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Costco to raise its minimum wage to $16 an hour
Costco waded into the debate over the federal minimum wage Thursday by announcing its wage floor will rise to $16 an hour. The update directly applies to about a fifth of the more than 160,000 Costco employees who work hourly, accounting for 90% of Costco's U.S. workforce, CEO Craig Jelinek said at a U.S. Senate committee hearing on how large companies pay their workers. The pay bump, which takes effect next week, pegs baseline wages at the Issaquah, Wash.-based wholesale club above those at competitors Amazon and Target, which have instituted $15 wage floors in recent years. The minimum wage ...
The Seattle Times
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3 Michigan jails become first in US to start installing COVID-19 air disinfectors
Three Wayne County, Michigan, jails are the first detention facilities in the U.S. to implement groundbreaking heated filtration technology units to tackle the spread of COVID-19. Thus far, 12 Integrated Viral Protection (IVP) units have been installed at five Wayne County buildings, three jails and two administrative. Through powerful circulation, the IVP units catch and kill airborne viruses — including tuberculosis, influenza as well as the novel coronavirus — while disinfecting the air. The decision to integrate the system was a personal one for Sheriff Raphael Washington, he said during t...
Detroit Free Press
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Twitter aims to double its annual revenue by 2023
Social media platform Twitter wants to double its total annual revenue to 7.5 billion dollars by the end of 2023, the company said at an event for investors on Thursday. By then, the site would increase the number of daily users it reaches with advertising from 192 million to 315 million. In response to the announcement, the company's shares were up 7 per cent on early trading on the stock market in the United States. Twitter generates almost all of its revenue through advertising, so it presents only the number of people whom ads reach when reporting its key metrics. Twitter is also weighing ...
DPA
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Spotify now finally lets you filter songs by genre
The world's largest music streaming service is now, just fifteen years after it was founded, allowing its users to filter their song library by genre. Despite calls from users for genre filters, Spotify, like some of its rivals, has not allowed users to see all of their "liked" songs from certain genres. Until now, to listen to a certain genre like electronic or folk, you had to make do with one of Spotify's own genre playlists, and could not filter out electronic or folk songs from your own library. However in an announcement on February 25, Spotify said users will soon be able pick from seve...
DPA
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Watchdog highlights 'weaknesses' in FAA oversight, urges further reform after Boeing 737 Max failures
A government report released Wednesday concludes that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversight of airplane safety needs further strengthening beyond what the agency has already implemented in response to the two crashes of Boeing's 737 Max. The final report by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation highlights failures that led the FAA to miss the flaws in the Max's new flight control system during certification of the jet in 2015 and 2016. "Much work remains to address weaknesses in FAA's certification guidance and processes," the report concludes, adding that th...
The Seattle Times
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Cat or dog? Which animal rules Instagram around the world?
Dog pictures reign supreme over their feline counterparts in the UK, Spain, the US, India and France, while cats come out on top in Russia and China, according to a study based on animal photos posted on Instagram. According to the study, published by the insurance firm, Budget Direct, cats are more popular than dogs in 91 of the 168 countries studied. In fact, 91 countries were found to have more cat posts than dog posts on Instagram, compared to just 76 the other way around. At continent level, cat posts are more popular in Europe and Asia, while dog posts outweigh cat posts across North and...
Relaxnews
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YouTube to roll out parent-approved accounts for tweens
YouTube on Wednesday said it will roll out new accounts that let tweens or young teens explore the streaming video service within boundaries set by their parents. An early version of the offering will be released in coming months, letting parents use Google accounts to provide children YouTube access that comes with content and feature constraints, according to kids and family product management director James Beser. The move responds to concerns about violence and other inappropriate content which may be viewed by minors on the massive video-sharing platform. "We've heard from parents and old...
Relaxnews
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Twitter wants you to think twice before posting that reply
On Twitter, replies to certain tweets can sometimes be unpleasant or offensive. So why not call out users just as they're about to post this kind of message? Twitter is currently testing a feature that displays warning prompts explaining why a tweet reply has been flagged as potentially harmful, and giving users the option to reword their reply -- or not -- before they post it. "This is a mean reply written in the heat of the moment." That's the kind of alert that users of Twitter's iOS application might now see. The social network has decided to continue its trials in calling out users as the...
Relaxnews
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That cheap 2 TB USB stick is probably fake - here's how you know
You find a USB stick online - 2 terabytes for the price of a month of Netflix? A total bargain. Or too good to be true? Because once the flash drive arrives, if at all, it soon emerges it's a cheap, small-capacity USB stick only pretending to be big. Search online - even on major platforms - and you'll find countless offers for 1 TB and 2 TB flash drives costing between 5 and 30 dollars. Chances are, however, that many of these have only a fraction of that storage space. Drives of this capacity usually cost over a hundred dollars or euros. While some brand names like Verbatim and Toshiba don't...
DPA
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In 'Dadish 2' you're a radish dad looking for your lost babies
It's not easy being a father. But try being a radish father. It's "bring-the-kids-to-work" day at the office, and you, dear radish dad, have just been hit with every parent's worst nightmare. Your many radish children have mysteriously disappeared and find themselves in awkward situations somewhere on, in or above the planet. And so in "Dadish 2", you find yourself hopping around, overcoming obstacles and traps and exploring a strange world in search of your baby radishes. No time to catch your breath: The journey through weird landscapes, offices, outer space and swamps is long and packed ful...
DPA
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