Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement With protests over the police killing of George Floyd gripping the country, Microsoft’s president the company would refrain from selling facial recognition software to police, a small victory for employees who the company sever relationships with law enforcement agencies. At Microsoft-owned GitHub, the parent company’s concession only served to reinvigorate internal opposition to a controversial contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.At the start of an all-staff Q&A session Thursday morning, GitHub’s chief...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement With protests over the police killing of George Floyd gripping the country, Microsoft’s president the company would refrain from selling facial recognition software to police, a small victory for employees who the company sever relationships with law enforcement agencies. At Microsoft-owned GitHub, the parent company’s concession only served to reinvigorate internal opposition to a controversial contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.At the start of an all-staff Q&A session Thursday morning, GitHub’s chief...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement For weeks, Charlie Gu has been preparing for the door to close on WeChat. A San Francisco marketing agency owner whose business helps American brands reach Chinese consumers, Gu uses the mobile communications app extensively in his personal and professional lives. Since the Trump administration issued executive orders banning WeChat and TikTok, another popular Chinese-owned mobile app, on Aug. 6, Gu has been answering clients’ questions about what it means for them. Still, when the U.S. Commerce Department that the WeChat ban would...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement For weeks, Charlie Gu has been preparing for the door to close on WeChat. A San Francisco marketing agency owner whose business helps American brands reach Chinese consumers, Gu uses the mobile communications app extensively in his personal and professional lives. Since the Trump administration issued executive orders banning WeChat and TikTok, another popular Chinese-owned mobile app, on Aug. 6, Gu has been answering clients’ questions about what it means for them. Still, when the U.S. Commerce Department that the WeChat ban would...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement They called it hero pay.As coronavirus cases soared and state and local governments issued stay-at-home orders, grocery workers navigating wraparound lines and panicked customers grew anxious about exposure to the virus. Companies resorted to offering essential workers financial incentives in an effort to keep operations running. Major chains, including Target, Walmart, CVS, Whole Foods, Costco, Sprouts and Kroger, to employees. Starbucks shuttered thousands of stores and offered all employees a month of paid leave. Those that stayed...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement They called it hero pay.As coronavirus cases soared and state and local governments issued stay-at-home orders, grocery workers navigating wraparound lines and panicked customers grew anxious about exposure to the virus. Companies resorted to offering essential workers financial incentives in an effort to keep operations running. Major chains, including Target, Walmart, CVS, Whole Foods, Costco, Sprouts and Kroger, to employees. Starbucks shuttered thousands of stores and offered all employees a month of paid leave. Those that stayed...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement In a sweeping condemnation of the world’s biggest social network and the power it has amassed, federal regulators sued Facebook Inc. and are seeking to break the company — which includes Instagram and WhatsApp — into pieces. Groundbreaking antitrust lawsuits announced Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission and four dozen states and districts accuse Facebook of engaging in monopolistic practices to snuff out rivals and stifle competition. If the suits are successful, Facebook could be forced to divest its photo-sharing app...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement In a sweeping condemnation of the world’s biggest social network and the power it has amassed, federal regulators sued Facebook Inc. and are seeking to break the company — which includes Instagram and WhatsApp — into pieces. Groundbreaking antitrust lawsuits announced Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission and four dozen states and districts accuse Facebook of engaging in monopolistic practices to snuff out rivals and stifle competition. If the suits are successful, Facebook could be forced to divest its photo-sharing app...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has been experimenting with novel tactics to cultivate an online following, or at least the appearance of one.But one of the strategies — deploying a large number of Twitter accounts to push out identical messages — has backfired. On Friday, Twitter began suspending 70 accounts posting pro-Bloomberg content in a pattern that violates company rules.“We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesman...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has been experimenting with novel tactics to cultivate an online following, or at least the appearance of one.But one of the strategies — deploying a large number of Twitter accounts to push out identical messages — has backfired. On Friday, Twitter began suspending 70 accounts posting pro-Bloomberg content in a pattern that violates company rules.“We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesman...