re telling. Which is to say, I am free again to enjoy the things I have always loved, to worship the god I choose. Lisa Wells lives in Seattle and is the author of “The Fix,” a collection of poetry. Photo illustration by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Read the full article

I Quit My Smartphone - The New York Times

Thanks to the Allen Carr technique for quitting smoking. Jan. 20, 2020 About a year ago, I noticed a distressing tendency in myself to drift off while the people I loved were talking. It didn’t matter if they were talking about a book they had read or recent health problems or crushing grief or revelations from therapy. Never before had I struggled to listen, but now I couldn’t help checking out. Several times in the last year, my husband has had to ask in the middle of a conversation, “Where did you go?” Where did I go? Nowhere good. Usually my mind returned me to the small computer in my pocket, to an unanswered email, to a “like” or a retweet, to a comment I found threatening or flattering (though increasingly, any kindness I received through a device acted on my nervous system like derision). Suffice to say, I went away. In giving my attention to the device, I withheld it from the person I value most. And there were other troubling symptoms. It was hard to read or write for sustained periods, which is concerning because that is my job. I was forcing myself to push through a handful of pages before reaching for the phone as reward — orienting toward the activities I loved as if they were chores, and toward the object as a source of pleasure (though it was more often a source of anxiety). I hadn’t deliberately chosen to worship my smartphone, but when you repeatedly bow your head to something, stroking it thousands of times a day, it begins to shine like an idol. I tried to moderate, leaving the phone off or at home when I went for a walk. But rather than feeling free, I felt more tightly leashed, worried about missing phantom emergencies. I’d reflexively pat my body down, like I did when I first quit smoking: the addiction policing the addict. Come to think of it, this was all beginning to feel very familiar. Once upon a time, I smoked a half a pack a day. Sometimes I smoked more, sometimes less, but I was a smoker through and through. Before I quit, I couldn’t imagine life without cigarettes, my constant companion, my carcinogenic security blanket! I leaned on them for everything. They calmed my stress, anger and fear. They underscored celebration and increased pleasure. I used them as an excuse to be outdoors, to escape socializing, or as entree to a circle of others. I loved the good will fellowship of smokers, the gift economy of bumming. I loved the ceremony of packing a fresh pack, undressing the cellophane, lighting up, stubbing out. I loved it all. Frankly, I still think smoking looks cool, and quite often sexy. No one thought I would quit smoking — least of all me — but I did. Not because I was fed up with smelling bad, or being sick all the time, or because I knew smoking caused cancer and heart disease. Instead, it was because every hour on the hour, no matter where I was, who I was talking to or what I was doing, an internal timer would go off alerting me to my master’s need, pulling my focus away no matter how desperately I wanted to stay in the moment. “Each cigarette causes the craving for the next, to fill the emptiness caused by the nicotine leaving your body.” I had read this in “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking,” a 1985 book by Allen Carr that helped me (and purported millions of others) to quit cold turkey. To paraphrase a key point: You do not smoke because you need something to do with your hands, or because you love the ritual of it, or any of the other excuses people make. You smoke because you’re addicted to a powerful drug called nicotine. “Get it clear in your mind,” he writes. “CIGARETTES DO NOT FILL A VOID. THEY CREATE ONE!” I wound up kicking nicotine by never smoking another cigarette. It was that simple. It was hellish at first, and then I got used to it. Smartphones are not cigarettes (I’d argue their charms are fewer), but like cigarettes, those who design and peddle them have worked hard to cultivate addiction in their users, creating voids that only they can fill. I don’t deny the convenience and timesaving benefits in having a smartphone, but I don’t think convenience is what is driving people to stroke their screens about 2,600 times a day. So I got rid of my smartphone. And brother, it was approximately one million times easier than quitting smoking. I can check my email and social media platforms on a laptop as needed, but now that they are out of my pocket they no longer nag at me. Turns out using a dumbphone is like riding a bike; T9 (the old-fashioned texting we used to do using the nine numerical buttons) is not nearly as bad as I’d remembered. I have a gazetteer in the car, and when that fails, I ask people for directions. (This typically prompts the Samaritan to pull out a smartphone.) It took about 72 hours to teach my body that we had gone back to the old ways, and though I had assumed it would take much longer, the change was almost instantaneous. Moderation requires effort and will power, but when the device is gone there is nothing to resist. I can read a book for hours in a sitting, and when my loved ones speak I hear the story they’re telling. Which is to say, I am free again to enjoy the things I have always loved, to worship the god I choose. Lisa Wells lives in Seattle and is the author of “The Fix,” a collection of poetry. Photo illustration by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Read the full article

