Free Republic

President Trump signed an executive order slowing some green card processing, though a prior draft of the order was much more expansive and broad, Breitbart News has learned. The executive order, which can be modified in 60 days, halts a modest level of legal immigration from employment-based green card categories and extended family green card categories while exempting all visa worker programs.

After instituting pay cuts across its nonunion employees earlier this month, Tribune Publishing announced it will furlough employees across the company. Staffers will take three-week furloughs in one-week increments between May and July of this year to “ensure financial stability,” but will retain health benefits during those periods. Furloughs effect nonunion employees who make between $40,000 and $67,000 per year, the Chicago Tribune reports. As an alternative to a furlough, employees have the option of receiving a severance package and leaving the company. The move comes as the company experiences a further decline in advertising revenue amid the COVID-19 pandemic....

Amid rapid growth in AI deployments across a variety of industry sectors, Intel has decided to address the skills shortage in AI-savvy developers by partnering with online technology learning platform Udacity to offer a course in edge AI for developers. “Historically, students have learned how to build and deploy deep learning models for the cloud. With Udacity, we are training AI developers to go where the data is generated in the physical world: the edge,” said Jonathan Ballon, Intel vice president and general manager, Internet of Things Group. “Optimizing direct deployment of models on edge devices requires knowledge of unique...

Official title:Covid-19 update: Requested PM Modi to release US order of hydroxychloroquine stockpile, says Trump President Trump did not shy away from saying he too will take a tablet of hydroxychloroquine after announcing that he has requested Prime Minister during his telephonic conversation earlier today to lift a hold on the US order of the medicine. US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to supply Hydroxychloroquine tablets that can be used to treat Covid-19 patients. “After call today with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is giving serious consideration to releasing the...

Gwyneth Paltrow is offering her Instagram followers some advice while they self-quarantine. The Goop founder recommends that everyone transform enforced isolation into an opportunity to “write a book, learn an instrument or a language or learn to code online, draw or paint.” Paltrow, 47, shared a photo of herself wearing gloves and a mask after a trip to the farmer’s market assuring fans that her and hubby, “Glee” co-creator Brad Falchuk, only removed their masks and gloves once they neared their home and with no other pedestrians around.

Reporters at the Chicago Tribune are trying to find a new owner for their newspaper. They're doing it because they're afraid of Alden Global Capital's plans for all of the papers owned by Tribune Publishing. Alden, a New York-based hedge fund, recently became the largest shareholder in the struggling publishing company. Alden has a terrible reputation in the newspaper industry due to its history of slashing jobs and sucking up short-term profits from other papers it controls. "We're doing everything in our power to try to stop them," Gary Marx, a 31-year veteran of the Chicago Tribune, told CNN Business....

It's not a good morning for Iowa Democrats. They are trying to do damage control the morning after one of the most disastrous election nights in recent memory. Hours after the Hawkeye State voting ended, and there are still no results. The only thing we do know, is that the Democrats really bungled this process.  In in their new statement Tuesday morning, the party tried to give some kind of an explanation as to what the bleep happened. It was not any kind of cyber intrusion, they admit. It was purely technical incompetence. NEW statement from @iowademocrats -- "While the...

Last spring, during my first week as a janitor at a Dave & Buster’s, I struck up a conversation with a co-worker who served 17 years in prison. Swapping life stories, I sheepishly divulged that I used to work for The Washington Post, that I had a book published by HarperCollins, and that I had been the editor of a popular website. SNIP For the life of me, I couldn’t begin to explain how I went from having a life and career I felt proud of, to being publicly shamed by my peers and punished for things I didn’t do....

