UrLogicFails

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Researchers in Japan have confirmed that microplastics are present in clouds, where they are likely affecting the climate in ways that are not yet fully understood.

The team identified nine different types of polymers and one type of rubber in the airborne microplastics, which ranged in size from 7.1 to 94.6 micrometres.

Each litre (0.26 gallon) of cloud water tested contained between 6.7 to 13.9 pieces of the plastics.

“If the issue of ‘plastic air pollution’ is not addressed proactively, climate change and ecological risks may become a reality, causing irreversible and serious environmental damage in the future,” lead author of the research, Hiroshi Okochi of Waseda University, warned in a statement on Wednesday.

When microplastics reach the upper atmosphere and are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight, they degrade, contributing to greenhouse gasses, Okochi said.

Waseda University said in a statement on Wednesday that research shows that “microplastics are ingested or inhaled by humans and animals alike and have been detected in multiple organs such as lung, heart, blood, placenta, and faeces”.

Emerging evidence has linked microplastics to a range of effects on heart and lung health, as well as cancers, in addition to widespread environmental harm.

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“Even if Republicans needlessly shut down the government, loan payments will continue to be due” starting in October, an Education Department spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO on Thursday, responding to calls from some progressives to delay the effort.

Interest on most federal loans began accruing again on Sept. 1, and about 28 million borrowers will be expected to make a payment in October, according to the department. Some borrowers have already received bills in advance of their individual payment due date, which vary across the month.

The department has not yet publicized an updated contingency plan that details how it would curtail its operations in the event of a government shutdown. But officials have confirmed that the agency has enough funding to continue “key” student aid activities, including collecting and managing student loans, for “a couple weeks.”

“A prolonged shutdown lasting more than a few weeks could substantially disrupt the return to repayment effort,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) on Wednesday said the Biden administration should freeze student loan payments again if the government shuts down.

Mike Pierce, executive director of Student Borrower Protection Center, a student debt advocacy group, issued a similar plea: “If House Republicans shut down the federal government, the Biden Administration must shut down the student loan system too,” he said in a statement.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/r5n4b

SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS INC. (the Company) hereby notifies that it has resolved to implement structural reforms in the Consumer area, mainly at its European bases at the Board of Directors meeting held on September 28, 2023 and in accordance with this decision, the Company expects to record a loss for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.

the business environment surrounding the Consumer area has been rapidly changing, including reactionary decline from the stay-at-home demand in COVID-19 and the economic downturn due to inflation in European region, and profitability has been lowered mainly in European bases.

To promptly adapt to these changes in the environment and improve profitability, we have decided to implement structural reforms aimed at increasing efficiency, mainly at our European bases and reviewed the title portfolio in those bases.

we have reviewed the title portfolio of each development base in Europe and the resulting action will be to cancel “HYENAS” and some unannounced titles under development.

we expect to record losses of approximately 14.3 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, but there are no changes to the full-year consolidated operating results forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024 at this time.

the Amusement Machine Sales area, where the prize category is performing well, and the Animation and Toy area are performing solidly. In addition, the Pachislot and Pachinko Machines Business continues to perform well, centered on the pachislot machines, and in the Resort Business, occupancy at various facilities is also continuing to be solid.

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“The Curse,” a genre-defying series starring Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder, will premiere on Nov. 10 via Paramount+ with Showtime ahead of its on-air Showtime debut on Nov. 12, the network announced Tuesday.

“The Curse” stars Stone as Whitney and Fielder as Asher, a husband and wife duo who have just landed their own house-flipping series. Benny Safdie also stars as Dougie, the producer of Whitney and Asher’s “Flipanthropy” show, who is holding onto secrets of his own. Living in Española, N.M., the couple embarks on their new business venture while trying to have a baby, seemingly met by an alleged curse that promises to “disturb the relationship.”

See the first-look images below.

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general today sued Amazon.com, Inc. alleging that the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power. The FTC and its state partners say Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.

The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging.

The FTC and states allege Amazon’s anticompetitive conduct occurs in two markets—the online superstore market that serves shoppers and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers. These tactics include:

• Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet.

• Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms.

Amazon extracts enormous monopoly rents from everyone within its reach. This includes:

• Degrading the customer experience by replacing relevant, organic search results with paid advertisements—and deliberately increasing junk ads that worsen search quality and frustrate both shoppers seeking products and sellers who are promised a return on their advertising purchase.
• Biasing Amazon’s search results to preference Amazon’s own products over ones that Amazon knows are of better quality.
• Charging costly fees on the hundreds of thousands of sellers that currently have no choice but to rely on Amazon to stay in business.

Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin joined the Commission’s lawsuit.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the drawing of a new Alabama congressional map with greater representation for Black voters to proceed, rejecting the state’s plea to retain Republican-drawn lines that were struck down by a lower court.

In refusing to intervene, the justices, without any noted dissent, allowed a court-appointed special master’s work to continue. On Monday, he submitted three proposals that would create a second congressional district where Black voters comprise a majority of the voting age population or close to it.

A second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority could send another Democrat to Congress at a time when Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. Federal lawsuits over state and congressional districts also are pending in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.

Alabama lost its Supreme Court case in June in which its congressional map with just one majority Black district out of seven seats was found to dilute the voting power of the state’s Black residents, who make up more than a quarter of Alabama’s population.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/6Kf65

Starz is canceling four of its series, Variety has learned exclusively. Specifically, “Heels,” “Run the World,” and “Blindspotting” will not get new seasons at the cable network, while “The Venery of Samantha Bird” Season 1 is being scrapped without airing.

“Heels,” “Run the World,” and “Blindspotting” all recently aired their second season at Starz, while “The Venery of Samantha Bird” was in production on its first season. Production was shut down, however, at the onset of the WGA strike. It was reported at the time that only two episodes of the first season were left to shoot.

If you get a message from someone you never matched with on Tinder, it's not a glitch — it's part of the app's expensive new subscription plan that it teased earlier this year, which allows "power users" to send unsolicited messages to non-matches for the small fee of $499 per month.

That landscape, in fact, is largely populated by apps owned by Tinder's parent company: as Bloomberg notes, Match Group Inc. not only owns the popular swiping app, but also Match.com, OKCupid, Hinge, and The League.

Match Group CEO Bernard Kim referred to Tinder's subscriptions as "low-hanging fruit" meant to compete with other, pricier services, though that was before this $6,000-per-year tier dropped.

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SAG-AFTRA members have voted 98.32% in favor of a strike authorization on the Interactive Media Agreement that covers members’ work on video games. 34,687 members cast ballots, representing a voting percentage of 27.47% of eligible voters.

The strike authorization does not mean the union is calling a strike.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Sept. 26, 27 and 28, and we hope the added leverage of a successful strike authorization vote will compel the companies to make significant movement on critical issues where we are still far apart.

“After five rounds of bargaining, it has become abundantly clear that the video game companies aren’t willing to meaningfully engage on the critical issues: compensation undercut by inflation, unregulated use of AI and safety,”

“Between the exploitative uses of AI and lagging wages, those who work in video games are facing many of the same issues as those who work in film and television,”

Archive link: https://archive.ph/jFcSY

Last month X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed that video calls would be coming to the app formerly known as Twitter as part of its transition into an “everything app.” Now, new code in the X app reveals that both audio and video calls will be supported. However, the feature will not be available to all X users — only those with an X Premium membership, it appears.

lines of code refer to a warning that appears when someone tries to DM another user on the app which explains that “audio and video calls are a premium feature,” and entices them to “subscribe to gain access.”

To date, X has not been able to make a compelling case for X Premium, as independent research indicated that the company has only sold roughly 1 million subscriptions

By comparison, Snapchat’s premium subscription Snapchat+ just topped the 5 million user mark. Meanwhile, analysts are forecasting Meta’s subscription, Meta Verified, will have 12 million subscribers by early next year.

A The Office reboot is reportedly in the works, with the original American showrunner attached to return.

The news about the reboot came in the context of mentioning all the projects and deals that are going to be announced once the writers' strike officially ends. There's no word yet on casting.

it would be set in the same overall universe but not necessarily feature the same characters. However, some The Office cast members, including John Krasinski and Mindy Kaling, have expressed they’d be open to revisiting their famous roles if the circumstances were right.

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The WGA and major studios and streamers have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract that promises to end the 146-day strike that has taken a heavy toll across the content industry.

The nitty-gritty details of language around the use of generative AI in content production was one of the last items that the sides worked on before closing the pact.

“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the WGA’s negotiating committee wrote in an email to sent to members at 7:10 p.m. PT

The strike itself will still be in force through the guild’s contract approval and ratification process. But picketing has been suspended as of Sunday night. Guild leaders are expected to vote on Tuesday on whether to formally lift the strike order against AMPTP signatories.

Details of the contract agreement won’t be released until the final language is completed over the coming days. WGA leadership expects to vote on Tuesday on the final pact.