Want $10,000? Just Invest $1,000 in These Great Stocks and Wait – Motley Fool

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For more than five months, Wall Street and investors have dealt with some of the wildest vacillations in stock market history. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic initially lopped 34% off of the benchmark S&P 500 in less than five weeks. Then, during the second quarter, the broad-based index turned in its best quarter since 1998.

If you're a short-term trader, it's probably been a nauseating ride. But for long-term investors, it's just another bump in the road to reaching financial independence. That's because every single stock market correction in history has eventually proved to be an opportunity to buy great stocks at a discounted price. The same will eventually be said for the coronavirus pandemic bear market.

But picking out great stocks to buy is only half the challenge. Holding onto these positions for lengthy periods of time is the other half of the formula needed to generate significant returns.

Image source: Getty Images.

In other words, if you want to $10,000, all you need to do is simply invest $1,000 into great stocks and wait. Here are four great stocks that offer investors true multi-bagger potential.

If its second-quarter operating results are a guide, social media site Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) is going to become a monster in the years to come.

Though it might seem like social media is an easy formula to get right, user growth tends to slow or stall for most platforms after a few years. That's not been the case for Pinterest, which recorded 39% monthly active user (MAU) growth from the prior-year period, ended June 30. With 416 million MAUs, Pinterest's ad-pricing power continues to grow. Plus, with many of these new MAUs hailing from overseas markets, there's the opportunity to double, triple, or quadruple average revenue per user in the years to come.

But what makes Pinterest such an intriguing long-term hold is the role it'll play in the specialized e-commerce space. With its users willingly sharing their interest, hobbies, and ideas online, it only makes sense for Pinterest to allow small businesses to target these interests. Having partnered with e-commerce platform Shopify, Pinterest is giving small businesses all the tools necessary to turn passive engagement online into action.

Pinterest is the type of company that shouldn't have a problem growing at a double-digit rate for the next 10 years.

Image source: Getty Images.

Don't let it's more than 400% run higher in 2020 scare you away -- healthcare solutions provider Livongo Health (NASDAQ:LVGO) is a volcano that's just clearing its throat.

A big theme this decade is going to be the push toward precision medicine and/or telemedicine. Therapies and devices that are tailored to individual patient needs are expected to thrive; and this is precisely what Livongo is targeting. By incorporating artificial intelligence and collecting mountains of patient data, Livongo is aiming to send tips and "nudges" to its members with chronic illnesses to elicit long-lasting behavioral changes. In other words, it's helping people with serious illnesses stay on top of their disease and live healthier lives.

But this isn't just a feel-good mission statement with no teeth. There are real growth figures to back up its goals. Livongo has seen its Diabetes member patient count at least double on a year-over-year basis in each of the past couple of years, and the company has delivered two consecutive quarters of a surprise profit. What's so impressive about these two quarterly profits is that Livongo is generating income despite only having signed up 0.95% of U.S. diabetes patients -- a little north of 328,000 Diabetes members compared to 34.2 million people in the U.S. with diabetes.

With Livongo Health pivoting its healthcare solutions platform to weight management and hypertension, among other chronic illnesses, it could have a potential addressable market in the U.S. of more than 40% of all adults, in my view. That makes it a near-surefire long-term winner.

Image source: Square.

Investors almost certainly can't go wrong investing $1,000 into fintech stock Square (NYSE:SQ) and letting their money ride for a long time to come. As the war on cash kicks into high gear, Square is going to become a clear-cut beneficiary two different ways.

First of all, Square should see relatively steady growth in gross payment volume (GPV) crossing its seller ecosystem network throughout the decade. Last year, Square saw $106.2 billion in GPV traverse its network. But what stood out was that 52% of GPV in the coronavirus-challenged first-quarter was derived from larger merchants (defined as having an annualized GPV of at least $125,000). Square is a company that's been historically known for providing a processing platform for small and medium-sized businesses. If larger merchants are beginning to latch on, the sky becomes the limit when it comes to fee collection and lending potential.

The other exciting aspect of Square is the company's peer-to-peer payment platform Cash App, which set records for monthly signups in both March and April. Mind you, this comes after MAUs more than tripled from 7 million, to end 2017, to 24 million, to end 2019. Square has all sorts of ways to make money off of Cash App users, via merchant fees, expedited transfer fees to and from a bank account, and bitcoin exchange fees. Within a few years, Cash App should become Square's primary profit driver.

According to Wall Street, Square's revenue is expected to more than quadruple between 2019 and 2023, which makes it one of the fastest growing publicly traded companies.

Image source: Getty Images.

A final way to get $10,000 by investing only $1,000 is by purchasing surgical system developer Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG).

Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci surgical system has been the go-to resource for assistive robotic soft tissue surgeries for the past two decades. The company had 5,764 of its da Vinci systems installed worldwide, as of June 30, which is far more than any of its competitors, combined. What's more, big-name potential competitor Johnson & Johnsonhas run into a snag in its efforts to launch competing surgical systems. This just means Intuitive's already mammoth lead in surgical systems will extend even more.

The beauty of Intuitive Surgical's business model is that it's built to generate improved operating margins over time. The initial sale or lease of a pricey da Vinci system ($0.5 million to $2.5 million) doesn't do a whole lot for Intuitive Surgical considering how intricate and expensive these systems are to build. Rather, the bulk of the company's operating margin is derived from selling instruments and accessories with each procedure, as well as in servicing these systems. Thus, the more systems installed worldwide, the greater the percentage of total sales being derived from these higher-margin channels.

And don't overlook that robotic-assisted surgeries are still just taking off. Intuitive Surgical may hold the lion's share of gynecology and urology surgeries, but there's a huge runway to gain additional share in thoracic, colorectal, and general soft tissue surgeries. Similar to the companies listed above, a double-digit annual growth rate is the expectation.

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Want $10,000? Just Invest $1,000 in These Great Stocks and Wait - Motley Fool

Tony Blair convinced Ireland to join euro now Dublin must get out or sail into disaster – Daily Express

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Ray Bassett, the former Irish ambassador to Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas, believes Ireland needs to give serious consideration following in the UK's footsteps with Irexit. He says a courageous decision will be required to deliver financial independence in parallel. Mr Bassett outlines his ideas about Irexit, and the eurozone, in his new book, Ireland and the UK Post Brexit.

Explaining Ireland's decision to sign up for the Euro in 2002, he said: "The differences of opinion in London between then Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown were put down to petty political turf wars.

"In Ireland, we had great admiration for Blair, who had helped deliver the Good Friday Agreement and in a manner which no other British Prime Minister would have been capable of doing.

"Blair was very pro-euro and this only reinforced the Irish Government's view that the euro was a desirable place to be.

"The arguments that Brown articulated, which now look very sound, were given no real hearing.

"Ireland, forfeited with the assurances from Tony Blair that it was on the right course, with its enthusiastic commitment to the European project, sailed on and into disaster."

Mr Bassett, who emphasised the approach continued under former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, said there had been little doubt in political circles about the wisdom of joining the monetary union - and very little actual analysis.

READ MORE:North Korea prostitution conspiracy - Kim Jong-un EXECUTES officials

He added: "While working inside the Irish Civil Service, I remember, in the build-up to our joining, there was a steely determination in political circles to show the world that, in contrast to the British, we were good Europeans.

"There was even a feeling of smugness at the time, that the UK, for internal political reasons was not joining but no doubt would be forced to sign up later.

"This complacent attitude was to wreak havoc on our economy during the crash.

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"It would not be the last time we totally misjudged political developments in Britain."

In reference to the scepticism of other countries when it came to the euro, Mr Bassett pointed to the Dutch Parliament's unanimous vote, in 2017, to hold an enquiry into the country's future relationship with the euro.

He added: "This did not mean that the Netherlands was going to ditch the Euro in the short term, but it does reflect the dissatisfaction with the common currency in that country."

Significantly, the Dutch, as a prominent member of the so-called Frugal Four, which also includes Austria, Sweden and Denmark, were deeply uncomfortable with the 677million coronavirus rescue plan approved by the European Council last month.

With reference to Italy, where Gianluigi Paragone last month launched his No Europe for Italy Party, modelled on Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, Mr Bassett said: "The Italian general election of 2018 represented an electoral earthquake as the Italian political landscape was reshaped radically.

"Any decision by Italy to drop the euro, something which is probably necessary to revive its economic growth, would seriously endanger the future of the eurozone."

In terms of Ireland itself's future, Mr Bassett conceded: "It would be the height of irresponsibility for any Irish administration not to have well developed plans to depart the euro, giving its underlying weakness.

"There will, of course, be possible emergency measures, on file, ready in case of implosion, but the Government needs, in addition, to look strategically at how it could escape this straitjacket, especially now that the UK has departed the EU."

He concludes: "In the final analysis, it was a profoundly political act to take Ireland into the euro and it will take a profoundly political decision, with courage, to take us out."

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Tony Blair convinced Ireland to join euro now Dublin must get out or sail into disaster - Daily Express

Brexit LIVE: No10 vows action on illegal French fishers -‘Independence WILL be respected!’ – Daily Express

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Boris Johnson's official spokesperson has said the Government will ensure the UK's "status as an independent coastal state is properly respected" from next year. When quizzed how Britain will prevent illegal fishing in UK waters, the Downing Street official said: "We will ensure whatever agreement we reach with the EU on fishing rights, or indeed if we are unable to reach one, we will make sure our status as an independent coastal state is properly respected.

It comes as Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said it was vital David Frost continues to champion UK sovereignty in the talks, as the issue was fundamental to many Brexit voters.

The Brexiteer highlights this in a recent Express.co.uk comment piece, where he points out most people who voted to leave the EU did so to return sovereignty to the UK.

The Tory MP said a poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft on the day of the 2016 EU referendum found nearly half of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK.

The survey found only a third said the main reason was to regain control over immigration and its own borders.

When discussing the current trade talks, Sir Iain wrote: Importantly, David Frost, Boriss chief negotiator made it clear he agreed when he wrote that in the negotiations, the UK places sovereignty above all else.

It is in that context that the issue of how these outstanding payments to the EU impinge on the UKs sovereignty which matter now.

The Brexiteer urges Mr Frost to walk away from the talks if the UKs sovereignty risks being impinged.

He said: The WA was always work in progress as at the end of this year, the UK has a right to a comprehensive agreement, one which treats the UK as a sovereign partner.

A failure to observe this must lead to a rejection of the WA.

FOLLOW EXPRESS.CO.UK FOR LIVE UPDATES:

9.30pm update: As businesses open again in Northern Ireland, employment levels fall creating insecurity about future amid post-Brexit condtions.

Business activity in Northern Ireland picked up last month, but employment levels are continuing to fall.

Private sector firms are asked about output, staffing levels and exports amid uncertainty over Brexit.

9.00pm update: University numbers for 2020 and 2021 are predicted to collapse.

There will be a large amount of overseas students not wishing to travel to the UK. There is also a reluctance amoungst UK based students opting to not wish to pay tuition fees for online courses.

8.00pm update:Brexit may offer the UK the opportunity to draw up new laws for dealing with migrants crossing the Channel illegally.

