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2023年7月7日星期五

Why You Really Need to Change Your Air Conditioners Filter

Given that the average person in the U.S. spends 90% of their time inside, indoor air quality can have a significant impact on overall health and well-being. But many people overlook one common contributor to indoor air quality: air conditioning, which the vast majority of U.S. homes use in some form.

Air conditioners can enhance air quality by regulating temperature, reducing humidity levels, and improving filtration. On the flip side, a dirty system can degrade air quality.

Studies have shown that bacteria and other pathogens can accumulate in air conditioning units, potentially sickening people exposed to them. Legionnaires’ disease, a form of pneumonia, can be spread by air-cooling systems contaminated by bacteria, and dirty AC can also lead to hypersensitivity pneumonitis, an allergic reaction to irritants like bacteria and fungi that leads to lung inflammation. A 2023 study compared healthy adults in India who spent at least six hours per day in air conditioning with those who spent equivalent time in naturally ventilated buildings and found that those in air-conditioned environments had more health issues, including respiratory symptoms, headaches, and lethargy—possibly because of contaminants accumulating in these buildings, among other factors.
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Here’s how to avoid AC-related health risks and improve the quality of the air you breathe.

Upgrade your filter

An air-conditioning filter should be labeled with a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV), which rates its ability to trap particles in the air, ranging from dust and pet dander to smog and mold. The higher the MERV value, the more the filter catches. If they’re compatible with your air-conditioning system, look for a filter labeled MERV 11 or MERV 13, suggests William Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

If your system doesn’t work with these filters—window units, in particular, tend to have lower-quality filters—you may want to purchase a separate HEPA filter to help improve your air quality, says Jeffrey Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto who researches ventilation and indoor air quality.

And use it well

More important than which filter you buy is how you use it, Siegel says. Priority number one: replacing or cleaning it regularly. If you put it off for too long, mold and other contaminants can accumulate in your AC system and circulate throughout your home, potentially triggering allergies and other respiratory issues, says Dr. Anthony Gerber, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health in Colorado.

Exactly how often you need to swap your filter varies depending on the manufacturer’s instructions, how often you use your AC, and the quality of your home’s air. But, as a rule of thumb, you should clean or replace your filter every month or two during seasons of peak use, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. This not only prevents contamination but also helps the system run better. If you have a reusable filter, manufacturers typically recommend vacuuming it, washing it with water and a gentle detergent, and letting it dry fully before reinserting it.

Regardless of which filter you buy, make sure it fits well, Siegel says. “Air will take the easiest path,” he says, so if there are gaps around your filter, air will simply bypass it. If you have central air conditioning, you can likely have an upgraded filter slot installed relatively inexpensively to improve the fit, Siegel says.

Run your fan more

With central air conditioning, the fan comes on when the system is actively working to lower the interior temperature by circulating cool air. That’s about 20% of the time for most residential systems, Siegel’s research has shown. Air only goes through the filter when the fan is on—so if your system allows, Siegel suggests setting the fan to run for around 20 minutes every hour (about 33% of the time) to improve filtration, especially during seasons when there’s lots of pollen or other irritants in the air.

Many window units also have fan settings, but Siegel says extra run time won’t bring meaningful health benefits, since the filters used in window AC systems typically don’t remove most particles from indoor air.

Bring outdoor air in

Most industrial HVAC systems periodically bring in outdoor air to improve ventilation. That’s important, as inadequate ventilation is thought to contribute to “sick building syndrome,” a phenomenon whereby people feel unwell—experiencing symptoms like headaches, coughing, fatigue, and nausea—while inside, even if there’s no obvious cause for those symptoms.

By contrast, most residential air-conditioning units don’t mechanically bring in fresh outdoor air, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, though some models have a vent that can be left open for fresh-air intake. If yours doesn’t, you can simply turn off your system for a few hours a day and open the windows to get air flowing, Bahnfleth says. (That’s assuming the outdoor air quality is good; if not, you’re better off keeping your windows closed.)