<p>In October 2017, I was one of roughly 70 men included in the Shitty Media Men list, a crowdsourced spreadsheet of anonymous, unvetted allegations of sexual misconduct and assault. No words can describe my astonishment and horror at finding myself accused of “harassment,” “stalking” and “physical intimidation.” In the decade leading up to the list, my work was regularly published by more than a dozen outlets and I was frequently offered work. After the leak, that work screeched to a stop.</p>

CNN and the Des Moines Register have scrapped the planned release of a key poll on Saturday, less than two days before the Iowa caucuses after concerns that an apparent coding error left one of the leading contenders out of at least one survey. The media outlets decided to nix a planned live televised release of the survey after a supporter of former Mayor Pete Buttigieg received a call from the pollsters — and Buttigieg’s name was not one of the options offered. The New York Times first reported the network’s decision to cancel the poll’s release. The Des Moines...

Founded in 1881, The Buffalo News will have its third owner in its nearly 140-year history, thanks to a sale to Lee Enterprises. Spectrum News reports that the sale, for $140 million in cash, includes the Berkshire Hathaway Media Group publications with print and digital operations of 30 daily newspapers and more than 49 paid weekly publications and 32 other print products. Lee has managed the BH Media Group since the summer of 2018. For The Buffalo News, the sale announced Wednesday morning signals the end of a 40-year ownership by Warren Buffett. Lee Enterprises will be the third owner...

During a rally yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke to a crowd in Derry, N.H., a town that many miners call home. He acknowledged the economic setbacks and job insecurity that coal miners face these days, and gave them some advice: learn to code. According to Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, Biden said, “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well... Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” According to Weigel, the comment was met with silence from...

God only knows where Biden got the idea that coal mining consists of throwing the stuff into a furnace. That’s not how it works, but I digress. Biden’s recommendation is stale stuff. It’s the kind of rhetoric that will only sway voters whose ideal president is a machine that spits out a white paper from 1998 every time someone pushes a button. Re-training programs for workers in precarious industries have been with us for a long time.So has a specific fixation on the tech industry, as though it’s a cure-all for rural poverty. But 1998 was a long time ago....

Explaining his bold prediction, Meyer pointed at the changes introduced to the way delegates are designated in the Democratic Party. He said the elimination of superdelegates and winner-take-all primary contests adds up to bad news for the former vice president, even though he now leads in national polls. Meyer said in states where Biden is ahead he holds only small leads, meaning that candidates like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will also be picking up delegates there. He said once Warren or Sanders drop out of the race, their delegates will switch to support the other. "If you look...

During a rally yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke to a crowd in Derry, N.H., a town that many miners call home. He acknowledged the economic setbacks and job insecurity that coal miners face these days, and gave them some advice: learn to code. According to Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, Biden said, “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well... Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!”

Saagar Enjeti argues why Joe Biden is still falling into the same trap Hillary Clinton fell into during the 2016 election.

Former Vice Preisdent Joe Biden made clear at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate that he’d sacrifice economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production and potentially risk displacing hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in order to combat climate change. Moderator Tim Alberta asked: “Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production. As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in the interest...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Freelance writers and photographers on Tuesday filed the second legal challenge to a broad new California labor law that they say could put some independent journalists out of business. The law taking effect Jan. 1 aims to give wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors. While the public focus has been largely on ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft, the lawsuit brought by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association says the law would unconstitutionally affect free speech and the media. The lawsuit filed by...

Key Points: Hundreds of Vox Media freelancers will lose their jobs in the coming months. Vox Media is preparing for a California law, Assembly Bill 5, which goes into effect in 2020 and forbids nonemployees from submitting more than 35 articles per year. SB Nation said Monday that it will move its California team blogs, which rely on contractors, to a new system run by SB Nation employees. ========================================================================= Hundreds of freelance writers at Vox Media, primarily those covering sports for the SB Nation site, will lose their jobs in the coming months as the company prepares for a California...

While the Trump Economy is working great for most people, one industry hasn't been enjoying the boom: the media. According to Business Insider, the media industry is continuing to cut jobs this year. The media industry continued to execute cuts in December and November as Gannett, Highsnobiety, and the CBC reduced headcounts. The cuts followed large rounds of layoffs earlier in the year from companies including BuzzFeed, Verizon, and Vice Media.The massive cuts this year represent a recent trend in media that has seen upstart companies and newspapers alike shrinking and disappearing. It's not just print media that's not...