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Italy threatens to seize more than $800 million from Airbnb over unpaid taxes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

Rome (CNN) — Italian tax authorities are poised to seize some €779 million ($836 million) from Airbnb as a result of its alleged failure to pay taxes owed by landlords using the platform.It’s the latest sign of intense scrutiny of short-term rentals that have proliferated in big cities in Europe and the United States.The seizure was ordered by the Milan-based public prosecutor’s office for tax offenses and the sum is equal to the amount Airbnb (ABNB) failed to pay on behalf of landlords between 2017 and 2021, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement late Monday.The company’s Ireland-based European arm brought in around €3.7 billion ($3.96 billion) in rental income in Italy in that time, of which 21% was due in taxes, according to the statement. It is unclear if specific landlords will be charged in any way.Airbnb had argued in a European Union court that the tax on short-term rentals, introduced in 2017, was not legal under the bloc’s regulations, but lost the case...

Rare Titanic first-class menu up for auction sheds light on life aboard

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

London (CNN) — A rare first-class menu from the Titanic is expected to fetch up to £70,000 ($86,000) when it goes on sale on Saturday in an auction of memorabilia associated with the doomed ocean liner.Heavily water-stained, with some of the lettering partly erased, it is likely that this menu ended up in the North Atlantic for a time when the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, British auction house Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd. said in the lot description.The ultimately salvaged menu details the first dinner on board after the Titanic set sail from Queenstown, Belfast and reveals the opulence that the ship’s first-class passengers would have experienced.Dinner options on that night of April 11 included oysters, sirloin of beef with horseradish cream and pureed parsnips, with desserts including apricot Bordaloue – a type of tart – and Victoria pudding.There seem to be no other surviving examples of the first-class menu for that spec...

Execs ignored the damage Instagram does to teens, Meta whistleblower tells Congress

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

Washington (CNN) — Meta’s top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ignored warnings for years about harms to teens on its platforms such as Instagram, a company whistleblower told a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.Meta instead fosters a culture of “see no evil, hear no evil” that overlooks evidence of harm internally while publicly presenting carefully crafted metrics to downplay the issue, said Arturo Bejar, an ex-Facebook engineering director and consultant.Bejar is the latest former insider to level public allegations that the tech giant knowingly turns a blind eye to problems that its policies and technology cannot cheaply or easily address.Bejar’s testimony before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee comes after what he described as fruitless appeals to Zuckerberg and his lieutenants in the fall of 2021 based on research his team had conducted on the experiences of teens and other users of Meta’s platforms.Sexual harassment of teensTuesday’s hearin...

Brandeis University bans Students for Justice in Palestine campus chapter following SJP support for Hamas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

Brandeis University is banning the campus’ Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after SJP groups across the country applauded Hamas for the terrorist organization’s deadly attacks in Israel.Brandeis SJP following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 supported “Palestinian resistance in all of its forms” and rejected “the characterization of Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorism.’ ”Hamas terrorists murdered an estimated 1,400 Israeli civilians and troops in the surprise attack. Another 240 Israelis were kidnapped, and nearly 7,000 were injured.The university in Waltham, which was founded by the American Jewish community a few years after the Holocaust, is no longer recognizing the Brandeis SJP chapter after national Jewish groups urged colleges to investigate their SJP chapters — including for possibly violating the ban against materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization.“National SJP has called on its chapters ...

Sturbridge man dead after being electrocuted on the job in Cambridge

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

A man working as an AT&T subcontractor died this morning after being electrocuted on the job, authorities say.Cambridge Police went to Bent Street at around 8:30 a.m. after receiving information that a man had been electrocuted, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. At that location, police found 44-year-old Sturbridge man, who was not named in the statement, on the ground and they tried to save his life.He was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.“The preliminary investigation suggests that the man was working as a subcontractor at an AT&T facility. At the time of the incident, it appears that he was working on an emergency lighting conduit,” the DA statement reads.His death is under investigation by the DA’s office, including State Police detectives assigned to that office, and Cambridge PD, according to the DA. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, will also investigate.This...