Maintain your system regularly

“It’s the most boring thing in the world, but air-conditioner maintenance is really important,” Siegel says. HVAC technicians can make sure your system is working properly and that hard-to-reach parts are clean and free of potentially harmful build-up.

source https://time.com/6292834/air-conditioner-filter-health-tips/

The Kardashians Continue to Blend Business and FamilyBut the Cracks Are Showing

Throughout the 16 years that the Kardashian and Jenner family has appeared on our television screens—first on E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians and now on Hulu’s The Kardashians—the overarching message they’ve put forth has always been that family comes first. But viewers have long caught on to their equally (if not more) important priority: growing their business empire. While the original show launched in 2007 as a showcase for a “modern Brady Bunch,” it also served as a fledgling platform for the Kardashian sisters’ clothing boutiques and small-potatoes endorsement deals. Now, momager Kris Jenner and her children boast not only multiple reality series, but also several fashion, beauty, wellness, and alcohol brands.
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The Kardashian and Jenners have always been their own biggest assets as entrepreneurs: they have long offered up their private lives for public consumption, gaining in return a loyal following—and a massive customer base. But there’s a cost to blending business opportunities and personal relationships, and it may never have been more apparent than it is in the current season of The Kardashians.

The conflict at the center of season 3 is one between Kim and Kourtney Kardashian. Their fight may seem trite: Kim creative directed a Dolce & Gabbana runway show that drew from the fashion house’s ’90s archives, and this felt like a violation to Kourtney because less than a year earlier she collaborated on her wedding with D&G, outfitting her family in many looks pulled from the same archive. In Kourtney’s estimation, Kim heartlessly capitalized on her wedding for a business deal; in Kim’s view, Kourtney’s concerns were petty and she overlooked the personal and financial value of the opportunity for a sister whose career she should support.

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Season 3 of The Kardashians, which premiered on May 25, has been building toward a confrontation between the two sisters. Each has vented to other members of the family, but they had yet to speak to one another directly about the conflict—until episode 7, which dropped on July 6. In a brief, charged scene, Kim visited Kourtney to talk things out. Their stilted yet emotional conversation made clear that beneath their squabble surrounding Dolce & Gabbana is a deeper issue, one that speaks to the consequences of blending work and family—and one that can’t be resolved with a weak apology.

HuluKourtney Kardashian sees her wedding dress for the first time in Milan.

Kim and Kourtney have a long history of conflict

As the two eldest sisters, Kim and Kourtney have long butted heads, and over time their priorities have steadily diverged. Kim, long considered the main character of the reality show, has chased fashion editorials and high-profile collaborations, created multiple fashion and beauty businesses, and generally thrived in the spotlight. Kourtney has increasingly focused on motherhood and her romantic relationship, and strived to foster an identity and a life away from the cameras. After Kourtney took a step back from filming in later seasons of Keeping Up, rumors circulated among fans that one of the reasons the show ended was because Kourtney refused to participate.

In recent years, their conflicts have frequently been related to their family’s attitude toward business and particularly Kim’s perspective on work and the importance of every sister contributing to the family empire. Kim, who prides herself on her work ethic and being an entrepreneur (and who also infamously advised women to “get your f-cking ass up and work”) has in the past diminished Kourtney’s feelings by saying that she was “not special” for continuing to work while pregnant. Meanwhile Kourtney, a strong proponent of “boundaries,” has picked fights with Kim over “triggering” her and not respecting her work-life balance. Memorably, the two had a physical fight in season 18 of Keeping Up after Kim alleged that she works harder than Kourtney does.

In the recent Kardashians confrontation, Kourtney reiterated to Kim that she is less concerned with the family’s business ventures than she is with protecting her boundaries and the life she has built for herself with her husband Travis Barker and their blended family. “There’s something about being content and happy with what you have and not feeling like you need more,” she said.

The trouble with mixing business and family affairs

Though the specifics of Kim and Kourtney’s Dolce & Gabbana fight are far from relatable, the underlying themes are some that can impact families of all backgrounds. Sociologist Dalton Conley, the author of The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become, sees their conflict through the lens of economics—a common source of tension within families.

“Economics is a big reason for sibling conflicts, even in families where they’re not famous, trading off the family name, or having a family business,” Conley says, noting that American economic inequality is commonly experienced within families: adult siblings can be of vastly different socioeconomic status from one another, and the lifestyle differences and contrasting priorities that result can foster conflict.

Conley says this dynamic came into play historically as a result of industrialization. Before that time, family businesses were more common, and entire households and extended families often functioned as one economic unit. The separation between people’s financial and personal lives was less clearly defined than it is for most today.

Conley draws a connection between the Kardashians and fictional families whose business dealings cross into their personal relationships. “From King Lear and Shakespeare all the way to Succession, the drama is because in the ideal, modern capitalism, family is totally separate from business,” Conley says. Tensions arise when these realms mix, because the way parents and children, siblings, and other family members interact with each other is generally meant to be different from how employers, employees, and colleagues do. “There are very different norms of behavior and expectations of altruism and unconditional love,” he says.

