Tag: Daily Trends Hunter

Algeria sets presidential election for July 4

Algeria’s newly appointed president has set July 4 as the date for the country’s postponed presidential election, according to state media.

The announcement on Wednesday came a day after Abdelkader Bensalah was appointed as interim president for 90 days, replacing long-time leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika who stepped down last week in the face of mass protests against him.

Bensalah, who will not be able to run in the election, signed a decree on the vote shortly after taking the post on Tuesday, Algeria’s official news agency APS reported.

In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, the 77-year-old pledged to deliver a free and transparent election within his tenure and said he hoped the vote would return a president committed to building a new Algeria.

Bensalah also announced plans to urgently create a “sovereign” body, with the help of the political class and civil society, to help lay down the required conditions for an “honest” process.

His appointment, however, failed to quell protesters, with thousands on Wednesday taking to the streets of the capital, Algiers, to call for a complete political overhaul.

Demonstrators have repeatedly demanded the departure of a coterie of individuals closely-linked to Bouteflika’s administration, including the so-called “three Bs”; Bensalah, Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui and Head of the Constitutional Council Tayeb Belaiz.

Army vows to oversee transition period

Algeria’s political turmoil began in late February when the 82-year-old Bouteflika announced his bid to seek a fifth term in office in an election planned for April 18.

The move triggered mass rallies against the ailing leader, which eventually forced him to backtrack and postpone the poll. But Bouteflika, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a 2013 stroke, said he would remain in office to oversee a transition that would include drafting a new constitution.

The pledges failed to appease protesters, who continued rallying en masse demanding a total political overhaul.

On April 2, after weeks of mass nationwide protests and increasing pressure from the powerful armed forces, Bouteflika announced his resignation. In accordance with Algeria’s constitution, Bensalah, the chairman of the upper house of parliament, took over as caretaker president.

Earlier on Wednesday, Algeria’s army chief of staff said the military would watch over Algeria’s preparations for presidential elections, but suggested the military does not want to intervene.

Speaking at a regional military headquarters in Oran, Lieutenant General Gaid Salah also said it was “unreasonable” to organise the transition period without “institutions”, warning that such a scenario “could compromise all that has been achieved to this day since independence” from France in 1962.

Salah also said he expects those who profited under the former president to be prosecuted.

“The judiciary has recovered its prerogative and can work freely,” he said.

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Amazon Go stores start accepting cash amid backlash against cash-less movement

Amazon will finally let you use cash at its Amazon Go stores.
Amazon will finally let you use cash at its Amazon Go stores.

Image: Getty Images / EyeEm

By Alex Perry

One of the key components of Amazon’s new line of convenience stores is already getting axed.

Amazon Go, the store chain that prides itself on a no-cash, no-cashier shopping experience will start allowing customers to pay in cash, CNBC reported. The company’s senior VP of physical stores Steve Kessel told employees Amazon would start accepting alternative payment methods in a meeting last month, according to a recording obtained by CNBC.

SEE ALSO: Elizabeth Warren is coming after AmazonBasics. Why Amazon shouldn’t fight it.

That will reportedly include cash and possibly SNAP benefits, which Amazon has accepted on its website since 2017. There is no timeframe on when this new policy will go into place.

Amazon Go has been next to useless for those who pay primarily with cash.

Amazon Go has been next to useless for those who pay primarily with cash.

Image: Interim Archives / Getty Images

The news comes hot on the heels of the city of Philadelphia and the state of New Jersey both banning cash-less stores in March. While there are plenty of people in the United States who would be fine with never using cash again, the reality of the situation is that it isn’t always the easiest option for some.

An FDIC survey in 2017 estimated that 25.2 percent of American households are either unbanked (meaning they have no bank account at all) or underbanked (meaning they have bank accounts, but rely heavily on other sources of money). Only 6.5 percent of those households had no accounts at all, but that still accounts for more than eight million people.

Black and Hispanic households, in particular, were more likely to be totally unbanked according to the FDIC’s findings. As such, the argument has been made that cash-less stores disproportionately exclude marginalized communities. It could also be a problem for people in abusive relationships with shared bank accounts.

There are 10 Amazon Go stores in the U.S., all in major cities like Seattle and San Francisco, with plans to open more in the coming years. There are no cashiers at all, meaning customers take what they want from shelves and pay using the Amazon mobile app. There are, however, human employees who could theoretically help make sure cash transactions go smoothly once they are implemented.

Of course, maybe just having cashiers would make it as easy as possible.

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Facebook unveils yet another tired plan to reduce ‘problematic content’

It's totally going to work this time.
It’s totally going to work this time.

Image: Niall Carson / PA Images / Getty

By Jack Morse

Surely, this will be the policy change that fixes things. 

On April 10, Facebook unveiled an updated plan to reduce “problematic content” on the platform, detailing in an almost 2,000-word blog post its latest and greatest techniques for keeping your social-media life free from misinformation. And while many of the changes will happen behind the scenes, the alterations to how News Feed ranks content should be felt immediately by users. 