Jeff Bezos’ Hack Inquiry Falls Short of Implicating National Enquirer

American Media has said that it obtained information about the affair from Ms. Sanchez’s brother, Michael Sanchez, a Hollywood talent agent whom people at The Enquirer have described as a longtime source of information and tips.Mr. Sanchez and American Media executed a nondisclosure agreement on Oct. 18, 2018, “concerning certain information, photographs and text messages documenting an affair between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez,” according to a contract between the two parties reviewed by The New York Times.Eight days later, Mr. Sanchez granted American Media the right to publish and license the text messages and photographs he had provided in exchange for $200,000, according to the contract and four people with knowledge of the arrangement.“The single source of our reporting has been well documented,” American Media said in a statement. “In September of 2018, Michael Sanchez began providing all materials and information to our reporters. Any suggestion that a third party was involved in or in any way influenced our reporting is false.”After federal agents and prosecutors examined allegations of wrongdoing by American Media in connection with the Bezos story last year, the company provided evidence showing them that Ms. Sanchez had provided text messages and compromising photos of Mr. Bezos to her brother, who passed them along to the tabloid, according to four people with knowledge of the situation.That does not preclude the possibility that Saudi Arabia could have sent other useful information to The Enquirer. Nor were Mr. Bezos and his investigators off-base in suspecting a possible link between the tabloid and the kingdom. American Media and Saudi Arabia had both tried to build relationships with Mr. Trump, and one way to the president’s heart could have been an attack on Mr. Bezos, whom Mr. Trump once referred to as “Jeff Bozo” in a Twitter post.At the same time, the American Media chairman David J. Pecker sought business opportunities and financing in Saudi Arabia. He met with Prince Mohammed in Saudi Arabia in 2017 after attending a White House dinner with a well-connected contact of the crown prince. In March 2018, American Media published a 97-page glossy magazine, “The New Kingdom,” essentially a promotional brochure for the crown prince and the nation. Read the full article

How to Navigate a Flood of Streaming TV Subscriptions

Of course, there are shows on other services I want to watch, too. When “Game of Thrones” was on, I signed up for HBO Now so I could watch it live. I briefly signed up for CBS All Access to watch the new “Twilight Zone,” though that didn’t last as long. Most services are $10 to $15, so adding one won’t blow out my budget too much.The key, however, is to rotate your extra subscriptions. Leave one or two slots in your budget for an extra streaming service that you don’t intend to stay subscribed to. Then, while you have it, watch as many of the shows you want to watch on that service as you can, before moving on to the next one. This especially works if you schedule your rotating subscriptions around the big shows or events that you’re excited to see.For example, say you want to bring Netflix into your rotation to watch the new “Stranger Things.” Well, “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse” came to the service that same week, and the show “Love, Death & Robots” had been out a few months earlier. It won’t take too long to get through a big tent pole like “Stranger Things,” but once you’re subscribed, you have at least a month to catch up on the other things you might have wanted to see. When you’re done, just cancel your subscription and move on to the next one. Just make sure you remember to cancel.

Option 2: Maximize your add-ons and bundles

Another option to save money is to look for add-ons and bundles to your existing services, rather than signing up for each individually. In order to consolidate billing and keep customers locked into a certain service, some streaming subscriptions let you sign up for other sites as an add-on to your account.For example, Hulu offers the opportunity to sign up for a Showtime subscription add-on for the regular $11 per month (on top of your normal Hulu plan), and Starz for an extra $9 per month. So far, this is the same price you would pay if you bought them separately. However, Hulu also offers the option of getting both Showtime and Starz for a discounted $15 per month. If you want both services, you save by getting them together.You can also look beyond video subscriptions for sweet bundle deals. Spotify previously offered a deal that allowed you to get the ad-supported version of Hulu (normally $6 per month) for the same $10 per month that Spotify on its own cost, essentially getting Hulu for free. The company has ended that offer, but there’s still an even better deal if you’re a student. If you can prove you’re a student (and pay for the year upfront), you get access to Spotify, ad-supported Hulu and Showtime for $5 per month. There’s a lot of money to be saved by hunting down these bundles.

Option 3: Roll your own live TV bundle

Live TV subscriptions work a bit differently than sites like Netflix or Hulu. These function like cable, allowing you to watch whatever is being broadcast at the time and “record” shows as you would on a DVR. They also tend to cost more than traditional streaming. However, if you’re up for putting a little more legwork into your TV habit, you can get a lot of content for a smaller price. Read the full article