Clashing values

Kim Kardashian meets with Domenico Dolce. — HuluKim Kardashian meets with Domenico Dolce

The Kardashians and Jenners have made work a major focus of their family dynamics, particularly as their fame—and economic prospects—have grown. In early seasons of the show, before Jenner and her daughters attained A-list status, they banded together as outsiders aspiring to ascend to elite circles. MJ Corey, a writer and researcher who theorizes about the Kardashians on social media under the handle @kardashian_kolloquium, says that the united family narrative put forth by the Kardashians and Jenners has usually benefitted them.

“From telling us how their family has overcome lots of personal challenges before fame, like losing their father suddenly to global fame and all of its pressures, they sell an image of a family that is prepared for whatever comes their way,” Corey says, nodding to the importance with which “family values” have been treated throughout the history of American media. “When it comes to actual conflicts, like with the business—which appears to be as important to them as family—the family image has only helped them.”

But that image has begun to warp. And Kim and Kourtney’s clashing perspectives on the Dolce & Gabbana drama—Kim’s focus on the importance of the opportunity for her personal brand and business, juxtaposed with Kourtney’s insistence that her feelings should be worth more than a paycheck—is a meaningful example. Kim is all about her role in the spotlight. Kourtney is all about her private life. And when the growth of the family business requires active participation and sacrifices from all members, these differences spell a problem. While Kim offered a (seemingly reluctant) apology to Kourtney in the episode 7 confrontation, the sisters did not seem to find a way to see eye to eye—the likelihood that similar conflicts will arise seems high. In the end it was Kourtney who offered the most potent line in the scene, one that will linger over the family as it continues down this path: “You chose money over me.”

source https://time.com/6292300/kim-kourtney-dolce-fight-the-kardashians/

U.S. Added 209000 Jobs in June in Sign of Economys Resilience

(WASHINGTON) — America’s employers pulled back on hiring but still delivered another month of solid gains in June, adding 209,000 jobs, a sign that the economy’s resilience is confounding the Federal Reserve’s drive to slow growth and inflation.

The latest evidence of economic strength makes it all but certain that the Fed will resume its interest rate hikes later this month after having ended a streak of 10 rate increases intended to slow inflation.

The June hiring figure reported by the government Friday is the smallest in 2 1/2 years. But it still points to a durable labor market that has produced a historically high number of advertised openings. The unemployment rate fell from 3.7% to 3.6%, near a five-decade low.
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Most of the details in the report underscored the job market’s durability. The length of the average work week edged up, a sign that customer demand is strong enough to keep employees busy. And wage growth accelerated: Hourly pay is up 4.4% from a year ago. Wages are now growing faster than year-over-year inflation, which amounted to 4% in May.

The wage data will likely raise concerns at the Fed, which is worried that faster pay gains will perpetuate inflation by leading companies to raise prices to offset their higher labor costs. The Fed wants to see hiring and wage increases slow before halting its rate hikes.

The economy is beset by high interest rates, elevated inflation and nagging worries about a possible recession resulting from the Fed’s ever-higher interest rates. Yet many industries keep adding jobs to keep up with consumer spending and restore their workforces to pre-pandemic levels.

The solid pace of hiring and rising wages have enabled consumers to keep spending on services, from traveling to dining out to attending entertainment events. While economists have repeatedly forecast a recession for later this year or next year, a downturn is unlikely as long as companies keep steadily filling jobs.

The Fed has jacked up its key interest rate by a sizable 5 percentage points — the fastest pace of rate hikes in four decades. Those increases have made mortgages, auto loans and other forms of borrowing significantly more expensive.

Some Fed officials have said they are looking for signs of what they describe as better balance in the job market, by which they mean the supply and demand for workers would become more equal. After the economy emerged from the pandemic, the number of available jobs surged above 10 million — the highest level on record.

The burgeoning demand for labor coincided with millions of Americans dropping out of the workforce to retire, avoid COVID, care for relatives or prepare for new careers. With companies struggling to fill openings, many offered sharply higher pay and better benefits to attract or keep employees.

There has been some progress toward a better alignment of supply and demand: More people have started looking for work in recent months, and most of them have found jobs. As the supply of workers has improved, businesses have said they’re seeing more people apply for open positions. The number of job openings dropped in May, a sign that demand for workers is gradually cooling, though it remains above pre-pandemic levels.