More than 4,000 people are believed to have made the journey so far this year, some of them vulnerable individuals including young children, pregnant women and disabled people.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "We are currently bound by the Dublin Regulations for returns and they are inflexible and rigid, for example, there is a time limit placed on returns, it's something which can be abused by both migrants and their lawyers to frustrate the returns of those who have no right to be here."

7.00pm Boris Johnsons "lucrative" post-Brexit trade deals cast into doubt, study claims

Institute for Government has suggested a lack of vision by Westminster over its post-Brexit trade priorities meant that other countries had the upper hand at the negotiating table.

6.30pm update: UK-EU have still some way off from reaching a post-Brexit trade agreement.

After the latest negotiations in London EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier declared a deal looked "at this point unlikely" given the UK position on fishing rights and post-Brexit competition rules.

6.00pm UK Japan trade deal could increase Britain's trade with the country by15bn per year.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said there was "substantial" agreements in areas such as financial and digital services.

4.40pm update:The UK Government has pledged 355 million help Northern Irish businesses adjust to Brexit.

A support package has been unveiled to help firms with bureaucracy of moving goods across Irish Sea. Michael Gove said 200m would be spent on a trader support service to help firms handle new bureaucracy to move goods across the Irish Sea, turning the government into a de facto customs agent for traders.

A further 155m will be spent on digital technology to streamline processes required by the new internal border.

4.00pm update: Major recession warning for the UK.

Coronavirus lockdown is set to shrink the UK's GDP by 21percent in second quarter. This is the first time the UK has slipped into recession sincethe 2008 financial crisis.

2.44pm update:Brexit will allow UK to draw up a new framework for dealing with migrants

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "We are currently bound by the Dublin Regulations for returns and they are inflexible and rigid - for example, there is a time limit placed on returns, it's something which can be abused by both migrants and their lawyers to frustrate the returns of those who have no right to be here.

"At the end of this year we will no longer be bound by the EU's laws so can negotiate our own returns agreement.

"The Home Office continue to look at all available options to tackle this issue."

1.53pm update:Brexit POLL: Should UK form 'superpower' alliance with Australia, Canada and New Zealand?

Britain could form a superpower alliance with the old Commonwealth allies of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand after Brexit, a historian has claimed.

The UK could be one step closer to forming the CANZUK Union", the acronym for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK after it finally unshackle itself from the bloc, four years after it voted to leave.

Historian Andrew Roberts described how the superpower nations whose majority of people speak English could form an alliance to be a free trade zone with the free movement of people.

Express.co.ukis asking you should the UK form new superpower alliance with Australia, Canada and New Zealand?VOTE HERE.

1pm update:Tony Blair convinced Ireland to join euro - but now it must get out, says expert

Ireland was convinced to join the euro by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair - but now it needs to show courage to free itself from the "straitjacket" of the single European currency, an Irish diplomat has claimed.

Ray Bassett, the former Irish ambassador to Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas, believes Ireland needs to give serious consideration following in the UK's footsteps with Irexit.

He says a courageous decision will be required to deliver financial independence in parallel.

Mr Bassett outlines his ideas about Irexit, and the eurozone, in his new book, Ireland and the UK Post Brexit.

11.27am update:Boris will struggle to secure lucrative trade deals, study warns

Boris Johnsons promise of lucrative post-Brexit trade deal is on course to fail, a study has warned.

The Institute for Government said Britain has failed to agree what it wants from trade negotiations, giving other countries the other hand.

The think tank criticises the unforced error of launching into complex trade talks before ministers have decided what they want their post-Brexit regulations to be.

Maddy Thimont Jack, a senior researcher, said: Three years ago, we warned that the Government had not set up the necessary structures for effective decision making on key trade policy issues.

The government did not heed that warning then, but it now needs to move urgently to put them in place.

"Otherwise it will find itself losing control of trade and regulatory policy to better-prepared partners.

9.53am update: UK urged to protect healthcare rights post-Brexit

The UK has been urged to ensure healthcare arrangements, such as the EHIC, are included in a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow a the eCentre for European Reform, wrote on Twitter: "The thing is, yes - the UK absolutely should be trying to negotiate reciprocal healthcare provisions as part of the future partnership between the EU and UK.

"UK has decided to take the bizarre approach to the negotiations of claiming it doesnt really want anything special from the agreement when it should (and it does)."

Commentators have warned that without such a scheme in place British holidaymakers with existing health conditions may have to fork out hundreds of pounds for travel insurance.

Travellers over 65 can also expect an increase in premiums.

9.33am update:Brexit Britain could form NEW superpower alliance with Australia, Canada and New Zealand

Brexit Britain could form a federation with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to create a superpower" after fully cutting ties with the EU, a historian has claimed.

Historian Andrew Roberts described the federation of nations whose majority of people speak English could be a free trade zone with the free movement of people.

The idea is based on the concept of the "CANZUK Union", this being the acronym for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

The union could have a mutual defence organisation and combined military capabilities, the historian claimed.

According to Mr Roberts, the "CANZUK" union would be the fourth-largest economy in the world.

9am update:FTSE-100 shares rose on hopes of Brexit deal

London-listed shares rose on Monday, due in part to renewed hopes of a Brexit trade deal with the EU.

The FTSE-100 was up 0.8 percent, with the mid-cap FTSE-250 also up 0.7 percent - a seven-week high.

Traders are hopeful of a Brexit trade deal after Britain's top minister overseeing negotiations said on Friday he was confident of an agreement with the EU.

Stocks also rose in response to optimism around a post-pandemic economic rebound in China.

8.07am update:Ireland must take a long hard look at Brussels membership

Ireland has been tipped to follow the UK's lead and quit the European Union by a former Irish diplomat who called for "a long hard look" at whether the country's membership of the bloc was worth it.

Ray Bassett pulls no punches in his new book, 'Ireland and the EU Post Brexit', suggesting the benefits bestowed on Dublin by Brussels are drying up, with "difficult choices" on the horizon.

In his book, he writes: "We need a long hard look at our EU membership and pose the question, is it worth the price?"

"The billionaire businessman, George Soros, an ardent europhile, has accepted the inevitable and predicted that unless the EU reforms it will perish.

"The pipe dreams of Emmanuel Macron and his proposals for even a more centralised EU are vanishing against the cold reality of the desire for the citizenry of EU Member States for national sovereignty.

"The disastrous showing of the establishment centre-right and centre-left parties in the 2019 European Parliament elections demonstrated this in a very direct way."

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Brexit LIVE: No10 vows action on illegal French fishers -'Independence WILL be respected!' - Daily Express

Nearly $1 Million In Federal Funds To Provide Housing To Victims Of Human Trafficking In Maryland – Bay Net

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BALTIMORE, Md. U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur of the District of Maryland announced that Maryland has received $999,990 from the Department of Justices Office of Justice Programs and its component, the Office for Victims of Crime, to provide safe, stable housing and appropriate services to victims of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is a barbaric criminal enterprise that subjects its victims to unspeakable cruelty and deprives them of the most basic of human needs, none more essential than a safe place to live, said Attorney General William P. Barr. Throughout this Administration, the Department of Justice has fought aggressively to bring human traffickers to justice and to deliver critical aid to trafficking survivors. These new resources, announced today, expand on our efforts to offer those who have suffered the shelter and support they need to begin a new and better life.

Human traffickers prey on our most vulnerableincluding childrenin order to profit from their victims misery. Traffickers often use violence and exploit drug addictions in order to coerce their victims into such crimes as commercial sex rings, said U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur. These grants will help to provide resources to the vulnerable victims of this reprehensible crime. The Maryland U.S. Attorneys Office and our partners will never stop working to end human trafficking.

The grant, awarded to the Salvation Army and the University of Maryland SAFE Center for Human Trafficking Survivors, will provide six to 24 months of transitional or short-term housing assistance for trafficking victims, including rental, utilities or related expenses, such as security deposits and relocation costs. The grant will also provide funding for support needed to help victims locate permanent housing, secure employment, as well as occupational training and counseling. The Salvation Army and the University of Maryland SAFE Center are among 73 organizations nationwide receiving more than $35 million in OVC grants to support housing services for human trafficking survivors.

The Salvation Army of Central Maryland is committed to assisting survivors of human trafficking in reclaiming their lives and determining their futures, said Beth Luthye, Anti-Human Trafficking Program Director for The Salvation Army of Central Maryland. Over the past few years, our core focus has been short-term housing and intensive care management. This OVC grant will enable us to expand our services to also provide supportive transitional housing and independent housing assistance, as well as partnering with business and community leaders to build out initiatives focused on employment and financial independence. Ms. Luthye added, The Salvation Army program, based in Baltimore City, targets adult survivors of both sex trafficking and labor trafficking throughout the state of Maryland. It is inclusive of women who often find closed doors at other residential programs, including pregnant women, mothers of young children, transgender individuals, and foreign nationals.

"Stable housing is foundational to human trafficking survivors' ability to rebuild their lives, said SAFE Center Founder and Director, Susan Esserman. We feel fortunate to be partnering with the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services in a rapid rehousing model to address this urgent housing need. We are grateful for this OVC funding as lack of safe housing is a driver of trafficking."

Human traffickers dangle the threat of homelessness over those they have entrapped, playing a ruthless game of psychological manipulation that victims are never in a position to win, said OJP Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katharine T. Sullivan. These grants will empower survivors on their path to independence and a life of self-sufficiency and hope.

Human trafficking offenses are among the most difficult crimes to identify, and the scope of human trafficking victimization may be much greater than the limited data reflect. A new report issued by the National Institute of Justice, another component of the Office of Justice Programs, found that the number of human trafficking cases captured in police reports may represent only a fraction of all such cases. Expanding housing and other services to trafficking victims remains a top Justice Department priority.

The Office for Victims of Crime, for example, hosted listening sessions and roundtable discussions with stakeholders in the field in 2018 and launched the Human Trafficking Capacity Building Center. From July 2018 through June 2019, 118 OVC human trafficking grantees reported serving 8,375 total clients, including confirmed trafficking victims and individuals showing strong indicators of trafficking victimization.

For a complete list of individual award amounts and jurisdictions that will receive funding, visit: https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/media/document/htvictimsfactheet.pdf

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Nearly $1 Million In Federal Funds To Provide Housing To Victims Of Human Trafficking In Maryland - Bay Net

When Taming Big Tech Goes Wrong – The New York Times

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This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

What if the U.S. government tries to restrain the power of Americas tech superstars, and it doesnt work?

Thats essentially what has happened so far in Europe, where some regulators and lawmakers have been ahead of the United States in putting guardrails on Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

I talked with my colleague Adam Satariano, who writes about technology in Europe, about what happens when government officials decide they want to do something about Big Tech, but struggle to figure out what that something should be.

Shira: Whats been Europes approach to the American tech superpowers?

Adam: Europe started doing antitrust investigations several years ago. But the resulting lawsuits and regulation havent done much.

Google is the best example. Investigations into allegations of anti-competitive tactics took years. The European Union then fined Google several billion dollars for breaking the law. But critics say that Google wasnt forced to change much, so this did little to restore competition.

What can American lawmakers and regulators learn from Europes mistakes?

Speed is crucial, otherwise regulators are fighting yesterdays battles.

