California said public schools in the state's hardest hit counties won't be able to open for on-campus classes until the spread of the coronavirus in that area is contained. The order means that students in counties accounting for more than 70% of the state's population will likely switch to remote learning for the beginning of the school year. Bloomberg reports: "The virus will be with us for a year or more, and school districts must provide meaningful instruction in the midst of this pandemic," Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. "In California, health data will determine when a school can be physically open --- and when it must close -- but learning should never stop. Students, staff, and parents all prefer in-classroom instruction, but only if it can be done safely." School districts in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento had already decided they would offer remote learning only, despite calls by the Trump administration for classrooms to fully reopen. Schools located in counties that are on the state's virus monitoring list must not physically open for in-person instruction until their county has come off the list for 14 consecutive days. All staff and students in 3rd grade and above will be required to wear a mask or face covering. Students in 2nd grade and below are strongly encouraged to wear a face covering.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The former personal assistant of a young tech entrepreneur found decapitated and dismembered in his Manhattan apartment was arrested early on Friday and was expected to be charged in the killing, according to three officials briefed on the matter. The entrepreneur, Fahim Saleh, 33, was discovered dead on Tuesday afternoon by his sister inside his $2.25 million condo in a luxury building on the Lower East Side, the police said. She had gone to check in on him after not hearing from him for about a day. Mr. Saleh's head and limbs had been removed, and parts of his body had been placed in large plastic bags designed for construction debris. An electric saw was still plugged in nearby. The former assistant, Tyrese Devon Haspil, 21, had worked for Mr. Saleh since he was 16. Mr. Haspil was expected to be charged in a criminal complaint with second-degree murder and other crimes. Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Mr. Saleh having discovered that Mr. Haspil had stolen roughly $90,000 from him, two of the officials said. Mr. Saleh fired Mr. Haspil, but did not report the theft and even offered to set up what amounted to a repayment plan so he could return the money, the officials said. One of the officials said Mr. Saleh had paid Mr. Haspil so well that he had been able to pay off the debts of several family members. "After the murder, the killer used a credit card to pay for a car to a Home Depot, on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, and to buy cleaning supplies, the fourth official said. He returned to Mr. Saleh's apartment the next day to dismember the body and clean up the crime scene," the report adds. "On the day of the murder, detectives believe that the killer -- dressed in a black three-piece suit, wearing a black mask and latex gloves, and carrying a duffel bag -- followed Mr. Saleh off an elevator that opened up in his apartment, law enforcement officials said. As the two men left the elevator, the killer used a Taser to immobilize Mr. Saleh and then stabbed him to death."

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Russian state intelligence is hacking international research centers that are racing to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the U.K., U.S. and Canadian governments said. From a report: It is unclear whether research facilities have been damaged or if the vaccine programs have been set back as a result of the hacks but officials warned that the cyber attacks are ongoing. In a dramatic statement on Thursday, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said vaccine and therapeutic sectors in multiple countries have been targeted by a group known as APT29, which it said is "almost certainly" part of Russian state intelligence. Security agencies in the U.S. and Canada later issued their own statements backing up the findings. "It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. "While others pursue their selfish interests with reckless behavior, the U.K. and its allies are getting on with the hard work of finding a vaccine and protecting global health."

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Twitch has intervened to stop the US Army using fake prize giveaways on its esports channel to redirect viewers to army recruitment pages. From a report: The practice was brought to light by a report from The Nation on the use of esports as a recruitment tool by the American military. The US Army, Navy, and Air Force all field esports teams comprised of active and reserve personnel who stream on Twitch and chat with young viewers about life, video games, and the opportunities afforded by military service. "Esports is just an avenue to start a conversation," Major-General Frank Muth, head of the army's recruiting command, told ThinkTech Hawaii recently. "We go out there and we have a shared passion for esports ... and it naturally devolves into a conversation, 'What do you do?', 'I'm in the army.'" This outreach included automated links dropped into the army's stream chat that told viewers they could win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller in a "giveaway." But when anyone clicked the link, says The Nation, they were directed to "a recruiting form with no additional mention of a contest, odds, total number of winners, or when a drawing will occur." Viewers, streamers, and game developers reacted with anger to the news, saying that any other channel would face repercussions for such behavior. Twitch itself has now apparently forced the army to stop these giveaways, according to a report from Kotaku.