In a sign of a potential slowdown in the job market, fewer Americans are quitting their jobs to seek new positions. Quits had soared after the pandemic. Millions of Americans had sought more meaningful or better-paying jobs, stoking the pressure on companies to raise pay to keep their employees. In May, about 4 million Americans left their jobs, up from April’s figure but below a peak of 4.5 million reached last year.

Still, other recent reports suggest that the economy has continued to expand and that demand for workers remains high. On Thursday, a survey of service providers — including banks, restaurants and shipping companies — found that the sector expanded at a healthy clip in June and that services companies accelerated their hiring compared with May.

source https://time.com/6292820/us-jobs-june-economy/

2023年7月6日星期四

Why Twitter Rival Threads Isnt Available in the E.U.

After months of chaos under its new owner, Twitter is facing its most heavyweight competitor yet in Threads, Meta’s text-based conversation platform, which launched in 100 countries Wednesday. The app has attracted 30 million users in less than a day, with celebrities and media platforms alike signing up, but its release in Europe has been delayed amid data privacy concerns.

Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg billed the app as a “friendly” rival to Twitter, which has deterred some users since it was purchased by Elon Musk for $44 billion in October. “Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Zuckerberg wrote in his debut post on the platform. He also offered up his first tweet since January 2012, making a jibe at Twitter by using a popular Spiderman meme that appears to acknowledge that apps have a similar interface.
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Users on the social media app can share posts of up to 500 characters, as well as links and multimedia. Much like Twitter, it has ‘like’ and ‘comment’ functions but no direct messages can be sent. Threads is linked to Instagram, Meta’s photo-sharing app with over 2 billion users, and allows users to sign up using their Instagram usernames and networks.

Responding to a post asking if the app is likely to supersede Twitter, Zuckerberg wrote: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

Musk also engaged with a tweet about Instagram on Thursday, writing: “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.” Threads’ release comes as Musk has relaxed Twitter moderation efforts and lost 50% of its annual advertising revenue. Twitter has also pivoted to an $8 per month premium service for features that were once free on the platform, leaving many users hungry for an alternative like Threads.

But despite the obvious appetite for the new app, privacy concerns have prevented Meta from rolling the app out in many European countries.

Why isn’t Threads available in the European Union?

The release of Threads in the European Union was postponed amid regulatory uncertainty about how the app will use personal data. This is because of the E.U.’s Digital Markets Act, which includes provisions for sharing user data across multiple platforms. Meta must await approval from the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, before it can launch Threads in E.U. countries.

According to the app’s own data privacy disclosure, Threads can collect information about a user’s health, finance, contacts, search history, location, and other sensitive information via their digital activity. The app can also forward data to third parties about a user’s sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, race and ethnicity, body, and employment status.

Once a user has committed to a Threads account it can’t be deleted o without the user also losing the associated Instagram account. Users wishing to keep their Instagram account will only be able to deactivate their Threads page.

According to Ireland’s Independent newspaper, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) said that the watchdog had been in contact with Meta about Threads and that the platform wouldn’t be rolled out in the E.U. “at this point.”

Meta’s recent history with E.U. regulators

Two recent rulings have highlighted data and privacy concerns about Meta’s operations in the E.U. On Tuesday, Luxembourg’s Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that a German watchdog may investigate privacy breaches in which user consent was not acquired before the company used personal data to target adverts to users.

Additionally, in May, Ireland’s DPC, which regulates Meta across the E.U., ordered Facebook to stop the transfer of data from within E.U. to the U.S. and fined the tech giant a record 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for breaching General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. Meta said it would appeal the decision and claimed it had been “singled out” by the DPC despite many other businesses using similar data migration processes.

“We are therefore disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanism as thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe,” wrote Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, the company’s chief legal officer, in a statement on May 22.

The statement added: “This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US.”

In 2018, before it rebranded to Meta, Facebook made headlines when a whistleblower revealed that the company had allowed British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the personal data of up to 87 million users and which was used to build psychological profiles of voters. Last year Meta agreed to pay out $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit relating to Cambridge Analytica and other third parties.

source https://time.com/6292586/privacy-concerns-threads-meta/

What to Know About the U.S. Soccer Team in the 2023 Womens World Cup

Generational behaviors often confound the members of the 2023 U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT). In that sense, the USWNT locker room is not unlike most modern-day American workplaces. While older players scoff at the habits of the near-teenagers on the squad, with their TikToks and uses of phrases like “rizz”—that’s Gen Z shorthand for charisma—the young guns find the oldheads just as baffling.