There was also a problem with enforcement. Europe passed a highly-touted privacy law called General Data Protection Regulation, but its been a flop at limiting data collection by the biggest tech companies. Much of the policing of the law was left to Ireland, which simply doesnt have the resources to keep up.

It sounds as if the lesson is that you can believe theres a problem with tech companies power, but its hard to craft an appropriate response.

Without a doubt. The authorities in Europe are changing their tactics now. Theyre looking at rewriting laws to directly target the way big tech companies do business: How they use data or box out rivals, and ways they give their products preferential treatment.

But after a few years covering this in Europe, I have become much more suspect about these efforts at regulation. Theres a lot of potential for unintended consequences.

What have been the unintended consequences?

A big one is the ripple effects of several countries, especially Germany, making new rules against hate speech online. The worry is that gave cover to countries to enact censorship laws. Turkey cited Germanys hate speech law in enacting its new social media restrictions. Another law, known as the right to be forgotten, has also raised concerns about limiting the availability of information online.

Does this mean we should be skeptical about any U.S. government action against Big Tech?

Maybe. But its still been interesting to watch this growing realization among the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic about the size of these companies and the influence they hold over their democratic societies and how they operate, including their communication systems, information flow and commerce.

You can sense this feeling that lawmakers think they must do something, but arent quite sure what that is yet. The next 12 to 18 months are going to be extraordinary.

Hello, dear readers! Several of you had asked about differences in how the United States and Europe handle regulation of technology. This conversation gets the ball rolling on that subject. Please keep the questions coming. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

Twitter is in hot water with the U.S. government. Let me explain why you should be angry.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Twitter and may fine the company up to $250 million for using peoples phone numbers in ways that users didnt expect, my colleague Kate Conger wrote.

This stems from Twitters disclosure in October that the phone number you might have listed as a second form of account verification in addition to a password might also have been used to target advertisements at you. This is not good.

Phone numbers used for security purposes shouldnt be repurposed for Twitter to make money. Twitter said this was a mistake, but it hasnt said how long this practice had gone on or how it made this error. (Facebook had gotten in trouble for the same thing.)

There are two interrelated problems revealed by what might seem like Twitters minor flub.

First is the problem of companies ignoring common sense. People who enter a phone number to keep impostors out of their Twitter accounts do not expect that number to be used to target ads. Period. Therefore, companies should absolutely not do this.

Two, Twitters mistake is a symptom of the broader scourge of online surveillance. Internet advertising is an arms race waged with our data, and that leads to ever more intrusive harvesting and use of our information.

This is not only a concern for tin-foil-hat privacy paranoiacs. Companies like Facebook and Google have a big leg up over all other companies that sell digital ads because they have more and better data than anyone else. Every other company is tempted to play catch up by resorting to increasingly creepy ways of collecting user data.

That might include Twitter, or apps weve never heard of that gather our location information and sell it without our knowledge to other data-hungry companies. All the tech problems are connected.

I suspect people will have feelings about this: Stacey Steinberg, a childrens rights lawyer and photographer, says that parents sharing information, including photos, about their children online may unwittingly be providing fodder for bullying or child abuse. These risks have made her think twice before she shares information about her kids on social media.

Maybe this newsletter should just be memes? On Instagram and other apps, news organizations and activists have captivated audiences attention by posting less text and more charts, graphics and other easy-to-digest ways to convey news and information, according to Axios. This is a pattern that younger people latched onto a long time ago: Quick-scan visuals like memes are a great way to explain complicated things.

The online forum that traces the internets past five years: Wired has a fascinating look at a Reddit group about President Trump that became one of the most popular and divisive gatherings online. The article tells how this groups story encapsulated the evolution of internet forums in molding or policing peoples personal interactions and beliefs.

Check out these ethereal cuttlefish embryos bobbing around in their eggs. Yes, those tiny black dots are the cuttlefish babies eyes. (Thank you to an On Tech reader, Dr. Julie Drawbridge, for suggesting this video.)

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.

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When Taming Big Tech Goes Wrong - The New York Times

Big Tech: monopolies, misinformation and election integrity – WHYY

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Guests: David Dayen, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Joshua Tucker

Big Tech CEOs were grilled before Congress last week about whether theyve become too dominant in the marketplace, stifling competition and harming consumer choice. Should Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon be regulated, even broken up? And whats all the hullabaloo over TikTok? Well talk about the tech giants, the anti-trust hearings and Trumps TikTok fight withThe American ProspectsDAVID DAYEN. Then, Twitter and Facebook have taken steps to crackdown in misinformation, including by President Trump. But are they doing enough to safeguard our democracy, especially in light of a new intelligence report that says that Russia once again is using social media to interfere in our election. Well talk withKATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON,professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg School for Communication andJOSHUA TUCKER, professor of politics and co-director of New York Universitys Center for Social Media and Politics about their concerns over social media, disinformation, and election meddling.

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Big Tech: monopolies, misinformation and election integrity - WHYY

Impacts and Recommendations After Big Tech Congressional Testimony – GovTech

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On Wednesday, July 29, 2020, the CEOs of some of the biggest tech giants in the world testified (virtually) before Congress. Some characterized the bipartisan questioning as a brutal beating, but others reported that not much new was accomplished.

These hearings are the current ones in a series of actions at the federal and local governments and have involved other big tech such as Microsoft as well as other industry service providers.

What can we learn? What were the impacts? How do these regulatory issues affect state and local governments? Most importantly, what can and should be done next by public and private sector leaders and their partners?

These are a few of the items I explore in this blog, with the help of long-time state government policy expert Andris Ozols who worked for many years with me in Michigan State Government before his retirement a few years back. Andris was also a significant contributor to my recent blog efforts on elections security.

Background on the Congressional Hearings

First, the media coverage of the testimony was widespread before, during and after the virtual event. Here are a few headlines and relevant excerpts:

Washington Post: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google grilled on Capitol Hill over their market power

Excerpt: The leaders of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google took a brutal political lashing Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans confronted the executives for wielding their market power to crush competitors and amass data, customers and sky-high profits.

The rare interrogation played out over the course of a nearly six-hour hearing, with lawmakers on the Houses top antitrust subcommittee coming armed with millions of documents, hundreds of hours of interviews and in some cases the once-private messages of Silicon Valleys elite chiefs. They said it showed some in the tech sector had become too big and powerful, threatening rivals, consumers and, in some cases, even democracy itself.

NPR.org: Heads Of Amazon, Apple, Facebook And Google Testify On Big Tech's Power

Excerpt: Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the subcommittee chairman, spent all of his first five-minute block of questions on Google the company at most immediate risk of antitrust action. The Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to sue the company over its advertising business, and could be joined by state attorneys general who have also been investigating Google.

Cicilline pressed CEO Pichai on whether Google's business model presents a conflict of interest, because it has an incentive to give search results that keep users on its own site rather than anywhere else on the Internet.

New York Times: Lawmakers, United in Their Ire, Lash Out at Big Techs Leaders

Excerpt: The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, four tech giants worth nearly $5 trillion combined, faced withering questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike on Wednesday for the tactics and market dominance that had made their enterprises successful.

For more than five hours, the 15 members of an antitrust panel in the House lobbed questions and repeatedly interrupted and talked over Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google.

Forbes: Why Big Tech Should Regulate Itself

Excerpt: Big Tech faces two main options. They can go on acting as if nothing is amiss and hope that government action will take a long time to become a reality. Or they can take proactive steps to recognize the legitimacy of the issues and regulate themselves with a commitment to reengage with acting honorably and doing no evil. The latter course of action will be the smarter and less painful one.

Fox News: Big Tech backlash: Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon CEOs grilled on Capitol Hill

Excerpt: House lawmakers on Wednesday grilled the heads of some of the world's largest tech companies - with Democrats questioning whether the companies violated U.S. antitrust laws and stole from competitors, while Republicans slammedthem over alleged censorship and bias against conservatives.

BBC News (UK spelling) - Big Tech: What comes next for the US giants?

Excerpt: It's highly unlikely though that anything much will happen before the US elections in November.

As well as the presidential vote, all the seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as well as about a third of the Senate.

And so we reach a fork in the road for Big Tech in America.

A Republican win would probably see the tech giants scrutinised further over how they police free speech. Section 230 - which gives social media companies immunity from prosecution for what is published on their platforms - would probably be looked at.

If the Democrats win, expect more regulation in an attempt to inject more competition into the tech industry.

Consequences to State and Local Governments and Potential Actions

There are both direct and indirect consequences on state and local governments, and in order for the states and locals to both maximize the benefits as well as ameliorate the effects of regulations, the state and local governments need to understand these effects and their causes and work collaboratively among themselves and with the technology partners.

Collaboration involves shared assessments, solution design, programs, education and training, advocacy and more. Selected examples of collaboration and collaborative networks include:

Understanding State and Local Direct Impacts of Regulatory Issues

Direct impact issues are issues that are part of the federal review, litigation and hearing agendas as well as state Attorney General related agendas. Contested IT related issues involve direct business practices, platforms, hardware, software, services at variance with state and local government public values and ethics, policies, strategies, standards and agreements including accuracy, operations, outputs or outcomes.

Emphasis is placed on: State legal requirements; state and gubernatorial priorities; action and decisions needed for this decision cycle; potential for maximum effects on outcomes; facilitating integration, collaboration among governments; options available for sustained innovation involving the greatest range of state and local government services and customers.

1 - Direct effects of federal regulatory issues. Key issues identified in federal big tech, and related hearings include: Limiting options in services, decrease in control or discretion in managing services, decreased trust in government protection of security and privacy, accuracy and truthfulness of information.

2 - State and local regulatory issues. Key issues addressed in state Attorney General initiatives also include: Limiting options in services, decrease in control or discretion in managing services, decreased trust in government protection of security and privacy, accuracy and truthfulness of information.

Collaborative state initiatives announced last week for New York and California are accelerating the process and may provide new models for state and local initiatives. This article from The Guardian (UK) is entitled, New York unveils landmark antitrust bill that makes it easier to sue tech giants.

New YorkState is introducing a bill that would make it easier to sue big tech companies for alleged abuses of their monopoly powers. New York is Americas financial center and one of its most important tech hubs. If successfully passed, the law could serve as a model for future legislation across the country. It also comes as a federal committee is conducting ananti-trust investigationinto tech giants amid concerns that their unmatched market power is suppressing competition. Also, The New York Attorney General's office will join the California Attorney General's office and the Federal Trade Commission's investigation intoAmazon's online marketplace.

3 State, local and federal regulatory roles and balance. Balance in roles and authority in regulations is a policy and legal point of contention among levels of government and also determines how the regulatory issues are prioritized. This includes topic like what stakeholders need to be involved and timing for action. One of the NGA chairs priority issues for 2020 2021 will be federalism issues and questions of balance of roles and authority.

