Peter Nowak

🎓🗣️ The University of Southern California canceled the commencement speech of its valedictorian, a Muslim student who promoted controversial pro-Palestinian social media content, citing security risks.

🖱📰 Click to see a list of bite-sized stories you should know for today.

🔥 It’s Friday, April 19th – and here’s what’s hot, hot, hot.

✈️📈 Travel demand, which has remained high despite lingering inflation and recently publicized safety issues, is reportedly about to go even higher.

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🐋👽 Scientists held the first known “conversation” with a humpback whale in its native language, in an experiment aimed at helping humans one day communicate with aliens.

🌍 A record “rain bomb” dumped 1.5 years of precipitation on Dubai; hackers linked to Russia’s military claimed responsibility for sabotaging a Texas water plant; & more

📱 ByteDance, the China-based company that owns TikTok, has quietly launched a new app over the past few months in France, Spain, Japan, and South Korea.

🔥 It’s Thursday, April 18th – and here’s what’s hot, hot, hot.

🤖🧠 A new report found AI systems can exceed human performance in several basic tasks, signaling that artificial general intelligence – AI that’s as capable as humans in all cognitive tasks – could soon emerge.

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The US House accused China's government of directly funding America’s fentanyl crisis; UK lawmakers gave preliminary approval for a generational smoking ban; and more.

🚗🗳️ Starting today and running through Friday, ~4,000 workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), in a key election that could provide a boost – or setback – to the union’s stated growth efforts in the automotive industry.

🔥 It’s Wednesday, April 17th – and here’s what’s hot, hot, hot.

💤 For the first time in Gallup polling history dating back to 2001, a majority of US adults (57%) say they would feel better if they got more sleep, while less than half (42%) say they get as much sleep as they need.

⚖️ The first-ever criminal trial of a former US president officially kicked off yesterday, with Donald Trump appearing in a New York City courtroom for the start of jury selection.

🌌💥 Last week, the US Space Force announced a first-of-its-kind military exercise to test how it might counter “on-orbit” aggression.

🖱📰 Click to see a list of bite-sized stories you should know for today.

🔥 It’s Tuesday, April 16th – and here’s what’s hot, hot, hot.

📰 On Friday, Google began removing California news websites from some users’ search results, in response to pending legislation that would require the tech giant to pay news orgs for linking to their content.