Author: Benjamin Carter

During the Covid-19 pandemic, general inflation rose globally, and price rises in essentials such as groceries hit family budgets hard. Now, internal emails from a supermarket executive reveal that chains intended to “pass through [their] inflation to consumers,” opportunistically raising prices beyond general inflation, and this challenges the idea that higher prices were necessary. Supply Chain Issues Emmy Smith/Unsplash Supply chain issues were a hot-button topic during the global pandemic, often cited as the reason for the rise in prices of everyday goods that consumers saw. A March Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report showed that supply chain issues had impacts…

Following a Supreme Court ruling affecting the criminalization of outdoor camping, California’s Governor issued a July executive order to push local governments to deal with their homeless issue. Now, as the San Francisco mayoral election hots up and homelessness remains on the political agenda, the candidates float policy ideas and Newsom has signed 2 new laws. California Homelessness Issue Justin Sullivan/Getty California continue to struggle to deal with homelessness; the state currently contains more than a 3rd of the country’s homeless population. And the problem has worsened, with the 2023 population of 180,000 a 6% rise on the previous year.…

The past few months have seen huge numbers of layoffs, particularly in the tech industry, who have laid off over 150,000 workers already this year. Now, recently laid off workers looking to rejoin the industry are facing a new hurdle, as they may now face the stigma of being “damaged goods” among hiring managers and recruitment consultants. Reasons For Layoffs MAtt Artz/Unsplash Publicly, one of the most commonly cited reasons for companies making layoffs is as a cost-cutting measure to improve profitability. However, Chief Career Advisor at Resume Builder, Stacie Haller, in a recent article, said that this is “cover…

Those with allergies may want to check their fridge freezer for red meat, as one Costco steak brand has been found to contain a number of allergens. The recall affects a batch delivered to Costco store locations in the south-east, and can be identified by their sell-by date. Allergen Rules Peter F/Unsplash The recalls are necessary due to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules concerning the labelling of food allergens. According to the FDA, packages must “identify the food source of all major food allergens used to make the food.” The Contaminants Andrew Dawes/Unsplash The allergens identified as having potentially…

If you have been starting to wonder if AI language model ChatGPT’s answers have been becoming progressively worse, you are not alone. Several researchers, who have been following the capabilities of AI products that rely on large amounts of data scraped from the internet, are sounding the alarm over an issue that has been dubbed ‘model collapse’. Data Gravity Firmbee/Unsplash A technique called machine learning is used to process and analyze the data used to train large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. One of the major downsides to this technology is that it requires large amounts…

An area of California has been hit with record-breaking cold temperatures for this time of year. Warnings have been issued over the threat of hard freezes. This follows record-breaking heatwaves earlier in the year, and underscores the unpredictability of modern Californian weather. Follows Heat Records Jamie Street/Unsplash The freeze is all the more notable for having followed record-breaking heatwaves further south in the state. The hottest July since records began is still fresh in the mind of Californians who experienced temperatures that were 7 degrees above the average for that time of year. Killer Heatwave Kevin Bosc/Unsplash The earlier heatwave…

A group of wild pigs dug up huge chunks of Geyserville New Tech Academy, leading to an estimated $150,000 worth of damage. The devastation caused by the pigs, who remain at large, shocked school workers and locals alike who use and pass by the Sonoma County education center. Not First Incident Samuel Cruz/Unsplash Although this was a costly attack, it was not the first time a group of wild pigs had terrorized the academy. Last year, they targeted the campus’ sports grounds, ripping up parts of their baseball, soccer, and softball facilities. Defenses Erected Nick/Unsplash Due to their past experiences,…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that two dietary supplements have been voluntarily recalled due to containing sildenafil, despite the Viagra component not appearing on their list of ingredients. This poses a potentially deadly ‘interaction’ risk to unaware consumers, hence the recall, and continues a disturbing trend of “hidden ingredients” in health products. Overwhelming Testing Capacity The US FDA/Wikimedia The FDA, who are responsible for testing the safety and efficacy of new drugs, said that they are not able to test all new supplements reaching the market during an earlier crisis. Their statement read: “FDA is unable to…

California State Governor Gavin Newsom has announced a $250 million deal with Google to help fund journalism and AI development in California, around half of which would be funded by Google. The deal includes the dropping of legislation that would have required Google to pay fees long-term to access content from news sites. Lobbying Success? Christian Wiedi/Unsplash The deal follows an intense period of tech company lobbying, including claims that Google would remove Californian news from their results. In recent years, Google have become dominant in the online advertising sector, diverting a key source of income for online news outlets,…

Kevin Hart, star of hit movies such as Jumanji, Ride Along and Get Hard, revealed how he passed on the opportunity to invest early in a now-global mega-corporation. Hart told of how he made a snap decision at the time based on a vision of the company’s downfall, and of his intense later regret on seeing its development. Hart to Heart Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia The episode was revealed in an episode of Hart to Heart, Hart’s Peacock network TV interview show. In the show, he interviews a number of well-known celebs and businessmen, and in this episode was with Mark Cuban,…