4 - State and local stakeholders and collaboration. States have established public and private sector collaborative networks (cite examples), but the current issues call for reinforcing relationships and strengthening ones with the National Governors Association (NGA), fiscal officers (https://www.nasbo.org/home ), procurement National Association of State Procurement Officials - NASPO , auditors NASACT , legislators (National Conference of State Legislatures) and their associations. Also, the perspectives of federal Congressional and Executive branch assessment and design resources such as the Partnership for Public Service, U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO), General Services Administration, Congressional Budget Office and public policy administrators would be helpful, including ASPA - https://www.aspanet.org/ASPA/

Understanding Indirect Impacts: Information, Procurement, Smart, Digital Government and Public Sector Policy and Procedural Issues

Indirect issues are those resulting from direct IT services such as hardware, software, services, outputs serving as IT inputs that support or enable other functions, processes, programs or services. In addition to processes and services, these may also affect policies, standards, decision-making, customer values, perceptions, satisfaction and trust.

In particular, these issues and how they are resolved help define and pre-structure the options available for smart, digital communities and governments.

1 Information Control and Management. Information and information management is a foundational issue, the wizard behind the curtain. Ownership, control, accuracy, misinformation and information management plays a central role in a number of the support platforms for smart, digital government - such as internet of things, big data analytics, facial recognition, mobile and location aware services, cloud, integrated and autonomous AI.

2 Procurement. Procurement management is the gateway to public / private relationships, partnerships, standards, performance, accountability, policy and value alignment, etc. Includes RFIs, RFSs, RFPs and contracts. National Association of State Procurement Officials - NASPO is a crucial partner on this issue and NASCIO has a strong established relationship.

3 Smart, Digital Government. Smart, digital government and communities and cities are vital constructs describing the connection, integration of technologies to transform how governments, citizens and businesses interact. Some of the regulatory issues can impact on smart government priorities; timing and scheduling; platforms; information ownership; integrity of personal identity; privacy; security; accuracy and reliability; processes; state and local government control; public trust and others.

While many roadmaps for smart governments and communities address the role of regulations, not all of them do, and the pandemic as well as the overlap of the flu and hurricane seasons will further accentuate the risks. In general state and local assessments, policies, standards, plans and roadmaps do not consistently address the role of regulations or the consequences of not complying. However, there are sufficient examples and models such as NGA work on Smart Transportation and Smart Energy roadmap, with sections on regulations from the Smart Community and State Initiative that can serve as models.

4 - Key State and Local Service Sectors. There are differential regulatory effects among service sectors and realignment of priorities and solutions. For example, differential effect of selected platforms on IT supported health and education services, distance learning and work, election processes, security, disaster management and recovery.

5 Key 2020 2021 Events and Decision Points. The juxtaposition of the sustained pandemic, hurricane season, pending flu season in context of the election, economic disruptions a revenue and budget short-falls are altering priorities, reducing funding allocation levels, stressing state and local service capabilities and calls for modifications in disaster and management and recovery approaches and the supporting platforms in which Big Tech is involved.

Recommendations for Collaborative Action

The public sector IT community needs to work together in both recognizing the benefits of Big Tech and integrator services as well as addressing and resolving adverse effects. This needs to involve both the public and private sector communities and build upon existing networks and public private partnership models.

The following recommendations address both the three-month cycle before the election, the three months after the election, and reference issues for potential future action.

The next five or six month period covers the front end of most state and local government assessment, design and development cycles and also includes a number of state and local association and support group working sessions and planned deliverables that could include a regulatory issue perspective. The following state/local groups share a collaborative history and are illustrative of potential opportunities and next steps regarding non-profits supporting state and local governments:

National Governors Association (NGA) - https://www.nga.org/

Follow-up to federalism issue after the Summer 2020 virtual session can include both infrastructure and regulatory issues from an IT perspective.

The Smart Transportation and Smart Energy roadmap sections on regulations, from the Smart Community and State Initiative can be one of the inputs in developing shared templates.

National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) http://www.nascio.org

Center for Digital Government (CDG) https://www.govtech.com/cdg/about/

Public Technology Institute (PTI) / CompTIA https://www.pti.org/

The Partnership for Public Service, a leading example from the federal level, with private sector partners that are shared with the state and local associations, has developed a series of information technology opportunity assessments and designs for infusing technology in federal government operations, with long-term support by IT integrators and service providers such as Deloitte, Accenture and IBM, as well as broad-scope management consultants such as Booz Allan Hamilton, Ernst Young and others. Examples include:

More Recommendations For Collaborative Action

1 Advocacy on Federal Hearing Report. Coordinate state and local advocacy on the pending federal hearing report and recommendations as well as follow-up with the Executive branch and Congress.

2 Potential IT Related Advocacy and Potential Participation State AG Initiatives. Develop a coordinated and collaborative state and local review of AG initiatives from an IT perspective and recommendations, including the New York and California proposed actions. The federal hearings and NY initiatives can be fulcrums for state and local IT related actions and may serve as models for selected state actions.

3 Enhance Role of Regulations in State and Local IT Policies, Strategies, Operations, Roadmaps and Advocacy. Collectively develop templates for addressing regulations in state and local policy and procedural guidelines, including procurement, operational and performance management, audits and others.

4 Conduct an Assessment and Recommendations of IT and Regulatory Effect and Support Capabilities for Pandemic Effects and Election Processes. Conduct a collaborative assessment of the capabilities and opportunities of IT support for the pandemic and election process, other pending emergencies and potential interactions with the regulatory issues. Develop recommendations for state leadership, NGA, NCSL and federal government.

5 Develop a Forum for IT Stakeholder Collaboration on Regulatory Issues. Identify scope of potential stakeholders for supporting recommendations and further action, and develop a forum for organizing a state, local, federal and private sector collaborative. This forum can be a Web based forum, perhaps hosted as part of the NASCIO virtual fall session.

Final Thoughts

Back in 2018, Deloitte Consulting wrote this: Regulations or absence of regulations can also alter or limit both direct government operations as well as stakeholder, customer benefits, and limit development or innovation options. As new business models and services emerge, such as ride-sharing services and initial coin offerings, government agencies are challenged with creating or modifying regulations, enforcing them, and communicating them to the public at a previously undreamed-of pace. And they must do this while working within legacy frameworks and attempting to foster innovation.

Here is another excellent piece by Deloitte on regulation and cybersecurity: National security and technology regulation. I also think it worth reviewing these biggest takeaways from the Washington Post on the antitrust hearings.

CNBCs expert analysts believe these companies will never be broken-up due to the U.S. desire to compete with companies from China and elsewhere. Nevertheless, they also say there is likely more regulation coming.

In a surprising twist, Fast Company Magazine wrote last week that: The Big Tech antitrust hearing was a PR boost for Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple.

One thing is clear: Well be back to cover this topic many times in the coming years. The issues are not going away.

Time to do your homework and get ready for more in 2021 and beyond - regardless of who wins the upcoming election.

Looking for the latest gov tech news as it happens? Subscribe to GT newsletters.

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Impacts and Recommendations After Big Tech Congressional Testimony - GovTech

Cohen: It’s time to break up Big Tech – Gazettextra

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Monopolistic companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and others have become far too powerful.

They thwart competition and abuse their power, whether its by failing to protect users privacy and data or controlling one of our most basic freedomsfree speechin hopes of influencing, if not swaying, elections. These actions warrant congressional intervention, especially given Silicon Valleys well-known political bias against conservativesincluding the president of the United States of America. President Donald Trumps tweets are routinely fact-checked and censored, for example, while those of his political opponents are not.

This rigged system has far-reaching consequences that, among other things, shape public opinion and culture and taint Americas standing in the worldwhile diminishing our collective rights.

Take Apple. If you ask Siri what demon means, she says an evil spirit or devil, especially one thought to possess a person or act as a tormentor in hell. The second definition Siri offers is a cruel, evil, or destructive person or thing. Now, brace yourself for Siris third definitiona police officer.

This prompted a terse response from GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted Thursday:

Big Tech Bias in America is realand its disgusting. Apples Siri defines demon as a police officer.

Apple needs to answer for why theyre instigating this kind of hate in America.

Indeed. Especially when you consider that as of April 2017 there were 728 million iPhones in use worldwide, according to Statista, including at least 100 million users in the U.S.

The far-left radicals at Apple are indoctrinating users to believe law enforcement officers are demons. This not only maligns police officers character, including Black cops and other minorities in uniform, but also puts cops lives at risk given todays extremely volatile political climate.

Then theres Twitter silencing conservatives en masse. Late last month, the social network censored tweets by the president and his son Donald Trump Jr. for sharing a viral video of doctors speaking about the purported benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a controversial medicine that some experts claim helps COVID-19 patients.

A Henry Ford Health System study shows the controversial anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps lower the death rate of COVID-19 patients, the Detroit-based health system said Thursday, reported the Detroit News. Officials with the Michigan health system said the study found the drug significantly decreased the death rate of patients involved in the analysis.

Nonetheless, the overlords at Twitter still censored the tweets.

But thats not all. Google, Facebook and Twitter have also been censoring the right-leaning news site Breitbart, according to its news editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow. This week, Marlow told Tucker Carlson on his Fox News program that Breitbarts Google search traffic is down over 99% since May. If you want to search for Joe Biden or Biden, the chances of you getting a Breitbart article are virtually zero, Marlow told Carlson.

See how election meddling works?

Conservative voices are being silenced across the spectrumleading up to the November electionwhile those on the left continue to get full access to voters.

This corrupt system cannot stand in a democracy.

Adriana Cohen is a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. Follow her on Twitter @AdrianaCohen16.

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Cohen: It's time to break up Big Tech - Gazettextra

New York proposes antitrust bill that would make it easier to sue big tech – CNBC

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The state of New York introduced a bill on Wednesday that would make easier for the state to sue companies if they are seen to be unilaterally violating antitrust issues.

The bill comes on the heels of the House's antitrust hearing when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified.

"Our antitrust laws are about a century old and were built for a different economy," Senator Michael Gianaris, D-NY., the sponsor of the bill, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "In some ways, what we're trying to do is match what the federal government has the power to do."

Gianaris was outspoken against Amazon's HQ2 move to Long Island City in 2019, his district, a move that earned him the nickname "The Amazon Killer."

He argued existing antitrust laws aren't equipped to tackle the ways tech companies like Google and Amazon interact with their competition today.

"You have behavior that was not contemplated when this law was originally written," Gianaris said. "No one could see a search engine which could prioritize one's own products over competitors, or incentivizing people or punishing them based on the relationship the search engine has."

"We want to give our Attorney General the power, in this new economy, to stifle anti-competitive behavior that is often the result of a single actor acting alone," Gianaris said.

New York can't currently take action against an anti-competitive move unless two companies are collaborating and conspiring to stifle competition. Those actions typically manifest in price-setting or a merger between two companies.

The proposed bill, titled the 21st Century Antitrust Act, would update those laws, so that legal action can be taken against a company if it's shown to be acting in an anti-competitive manner. It would also allow for class-action lawsuits to be brought against companies.

"Federally, you can bring action for unilateral behavior. We're trying to give New York the tools to do the same thing,"Sen. Gianaris said.

The bill would also update the penalties: a violation would be classified as a Class C felony, rather than a Class E felony as it currently stands. The maximum fine would also be changed from $100,000 to $1 million, and the maximum prison sentence from four years to 15 years.