“Some of the songs they’re all listening to, I have no idea what they are,” says U.S. forward Sophia Smith, 22, the reigning National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) MVP who will make her World Cup debut on July 21, when the U.S. kicks off its group-stage campaign against Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand. “They sound like my parents.”
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According to Smith, the elder American soccer players will drone on about the technology they used back in the old days. “Like the CD player,” says Smith, who leads the NWSL in goals scored this season. “Stuff that I just don’t know.” Smith has learned that at one time, googling wasn’t a verb: other internet search sites existed in the pre-Google era. “So odd,” she says. And forget about their fondness for ancient cultural artifacts. “I won’t watch any movie,” says Smith, “that’s grainy.”

The USWNT is seeking history this summer, in trying to become the first team—women’s or men’s—to three-peat at a World Cup. But after stirring victories in 2015 in Canada and four years ago in France, America is a team in transition. Their ages range, in the words of Alex Morgan, “from 18 to Pinoe.” Established superstars like Megan Rapinoe, 38, and Morgan, 35—who along with defender Kelley O’Hara, 34, are making their fourth World Cup appearance—will provide veteran leadership and firepower; Morgan, in particular, appears in top form. At the same time, the team will feature 14 newcomers, including young front-line players like Smith, Trinity Rodman, 21, and prodigy Alyssa Thompson, 18. No USWNT squad has experienced more turnover between World Cups. Morgan is about to make her 207th national-team appearance. Midfielder Savannah DeMelo, 25, will make her first.

More than ever, the team reflects the diversity of the country it represents. There are nine women of color on the roster—including seven Black women—a welcome development considering that soccer has traditionally been a mostly white sport in the U.S.

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesSophia Smith takes a shot during USWNT training at Cagan Stadium in Stanford, Calif., on July 3, 2023.

Blending World Cup experience with rookie legs—and potentially nervous brains, facing the global glare of the World Cup for the first time—will determine America’s fate at the tournament, being held for the first time in two countries: Australia and New Zealand. As is their wont, the American women—who after all are four-time World Cup champions and still the betting favorite—exude nothing but confidence. Midfielder Kristie Mewis has a unique view. At 32, she identifies as an older player. But she’s playing in her first World Cup, so she may face the same challenges as her younger compatriots. “The fresh faces and fresh energy,” says Mewis, “but also the wisdom and experience that the older players have, the combination is going to be deadly.”

U.S. vs The World

What a difference four years makes. Going into the 2019 World Cup in France, the USWNT players were suing their bosses. The team’s fight for pay equal to that of their male counterparts dominated headlines leading up to the tournament. While that lawsuit galvanized a movement for pay equality, both within the United States and beyond its borders, the case did add a layer of stress to the World Cup effort. What’s more, the team’s star player, Megan Rapinoe, became embroiled in a Twitter-spat with then President Donald Trump.

In the U.S., the women achieved its pay-parity victory last year, when the players signed an historic collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with U.S. Soccer that guarantees the women equal payments for international competition, and evenly splits FIFA World Cup prize money for women and men players. And a verbal war with President Joe Biden, who helped reveal the World Cup roster in June and awarded Rapinoe the Presidential Medal of Freedom a year ago, seems highly unlikely.

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So the team enters the World Cup facing fewer distractions. Still, the USWNT remains under intense pressure. Anything less than a third straight title counts as a monumental failure.

“You didn’t see it when we walked in?” Rapinoe responded, at the team’s June media day in Los Angeles, when asked if the players felt they had a target on their back. “Still there. Always there.”

What’s more, the rest of the world has reason to puff its chest. Soccer-mad nations outside the U.S. have finally figured out that investing in women pays off. Last year’s European Championship, for example, was a stunning success. England won the tournament on home soil, and the event set viewership and attendance records. England then knocked off the U.S. in a friendly at Wembley Stadium in October. The U.S. also lost to Spain and Germany, handing the Americans their first three-game losing streak since 1993.

How do the experts feel about a U.S. three-peat? “God, it’s going to be hard,” says former U.S. star Julie Foudy, an ESPN analyst. “If you have a world that’s catching on to the power of girls playing soccer and the beauty of that, from here on out, I think it is going to be a tough slog for the U.S.”