SEE ALSO: The Facebook scandals didn’t stop anyone from using Facebook

That’s right, Facebook is once again tweaking its News Feed algorithm. The goal, according to the company, is to “ensure people see less low-quality content in their News Feed.” To accomplish this, Facebook will use a so-called Click-Gap signal in an attempt to determine which sites and links are more likely to be of a Facebook-determined low quality.

“This new signal, Click-Gap, relies on the web graph, a conceptual ‘map’ of the internet in which domains with a lot of inbound and outbound links are at the center of the graph and domains with fewer inbound and outbound links are at the edges,” reads the blog post. “Click-Gap looks for domains with a disproportionate number of outbound Facebook clicks compared to their place in the web graph.”

And just what, exactly, does this mean? 

“This can be a sign that the domain is succeeding on News Feed in a way that doesn’t reflect the authority they’ve built outside it and is producing low-quality content,” Facebook tells us. 

In other words, a site that is doing well on Facebook — but not receiving a lot of attention via the larger web — might be ranked lower in the News Feed. Interestingly, that Facebook considers content doing well on Facebook but not doing well elsewhere a possible sign that it’s trash says a lot about the type of links that Facebook seems structurally designed to encourage and promote. 

Essentially, if something goes viral on Facebook, it’s a possible sign that it’s trash — because that’s exactly the kind of content Facebook was designed to spread. Which, well, we didn’t need a 2,000-word blog post to tell us that. 

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Israel elections: Netanyahu set to win as rival concedes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to win reelection after his main rival conceded defeat.

With more than 99 percent of votes counted, Netanyahu’s Likud party was set to lead a right-wing bloc with 65 of the 120 seats in parliament.

His main challenger Benny Gantz conceded defeat on Wednesday, acknowledging that he had failed to unseat the prime minister.

“We respect the decision of the people,” he told reporters.

Although Gantz’s Blue and White Party was set to win a similar number of seats to Likud, there was no obvious path for the party to a parliamentary majority.

A number of right-wing parties expressed their support for Netanyahu and are on course to give him a parliamentary majority.

Addressing a jubilant gathering of supporters early on Wednesday, Netanyahu praised the crowd for an “almost inconceivable achievement”.

“I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with even greater trust,” he added.

He is now set to embark on a record fifth term in office and will also become Israel‘s longest-serving prime minister.

Final results are expected to be announced on Thursday.

 

US President Donald Trump phoned to congratulate Netanyahu on his victory, the Israeli leader said later on Wednesday.

Trump told reporters at the White House that Netanyahu’s reelection improved the chances of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“He’s been a great ally and he’s a friend. I’d like to congratulate him on a well-thought-out race,” Trump said.

However, Diana Buttu, a Palestinian Haifa-based analyst and former legal adviser to Palestinian peace negotiators, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu’s renewed mandate will allow him to continue his “policies of apartheid, colonisation, and racism”.

Buttu said that for as long as Netanyahu has been prime minister, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been urging the international community to intervene during the bombing of Gaza, construction of illegal settlements, demolition of Palestinian homes, passage of the nation-state law and regarding the annexation of the West Bank.

“… [Netanyahu] is ideologically opposed to Palestinian freedom [and] he’s going to continue to do whatever he wants against Palestinians,” Buttu said.

“The message that the Israeli public has sent is very clear. They support him, they support his policies of apartheid, they support his policies of colonisation and they support a racist.”

Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin is due to begin meeting with the political parties who won entry into the Knesset next week to see who they will support for prime minister. He will then select a leader to try and form a coalition.

Voter turnout was 67.9 percent, down from 71.8 percent in 2015. Turnout in the Arab community was significantly lower, standing at 46 percent an hour before the polls closed.

Despite a low voter turnout among Palestinians, the Arab alliances of Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am-Balad passed the threshold, gaining six and four seats respectively.

However, their total of 10 Knesset seats is lower than in the 2015 elections, when the Arab joint list won 13, making them the third-largest faction in the 20th Knesset.

Some voters blamed the low turnout on the split between Arab factions, which had united for the 2015 vote, while there was also a campaign to boycott the election.

On Tuesday, Likud activists placed 1,200 hidden cameras in Palestinian polling areas, prompting the Central Elections Committee (CEC) chairman Judge Hanan Melcer to file a complaint to the Israel Police.

Netanyahu responded saying there should be cameras everywhere to “ensure a fair vote”. The cameras were subsequently removed.

 

Additional reporting by Mersiha Gadzo in Jerusalem.

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‘What if we kissed’ memes have people fantasizing about making out in odd places

By Sage Anderson

Crush culture has taken the internet in some pretty bizarre directions, but this meme is maybe the strangest. 

Everyone at some point or another has engaged in light Twitter stalking or a liking spree on their favorite internet personality’s Instagram. It’s all a part of crush culture, a wholesome display of online affection. And now people are fantasizing about locking lips with their favorite people in a meme about smooching in increasingly specific and bizarre locations. 