The 21st Century Antitrust Act is unlikely to pass before the end of the year, as the state senate is currently in recess, but it already has the support of New York's Attorney General, Letitia James. "While our state's antitrust laws remain essential to these protections, we support legislation to strengthen them further to meet the challenges of today's economy," James said.

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New York proposes antitrust bill that would make it easier to sue big tech - CNBC

How This Technology Sales Leader Is Guiding Teachers Toward Instructional Enlightenment – Forbes

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How can we make the best of a bad situation in school?

When Bob Riefstahl founded2Win! Globalalmost 20 years ago, he was ahead of his time. His company provides winning pre-sales, client-success skills, and culture guidance for technology companies. Today, his clients include IBM, Adobe, CISCO, Siemens, and Microsoft.

However, in the beginning, things were quite different.

Riefstahl says, "When we started, software sales were stuck in the past. Big tech companies like IBM had a particular way of doing things, and most of the smaller companies emulated the big boys. Had that not changed, companies like Big Blue (IBM) may have fallen by the wayside. Technology is a two-step process that includes both development and sales.

He also states, The greatest technology in the world is meaningless if nobody buys it."

At the time, Riefstahl and crew began peddling what they knew. Technology companies listened, and the result has been a seismic shift in the economy of the world.

Riefstahl saw a need for technology companies to come out of the shadows and deliver what Riefstahl believed was a beneficial evolution in the way people were able to use and prosper from technology. Many believe that his company and way of doing business were an essential part of the technology revolution.

But now, Riefstahl sees a different need.

"Education has needed a technological wake-up call for some time. With the Coronavirus pandemic forcing learning online, that call is happening too quickly delivering punishing blows to our teachers because they don't have the correct knowledge and training to teach online successfully. Like anything else, teaching and delivering presentations online is a learned behavior," states Riefstahl.

Just like in 2001, when Riefstahl was motivated to help technology companies succeed, he now wants to help children learn in a new virtual world.

He states, "Plain and simple, children are the world's future, and I have two sons who were both products of the public school system, and both excelled in their careers. If we can help teachers that work with kids in very diverse school systems, we can create a better world."

Riefstahl believes his company's expertise and experience in the business sector can translate well in the education sector.

They train the largest and most successful technology companies in the world to use soft-skills to help them connect with prospective buyers of their products in a virtual environment.

Their most deep-rooted focus is on the product presentation and demonstration, and they base it on neuro-linguistic programming.

Riefstahl realized the same techniques that his company uses to teach to some of the most talented and highly paid workers in the world could be effective with the teacher and student experience.

They teach people how to be effective communicators during in-personandvirtual engagementsand have been doing so using virtual classrooms for over ten years.

Riefstahl's virtual training started in 2008, and he saw the immediate benefit and impact by leveraging a flip-the-classroom approach.

When the pandemic broke, rather than experiencing a loss in business, Riefstahl's business began to accelerate.

He says, "I have many friends who are teachers or know teachers, and many are struggling with virtual classrooms. At that point, I realized our methods, with some modifications, could be a lifeline to teachers and students."

Rather than testing the water, Riefstahl and 2Win! Global have jumped in the deep end, and he has big expectations in his company's ability to help educators.

He says, "Now and in the future, we want teachers to feel empowered, inspired, and enthused about teaching in the unfamiliar medium of virtual. We have found that our same classes taught virtually produce as good of a result as in-person classes. We want students to have that same experience."

Riefstahl hired Joan Jahelka, a lifelong educator and fellow Colorado resident, to lead the company's first offering, theClassroom 2.0series, set to debut in mid-August.

They will deliver the series into three parts:

Module One: To help teachers understand how to set up their home and teaching virtually.

Module Two: To help teachers understand the soft-skills necessary to transform their virtual instruction. This module will help to ensure the student learning experience and retention are the best.

Module Three: To help teachers and administrators understand the nuances of child privacy in virtual instruction. All the modules will be delivered in a crisp, micro-learning style using two to five-minute video segments.

Riefstahl's team at 2Win! Global believes that the education division could eventually become profitable, but that is not their primary concern.

"This goal is much more of a charitable offering on our part, and much less about profit. Our price points on this course are such that we believe it would take years to cover our costs. That's okay, because our motivation is about making a difference to kids and teachers," said Riefstahl.

[BR1]I was planning on naming it "Classroom 2.0". Does that work?

More here:

How This Technology Sales Leader Is Guiding Teachers Toward Instructional Enlightenment - Forbes

White House Weighs Bill in Response to Big Tech on Free Speech – Daily Signal

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White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says the Trump administration is contemplating some type of regulation for social media companies as part of the COVID-19 relief legislation being negotiated with Congress.

As much as Im a guy that says that the social media companies should be able to have their ownwhat I would call a wild, wild West way of doing things Im over it, Meadows said Friday in a livestream interview with American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp.

This censorship has gotten to the point where if they are going to censor, then Im going to make sure they are regulated, Meadows said, reflecting President Donald Trumps thinking.

During the week, Twitter removed a post by Trump that correctly stated children are less likely to get COVID-19 than adults. In May, Twitter issued a questionable fact check on one of Trumps tweets on problems with mail-in voting.

In addition to Trump, there have been other cases of technology companies censorship of conservatives, including YouTubes blocking of The Heritage Foundation and Prager University.

Trump issued an executive order in April that lifted some of the protection the social media platforms enjoyed under the Communications Decency Act. However, an executive order lacks the power of legislation.

Meadows, who represented North Carolinas 11th Congressional District from 2013 until becoming Trumps chief of staff last March, wasnt clear on the specifics of what any proposed legislation might involve.

The president has, as you know, put forth a few executive orders, but even in this packagewell make news herewere looking at, What do we do with regard to some of the protections that social media companies have? he said.

Social media platforms have not faced regulations as broadcast media have. Nor could they be held liable for information on their platforms as print or online media could, because they arent publishers per se.

However, the platforms have come under scrutiny for picking and choosing content, while not facing accountability.

We ought to address that in this package we have right nowin the emergency package, Meadows said. Were talking about freedom of the press, freedom of expression. And yet what we have are a number of companies that have decided on what should be communicated and what should not be communicated. And it is very troubling.

The chief of staff continued:

Weve seen videos taken down. Weve seen posts taken down. Ultimately, if youre allowing the social media companies to be the determiner of free speech, youre in a very dangerous place.

I spoke to the president last night about actually addressing that in this particular package.

Meadows later added:

Its perfectly fine for every employee of those social media companies to advocate personally for their candidate of choice, whether its the far left or the far right, or someone in between. Thats America.

Its totally inappropriate for those same people who work at a company to allow the company to put, really, the market cap and the power of these big social media companies on that level, on that scale of justice, to say we are going to determine what you see and what you view, and what is right and what is wrong. Its inappropriate.

The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google testified July 29 before the House Judiciary Committees antitrust, commercial, and administrative law subcommittee, and denied any political bias.

Still, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, noted during the hearing that Google temporarily removed the home pages of Breitbart and The Daily Caller and threatened to demonetize The Federalist.All three are conservative media outlets.

Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James weighed in on the hearing.

Jordan, who succeeded Meadows as the committees ranking Republican, said the Amazon Smile program wont allow Amazon customers to give charitable donations to some conservative groups, such as Family Research Council or Alliance Defending Freedom, but allows charitable donations to Planned Parenthood.

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White House Weighs Bill in Response to Big Tech on Free Speech - Daily Signal

The Time Has Come for Main Street to Show Big Tech How Its Done – Stock Investor

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When I saw todays unemployment number, the first thing I did was to figure out how to short some of the biggest stocks Silicon Valley has produced.

Were betting against Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) now in our Turbo Trader and High Octane Trader services, respectively. It isnt so much that I think either of these trillion-dollar behemoths is on the brink of disaster since the recent earnings cycle has proved that these companies are run by smart people with vast resources. Both companies will thrive.

But with so many people on Wall Street crowding into the top of the technology tree in the pandemics wake, these stocks have simply gotten too far ahead of themselves. After all, the NASDAQ is up a stunning 25% year to date in what government economists still consider a recession, while the S&P 500 is barely positive over the same time.

If anything, MSFT and AMZN have kept the broad market out of negative territory. Thats all right when technology is the only thing working in the global economy. However, when U.S. employers outside Silicon Valley start cautiously hiring again, its time for smart money to come out of the high-tech bunker and get back in the game.

Beyond the Digital Screen

Big Tech gets most of the love with people who spend their lives behind a screen, but for the rest of us, the physical world remains where all the real action is.

Pure technology stocks still only account for 25% of the S&P 500 and only employ a small fraction of the U.S. population. Even if you pull Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) back from the communications sector, technology just isnt the real heart of the economy.

As trite as it sounds to the people in Silicon Valley, the heart of the economy remains small businesses. I am talking about construction, convenience retail and independent restaurants, not to mention local schools, banks, hospitals and professional offices.

When the local economy starts suffering, it doesnt really matter how much cloud computing capacity Amazon and Microsoft sell. Sooner or later, well all feel the chill.

And when the local economy strikes back, smart money breathes a sigh of relief. I cant wait to start buying airlines, mall retail and community banks again.

Every step the job market moves forward takes us closer to that moment. Progress is good.

But investors who convinced themselves that Big Tech and vaccines are the only things in the world that are still working now see good news as a bad thing. Suddenly, their stocks need to compete for capital and market leadership.

Today demonstrated that good news for Main Street is now seen as bad news for Silicon Valley stocks. Look at AMZN and MSFT today. Theyve come a long way and now its time they step back.

My Turbo Trader subscribers booked a 25% win today on a put option trade in MSFT. All we had to do was acknowledge that this gigantic stock would find it difficult to push much farther beyond $210 in the immediate future.

Thats all it takes to make money in a brittle market environment. Maybe one day far from now, MSFT and its peers will rule the world. Today, theyre still subject to the basic law of gravity.

Where are we rolling our money instead? For me, the strongest investment strategy always starts by locking in enough income to pay the bills.

Value Authority is where we concentrate on solid old-economy stocks that pay bigger yields than what youd get from MSFT or the U.S. government, for that matter. Until Big Tech takes a big dip, we need to be patient before those stocks are attractive.

When regular dividends are coming in, we can afford to be patient. Thats the approach I recently recommended for TD Ameritrade clients. (Watch the video.)

And as for Main Street, we look at the real business of America every week on my Millionaire Makerradio show. (Click here for recorded episodes and local stations.)

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The Time Has Come for Main Street to Show Big Tech How Its Done - Stock Investor

Three Stories You Absolutely Must Read to Learn About Automatons (And One You Definitely Shouldn’t) – tor.com

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Like any totally-normal-not-at-all-obsessed person, I spend a lot of time thinking about automatons.

Mostly, I shake my fist at the sky like an old man complaining that kids these days only like their sleek, human-passing, electric robots and no one cares about the wind, fire, water, and clockwork powered beings that preceded them. Is MonkBot not sexy? With that sweet, sweet segmented mouth action?

Automatons are usually thought of as no different from golems, living dolls, or patchwork girls. Just another category of animated being: nifty, sure, but so what? But automatons are, and have always been, important. And for two thousand years we knew that.

