At Amazon site, tornado collided with company’s peak delivery season
Nearly every day as Christmas nears, Amazon’s share of online sales typically rises. To quickly deliver packages, Amazon hires hundreds of thousands of additional workers. One of them, Alonzo Harris, drove his cargo van into Amazon’s delivery depot in Edwardsville, Illinois, after 8 p.m. Friday after delivering packages. Suddenly, an alarm blared on his work phone. Harris, 44, ran into a shelter on Amazon’s site and heard a loud roar. One of the tornadoes that roared through Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois and elsewhere Friday had plowed into Amazon’s delivery station in Edwardsville. Six people died, with 45 making it out alive.
Alibaba dismisses employee who accused her boss of rape
Alibaba, China’s e-commerce giant, has dismissed a woman who accused a superior of raping her during a business trip in July, a case that has highlighted the toxic workplace culture of the country’s tech industry and the hurdles Chinese women face when they experience sexual harassment or assault. The woman, identified in court papers only by her last name, Zhou, learned of her dismissal in a letter last month from a company affiliate based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Tmall Technology, a lawyer representing her, Du Peng, said Sunday. Her case became one of the most prominent of China’s struggling #MeToo movement.
Why apps suddenly want to protect kids
When people younger than 18 record videos and add them to YouTube, the public can no longer watch them. TikTok says it will stop sending app notifications to teenagers at night. Facebook and Google have sharply restricted the ways that advertisers can tailor messages to minors on their sites. In recent months, internet companies have reworked their apps and policies to try to better protect the safety, privacy and mental health of children. One big reason is Britain. In September, new guidelines went into effect in the country that may be the world’s most sweeping digital protections aimed at kids.
Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ opens to tepid box office receipts
Steven Spielberg’s rave-reviewed remake of “West Side Story” arrived to an estimated $10.5 million in North American ticket sales, a feeble result — even by pandemic standards — that added to alarm in Hollywood about the theatrical viability of films that are not visual effects-driven fantasy spectacles or new chapters in ongoing franchises. But there was also a camp that cautioned against making any speedy assessments. Musicals often get off to a slow start, even more so when they are released in mid-December. Fueled by positive word-of-mouth and awards attention, they can turn into little engines that could.
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