Republicans have put House Democrats on their heels by framing a contested election in Iowa as an attempt to overturn the results, seeking to charge Democrats with hypocrisy after the bipartisan condemnation in January of those in Congress who called the 2020 presidential election into question.
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Women in their 40s and 50s appear more at risk of long-term problems following discharge from hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Many suffer months of persistent symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness and brain fog, two UK studies found on Wednesday.
A woman convicted of smothering her four children over a decade lost an appeal in a Sydney court on Wednesday against an inquiry’s conclusion that her victims had not died of natural causes.
The former high school Texas state wrestling champion Mack Beggs, who gained national media attention throughout 2017 and 2018 for competing in the women's competition as a transgender man, spoke to Yahoo News about a new wave of anti-trans bills.
To date, over 45 million Americans have been fully vaccinated. An individual is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or two weeks after receiving a single-dose vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As more Americans seek to return to some form of normalcy, what activities can fully vaccinated people return to, and what safety guidelines does the CDC advise they should still follow? Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains.
Late night comedian Jay Leno issued an apology for jokes targeting the Asian community over the span of his career. In a Zoom call with Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) leader Guy Aoki, Leno said he "genuinely thought them to be harmless" at the time but upon reflecting on the jokes, he says "in my heart I knew it was wrong."
Darin Harris, Jack in the Box CEO, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss how the restaurant chain plans to adapt its business model amid the pandemic.
GameStop reported earnings that missed estimates, posting $1.34 in EPS, missing Street estimates of an EPS of $1.43. Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre breaks down the key metrics.
Andy Behrens, Pete Thamel, and Preston Johnson break down the upcoming Sweet 16 matchup between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles.
Angelique Brunner, EB5 Capital founder and CEO, joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous to discuss the impact of the pandemic on commercial real estate.
Dr. Steven Corwin, NewYork Presbyterian Hospital CEO, joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous to discuss the latest coronavirus updates.
Social media giants keep trotting out jaw-dropping stats about fake accounts and rule-violating posts they're removing. But the number that matters most is how much misinformation remains up. Driving the news: CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter will recite more numbers Thursday, when their CEOs testify at a marquee hearing before a Congressional committee investigating online misinformation.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.The big picture: These companies report takedown numbers to show us they're working hard to police their digital precincts. Critics counter that the size of the numbers tells us that the problem remains out of control.Either way, this data is impossible to assess without some measure of the total universe of misinformation from which the companies' enforcement actions are subtracting. Even after the platforms have removed mountains of posts and accounts, we know there's still some volume of misinformation online — whether it's conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination propaganda, or false election claims — because reporters keep unearthing examples. But we don't know exactly how much.Researchers and third parties — like Avaaz, a nonprofit that released a report this week on election-related misinformation that Facebook disputes — try to fill that gap, but they don't have the same access to realtime data as the company.Why it matters: Without knowing the total extent of social media misinformation and how much is left after the platforms' enforcement, all the takedown data in the world won't tell you whether the platforms are winning or losing the fight.Here's why this data is so elusive: First, we want to put a number on posts the companies missed in their enforcement efforts — but the companies can't count what they failed to catch.In its regular transparency reports, Facebook does report what it calls a "prevalence rate" for different kinds of content violations — a sort of "parts per million" measure, like we use for air pollution, that estimates how often readers are likely to encounter such content."Prevalence" is a fascinating metric that gives us a sense of the relative volume of different kinds of problem posts, and over time it can offer some sense of which kinds Facebook is making headway against.But the categories themselves — including "Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity," "Bullying and Harassment," "Dangerous Organizations: Organized Hate," and 9 others — are limited.This is where a second problem emerges: "Misinformation" itself isn't one of Facebook's categories, everyone defines it differently, and the issues where the public, politicians and the press focus their outrage keep evolving. False claims about election results and false information about COVID vaccines are the two likeliest kinds of misinformation to be on the committee's agenda Thursday. Yet neither of those types fits into any of the categories of content violation that Facebook has tracked in its past transparency reports. By the time the company does start tracking them, we may well face another crisis involving a new kind of misinformation problem.Between the lines: Even when a misinformation category is well-defined and enforcement is effective, social media platforms face a tough challenge with so-called "borderline content" — posts that don't outright violate a service's rules but still raise questions about misinformation-rife realms like election fraud or vaccines.Removing such posts raises free-speech questions, but leaving them untouched can put the public in danger. Those concerns motivated Facebook's recent efforts to study and counter vaccine hesitancy, as reported in the Washington Post. Of note: Researchers — including that Facebook study — keep finding that social media misinformation with high impact gets spread by a relatively small number of users and groups. Solving the problem will likely involve finding ways to act against them. Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.