In the arc of human invention, automatons predate paper. That means before we thought sure would be nice to write things in a convenient and portable manner we thought sure would be nice to have an inhuman creation in our shape that moves. Then we immediately looked at this thing wed made and instead of believing wed become gods, we thought wed created them. In ancient Rome and Egypt, as well as during the medieval period, automatons were representations of the divine. Even after they shifted into the realm of entertainment, automatons were singular wonders, art that brought joy to the viewer.

If youre interested in getting a peek at how these fascinating machines used to be viewed in society, and what changed, below are three stories you absolutely must readand one you absolutely must not.

(Honorable mention to the film Hugo (2011) by Martin Scorsese)

This wonderfully illustrated novel tells the story of a boy who has spent two years alone, tending to the clocks of a train station and attempting to fix a broken automaton. Once he discovers the key to making it work, the repaired automaton begins to draw a clue to its origins. This novel is great because it blurs the lines of machine and man. It is Hugo who mechanically tends to the clocks at the same designated time each day, Hugo who has no one to care for him. He is more like an automaton than a boy, and his reentry into the world of other people makes it feel less like the title is referring to an invention owned by Hugo, and more like it refers to his being invented as a person again after spending years as a machine.

The reason you should read this novel is not just to learn that the line between human and automaton is blurry at best, but to see how actual automatons once functioned. Hugos care for his machine echoes the way these intricate machines would have been treated by their creators. Never mass produced, never expected to fill the traditional labor roles we associate with robots like Rosie from The Jetsons or even Siri today, but amusements for the sake of it, a meeting of science and art. Most importantly, the automaton in Hugo Cabret and the story of its discovery are REAL almost. In 1928 a mysterious box of parts was given to Philadelphias Franklin institute where workers reassembled the machine with largely no idea what it would be when they were done. Once they finished repairing the mechanical boyofficially named Maillardets Automatonthey discovered he could draw. Unlike the automaton in the novel, this one replicates four drawings and three poems in two languages. Also, this automaton was actually made in the year 1800, over a hundred years before its recreation in Philadelphia, which makes it one hundred years older than its literary counterpart in the book.

The Pretended takes place in a world where all black people have been killed by a white supremacist society and replaced with fabricated beings whose speech and appearance are caricatures of blackness. We learn that this annihilation was deemed necessary because those in power wanted to pretend black people werent people, which was harder to do while they were alive. The plan backfires, because even these new creations exhibit personhood, and must also be destroyed.

This story exemplifies the hardest aspect of automatons for people to graspas evidenced by the squinchy faces I get when I explain that I work in both posthumanism and critical race theorythat even beings that were never born can be racialized. Not only can they be, but automatons in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were so often orientalist depictions that one reader writing into New Yorks Christian Register in 1844 complained: Why are all automata dressed in turbans? When the first American automatonZadoc P. Dederick and Isaac Grass Steam Manis designed immediately after the Civil War, its patent illustration takes the form most strongly associated with labor in the mind of Americans: a black man.

On one side of this 1868 automaton is two thousand years of wonder and the delicate, handmade, boy-machine writing poetry and drawing ships from Hugo Cabret, on the other is the assembly line and Karel apeks play R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots), forever wedding automation and labor in both reality and fiction.

The Sandman is your standard boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy never notices that girl doesnt communicate, boy sees girl disassembled and the sight of eyes sitting on a table drives boy mad tale. You know, classic. But what makes this one so interesting is over two hundred years ago Hoffman resisted the urge to paint the male protagonist, Nathaniel, as a purely duped victim and instead leaves him with, Bruhshe never communicated and you were cool with it?

The last section details the effect the story of the female automaton had on the men who heard it: Many lovers, to be quite convinced that they were not enamoured of wooden dolls, would request their mistresses to sing and danceand, above all, not merely to listen, but also sometimes to talk, in such a manner as presupposed actual thought and feeling

Hoffman even gives the final insult to OG sadboi Nathaniel by having Clara, the fiance he was stepping out on with the automaton, move on happily: she at last found a quiet domestic happiness suitable to her serene and cheerful nature, a happiness which the morbid Nathaniel would never have given her.

Hoffman uses the figure of the automaton here to show us that they are wonders of science and works of art but if that is all youre looking for in a partner you might be one set of disembodied eyes away from jumping off a cliff.

just kidding, his name was Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, Comte de Villiers de lIsle-Adam (Auguste Villiers de lIsle-Adam for short) which, in my defense, does roughly translate to Some Jerk depending on where you put the accent.

In this novel a distressed lord comes to his inventor friend, none other than Edison himself, with a problem: hes found a girl whos wicked hot, but he doesnt like her mind. Shes either too virtuousas in, she didnt want to keep her virginity for the right reasonsor not virtuous enoughas in, she is fallen, but not in a way he can appreciate. Shes too practical. Shes not too stupid, but rather not stupid enough (A woman who has lost all her stupidity, can she be anything but a monster?). The solution? Make a copy of her body and replace the brain with a more palatable version. Literally render her body as an object separate from her personality for the purpose of sexual possession. The novel holds that Alicia herself is not exceptional in her unworthiness, but that women in general are a problem. In one scene the inventor pulls out a drawer full of wigs, corsets, pantyhose, makeup, birth control, etc. and declares the contents of the drawer is everything that makes women. Might as well turn them into sexbots, after all, its what they do to themselves.

I am not saying you shouldnt read this novel because there is nothing it can teach you about the legacy of the automaton. Im saying you shouldnt read this novel because it can teach you, and sometimes you can be taught things that are wrong. With this novel, Villiers ignores and erases the lesson laid down by E.T.A. Hoffman exactly seventy years earlier. Why strive to hear your beloveds voice, he tells men of the time, when you can just replace it with one that pleases you?

By remembering automatons we remember how the prioritization of art can become bulldozed by wants of industry, the miraculous giving way to the profitable. These creations are still essential to study, because when humans create in their own image they also create a tangible snapshot of the values and visions of the world at that moment. Sometimes, that image is of religious devotion. Sometimes, its an image of intellectual curiosity and wonder. But sometimes they are darker, cautionary tales exposing how power operates against the powerless.

Micaiah Johnson was raised in Californias Mojave Desert surrounded by trees named Joshua and women who told stories. She received her bachelor of arts in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside, and her master of fine arts in fiction from Rutgers UniversityCamden. She now studies American literature at Vanderbilt University, where she focuses on critical race theory and automatons.

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Three Stories You Absolutely Must Read to Learn About Automatons (And One You Definitely Shouldn't) - tor.com

(PDF) Posthumanism – ResearchGate

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Universitetsforlaget 171

misleading, if taken as its ultimate state: on a subatomic level, everything is in con-

stant vibration. As famously demonstrated by Einstein (1905), matter and energy

are equivalent. Energy is intrinsically relational, as well as matter is irreducible to a

single determined entity; any reductionist approach has scientifically failed. From a

physics perspective, anything which has mass and volume is considered matter:

humans, for instance, are made out of matter, as well as robots. Let's now go back to

our initial question: who am I? We are material networks of relations, fluctuant

becoming in symbiotic interaction with the others, the environment, our sur-

roundings; we are constant potentials. In nietzschean terms: we are a bridge

(Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 7). Human existence is related to any other form of

existence; nothing, in this dimension, is completely autonomous or totally inde-

pendent. In this sense, the field of epigenetics is significant, with its emphasis on the

heritable changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms which are external to

the underlying DNA sequence. Posthumanism approaches the potentials opened by

biotechnology, nanotechnology, cybernetics, robotics and space migration, in an

ontological way, through Heidegger: technology is no mere means, but a way of

revealing (1953:12). We can thus talk of technologies of existence. Posthumanism

has to do with theoretical philosophy as well as with applied ethics. More extensiv-

ely, posthumanism can be perceived as a path of knowledge, which may eventually

turn into full awareness: we literally are what we eat, what we think, what we

breathe, what and who we connect to. Currently, posthumanism seems the most

open and sensitive critical frame to approach intellectual tasks, as well as daily prac-

tices of being. Since any existential performance has interconnected agency, post-

humanism will add to your perspective as much as your perspective will add to the

posthuman shift. More than an exchange (ex comes from Latin, meaning out),

it is an intra-change, a fluid entanglement of being, an expansion of material aware-

ness, a fractal movement of energy which will have simultaneously affected your

existence as well as the evolution of spacetime. This is why I think posthumanism is

something you want to know about.

references

Anzalda, Gloria 1987. Borderlands/La

Frontera: The Ne w Mestiza. San Francisco:

Aunt Lute Book s.

Barad, Karen 2007. Meeting the Universe Half-

way: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of

Matter and Meaning. Durham et al.: Duke Uni-

versity Press.

Braidotti, Rosi 1994. Nomadic Subjec ts:

Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemp-

orary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia

Universit y Press.

Braidotti, Rosi 2013. The Posthuman. Cam-

bridge, UK et al.: Polity Press.

Butler, Judith 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble:

Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New

Yor k et a l.: Rou tle dge.

Crenshaw, Kimberle 1989. Demarginalizing

the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black

Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doc-

trine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.

The University of Chicago Legal Forum 139

167.

Einstein, Albert. 1905. Ist die Trgheit eines

Krpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhngig?

Annalen der Physik 18 (13):639643.

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What Is Posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press

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What does it mean to think beyond humanism? Is it possible to craft a mode of philosophy, ethics, and interpretation that rejects the classic humanist divisions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological? Can a new kind of humanitiesposthumanitiesrespond to the redefinition of humanitys place in the world by both the technological and the biological or green continuum in which the human is but one life form among many?

Exploring how both critical thought along with cultural practice have reacted to this radical repositioning, Cary Wolfeone of the founding figures in the field of animal studies and posthumanist theoryranges across bioethics, cognitive science, animal ethics, gender, and disability to develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world. Then, in performing posthumanist readings of such diverse works as Temple Grandins writings, Wallace Stevenss poetry, Lars von Triers Dancer in the Dark, the architecture of Diller+Scofidio, and David Byrne and Brian Enos My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, he shows how this philosophical sensibility can transform art and culture.

For Wolfe, a vibrant, rigorous posthumanism is vital for addressing questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems and their inclusions and exclusions, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity. In What Is Posthumanism? he carefully distinguishes posthumanism from transhumanism (the biotechnological enhancement of human beings) and narrow definitions of the posthuman as the hoped-for transcendence of materiality. In doing so, Wolfe reveals that it is humanism, not the human in all its embodied and prosthetic complexity, that is left behind in posthumanist thought.

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What Is Posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press

UN Denounces Muzzling of Teachers Union in Jordan – Voice of America

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GENEVA - The U.N. human rights office calls the decision to close Jordans Teachers Syndicate another blow to the unions freedom of association and to its ability to operate without governmental interference.

U.N. rights officials say they are deeply disturbed by the increasingly restrictive and heavy-handed measures being imposed on the independent trade union right to freedom of opinion and expression. They cite worrying reports of excessive use of force by security forces late last month against hundreds of demonstrators who were protesting the arrest and suspension of the Teachers Syndicates leaders.

U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville says his agency has serious concerns about a growing clampdown on press freedoms. He says a recent order by the attorney general to ban all news stories about the syndicates closure and the arrest of its board members tramples on peoples civic rights.

