Senate candidate J.D. Vance had to scramble to find another venue after Ohioans erupted over Greene, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
This week, America’s first blockchain-based stock exchange obtained regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange. In a filing the SEC uploaded to its website on late Thursday evening, it said the Boston Security Token Exchange (BSTX) could use the nascent technology to offer faster trade settlements. Compared to a traditional exchange where it typically takes two days to settle a trade, BSTX will offer same-day and next-day settlements. It will also use a private blockchain to offer a market feed that will allow members to see their own trades, as well as that of others, on an anonymous basis.
What it won’t offer members is the option to trade digital tokens, meaning it’s not a new venue for buying and selling cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets. Jay Fraser, a director with BSTX, told Reuters the exchange plans to potentially allow trading of stock tokens at a later date. BSTX had planned to exclusively focus on tokenized securities, but the SEC rejected those plans in a prior filing. Still, Fraser said the goal is to create an exchange that eventually looks more like Coinbase than something like the NASDAQ or NYSE. Until then, BSTX will operate more like a traditional exchange when it opens before the second half of the year.
Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) nonetheless won a majority of the endorsement votes.
If you’re the sort to leave web browser tabs open on your phone (you know who you are), you’ve probably had a sinking feeling when you close every tab and realize you just lost a must-have site link. You won’t have quite so many panic-inducing moments going forward, at least. Techdows and Android Police have noticed the Canary channel version of Chrome 100 for Android adds a settings flag (“close all tabs modal dialog”) that asks for confirmation when you try to close every tab at once.
Chrome on the desktop will let you close all tabs in a window by getting rid of that window, but it’s overall harder to accidentally wipe out your tab collection. On Android, “close all tabs” is close enough to other tab options that you might tap it by mistake.
Canary builds are unstable, so you may want to wait until a beta or the polished release. It’s also unclear how soon Google might build the flag into regular settings or enable it by default, provided the feature survives through future releases. It’s easy to see the confirmation making the cut, however — this is one of those seemingly small features that could save you an embarrassing search through your browsing history.
He’ll live, but all or part of his right hind leg will be amputated. “We hope the criminal who shot Mr. Goodbar will be brought to justice” said a wildlife advocate.
T-Mobile will fire corporate employees who aren’t fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by April 2nd, reports Bloomberg. The carrier confirmed the deadline after the outlet obtained an internal email in which Deeanne King, T-Mobile’s chief human resources officer, said the company will put employees who have gone out and only gotten one dose as of February 21st on unpaid leave.
“T-Mobile’s badge-controlled offices continue to be accessible only to those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and we have shared with employees that we are requiring office workers to be fully vaccinated by April 2nd,” a spokesperson for T-Mobile told Engadget. “We understand that this is a deeply personal decision for some employees but we believe that taking this step will put us in the best position to protect our T-Mobile community.”
The carrier told The Verge it will have some exemptions in place “for certain roles, locations and legally mandated accommodations and exemptions.” For instance, per Bloomberg, T-Mobile won’t put customer service employees on unpaid leave if they only have one dose of the vaccine by February 21st. It also won’t subject field technicians and store employees to the mandate.
Other large US companies have imposed similar deadlines on their employees. Workers at Google, for instance, have until January 18th to declare their vaccine status. The company will place those who refuse to get their shots or fail to secure a valid exemption on paid administrative leave for 30 days. It will then place those workers on unpaid leave for up to six months and eventually fire them if they don’t comply with the policy.
Blizzard warnings stretched from Virginia to Maine, but the city of Boston could get the most snow by the end.
The Treasury Department is reconsidering the Internal Revenue Service’s use of ID.me for access to its website, according to Bloomberg. A department official said the agencies are exploring alternatives to the controversial facial recognition software, though that official didn’t specifically cite the privacy concerns around ID.me for the decision.
“The IRS is consistently looking for ways to make the filing process more secure,” Treasury Department spokesperson Alexandra LaManna told Bloomberg. “We believe in the importance of protecting the privacy of taxpayers, while also ensuring criminals are not able to gain access to taxpayer accounts.”
Citing a “lack of funding for IRS modernization,” LaManna also said it’s been “impossible” for the agency to develop its own in-house identification solution, and noted US taxpayers aren’t required to file their taxes online. Toward the end of last year, the IRS began requiring individuals to use ID.me to access certain parts of its website, including those sections related to services like the American Rescue Plan. Starting this summer, the agency will also require that people enroll with ID.me before they can file their taxes online. That’s a process that will require taxpayers to provide their government ID, a copy of a utility bill and a video selfie to the Virginia-based company.
The Treasury Department’s decision to reevaluate its use of ID.me comes in the same week that the company disclosed its use of one-to-many facial matching. Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, said the company employs the technology to verify selfies tied to government programs that are frequently targeted by organized crime elements. Hall made the statement after previously claiming the company did not use the “more complex and problematic” one-to-many approach.
Privacy advocates have criticized both approaches. Research indicates most facial recognition systems struggle to identify people with darker skin tones. Experts have also voiced concerns about the security risks of storing biometric data.
Orcas — aka killer whales — have been documented killing and blue whales, which may actually be a positive sign.
Many exoplanets are completely uninhabitable, but they can still be useful in the search for more hospitable worlds. Scientists at Lund University have created a 3D map of ultra-hot gas giant WASP-189b’s atmosphere that could provide insights into other distant planets’ skies. The team used a high-resolution spectrograph to study the host star’s light as it passed through the planet’s atmosphere, looking for line positions in elements that not only indicated what materials were present, but that they swirled around in three-dimensional layers.
The elements themselves included a breakthrough. This is the first time observers had solid evidence of titanium oxide in the atmosphere of a gas giant like this. It also has familiar jovian world chemicals like iron, chromium and magnesium.
You won’t be visiting WASP-189b any time soon. Its daytime temperature climbs to nearly 5,800F, and its 2.7-day orbit won’t help matters. However, the spectrograph techniques involved here could translate to other exoplanet atmosphere studies. Researchers could compare atmospheres and better determine whether or not a planet can support life. That, in turn, could help focus studies on the most promising planets.
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