The ACLU Is Suing For The Right To Uncover Online Discrimination In December, three Harvard researchers released a paper that showed the vacation rental site Airbnb can be a racist place, where people with black-sounding names like Lakisha or Rasheed have a harder time getting a booking than a Brent or Kristen. How did they uncover this bias? They set up 20 fake profiles and sent […]
The Christian Science Monitor In Louisiana, police shooting of black man captured on video About 200 protestors took to the streets of Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon, after a Louisiana police officer shot and killed Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, outside of a Baton Rouge convenience store. The shooting took place early Tuesday morning. The two officers arrived at the convenience store at around 12:35 a.m., responding to a […]
U.S. News & World Report An Investor’s Guide to Choosing Stocks and Bonds A couple of generations ago investing in stocks meant buying shares of a big-name company like Ma Bell, keeping them forever and enjoying dividend income along the way. But the boom in mutual funds in recent decades has created legions of investors who’ve never owned an individual stock. Are they missing something? In some respects, […]
Nature World News Can Microbes Affect Your Mood? When Gut Bacteria Feed on Brain Chemicals Scientists have learned of a type of gut bacteria that may be a “depression microbe” linked to mood disorders in people. New Scientist reported on the finding by researchers at the Lewis Lab in Northeastern University in Boston, noting that this was the first time gut bacteria have been observed to consume brain chemicals. The lab […]
The Lowell Sun Mass. employer confidence falls Amid uncertainty over global conditions and slowing domestic job growth, employer confidence fell in Massachusetts last month as companies took an increasingly bearish view of the U.S. economy, according to survey results released Monday. The Associated Industries of Massachusetts’ monthly business confidence index dipped 1.6 points to 56.1 in June, the business group said, putting […]
Scientific American ‘Living Shorelines’ Will Get Fast Track to Combat Sea Level Rise As sea levels rise along U.S. coasts, it may soon get easier for people and local governments to obtain federal permits to build what are known as “living shorelines,” natural or nature-based structures designed to protect communities and infrastructure from extreme storms and flooding even as they protect habitat. The Army Corps of Engineers is […]
World Politics Review Iran’s Conservatives Stifle Moves to Expand Women’s Rights Women’s groups in Iran recently reported that women were barred from attending a major volleyball tournamentfeaturing the men’s Olympic team. In an email interview, Val Moghadam, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Northeastern University, discusses the state of women’s rights in Iran.
Changes in Sentencing Policy Raise Pressure on Probation Officers Overhauling the criminal-justice system, including shorter sentences, is a hot topic in Washington, with some Democrats and Republicans increasingly coalescing behind a view that incarceration times have gotten too long. Even before any major bills have passed, however, federal officials have begun chipping away at sentences. Since 2010, 14,100 people have been freed early because […]
Security Affairs Two security experts have conducted a study that allowed them to spot over 100 snooping Tor HSDir Nodes spying on Dark Web Sites. The attempts of snooping traffic from Tor nodes are not a novelty, in the past, we have reported the activity of threat actors that set up malicious exit nodes to de-anonymize users. Now researchers have spotted more than 100 malicious hidden service directories (HSDirs) which are the relays of the network that allow people to visit hidden […]
The Christian Science Monitor Meet David Dworken, the teenager who hacked the Pentagon Within 13 minutes of urging hackers to take their best shot at the Pentagon’s public websites, the US government’s first-ever bug bounty program had its first submission. Just six hours later, hackers had already uncovered nearly 200 vulnerabilities in the Department of Defense’s networks. Already a staple for companies such as Google and Facebook, the […]
Britain’s left has a ‘Jewish problem’ Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for Jeremy Corbyn, in a week in which he lost a no-confidence vote and saw most of his shadow cabinet resign, the beleaguered leader of Britain’s Labour Party provoked instant outrage and stirred the simmering debate about anti-Semitism in his party by seeming to equate Israel […]
The Christian Science Monitor What California’s cigarette tax could mean for smokers California’s upcoming ballot is smoking. This November voters will decide on whether to legalize recreational marijuana and, as state officials announced yesterday, on whether a $2 tax should be added to every pack of cigarettes and electronic cigarette products. “States are responsible for people’s health care and picking up that tab, and so originally […]