The actions against the Teachers Syndicate, which has over 100,000 members, and its supporters, are emblematic of a growing pattern of suppression of public freedoms and the restriction of civic and democratic space by the Jordanian government, including against labor rights activists, human rights defenders, journalists and those who have peacefully criticized the government, said Colville.

The government and the Teachers Syndicate have been engaged in disputes over low teacher salaries in public schools since the union was formed in 2011. After a four-week strike last October, the government agreed to raise teacher salaries from 35 to 74 percent, depending on their professional level.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Colville says salary increases have been frozen until the end of the year, raising tensions with the syndicate.

While Jordan is clearly facing an economic crisis, like many other countries, partly because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we encourage the government to engage in good faith negotiations with the Teachers Syndicate about their concerns rather than imposing measures that unlawfully restrict the rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion and expression, said Colville.

Schools are closed for summer holidays but are due to reopen at the end of the month. However, the U.N. human rights office warns further pressure on the Teachers Syndicate may trigger more strikes, resulting in additional school closures. Among the losers, it says, would be the children, who would be deprived of their right to education.

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UN Denounces Muzzling of Teachers Union in Jordan - Voice of America

Jordan to ramp up repatriation of nationals – Arab News

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GAZA CITY: The Gaza Strips rulers Hamas fired rockets into the sea on Monday after repeated exchanges of fire with Israel in recent days, Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said.At least eight rockets were seen in the sky, heading toward the Mediterranean Sea, said AFP journalists in the coastal strip, which has been under Israeli blockade for more than a decade.The interior ministry of the Palestinian enclave under Hamas control since 2007 referred to an act of resistance.The rockets were a message to Israel to let it know that armed groups in Gaza will not remain silent in the face of an Israeli blockade and aggression, a source close to Hamas told AFP.The source noted that Mondays rocket fire coincided with the recent launch of incendiary balloons into Israel.In the past week, such balloons have flown three times from Gaza into Israel, each time triggering retaliatory strikes against Hamas positions.The latest came Sunday night when the Israeli military announced that one of its aircraft had struck at a Hamas observation post in northern Gaza.Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.Despite a truce last year, backed by the UN, Egypt and Qatar, the two sides clash sporadically with rockets, mortar fire or incendiary balloons from Gaza and retaliatory strikes by Israel.Palestinian analysts say fire from Gaza often aims to pressure Israel to give the green light for the transfer of financial aid into the strip.I dont expect a war because neither side wants a war at this stage, Jamal Al-Fadi, professor of political science at Gazas Al-Azhar University, told AFP.These rockets and incendiary balloons are messages from Hamas to Israel to improve economic conditions in the enclave, ease the blockade and implement part of the agreements reached by the two sides, he added.

According to the World Bank, around 53 percent of Gazas population lived below the poverty line before the novel coronavirus crisis.That number could rise above 60 percent due to economic fallout from the pandemic, it has said.So far 81 cases of the novel coronavirus, including one death, have been recorded in the enclave of two million people, where schools reopened this weekend after a five-month shutdown.Israeli Defense Minister and alternate prime minister Benny Gantz said Monday he would be happy to see Gaza develop and for Palestinians in the strip to be able to work in Israel.But that can only happen on one condition: that the boys come home, he said.Gantz was referring to the bodies of two soldiers believed to have been killed in the 2014 Gaza war and their remains held by Hamas, and possibly to two Israeli civilians thought to be held captive by Hamas after they crossed into Gaza over five years ago.In 2011, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

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You’re Going to Like the Union x Air Jordan IVs, Even If You Hated Them – Complex

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One of the biggest shoes of 2020 is one that no one liked at all at first. The Union x Air Jordan IV, the follow up to the brand's much-talked-about collaboration on the Air Jordan 1 from 2018, was destined to be a "sneaker of the year" since rumors started to swirl about its existence last year. People didn't need to know what it looked like to want it. It was an Air Jordan by Union. It was going to be great. It was going to resell for $1,000. And everyone who mattered was going to wear them and make you want them even more.

To talk about the Union x Air Jordan IV, we need to go back in time a bit first. Union was started by James Jebbia in New York City in 1989, before he founded Supreme in 1994. The store became one of the first outlets for a burgeoning streetwear culture that would help overlap skateboarding, hip-hop, sneakers, and surf into a style and aesthetic unlike anything before it. Chris Gibbs bought Union in 2008. The NYC store closed in 2009. And now only a Los Angeles store represents the business.

Union became known as a taste-leader in the streetwear world. It wasn't a typical sneaker boutique, although some of its past collaborations include its era-defining take on the Nike Air 180. It was a shop that sold the brands and products that it liked, whether they were the biggest labels at the time or not. (Union was one of the first shops in the U.S. that sold Visvim.) Its Air Jordan 1 collaboration came out not long after the retailer worked with Gary Aspden on an Adidas SPZL collection.

The Air Jordan 1 project was debuted in a unique way. It was placed at a booth at the Rose Bowl Flea Market without any promotion online and organically, at least to our knowledge, discovered by influencers such as Sean Wotherspoon and Emily Oberg, who didn't think the shoes were real.

The sneakers, with their mismatched uppers combining Air Jordan 1 colorways that first released in 1985, took some time to grow on people. Not everyone was sold on them at first. black/red combined with white/blue was a jarring mix. But the hype on the sneakers spiraled out of control, with pairs eventually selling for nearly $2,000.

This wasn't the first time that hype was seen on a Union x Air Jordan 1. A year earlier at ComplexCon, riots nearly broke out as the retailer attempted to release a mismatch pair of black and gold Jordan 1s.

"I underestimated the demand and fervor of the Jordan customer. 2,000 kids lined up yesterday. We were just caught off guard and it messed things up," said Gibbs about the release then. "We love to have the Jordans, but we have other good product and a regular non-Jordan hooligan that's trying to see some of our other shit. Obviously, there's other normal Jordan fans, but there are rough guys fucking it up for everything. They almost pushed over our wall."

Whether by coincidence or design, hype tends to follow Union Air Jordan 1s. Since the release and critical acclaim of the 2018 Air Jordan 1s, the brand's Twitter account tweeted on a regular basis about the shoes, making the sneakers part of the company's identity.

Another collaboration with Jordan Brand has been teased for quite some time. Rumors started to circulate that it would be an Air Jordan IV, unarguably a top-five Air Jordan of all timemaybe even the greatest, depending on who you ask.

"We're definitely circling the wagons around the Jordan IVs," Gibbs told Complex in a July 2019 interview. "It's not 100 percent confirmed yet, but that's kind of where it's at."

One of the few ways that Union could have upped the hype ante on their previous collaborations was with this Air Jordan IV. This time, though, unlike the previous two sneakers (the black/gold pair was released without anyone's prior knowledge at ComplexCon) everyone saw it coming. It was going to be big from the start.

But then there was a lulla letdown when the sneakers were unofficially unveiled. And some could have predicted that outcome. The last sneakers weren't exactly what you'd expect from one of the biggest collaborations of that year, but they became it over time. The sneakers grew on people.

The Air Jordan IVs were different. They had a flapped over tongue, a mesh toebox, and a shape unlike any previous Air Jordan IVs. They didn't appeal to purists of the brand or those simply in it for the hype. But once people were able to see high-definition photos of the shoes, see them styled the right way, and notice that they look more traditional than they thought, the tide on the internet started to turn.

Today, Aug. 6, Union finally gave an official look at the Air Jordans, as well as two pairs of non-retro sneakers that will be included in the collection. And the shoes look much different from the earlier leaked photos. For starters, the tongue can come to full length with the removal of a few stitches.

In a short blog post, Gibbs said: "First time around we took a crack at the AJ I, which was my all time favorite. For our sophomore album... we pivot to my 2nd favorite; the AJ IV. Back in the day, I had always liked to wear my IV's with a short tongue, so I would fold them over themselves and tie them down."

Gibbs used to the sneakers rollout to explain the design of the shoe. "The other major thing we did was that we edited the paneling of the shoes to create a slightly different shape to the shoe. You might not catch this at first, but when you compare our design to the OG AJ IVs. you can tell we added an extra panel, he says. We did this for 2 reasons; first off, it created a dope toe vamp view when you look down... my favorite view is when you look right down at kicks; the 'birds-eye view.' Secondly, It allows for a more balanced ratio of mesh to suede, which is something I was trying to achieve as well."

The sneakers make a lot more sense now, and it's started to change people's minds. Seeing the shoes with a full-length tongue makes the difference to some. Seeing better quality pictures of the shoes also helps. For others, they've simply warmed up to the design or appreciated the story behind them. Needless to say, the hype is afoot on the Union x Air Jordan IVs.

As for me? I'm undecided on my critical analysis of the sneakers (which have been shown in Noir and Guava colorways). I'm not going for Air Jordan IVs anyway, but can still hold a favorable view of the sneaker through a removed lens.

No matter how people feel about these sneakers, this hype was bound to happen. They will be limited. They will resell for a ton of money. The high-profile celebrities and cool internet folks will wear them and kids across America will view them as their grails. Guests on Sneaker Shopping will buy them. The prices will shoot up and people will forget that they hated the shoe to begin with.

It's a sneaker collaboration that's too big to fail. It's weird to lump a Union x Air Jordan IV in with Nike's string of Travis Scott sneakers, Dior x Air Jordan 1s, Ben & Jerry's x Nike SB Dunks, but that's the expectation at this pointeven if Union is the consistently-low-resting heart-rate of a shop that's cool on all accounts, but still beats to its own drum.

Those sneakers take zero convincing to like before consumers even see them. A Union x Air Jordan IV, in theory, should be the same thing. But theres something challenging about the design. Its not a shoe you need to understand to like, but its something you need to consider a few times before you make up your mind. Even with all that said, theres always going to be people who like the shoes anyway, even if they dont know why. As Ive said before, its a Union Air Jordan. Its going to resell for a lot and be worn by famous people.

It's what Gibbs alluded to earlier, their Air Jordans bring in a different consumer from their everyday shopper. It's someone who's going to have different expectations. When the stakes are higher, that's harder to communicate, but that's the case here. It's not a bad thing, either. It's growth and recognition for a small shop that's been the pulse of the streetwear scene since its inception. It just comes with new levels of stress and people to satisfyones that will like the product once someone they deem as cool wears it. Just wait for it to happen with the Union x Air Jordan IVs, they're one Instagram photo away from sneaker of the year.

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You're Going to Like the Union x Air Jordan IVs, Even If You Hated Them - Complex

Adolescent well-being in Jordan: Exploring gendered capabilities, contexts and change strategies – A synthesis report on GAGE Jordan baseline findings…

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By Jones, N., Baird, S., Presler-Marshall, E., Maachowska, A., Kilburn, K., Abu Hamad, B., Essaid, A., Amaireh, W., Sajdi, J., Banioweda, K., Alabbadi, T., Alheiwidi, S., Ashareef, Q., Altal, S., Kharabsheh, W., Abu Taleb, H., Abu Azzam, M. and Abu Hammad, B.