Older adults want to ‘age in place,’ but their options are limited in most states

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

Robbie Sequeira | (TNS) Stateline.orgAs older adults begin to outnumber young people in the United States in the coming decade, advocacy groups are challenging states to shift away from single-family zoning in favor of housing solutions that allow older adults to “age in place.”By 2035, the U.S. will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18, a first in the nation’s history. Recent census data suggests that the U.S. is short of aging-ready homes, with just 40% of the country’s housing considered accessible enough to meet the basic needs of older adults.Organizations such as AARP are lobbying state by state for two housing approaches: the development of so-called middle housing such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes, and the allowance of accessory dwelling units, often known as granny flats or in-law suites.This year, some states overhauled the type of single-family zoning practices that advocates say have not aged well with the graying population.Many older adu...

Missing 13-year-old girl prompts search in in North County

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

SAN DIEGO — San Diego County Sheriff's deputies launched a search for a missing 13-year-old girl who was last seen near a North County school on Tuesday. She has since been found safe, the department confirmed.According to SDSO, the young girl was last seen just before 10 a.m. near San Elijo Middle School at 1600 Schoolhouse Road. The ASTREA helicopter was launched to assist in the search for the girl, SDSO said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.At 11:50 p.m., authorities told FOX 5 her disappearance is not believed to have been an abduction.SDSO did not disclose any additional details about the incident since she is a juvenile, including where she was found by law enforcement. Although, the ASTREA helicopter also went over Carlsbad during the search, according to local police.

Chile shuts down a popular glacier, sparking debate over climate change and adventure sports

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

The decision by Chile’s National Forestry Corporation to permanently ban hikers from a popular glacier in Patagonia has incensed adventurers and local guides alike. What officials see as a question of safety — citing rapid, destabilizing melting — has sparked a debate over the risks of ice-climbing in a rapidly changing climate.The Explorers, or Exploradores, glacier in Laguna San Rafael national park had been a well-trodden ice-hiking destination in the southern region of Aysén for at least two decades. But a two-week study by government hydrologists, found the glacier is reaching a dangerously unstable “inflection point.”“There are evident risks and uncertainty regarding the behavior of the glacier,” the forestry department, which oversees Chile’s national parks, said in an email permanently banning ice-hiking on Oct. 31. “Conditions are not safe for ecotourism activities on the Explorers Glacier,” it read.Ice-climbers around the world are being forced to adapt to the effect...

A prosecutor says a foreign link is possible to the dozens of Stars of David stenciled around Paris

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Two couples who allegedly stenciled dozens of blue Stars of David on buildings in Paris and two of its suburbs last week are linked by a third party living abroad, the Paris prosecutor said Tuesday. The link was based on a telephone conversation by one couple in Russian, a statement said.“At this stage, it is not excluded that the markings of the blue Stars of David in the Paris region were made at the explicit demand of a person living abroad,” prosecutor Laure Beccuau said. An investigating judge was taking over the case, “as much to identify the authors as to analyze the intentions that guided the operation.”The war between Israel and Hamas has led to at least 1,040 known acts of antisemitism in France, the interior minister said Sunday. But the prosecutor’s office investigating the appearance of 60 blue stars, similar to those on the Israeli flag, has yet to conclude whether those who put up the stencils had antisemitic intent, Tuesday’s statement said.S...

Telecoms must up network investments to meet growing demand for mobile data: report

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:44 GMT

TORONTO — A new report says phone carriers will need to boost their network investments as it forecasts data consumption in Canada could double by 2027.The report by PwC, presented Tuesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit, says Canadian providers will need to increase their capital expenditures for 5G and fibre networks by two per cent per year to meet the growing demand for mobile data use.It comes after BCE Inc. announced Monday it would cut network investment plans by more than $1 billion in response to a regulatory decision allowing independent internet providers to access large telephone companies’ fibre networks in Ontario and Quebec.The ruling is meant to stimulate competition for internet services in the two provinces, where the CRTC says independent internet providers now serve 47 per cent fewer customers than they did two years ago.Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says he is reviewing the CRTC’s decision and that the federal government’s “top p...