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement California’s economic recovery gained pace in February as the state recouped jobs lost to a dire winter COVID-19 surge, bringing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year, officials said.The state’s jobless rate fell to 8.5% from 9.0% in January as employers added 141,000 jobs, .“Today’s news, along with the governor’s announcement this week that California is continuing to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility, is a milestone in our ongoing recovery,” Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor’s...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement California’s economic recovery gained pace in February as the state recouped jobs lost to a dire winter COVID-19 surge, bringing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year, officials said.The state’s jobless rate fell to 8.5% from 9.0% in January as employers added 141,000 jobs, .“Today’s news, along with the governor’s announcement this week that California is continuing to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility, is a milestone in our ongoing recovery,” Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor’s...WW…

California's economic recovery gained pace in February as the state recouped jobs lost to a dire winter COVID-19 surge, bringing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year, officials said.The state's jobless rate fell to 8.5% from 9.0% in January as employers added 141,000 jobs, according to state data published Friday."Today's news, along with the governor's announcement this week that California is continuing to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility, is a milestone in our ongoing recovery," said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor's Office of...…California's economic recovery gained pace in February as the state recouped jobs lost to a dire winter COVID-19 surge, bringing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year, officials said.The state's jobless rate fell to 8.5% from 9.0% in January as employers added 141,000 jobs, according to state data published Friday."Today's news, along with the governor's announcement this week that California is continuing to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility, is a milestone in our ongoing recovery," said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor's Office of...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement California regulators issued a $59-million fine to Uber and threatened to suspend the company’s operating license in a Monday ruling. At issue: the company’s ongoing refusal to hand over detailed sexual assault data.Uber has spent a year state regulators’ requests for additional information on sexual harassment or assault claims made by its customers and drivers. The requests first came when the company disclosed in a December 2019 report that it had received roughly 6,000 reports of sexual assault in the United States over the...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement California regulators issued a $59-million fine to Uber and threatened to suspend the company’s operating license in a Monday ruling. At issue: the company’s ongoing refusal to hand over detailed sexual assault data.Uber has spent a year state regulators’ requests for additional information on sexual harassment or assault claims made by its customers and drivers. The requests first came when the company disclosed in a December 2019 report that it had received roughly 6,000 reports of sexual assault in the United States over the...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Khaled Zayyid worked long days, driving as much as 80 hours a week for Uber, to provide for his family. When he died in a Riverside County hospital in July of complications from COVID-19, his wife and children were left without a breadwinner. Reeling from grief, they were left to grapple with the nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.Then they applied to the state workers’ compensation program for death benefits — and got nothing.The 56-year-old Zayyid had taken a hiatus from work when pandemic stay-at-home...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Khaled Zayyid worked long days, driving as much as 80 hours a week for Uber, to provide for his family. When he died in a Riverside County hospital in July of complications from COVID-19, his wife and children were left without a breadwinner. Reeling from grief, they were left to grapple with the nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.Then they applied to the state workers’ compensation program for death benefits — and got nothing.The 56-year-old Zayyid had taken a hiatus from work when pandemic stay-at-home...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement If you’ve called for a ride through Uber in California recently, you may have felt like you were being asked for more than just your money.Last week the ride-hailing app served users with a pop-up threatening that if voters failed to pass Proposition 22 on the Nov. 3 ballot, wait times and prices would ratchet up, and drivers would lose their livelihoods.To move forward with ordering a ride, users had to tap the “confirm” button on the message.Advertisement is a complicated and divisive initiative that represents gig economy...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement If you’ve called for a ride through Uber in California recently, you may have felt like you were being asked for more than just your money.Last week the ride-hailing app served users with a pop-up threatening that if voters failed to pass Proposition 22 on the Nov. 3 ballot, wait times and prices would ratchet up, and drivers would lose their livelihoods.To move forward with ordering a ride, users had to tap the “confirm” button on the message.Advertisement is a complicated and divisive initiative that represents gig economy...WW…