“What would u do if we kissed on the Battle Bus?” the first iteration of the meme asked, imagining a perfect date night scenario in Fortnite Battle Royale. Mm, steamy. 

If you think romance is dead in the digital age, think again. Nothing is off limits apparently, as you can awkwardly flirt in alternate dimensions, fictional locations, and, yes, even the high voltage box in your neighborhood. 

The images are reminiscent of old-school lolcat memes, typically including a combo of coy blushing emojis and embarrassed monkey emojis. They’re a perfect mix of earnest pining and surreal shitposting that encapsulates exactly what flirting is like in the 21st century. 

studio ghibli romances be like what if we didnt kiss 😳 but instead both spiritually matured as people because we met each other 😳

— mitski noticed me (@firo_twt) April 5, 2019

Some versions of the meme have gone so far off course that they’ve entered into a more wholesome, nostalgic territory. Because who wouldn’t want to take their sweet crush back to the past and share an innocent kiss in Club Penguin? 😳

So the next time you’re nervous and don’t know what to text your crush, send them one of these memes to show exactly how you feel. 

If you get to digital second base, perhaps a nice thirst meme or two is in order. 

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Warren raises $6 million in first quarter


Elizabeth Warren

The early fundraising reveals that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is spending like a front-runner but isn’t yet raising money like one. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised $6 million in the first three months of the year, landing her in the middle of the pack of 2020 candidates and highlighting the difficulty ahead competing for money against more prolific fundraisers like Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke.

The Massachusetts Democrat also burned through more than 85 percent of what she raised in the first quarter.

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While Warren has a comfortable cushion in the bank of funds leftover from her Senate campaign fund, with nearly $11.2 million cash on hand, the early fundraising reveals that Warren is spending like a front-runner but isn’t yet raising money like one.

That’s due in part to Warren’s self-imposed limits on dialing up high-dollar donors and holding big-money fundraisers, which she enacted in February. It’s also a testament to a weighty campaign infrastructure, with more than 50 staff members and robust organization already built in early presidential primary states, all of which was set up earlier than the rest of the Democratic presidential field.

Warren’s financial support came almost exclusively from grassroots, online donations: Of the more than $6 million Warren raised, the average donation was $28 from 135,000 people who gave 213,000 contributions.

Sanders swamped Warren’s fundraising, bringing in $18 million in the first quarter. And while Warren in her 2012 Senate campaign was lauded for prodigious fundraising — $40 million in all — and an expansive donor list, O’Rourke, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg all outraised Warren in the first quarter.

There were some bright spots for Warren, including the $11.2 million she has in the bank to start the second quarter, a strong figure can sustain her campaign at least for the near future. She can go back to her existing donors for more money since so few of them have given large donations already. And in a sign of sustained enthusiasm, Warren, who raised $300,000 on her campaign launch day, was able to raise more than $1.4 million in the last week of the quarter, including 50,000 new donations.

“You might have seen some of the big numbers in the headlines, from $7 million to $18 million. Here’s a tip: Take a look at the number of grassroots donors — and donations — that candidates report,” Warren campaign manager Roger Lau said in an email that went out to supporters Wednesday. “For instance: One of the other candidates who had more or less the same number of donations raised 55% more money because of big-dollar contributions. Another candidate had just about the same number of people donate overall, but also raised twice as much money from big-dollar donors.”

Harris brought in $12 million, about half of which came from online donors, and she has about $9 million cash on hand, according to the campaign, with a burn rate at 30 percent. Sanders burned through about $4 million in the first quarter, even though he launched his campaign seven weeks after Warren. However, he also raised more than twice as much in his campaign account as Warren.

Warren about matched Harris’ online small donor donations. Both campaigns invested heavily in digital fundraising infrastructure and both are for the first time tapping their existing email lists for presidential donations — as is O’Rourke, whose email list was freshly built during his close Senate loss against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas last year.

O’Rourke raised $9.4 million in the first quarter. Only Sanders has had the benefit of having an expansive email list of people built for a presidential campaign.

In February, Warren announced she would voluntarily halt special access to big donors; no longer holding cocktail parties, fundraising dinners or private meetings with only large-scale backers. Her fundraising chair, Michael Pratt, arguing the campaign needed a more balanced approach, left the campaign soon after.

Warren’s strategy has been to lead the pack in introducing new policies, and while other candidates’ time has been occupied by pitching to big donors, keeping them off the road, Warren has invested that time in traveling and holding events across the country. She’s also led the field in policy proposals that have garnered national headlines.

“Elizabeth’s held 48 events in 12 states plus Puerto Rico, taking over 200 questions from voters about what’s on their minds,” Lau said in the supporter email. “More than 22,000 people have attended events, with Elizabeth taking about 13,000 selfies with people who stayed behind to chat more after they were over.”

That approach is costlier — but the Warren campaign believes the long-term investment will ultimately pay off because of her personal interaction with voters.

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