The Injury Toll

The USWNT rallied in early 2023, sweeping Brazil, Canada, and Japan on their home turf in the SheBelieves Cup. But they’ve been bitten by the injury bug. Mallory Swanson started 2023 on an absolute rampage. She entered the team’s April 8 friendly against Ireland leading the U.S. in goals on the year, with seven. “She’s just been on a heater,” Rapinoe said at that time. Swanson, however, tore her left patella tendon in the game and is out for the World Cup. An ACL tear felled the World Cup hopes of another promising U.S. attacker, Catarina Macario.

Injuries have also riddled the midfield. Rose Lavelle’s spectacular charge up the field in the 2019 World Cup final against the Netherlands—and the resultant goal—put the game away for the Americans. The breakout star, however, has been nursing a knee injury. And on defense, the Americans suffered a setback: veteran center back Becky Sauerbrunn, a captain, two-time World Cup champion, and one of the leaders of the team’s equal-pay fight, will miss the World Cup as she continues to rehab from a foot injury.

The U.S. is not the only World Cup contender dealing with injuries. England forward Beth Mead, one of the world’s best, is not on the World Cup roster due to an ACL injury. Neither is Leah Williamson, a key defender for the Lionesses. The Netherlands (Vivianne Miedema) and France (Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Delphine Cascarino) are also missing key players.

The Replacements

Naomi Girma, 23, is the only player ever to win both rookie of the year and defender of the year in the NWSL. She won a national championship at Stanford in 2019, her sophomore year (Smith was also on that team). Now she’ll be called upon to fill Sauerbrunn’s shoes and anchor the U.S. defense.

“There’s very few players in my whole tenure that have stepped in and it’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a first-person-on-the-team sheet type of player’ every single time … she’s just that good,” Rapinoe said about Girma earlier this year. “I don’t think her physicality gets talked about enough, deceptively quick. If you have any kind of quickness and brain, then that’s a wrap. She can play any kind of ball. She’s a great leader. She’s just f-cking good.”

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesNaomi Girma looks to pass during a game between Ireland and USWNT in Austin, Texas, on April 8, 2023.

The Americans will have to rely on their forward depth to make up for the absence of Swanson and Macario. Four World Cup rookies—Smith, Lynn Williams, 30, Trinity Rodman, 21, and Alyssa Thompson, 18—join Morgan and Rapinoe up front. Thompson missed her high school graduation this year, since she had to suit up for a NWSL game, for Angel City FC.

“I’m excited about the energy and the enthusiasm that the young players bring,” says U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski. “That will be one of our advantages.”

A More Diverse Squad

As will its mix of players. This USWNT World Cup roster is the most racially diverse in the team’s history. The team’s World Cup rookie forward core consists entirely of Black women. “Diversity is extremely important,” says Rodman, who does not recall as many women of color playing when she was a kid. It opens the eyes of girls who might not have seen themselves in the game before, she says.

Girma is the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants. She also says that diversity “is not something I saw” in professional soccer or on the U.S. national team when she was growing up. “We’ve talked about how important representation is,” he says. “It’s really inspiring, and it’s going to make this team and this World Cup special.”

Defender Sofia Huerta, 30, played for the Mexican national team when she was younger. Her father Mauricio was born in Mexico and studied electrical engineering there before moving to the U.S. She gave up her spot, however, in order to try to make the U.S. team. After being cut in 2019, Huerta was picked for this year’s squad. “I had a lot of conversations with my dad and I felt like it was possible if I picked the U.S., and I had Huerta on the back of my jersey, that little boys and girls could see the Hispanic last name,” she says. “If you could see it, you can be it.”

Next Woman Up

As the USWNT enters this transitional World Cup, the players are well aware of the pressing questions. Are the older players past their primes? Or the younger ones ready? Is this U.S. team just too banged up—and the rest of the world just too talented—for fans to count on that third straight title?

“This team has always gone through cycles and changes,” says U.S. defender Alana Cook, another World Cup rookie who, along with Girma, is expected to play a key role on the back line. “It’s always the next-woman-up system. When it’s your turn, you have to be ready. Whether you’re starting or not one game, you’re always ready for the next one because you’ve listened, you’ve learned. So younger players coming in isn’t a bad thing. I think it’s just a testament to how hard the veterans have worked to make sure that the things that we have, the culture, the work ethic, the tactics, are ingrained in all of us.”

