Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
Federal regulators are ordering Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, TikTok’s parent and five other social media companies to provide detailed information on how they collect and use consumers’ personal data and how their practices affect children and teens. The Federal Trade Commission’s action announced Monday goes to the heart of the tech industry’s lucrative business model: harvesting data from platform users and making it available to advertisers so they can pinpoint specific consumers to target. ... The other five companies are Reddit, Snap, Discord, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and Google’s YouTube.
Katie Blair: The terms “equality” and “equity” are used interchangeably in the media, whether a story covers prison reform or gender-based violence. But equity is what governmental systems, nonprofit organizations, and entire corporations should aim for. Equality is an overused term in our current political climate. Bolstering everyone in an entity to gain the same opportunities is easier said than done. Should a company prioritize some marginalized groups over others? Both privilege and equity come into play when analyzing which groups need more support.
Geiger Corrections Center in Airway Heights reported 79 positive inmates and the downtown jail reported two cases in inmates. Eleven detentions employees had tested positive. A week prior, Spokane County Detention Services had confirmed nine cases in inmates. “We’ve really got our focus set right now on our Geiger facility,” Mike Sparber said at a Friday news conference. “We have a strategy for downtown, but we’re just not seeing what we’re seeing at Geiger.” Geiger had 138 inmates as of Friday and capacity for 360. Of the two buildings, A and B, A is housing all COVID-positive inmates and has room for more than 130. ... In the jail, all new inmates coming in are isolated from the rest of the population for 14 days before being integrated in, she said.
Decadent and savory, this recipe starts with thick-sliced slabs of Yukon Golds that are tossed in butter and herbs, then roasted on high heat and finished off with garlic and chicken broth. They’re golden and crisp on the outside and lusciously creamy in the middle. Elegant yet simple, they’re perfect for weeknight dinners and holidays alike and are sure to please the pickiest of eaters.
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 300,000 Monday just as the country began dispensing COVID-19 shots in a monumental campaign to conquer the outbreak. The number of dead rivals the population of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. It is equivalent to repeating a tragedy on the scale of Hurricane Katrina every day for 5 1/2 months. It is more than five times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. It is equal to a 9/11 attack every day for more than 100 days. “The numbers are staggering – the most impactful respiratory pandemic that we have experienced in over 102 years, since the iconic 1918 Spanish flu,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said days before the milestone. The U.S. crossed the threshold on the same day health care workers rolled up their sleeves for Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot, marking the start of the biggest vaccination campaign in American history.
A narrowly divided Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his election loss in the battleground state about an hour before the Electoral College cast Wisconsin’s 10 votes for Democrat Joe Biden. In the 4-3 ruling, the court’s three liberal justices were joined by conservative swing Justice Brian Hagedorn who said three of Trump’s four claims were filed too late and the other was without merit. The ruling ends Trump’s legal challenges in state court.
The Trump administration on Monday imposed sanctions on its NATO ally Turkey over its purchase of a Russian air defense system, in a striking move against a longtime partner that sets the stage for further confrontation between the two nations as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office. The extraordinary step against a treaty ally comes at a delicate time in relations between Washington and Ankara, which have been at odds for years over Turkey’s acquisition from Russia of the S-400 missile defense system, along with Turkish actions in Syria, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in the eastern Mediterranean. The sanctions, which were required under U.S. law dating to 2017 if the administration deemed there to be violations, add another element of uncertainty to the relationship as Trump winds down his term. The move is the first time that law, known as CAATSA, has been used to penalize a U.S. ally. Prior to Monday, the U.S. had kicked Turkey out of its F-35 stealth fighter development and training program over the S-400 purchase, but had taken no further steps despite persistent warnings from American officials who have long complained about that the system is incompatible with NATO equipment and a potential threat to allied security.
What could be the main event in Georgia’s twin U.S. Senate runoffs — early in-person voting — got underway Monday, with lines trending shorter than during the first days of early voting for the general election. More than half of the record 5 million votes in the Nov. 3 general election were cast during its three-week early voting period. Early in-person voting could be even more important in the Jan. 5 runoffs because of the short time frame for voters to request and send back ballots by mail, as the two races decide which party will control the U.S. Senate.
Fort George Wright Drive is now Whistalks Way. The name change, an acknowledgment of the brutality imposed on Native American tribes in Spokane by Col. George Wright and the United States government, was approved unanimously by the Spokane City Council on Monday.
Idaho hikers and historians have teamed up in an effort to uncover a 120-year-old route used by miners during one of the last gold rushes in American history, and this week they shared updates on the project during a virtual gathering. Morgan Zedalis, assistant forest archaeologist for the Payette National Forest’s Heritage Program, gave the backstory on Idaho’s Three Blaze Trail during an Idaho Trails Association Zoom presentation Thursday. ... The Idaho Trails Association has partnered with the Forest Service to try to survey three sections of the trail, which Zedalis said was originally about 50 miles long. According to a Heritage Program history of the trail, it was created after brothers Ben and Lou Caswell struck gold in the late 1890s near Thunder Mountain, about 75 miles east of McCall in what is now part of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The Caswells sold their mining claims to investor William H. Dewey in 1900, spurring a gold rush. Miners heading to Thunder Mountain from the north needed a more accessible route, so homesteaders William Campbell (of Campbell’s Ferry) and W.A. Stonebraker decided to create one.
Spokane’s South Hill and Browne’s Addition are known for large, sometimes historic, homes built between the city’s 1880s founding and World War II. An aerial survey of northwest Spokane shows thousands of uniform, two-bedroom homes north of Wellesley, almost all built after WWII. During the post-war construction boom, most of these homes were built by Western Mortgage Co. and Western Builders Inc., and their subsidiary businesses, including Alberta Homes, Northhill Homes, Wellesley Villages, Decatur Homes, Endicott Homes and Westview Investments, each one focused on a particular northside development.
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