Microsoft on Friday announced completion of the Marea undersea cable, which stretches 4,400 miles between Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Bilbao, Spain. A joint project of Microsoft, Facebook and global telecommunication infrastructure company Telxius, the cable lies more than 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface. It is the first cable to link Virginia and Spain.
Back when the Internet first came to be, there was the belief that the result would be more facts, less censorship, telligent discourse and less successful manipulation. Being able to converse with each other would lead people to be more honest, and our world increasingly would resemble a utopian ideal of peace and prosperity. Now, decades later, "fake news" has proliferated.
Results were mixed, with Apple faring better than expected while Facebook owner Meta and Google's Alphabet reported falling ad sales amid an economic downturn.
A troupe of circus performers have been stuck in a parking lot for nearly two months, and their supplies of food and money are dwindling as the coronavirus pandemic continues with no end in sight, reports. Many of the performers are from countries that have instituted travel bans, meaning that the performers effectively have no homes to go to. Cirque MonteCarlo had been touring through in early March, just as the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic was starting to be fully understood in the U.S. By March 9, the group had made it as far as the town of Grand Prairie, before dwindling ticket sales and shelter-in-place orders forced them to shut down. They've been in a nearby location, which they've declined to divulge due to privacy concerns, ever since. The troupe's home operations manager, Cindi Cavallini, says that they thought that the lockdown would last two or three weeks. Instead, it's been nearly two months, and it's not going away any time soon. "We were not expecting it to drag this long," she said. https://www.facebook.com/cirquemontecarlousa/posts/669402457193374 Fortunately, the circus was able to hastily negotiate boarding arrangements with the owner of a nearby parking lot. Further, since the circus is a traveling operation, the performers are used to living on the road, and their caravan of equipment includes living space and facilities to store and prepare food. However, there is no ticket revenue coming in, and the group still has to come up with $500 per week to pay their rent. Further, the troupe's generators burn through hundreds of dollars of diesel fuel per day. And of course, the performers and support staff need to be fed. The circus does not use animals, so there are no animals to feed. What's more, since most of the staff are from South American countries that have banned international travel, the performers can't go back to their homes. https://www.facebook.com/cirquemontecarlousa/photos/a.396718377795118/655976455202641/ The troupe has launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for food and rent. As of this writing, they've raised just over $4,000 of their $10,000 goal. We have made a commitment to [our employees] and they have stayed loyal to us during this very trying period," reads the crowdsourcing page. Meanwhile, with nothing to do, the performers spend their days practicing their acts or playing soccer and chess. Two members venture into town for food and fuel, and they are "disinfected" when they return from trips out. "We were not prepared for this pandemic to take such a toll on us," Cavallini says.
A Portland strip club forced to close during the crisis has found an innovative way to stay in business -- with a curbside food delivery service it calls "Boober Eats." The Lucky Devil Lounge closed its doors this week as businesses across Oregon closed and residents went into isolation to prevent the further spread of the virus. As in Portland reported, owner Shon Boulden was trying to find a way to generate some business and originally came up with the food delivery idea as a joke -- especially the play on words taking off the popular service Uber Eats -- but the concept generated so much interest on Facebook that he decided to launch it for real. Boulden told that the establishment will still be offering its full menu outside of alcoholic beverages, and would have two of the dancers deliver it to the doors of patrons. They will even get a bit of a show, Boulden noted, saying the delivery women will "wear pasties and booty shorts, drop off the food, dance for a second and then move along" -- all while keeping sanitary with disinfectant spray. As the Z100 report added, the idea allows the dancers and kitchen employees to keep working to cook and deliver the food, and the bouncers will be serving as drivers.The curbside delivery is one of the ways that suddenly shuttered businesses are trying to carry on amid the nationwide shutdowns. As reported, sports venues across the country are donating food they had purchased and stored for games that have now been canceled, sending them to local food banks to help people in need. In Los Angeles, the Staples Center sent a hoard of food to the Midnight Mission, making it the largest one-day donation in its history. "At that point, we were ready to lockdown the arena and go into full hibernation mode," Payman Khania, Staples Center's vice president of hospitality and retail strategy, told . "We realized there wasn't much that we could do with any of the food, so we decided to figure out how much we could donate." Sports are not expected to return anytime soon, with the NBA suspending play indefinitely and Major League Baseball pushing the start of the season back until at least May. It was also not clear when the Lucky Devil Lounge could re-open, but the kitchen is currently taking orders, with its dancers ready to deliver.
Justin Bailey, a resident of Rose Hill, , received quite the scare on Wednesday when he discovered a hidden inside his living room couch, reports . The citizen called the Rose Hill Police Department after the startling discovery, in the hopes that someone would be able to retrieve the snake for him. The Butler County Fire District No. 3 later responded to the call. Deputy Fire Chief Melvin Linot -- who the department has dubbed their "resident snake charmer" -- managed to wrangle the reptile and even posed for a photograph that was later posted on the department's official Facebook page. They asked if anyone was missing a pet boa and if so, they could claim it. Several reptile-lovers on the Facebook post didn't know whose snake it was but were keen to adopt it themselves if no one came to collect it. According to , Bailey was searching for his keys when he plunged his hands down in between the couch cushions and felt something scaly hidden beneath. "I reach into the right side, and I feel something, and I'm like, 'That doesn't feel right,'" said the concerned resident. He also added that he had no idea how the creature found its way into his home. It may have taken up residence inside the Bailey family couch months ago, potentially when it was much smaller. Reporters from ABC News spoke with Butler County Fire Chief James Woydziak about what they'll do next with the reptile. "I'm not even sure who gets to make that decision. This has never come up before," stated a baffled Woydziak. People on Twitter found the news to be pretty humorous and joked that they were shocked this particular story occurred in Kansas and not in Florida -- a state known for many oddities. Others were terrified by the report and vowed to get their couches thoroughly inspected before sitting on them again. One user even shared the infamous Snakes on a Plane scene with Samuel L. Jackson. "So that's what happened to the baby snake I left at my in-laws house 27 years ago..." quipped one Twitter user. "It was just protecting all that loose change between the cushions," wrote another person. https://www.facebook.com/BCFD3/posts/10162823493225084 Per the aforementioned 13 WHTR article, the boa constrictor is now at a Kansas pet store. A phone number for the rightful pet owner to call was shared on the Butler County Fire District's Facebook page.
Facebook's owner Meta has created an AI model that can translate dozens more languages than the biggest current tools, and the company also claims the results are better than those of competitors
Unusual punctuation in headlines makes people more likely to share news stories on Facebook, but phrases like “this will blow your mind” are a turn-off, finds a study
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, the popularity of social media giant Facebook has fallen among teens, while TikTok's has skyrocketed.