The whole team knows to leave all excuses back home this summer. “Would I be happy with anything short of a third straight win?” says Andonovski. “No. Absolutely not. There is only one thing in mind when going to this tournament: our goal is to win the World Cup. There’s no question about it. And I don’t think that anyone on our team thinks anything different.”

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesMegan Rapinoe and Crystal Dunn arrive at the field before USWNT training at Cagan Stadium in Stanford, Calif., on July 3, 2023.

TIME will be providing ongoing coverage of the 2023 World Cup, which takes place from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand. Subscribe to TIME’s World Cup Newsletter, “Extra Time,” here.

source https://time.com/6292528/us-soccer-women-world-cup-2023/

How Metas New Platform Threads Compares to Twitter

Meta’s new Twitter competitor, Threads has joined a flood of new services looking to take market share from Twitter as the company seeks to find a way toward profit under owner Elon Musk and its new CEO Linda Yaccarino. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the new app, available on Apple’s app store, Google Play and on the web, saw 5 million sign-ups in its first four hours. That number has reportedly since surpassed 23 million.

“Whether you’re a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations,” Meta said in a post. “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.
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Experts say the app, which is nearly identical to Twitter and has been billed by many as a “Twitter-killer,” is more than just another copycat, app: It’s also a reflection of a longstanding rivalry between two titans of the tech industry. “This latest entry is just an example of what has been a continuing rivalry between the two [companies],” says Darrell West, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation.

Other rivals to Twitter include Mastodon, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky, and Spill.

How to sign up for Threads

Threads is available for free download on iOS and Android in over 100 countries. Users can also sign up directly through the Instagram app by tapping the hamburger icon (three lines) on the top right of their profile and clicking “Threads” to be navigated to the app store.

The app will prompt users to log in with their Instagram accounts, and add profile information, like a profile picture and bio, or merge them from their Instagram. Users can then set their account’s privacy settings and find accounts to follow.

Once a user has set up a profile on Threads, it can only be deleted if the associated Instagram account is also deleted.

How Threads Compares to Twitter

Threads is functionally identical to Twitter— and that’s the point. Meta executives reportedly touted the platform as a “sanely run” alternative to Twitter, The Verge reported. New platforms are not trying to reinvent the wheel as much as they are trying to replicate what Twitter used to be like before the app was plagued with technical issues, constantly changing strategy and criticism over content moderation, as Musk laid off roughly half the company’s workforce.

“[There were] various needs that were being backed by the pre-existing systems…now folks are casting about to see if any of these new systems will meet those existing needs.” says Kevin Driscoll, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Department of Media Studies.

Thread’s users will be able to sign up through their Instagram accounts, and will be able to keep their Instagram usernames and easily re-follow the same accounts on the new platform.

Users can write posts of up to 500 characters—compared to Twitter’s 280 character-limit—and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. (Users of the paid subscription option Twitter Blue have a longer character limit of up to 25,000 on their posts.) The Threads algorithm is similar to Twitter’s and Instagram’s, and will show users a mix of content from followers and recommended content Vox reported.

Unlike Twitter and Instagram, the service does not currently have any discovery features or options to send direct messages. The only way to view new posts on Threads is by scrolling through a feed.

In a cluttered landscape, Meta’s reputation will give it a leg up against competitors like Mastodon and Bluesky, experts say. “’It’s an advantage to be associated with a big brand,” says West. “Threads is not going to be a niche player.”

Meta’s reputation isn’t entirely positive, though. It has faced its own share of controversy, such as criticism of the spread of misinformation on its platforms—including during the Jan. 6 riots in the U.S. Capitol—and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2021, disclosures by whistleblower Frances Haugen sparked a reckoning over what the company knew about how it contributed to harms ranging from Instagram’s impact on teenagers’ mental health and the extent of misinformation on its platforms, to human traffickers’ open use of its services.

The historic rivalry between Meta and Twitter

Threads is launching at a challenging time for Twitter under Musk’s leadership. In the immediate days after Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company in October, the firm Bot Sentinel, estimated that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and a further 497,000 were suspended.

In the months since, the company has laid off thousands of workers, overhauled its verification process and relaxed its content moderation rules. Just last weekend, the platform announced it would be temporarily limiting the number of tweets users could view each day, a decision Musk said was taken to combat “extreme levels of data scraping.”

“Twitter is very vulnerable. They’ve lost a huge amount of their advertising revenue and they’ve had to lay off a big percentage of their staff,” says West. “There’s a lot of user discontent on the platform. So the time is ripe for a competing product to move into this space.”