The lawsuit says the church used donations intended for charity on a shopping mall and insurance company. The church has called the claims "baseless."
A mass boycott against Nike is unfolding in China, after the brand said it was concerned about labor practice in the contested Uighur Autonomous Region.
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host on the two senators who oppose American civil rights
Canadian Border agents had legitimate reasons to question Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou for three hours before her arrest by federal police, a prosecutor said in court on Wednesday, pushing back at defense arguments. Meng's lawyers contend that abuses of process took place in the lead-up to her arrest in December 2018 that should invalidate the U.S. extradition request. Meng, 49, was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on a U.S warrant at Vancouver International Airport.
Some people said Krispy Kreme's free donut offer could lead to obesity, while others defended the company for promoting COVID-19 vaccines
China is orchestrating a boycott of H&M over the Swedish fashion giant’s decision to stop sourcing cotton from Xinjiang because of forced labour concerns. The coordinated assault is part of Beijing’s broader strategy to push back against sanctions from the West over human rights abuses in the region. It appears to have started with a social media post by the Chinese Communist Party’s youth division that blasted H&M for saying last year it was “deeply concerned” about the human rights allegations in Xinjiang. “Spreading rumours to boycott Xinjiang cotton while also wanting to make money in China? Wishful thinking!” read the post, which was published on Wednesday morning and liked nearly half a million times, shared 40,000 times and attracted 16,000 comments. Chinese state media attacked H&M, saying the brand “will definitely pay a heavy price for its wrong actions”. State media also said the brand would “rather believe the lies spread by a few people than hear the voices of billions of Chinese people,” a line that government officials have said repeatedly when denying human rights abuses in Xinjiang. By Thursday morning, searches for H&M products and store locations were blocked on Chinese e-commerce platforms and online map platforms. Celebrities had also backed out of endorsement deals, saying H&M’s actions amounted to “slander” of China, according to state media. The attack against H&M comes after the EU, UK, US and Canada on Monday announced sanctions against Chinese officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang region. China immediately announced its own sanctions against European officials and entities. Backlash is poised to grow with more foreign brands already coming under fire for their stances on Xinjiang. Chinese consumers are already taking aim online at Adidas, Nike and Ikea for being members of the Better Cotton Initiative, a cotton sustainability organisation that suspended licensing of farms in Xinjiang last year. China has unleashed the power of its 1.4 billion consumers to boycott foreign brands amid broader geopolitical spats in the past, which has been devastating financially for businesses. Conglomerate Lotte Group, for example, was forced to retreat from China due to a state-encouraged backlash against South Korean brands following the 2017 installation of a US anti-missile defence system aimed at deterring North Korea on land owned by the firm. At the time, Beijing argued that the defence equipment would increase American spying capabilities into China. China has threatened further retaliation as pressure grows over its policies in Xinjiang. Beijing, however, has continued to reject human rights abuse allegations in the region even as the US, Canada and the Netherlands decided this year that Beiing’s actions in the region amounted to genocide. More Western governments are assessing whether to make the same determination. H&M has posted on Chinese social media saying the company didn’t “represent any political stance.” The retailer, which operates more than 500 stores in China – one of its largest markets – didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“They get it right 90 percent of the time but we live in a world where you’ve got to get it right 100 percent of the time.”
Britain might have to toughen restrictions on arrivals from France, including hauliers, to defend against new variants of the COVID-19 virus spreading from the rest of Europe where the situation was difficult, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. Britain has banned foreign travel until at least May 17, except for essential work, education or health reasons. Asked whether France should be put on the red list, which is a category of countries from which most travel to Britain is banned, Johnson told a parliamentary committee that testing hauliers would have an impact on trade flows.