Introduction

Situated at the crossroads of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Jordan has a long history of hosting the regions refugees. Beginning with Palestine refugees in 1948, followed by Iraqi refugees in the 1990s and, since 2011, accepting hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing both drought and civil war, it is estimated that of Jordans approximately 10 million inhabitants, 1 in 3 is a refugee. Of those, more than 2 million are Palestinian (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), 2019b), just over 660,000 are Syrian, and nearly 100,000 are from Iraq, Yemen and Sudan (UNHCR, 2019). While the country is ranked high in terms of human development (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2019), Jordan has faced significant economic and social challenges in seeking to absorb its large refugee population. Its public schools, many of which are running double-shift, cannot meet demand and the country faces severe and escalating water shortages. The labour market is also struggling to keep up with the burgeoning population. It is estimated that the real unemployment rate is twice that of the officially reported rate of 15% (CIA World Factbook, 2019; World Bank, 2019b).

Jordans refugee populations are especially vulnerable. While most Palestine refugees have been granted full citizenship, which affords them the same rights and services as other Jordanian citizens, the nearly 20% who remain living in refugee camps (especially those originally from Gaza) are legally barred from doing many types of work, which means they have a poverty rate approaching one-third (31%) (Tiltnes and Zhang, 2013; Palestinian Return Centre, 2018). Jordans Syrian refugees of whom approximately 85% live in urban host communities and 15% live in one of two formal camps are in many ways even more vulnerable, despite assistance from the international community. Approximately 85% live below the Jordanian poverty line (UNHCR, 2018).

Girls and women face additional gender-related barriers, due to social norms and laws that position them as second-class citizens. The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks Jordan as very high in terms of gender inequality, and notes that womens rights within the family and access to civil liberties are particularly limited (OECD, 2019b). The World Bank (2019b) reports that womens labour force participation rates in Jordan are among the lowest in the world, while the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2018) notes that Jordans ranking in terms of womens economic opportunity has dropped significantly from 105th to 144th in the past decade.

This report draws on baseline evidence from GAGE (Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence) a unique longitudinal mixed-methods research and impact evaluation study focused on what works to support the development of adolescents capabilities during the second decade of life (1019 years). Recognising that the transformations that take place during adolescence are second only to those experienced in infancy and early childhood in terms of their scope and speed, and that the current generation of adolescents (1.2 billion) is the largest ever, the development community is increasingly focused on how to capitalise on the window of opportunity that is adolescence, to reap a triple dividend: for adolescents today, for their adult trajectories, and for their children.

GAGE brings to this global movement a focus on gender. Our starting point is that adolescent transitions often shape lives in highly gendered ways, due to the prevailing norms of socio-cultural environments. These norms especially around sexuality start to become more rigidly enforced and more consequential in early adolescence, forcing girls and boys trajectories to diverge as they approach adulthood. Understanding this divergence, and tailoring programme interventions accordingly, is critical if we are to fast-track social change.

Drawing on GAGEs mixed-methods research in Jordan, this report synthesises findings about adolescent girls and boys capabilities across six key domains: (1) education and learning; (2) health, nutrition, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH); (3) bodily integrity and freedom from violence; (4) psychosocial well-being; (5) voice and agency; and (6) economic empowerment. It concludes with policy and programming implications viewed through a multidimensional capability lens.

GAGE framing and methods

Conceptual framing

GAGEs conceptual framework takes a holistic approach that pays careful attention to the interconnectedness of what we call the 3 Cs capabilities, contexts, and change strategies to understand what works to support adolescent girls and boys development and empowerment, now and in the future (see Figure 1). This framing draws on the three components of Pawson and Tilleys (1997) approach to evaluation, which highlights the importance of outcomes, causal mechanisms and contexts. However, we tailor that approach to the specific challenges of understanding what works in improving adolescent girls and boys capabilities.

The first building block of our conceptual framework is capability outcomes. Championed originally by Amartya Sen (1984; 2004), and nuanced to better capture complex gender dynamics at intra-household and societal levels by Martha Nussbaum (2011) and Naila Kabeer (2003), the capabilities approach has evolved as a broad normative framework exploring the kinds of assets (economic, human, political, emotional and social) that expand the capacity of individuals to achieve valued ways of doing and being. Importantly, the approach can encompass relevant investments in girls and boys with diverse trajectories, including the most marginalised and hardest to reach, such as those who have a disability or girls who are already mothers.

The second building block of our conceptual framework is context. Our 3 Cs framework situates girls and boys ecologically, recognising that their capability outcomes are highly dependent on family or household, community, state and global contexts.

The third and final building block of our conceptual framework acknowledges that girls and boys contextual realities can be mediated by a range of change strategies, including: empowering individual adolescents; supporting parents; engaging with men and boys on gender inequalities; sensitising community leaders; enhancing adolescent-responsive services; and addressing system-level deficits.

Research questions

Stemming from our conceptual framework, there are three sets of questions that are central to GAGEs research.They focus on:

adolescent experiences and the ways in which these are gendered and also differ according to adolescents economic, social and geographical positioning;

the ways in which programmes and services address adolescent vulnerabilities and support the development of their full capabilities; and

the strengths and weaknesses of programme design and implementation in terms of ensuring programme efficacy, scale and sustainability.

At baseline, we are focusing on the first two questions. We will explore the third question in more detail during subsequent rounds of research currently scheduled for 2019/2020 and 2021/2022.

Research sample and methodology

GAGE is using both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore these research questions. Our baseline data was collected between mid-2018 and early 2019 and included a survey of nearly 4,000 adolescents and their caregivers. We also conducted in-depth individual interviews with 240 young people and their caregivers, held focus group discussions with adolescents, with parents and with community leaders, and conducted key informant interviews with service providers, governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders.

Research sample overview

GAGE research sites were informed by two complementary considerations: (1) a review of existing data and evidence on adolescents and gender in Jordan, which highlighted where the evidence base is especially thin (see Presler-Marshall et al., 2017; Presler-Marshall, 2018); and (2) the design of UNICEF Jordans integrated adolescent and youth programme for vulnerable girls and boys, through which we are exploring questions related to change strategies (as per the GAGE conceptual framework) and how they shape the development trajectories of adolescents from refugee and host communities alike.

GAGE is working in five governorates in Jordan Amman, Mafraq, Irbid, Zarqa and Jerash where most of the Syrian refugee population live. In order to explore the complexity of adolescent realities in refugee and host communities, we spread our sample across three very different contexts: host communities , informal tented settlements (ITSs), and United Nations (UN) refugee camps (see map in Annex 1). Recognising that recent attention has been focused on the Syrian population, and that Jordans Palestinian population is increasingly invisible to development actors, we have also included the ex-Gazan Palestinian population in Jerash refugee camp, which has high rates of child marriage and is particularly disadvantaged economically and socially due to residents lacking national identity documents.

To understand the effects of UNICEFs programming especially its Makani centres (see Annex 2) it was important that our sample included participants and non-participants. For participants, we were able to select adolescents using data from UNICEFs Bayantati (Our Data) database. For non-participants, we undertook a twostep process. In host communities, to minimise differences between the participant and non-participant sample, we selected adolescents whose families were either receiving UNICEFs Hajati cash transfer for vulnerable households, or those who were eligible but due to resource constraints were still on the waiting list (as of mid-2018). In the camps, because there is no equivalent cash transfer programme, we relied on the Refugee Assistance Information System (RAIS) of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and selected adolescents from families with similar vulnerability scores.

Our final quantitative sample consisted of 4,000 adolescents, equally split by sex (girls and boys) and by age cohort (younger adolescents aged 1012 years, and older adolescents aged 1517 years). Because sampling was based on household vulnerability, and refugee households are more vulnerable than Jordanian households, our sample is tilted towards refugees (with 15% Jordanians) (see Table 1 and 2 for details) (Baird et al., 2018). In line with the mandate of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to leave no one behind, we also deliberately over sampled some groups of especially marginalised young people, including those with disabilities and girls who were (or had been) married. Our qualitative sample, which consisted of 240 adolescents, was purposively selected out of the larger sample (for more details on the research methods and research ethics, see Jones et al., 2018).

Read the full report, executive summary, and executive summary in Arabic

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Adolescent well-being in Jordan: Exploring gendered capabilities, contexts and change strategies - A synthesis report on GAGE Jordan baseline findings...

Kevin Hart Tried to Explain Michael Jordan’s Greatness to Joe Rogan – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

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It should come as no surprise thatMichael Jordans impactstretches well beyond the basketball court. Athletes, entertainers, and ordinary people around the world look at Jordan for inspiration across all walks.One of these fans is Kevin Hart.

Hart, who prides himself on his hard work drive to always get better, recently sat down with Joe Rogan on his podcast to discuss the impact that Jordan had on his life.

Hart might be known to the casual audience as the loud, funny leading man of several comedies and television shows. While this is true, he did not get to where he is by chance. Comedy, like sports, is a competitive field in its own right, and reaching Harts status requires an equal amount of talent and savvy in getting his name out there.

Hart isnt just a comedian; after all, he.is a media mogul, an entrepreneur, and an innovator in many ways. Seeing somebody like Michael Jordan, who showed that athletes could become a brand unto themselves, likely played dividends in getting Hart to where he is today, and it shows.

Hart is always thinking ahead about what he can do on camera, on the stage, and wherever else hes needed.

He spoke on this to Rogan.

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Speaking aboutThe Last Dancedocumentary with Rogan, Hart, who once famously madeJordan angry with his jabs at a charity event (per NESN), was taken aback byhow otherworldly Jordan seemson and off the court. Amazed, he beamed about what it was like to see a man reach Jordans heights the way he did.

Hes an alien, Hart told the podcast host. Hes one of us. Hes one of those aliens [that] other aliens identify with.

To outsiders and people who never had to reach a Jordan or hart level, Jordans career seems as unlikely as getting superpowers or winning the lottery. However, for Hart, it gives him a benchmark for what he can aspire to be, even as his name grows bigger across the globe.

What this shows you is how different MJ was. That man was a f**ing winner. He was a winner. And thats it. Thats it. MJ won. There is no other conversation. When you watch this doc, and you watched how he approached his days, and why he approached it, and the things that he did, and his reason for doing them, and ultimately what he did, and what his priority and what his goals were, you go, F***.

This is nothing new to those who paid attention. Kobe Bryant was notorious for looking up at Jordan not just as the greatest basketball player ever, but one of the greatest workers.

Just because the diminutive Hart cant go out there and win NBA championships, however, it doesnt mean that he cant use Jordan as inspiration in his field.

Jordan goes beyond sports. While other athletes like Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Tom Brady have become international games, none have done so at the level Jordan did. No one ever calls somebody the Tiger Woods of baseball, football, or basketball. They almost always call somebody at the peak of a sport the Michael Jordan of whatever it is.

Hart might be a multi-millionaire celebrity now, but in the 1990s, he was another young man who watched Jordan ascend from NBA All-Star to a worldwide juggernaut. It makes sense, looking back, that Hart could see a man like that and grow inspired to use his methods in another world. Harts story is the story of a lot of people around the world.

This is what separates Jordan from every other athlete in history, and he will likely do so for many years to come, as well.

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Kevin Hart Tried to Explain Michael Jordan's Greatness to Joe Rogan - Showbiz Cheat Sheet