Yaccarino, who worked as an advertising executive for many years, is expected to be focused on repairing the company’s reputation with advertisers as the company seeks to return to profitability.

Twitter, which last reported a profit in 2019, has long been an underdog among tech giants. It is dwarfed in size by the likes of Meta, which has a market value of around $760 billion. One recent estimate put Twitter’s valuation at just $15 billion—nearly a third of what Elon paid for it. Zuckerberg offered to buy Twitter during the company’s early days for $500 million, but his bid was rejected.

“Twitter has been David fighting the Goliath of Meta for many years,” says West. “There’s a long history of competition between the two firms.”

Tensions between Musk and Zuckerberg simmering for years. In 2016, Zuckerberg said he was “deeply disappointed” after one of Musk’s SpaceX rockets hit a satellite Facebook was using to bring internet access to developing nations.

Earlier this year, Musk tweeted that “Instagram makes people depressed,” and previously deleted the Facebook pages for Tesla and SpaceX, calling the platform “lame.”

The two billionaires hold strongly opposing views on artificial intelligence. In 2017, Musk tweeted that Zuckerberg’s understanding of the threat of artificial intelligence “is limited.” (In March, Elon Musk signed an open letter urging for a six-month pause in AI development. Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is trying to implement generative AI into Meta’s products, though the company has seen many of its AI researchers leave in the past year, the Wall Street Journal reported.) Musk’s longer term ambitions in the AI space remain unclear.

Now, the two are looking to take their battle offline. After news about Threads began to emerge, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a physical fight tweeting that he was “up for a cage match if he is lol.” Zuckerburg responded by posting a screenshot of the tweet on his Instagram Stories along with the caption “send me location.” The Meta CEO has said he’s been practicing martial arts since the start of the pandemic and has won medals in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Musk, meanwhile, has reportedly begun training for the fight.

source https://time.com/6292497/threads-twitter-meta/

2023年7月5日星期三

Pentagon To Bolster Security Measures After Discord Leak

A Defense Department intelligence review recommended the U.S. military revise policies governing how secret information is handled, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

The assessment comes after Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman from Massachusetts, was accused in April of leaking hundreds of top-secret documents online. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a 45-day review of Pentagon policies to deliver findings and recommendations to improve processes and prevent such damaging disclosures in the future.

The review did not focus on the case of Teixeira, who pleaded not guilty last month to federal criminal charges. Instead, it examined the Defense Department policies and conditions that may have contributed to the intelligence breach. Hundreds of pages of classified documents—detailing everything from disagreements with allies to tactical positions in the Ukraine war—sat on Discord chat servers for more than a month before they were discovered by the media and government.
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“There wasn’t a single point of failure,” a senior Defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters Wednesday. “There are contributing factors to any security incident. And so, this was an opportunity…to make sure that we made the improvements that we could.”

The review focused on four areas: personnel security, information safeguarding and accountability, physical security, and education and training. On June 30, Austin sent a memo to all Defense Department personnel that required managers to take “follow-on actions” that would aim to enhance detection of “insider threats” and improve information-sharing.

The government is already working toward a semi-automated “continuous vetting” program which checks people’s records against commercial and government data and flags potential risks. Austin ordered the Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer to work with the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer to come up with better data-reporting and analysis. He also called for the establishment of an office whose mission is to hunt for suspicious activity on government networks. Such measures will almost certainly require more funding and personnel in the years to come.

In his memo, Austin wrote that while most people with access to national security secrets are trustworthy, the military needs to tighten security measures. Part of that is determining whether too many people have access to secret documents. Teixeira, for example, was a low-level airman who worked in IT but he did have access to an internal network called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), where top secret intelligence shared all day, every day. The Justice Department wrote in a May court filing that Air Force superiors repeatedly admonished Teixeira over several months for accessing and taking notes on classified intelligence information that was outside his job responsibility.

The senior Defense official who spoke to reporters said that the rising number of people with access to top-secret information is a complex issue the Pentagon needs to confront. This growth, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, has led to a patchwork of classification policies that confuses security managers, the official said.

Austin’s memo gives Pentagon managers up to three months to implement the “follow-on” actions. Separately, the U.S. Air Force inspector general launched a probe in April that is still ongoing.

source https://time.com/6292364/jack-teixeira-discord-leak-pentagon-security/

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2023年7月7日 星期五