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India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million coronavirus cases, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further out into the countryside and smaller towns. From a report: For India's population of around 1.3 billion, experts say a million cases are still low and the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing is expanded. India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the total so far to 1.004 million, with 25,602 deaths from COVID-19, federal health ministry data showed. That compares to some 3.6 million cases in the United States and 2 million in Brazil -- both countries with populations under 400 million. Epidemiologists say India is still likely months away from hitting its peak of cases, suggesting the country's already overburdened healthcare system will come under further strain. "In the coming months, we are bound to see more and more cases, and that is the natural progression of any pandemic," said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the nonprofit Public Health Foundation of India. "As we move forward, the goal has to be lower mortality... A critical challenge states will face is how to rationally allocate hospital beds," he said.

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Biden appears to be doing what I hoped he would. Trying to suck in as much of the Republican Party as possible. Yesterday I saw AOC pointed out that the Dem Party is a conservative party. That's cool, so maybe we'll end up with 3 or 4 parties out of this instead of 2. And we can have governments that aren't all one or the other. We keep doing and undoing, with little consistency in American govt over the decades. Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump. Biden is the single most comfortable Democrat for Repubs. Good. Let's have a unity government that isn't completely nuts. Let's get used to compromising and working together. Let's have some goals, and not drift from them. I know it's a lot to hope for.

Uber on Friday unveiled several "long-term commitments" the ride-hailing company says will help it improve equality and fairness, including doubling Black representation in its leadership and taking steps to support Black-owned businesses and restaurants. From a report: "One thing is clear to us: we can't just hope that our products alone will improve equity and fairness," wrote Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a blog post. "We must use our global breadth, our technology, and our data to help make change, faster -- so that we become a more actively anti-racist company; a safer, more inclusive company and platform; and a faithful ally to all the communities we serve." Uber is among several tech giants to say it'll make changes as well as pledge funds to groups battling racial injustice after the killing of George Floyd by police sparked protests across the US.

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During a series of Cisco online all-hands meetings on race in early June, some workers posted comments in message channels that other staff and company management said were demeaning to Black people, exposing racial divisions at the Silicon Valley tech giant and leading to the dismissal of a number of people. From a report: During the first videoconference on June 1, following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins spoke with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who is Black, and Bryan Stevenson, a Black lawyer and author who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, in front of 30,000 employees. The conversations about race continued in subsequent online global staff meetings. "Black lives don't matter. All lives matter," one worker wrote in the comments during one of the virtual all-hands meetings, according to screen shots obtained by Bloomberg. Another said the phrase Black Lives Matter "reinforces racism" because it singles out one ethnic group. "People who complain about racism probably have been a racist somewhere else to people from another race or part of systematic oppression in their own community!" a third worker wrote in the chat section visible for all those online. Cisco, the world's largest networking company, said it fired "a handful" of workers for inappropriate conduct because it "will not tolerate" racism.

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The breach revealed Twitter's engineering prowess and management practices as subpar. Hedge fund Elliott Management can't be happy about its investment. From a report: Even if Twitter's user growth is relatively unaffected, shareholders shouldn't overlook what the latest in a long series of security incidents says about the how the company works and why its stock has been such a disappointment: Twitter's engineering prowess and management practices are simply second-rate. On Wednesday, numerous Twitter accounts from business leaders, celebrities to major companies -- including Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos and Apple -- were hacked and posted cryptocurrency scam messages, promising to double the amount of any funds sent to a specific Bitcoin address. Twitter later admitted to the unprecedented nature of the breach, saying it believes it fell victim to a "coordinated social engineering attack," where hackers were able to take control of its internal systems. CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened." Certainly, hedge fund Elliott Management must not be pleased with the turn of events. The activist hedge fund and Twitter stakeholder reached an agreement with the company earlier this year to restructure the company's board, standing down on an initial goal of replacing management including Dorsey. The lackluster security is more ammunition for Twitter's critics who have long questioned the company's efficacy in using its engineering resources. Even as Chinese super-apps such as WeChat have expanded upon core messaging services to build vast consumer internet empires, and Facebook has transformed its platforms into advertising money machines, the basic nature of Twitter's offering hasn't changed much over the past decade. That, even as the company spends an incredible amount in research and development annually -- including nearly $700 million last year alone. Where does all the money go?

