Amazon announced this week that it is purchasing Boeing airliners from Delta and WestJet and converting them from passenger planes to cargo jets to assist with a surge in online shopping. Amazon’s purchase of 11 Boeing 767-300 passenger jets is a sign of both its increasing dominance in the American economy as well as the airline’s struggles in the era of lockdowns.
Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University’s School of Management claims that a group of high-profile American CEOs may pull their support from congressional Republicans that have backed challenges to the election results. Prior to his announcement, Sonnenfeld hosted a meeting with 33 chief executives from companies around the nation.
Marcelo Velez, the vice president for campus development at Columbia University, was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl.
Twitter recently acquired the social broadcasting app Breaker as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to expand its audio features. Breaker, a podcast app, gained steam after becoming one of the first podcast platforms on which users could comment and follow their friends. Breaker’s functions will be incorporated into a product called Twitter Spaces.
Financial analysts are concerned about the future of Boeing after two years of financial hardship. Boeing has struggled financially as a result of the. international grounding of the 737 Max fleet and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The chief of Brown University’s Department of Public Safety has resigned amidst calls from students to “defund” the campus police department. Former Public Safety Chief Mark Porter served for more than fifteen years at the university.
A member of a school district board in Washington is under fire after using the phrase “crack the whip.” Hundreds of local residents have signed a petition calling on Paul Wagemann, a member of the school board since 2009, to resign from his post over the comment they call racist.
Amazon officially surpassed Boeing to become the largest employer in the state of Washington. As of 2020, there are approximately 80,000 Amazon employees in the state of Washington. By contrast, Boeing employs 58,800 employees in the state.
A man died in the backseat of a rideshare vehicle on the University of Maryland campus on Friday morning. According to the local police department, the man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
This week, the Boeing 737 Max returned to the commercial airways with a three-hour American Airlines flight between Miami and New York City. Tuesday’s flight marked the first time that a Boeing 737 Max transported commercial passengers since the plane was grounded in 2019 following two fatal crashes.
Amazon announced this week that it has purchased the Wondery podcast network for $300 million. The network produces popular podcasts such as Dirty John, Dr. Death, and Business Wars. Amazon’s buyout of Wondery proves that the Masters of the Universe continue to consolidate their power despite government investigations into their anti-competitive business practices.
Ticketmaster recently agreed to pay $10 million in criminal fines after they gained unlawful access to its competitor’s private data. In 2013, a former Ticketmaster executive reportedly encouraged an employee that had previously worked for a competitor to access the competitor’s internal computer data.
A gender studies professor at the University of California, Riverside canceled all his finals this semester in response to the pandemic, opting instead to give each of his students a perfect score for their final exam. Professor Brandon Robinson argued that universities and colleges should “abandon the construct” of exams entirely.
University of Cincinnati Professor John Ucker may not return to the classroom in the spring over his use of the term “Chinese virus” in an email he sent to students in September. Ucker was placed on leave in September after the email went viral on Twitter.
Student protesters at Bryn Mawr College reportedly derailed classes and activities for three weeks during the fall semester. Protests erupted following the death of Walter Wallace Jr., who died during an altercation with Philadelphia police officers in October. An anonymous parent has published a detailed account of what their child experienced on campus, writing that “Anyone who sought to attend class, go to the dining hall, or even turn in schoolwork was denounced as a ‘scab,’ and often faced acts of bullying.”
Actress Lori Loughlin was released from a California prison on Monday morning, concluding her sentence for crimes she committed in connection with the “Varsity Blues” college admissions bribery scandal. Loughlin and her husband reportedly paid $500,000 in a scheme to have their daughters admitted to the University of Southern California.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is celebrating the end of the University of Texas’s bias response team, a university mechanism that has been used to suppress politically incorrect speech. A similar “bias response” team at the University of Michigan was shut down after a First Amendment activist group alleged that it stifled speech on campus.
High school student Mimi Groves of Leesburg, Virginia, was forced to withdraw from the University of Tennessee as a result of a smear campaign launched by one of her classmates. Groves was pressured to withdraw from the university after student Jimmy Galligan shared a three-second video from 2016 of Groves using a racial slur while singing along with a rap song.
A popular reporter claims that young Americans no longer need to attend college to succeed. Townhall reporter Julio Rosas argued recently that hardworking young people can get ahead without a college degree. According to Rosas, “You don’t need a college degree to succeed. I understand why some people think they do, but there are other ways to streamline that process and build the brand.”
The state of New Mexico recently canceled its plan to offer free college classes to all state residents. The proposal, which was originally introduced in September 2019 by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham(D), would have made college tuition-free for 55,000 students in the state.
Rutgers University announced recently that it will pay its new vice president for “equity” a whopping $300,000 per year. The announcement comes amidst a significant financial setback for the university, which reportedly has lost $200 million during the coronavirus pandemic.
A research study by a Massachusetts research hospital suggests that the spread of coronavirus can be lessened or prevented on college campuses. The study claims that social distancing, mask-wearing, isolation, and testing can prevent the majority of cases.
Employees at Facebook are pushing back on the company’s war against Apple’s efforts to prevent data harvesting by social media companies. An update to Apple’s mobile operating system allows blocks tracking by platforms like Facebook and Google.
Elon Musk claimed this week that he once offered to sell Tesla to Apple CEO Tim Cook for a fraction of the company’s current value. Musk offered the story in response to a report that claims that Apple is aiming to produce self-driving cars by 2024.
MIT has decided that it will continue to pay the salary of MIT Professor Seth Lloyd, who was placed on paid leave by the university over his relationship with disgraced financier and sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Lloyd reportedly accepted $225,000 in research donations from Epstein on behalf of the university over a 15-year period.
A guide published by the University of Michigan’s Information and Technology Services Department claims that the word “picnic” is offensive. The “inclusive language” list, which also includes words like “crazy and “dummy,” was designed to make students feel safer on campus.
The University of Texas recently announced that students will be permitted to reject letter grades during the 2020-2021 academic year. Under the new policy, students will be able to replace their letter grades with either a “pass” or a “fail” grade. The policy was designed to accommodate students that have been burdened by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
A new report published by the Senate Commerce Committee alleges that Boeing “inappropriately influenced” FAA test pilots during flight simulations. The interference allegedly took place when test pilots attempted to interact with the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the same function that led to two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said: “Our findings are troubling. The report details a number of significant examples of lapses in aviation safety oversight and failed leadership in the FAA. It is clear that the agency requires consistent oversight to ensure their work to protect the flying public is executed fully and correctly.”
38 state attorneys general sued Google and its parent company, Alphabet, Inc. on Thursday over antitrust violations pertaining to its domination of the search engine market. The lawsuit alleges that Google’s search engine prioritizes products and services owned by Google at the expense of third-parties and small businesses.
Federal prosecutors have charged Zoom executive Zinjian Jin over his alleged efforts to restrict speech on the video conferencing platform that is critical of the Chinese government. Jin reportedly participated in an effort to shut down Zoom events about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The University of Kentucky announced this week that it will increase on-campus housing costs for both undergraduate and graduate students in 2021.
Two members of the Cornell University student government were removed from their positions as part of a retaliation campaign after they refused to support an effort to disarm the campus police force, according to the students were removed and the Cornell College Republicans. The student assembly said their former peers were removed in response to the “emotional violence” they committed by voting against the disarmament resolution.
Students at Columbia University are striking this week to bring attention to their call for a 10 percent tuition decrease. Student activist Townesend Nelson said this week that the university is “vampirically sucking every drop of blood” from the “lifeless corpses” of enrolled students. Students participating in the strike have refused to pay their tuition bills for the spring semester.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced this week that the aircraft manufacturer will indefinitely freeze salary increases for employees. Boeing suffered financially in 2020 as a result of both the 737 Max crisis and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Calhoun claims that it “may be three more years until we achieve a full recovery.”
Students at American University will only be permitted to live on campus in the spring for two months. The “mini-mester” program being offered by the university will cost students $5,205 just for living expenses.
Mackenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, is donating $1 billion a month to various charities. Many of Scott’s donations have gone to left-wing institutions and initiatives. In July, it was revealed that Scott had donated $1.7 billion to a variety of progressive causes.
Tulane University will offer a course called “Feminism after Trumplandia” during the spring semester. The course, which will be taught by English Professor Kate Baldwin, will focus on the plight of women in a “post-Trump” America. The professor claims: “It is not a politically-partisan course.”
George Washington University President Thomas LeBlanc told faculty members this week that it is “unlikely” that a full return to campus will occur in the fall of 2021. The university announced in October that it will keep its campus closed for the upcoming spring semester.
The FTC has ordered nine of the largest technology companies in the world to disclose data about their operations and business practices. Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, and Google parent company Alphabet are amongst the companies at the center of the FTC’s investigation.
Northwestern University released a statement this week in response to a Wall Street Journal column by Joseph Epstein, who lectured at the university in the early 2000s. Epstein argued in a column published on Friday that Jill Biden should cease use of the title “doctor.” Biden earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007.