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Microsoft is officially halting production of its Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition consoles. From a report: "As we ramp into the future with Xbox Series X, we're taking the natural step of stopping production on Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "Xbox One S will continue to be manufactured and sold globally." Reports of Xbox One X and Xbox One S shortages have surfaced in recent weeks, and there has been an increased demand in Microsoft and Sony's current-gen consoles during the pandemic. While production is ending on the Xbox One X and the Xbox One S digital edition, it's likely that stock for some retailers will still be available in the coming months. "Gamers can check with their local retailers for more details on Xbox One hardware availability," says a Microsoft spokesperson.

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U.S. Attorney General William Barr took aim at Hollywood companies, including Walt Disney on Thursday as well as large technology firms like Apple, Google and Microsoft over company actions with China. From a report: "Corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple have shown themselves all too willing to collaborate with the (Chinese Communist party)," Barr said. He added that Hollywood has routinely caved into pressure and censored their films "to appease the Chinese Communist Party. I suspect Walt Disney would be disheartened to see how the company he founded deals with the foreign dictatorships of our day," Barr said in a speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan. Barr chided U.S. companies for being too willing to take steps to ensure access to the large Chinese market. "The Chinese Communist Party thinks in terms of decades and centuries, while we tend to focus on the next quarterly earnings report," Barr said. "America's big tech companies have also allowed themselves to become pawns of Chinese influence." Barr suggested that Apple iPhones "wouldn't be sold (in China) if they were impervious to penetration by Chinese authorities." He suggested American tech companies were imposing a "double standard."

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While doctors and politicians still struggle to convince Americans to take the barest of precautions against Covid-19 by wearing a mask, the Department of Homeland Security has an opposite concern, according to an "intelligence note" found among the BlueLeaks trove of law enforcement documents: Masks are breaking police facial recognition. From a report: The rapid global spread and persistent threat of the coronavirus has presented an obvious roadblock to facial recognition's similar global expansion. Suddenly everyone is covering their faces. Even in ideal conditions, facial recognition technologies often struggle with accuracy and have a particularly dismal track record when it comes to identifying faces that aren't white or male. Some municipalities, startled by the civil liberties implications of inaccurate and opaque software in the hands of unaccountable and overly aggressive police, have begun banning facial recognition software outright. But the global pandemic may have inadvertently provided a privacy fix of its own -- or for police, a brand new crisis. A Homeland Security intelligence note dated May 22 expresses this law enforcement anxiety, as public health wisdom clashes with the prerogatives of local and federal police who increasingly rely on artificial intelligence tools. The bulletin, drafted by the DHS Intelligence Enterprise Counterterrorism Mission Center in conjunction with a variety of other agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "examines the potential impacts that widespread use of protective masks could have on security operations that incorporate face recognition systems -- such as video cameras, image processing hardware and software, and image recognition algorithms -- to monitor public spaces during the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency and in the months after the pandemic subsides." The Minnesota Fusion Center, a post-9/11 intelligence agency that is part of a controversial national network, distributed the notice on May 26, as protests were forming over the killing of George Floyd. In the weeks that followed, the center actively monitored the protests and pushed the narrative that law enforcement was under attack. Email logs included in the BlueLeaks archive show that the note was also sent to city and state government officials and private security officers in Colorado and, inexplicably, to a hospital and a community college.

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The marsupial has bred in the wild in New South Wales for the first time in a century.

Researchers have developed a tiny lightweight video camera that can be carried by a beetle.

Mozilla says it's working on fixing a bug in Firefox for Android that keeps the smartphone camera active even after users have moved the browser in the background or the phone screen was locked. From a report: A Mozilla spokesperson told ZDNet in an email this week that a fix is expected for later this year in October. The bug was first spotted and reported to Mozilla a year ago, in July 2019, by an employee of video delivery platform Appear TV. The bug manifests when users chose to video stream from a website loaded in Firefox instead of a native app. Mobile users often choose to stream from a mobile browser for privacy reasons, such as not wanting to install an intrusive app and grant it unfettered access to their smartphone's data. Mobile browsers are better because they prevent websites from accessing smartphone data, keeping their data collection to a minimum. The Appear TV developer noticed that Firefox video streams kept going, even in situations when they should have normally stopped.

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