Month: November 2020

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | numbeos)

San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to impose an extra tax on any company that pays its highest-paid employee over 100 times more than its median worker.

The ballot question was approved Tuesday by 65 percent of voters, with 230,298 yes votes and 123,943 no votes. As the ballot question states, the new tax is to be imposed on "businesses in San Francisco when their highest-paid managerial employee earns more than 100 times the median compensation paid to their employees in San Francisco."

The tax is expected to raise $60 million to $140 million per year. Large businesses—those with over $1 billion in gross receipts, 1,000 employees nationwide, and administrative offices in San Francisco—would pay an additional tax of 0.4 percent to 2.4 percent of their San Francisco payroll expenses. Other businesses that pay taxes on gross receipts instead of payroll expenses "would pay an additional tax from 0.1 percent to 0.6 percent of [their] San Francisco gross receipts."

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  The Volvo XC40 was already a compelling luxury crossover, and the addition of an all-electric powertrain only improves it. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

After what seems like years of waiting, a bevy of new battery-electric vehicles is about to go on sale here in the US. Ford is readying the Mustang Mach-E. Volkswagen is putting the finishing touches to the ID.4. And last month in Ghent, Belgium, Volvo started production of the XC40 Recharge. It's an all-electric version of its popular XC40 crossover, one that shares its powertrain technology and Android Automotive operating system with the Polestar 2.

US deliveries remain a few weeks away, so a proper first drive, where we spend a day with a new car like we did with the Polestar 2 this summer, will have to wait a little longer. But earlier this week, I got a chance to spend a little time with a pre-production example that Volvo made available to those of us who serve as jurors for the World Car Awards. The roads of Manassas, Virginia, were my playground, and there was no PR minder, just a request to bring it back after an hour. Here's what I learned.

From the outside, the XC40 Recharge looks a lot like any other Volvo XC40—the easiest giveaway that you're looking at an all-electric version is the blanked-off front that does better things for one's drag coefficient than an open grille. From the driver's seat, there are a few more clues. The 12.3-inch main instrument display has a different theme from other Volvos, including an attractive new full-screen map mode. In the center stack, the infotainment screen has grown from 9 inches to 11.2 inches, and although the tile-based UI looks pretty similar to Volvos running Sensus, it's now running Android Automotive. Google's voice recognition means it understands most of the questions you ask it, and the Google Maps-powered navigation app is smart enough to know your battery state of charge so it can direct you to charging if needed en route.

Enlarge (credit: Jordan Hartig)

Humans have domesticated a large number of animals over their history, some for food, some as companions and protectors. A few species—think animals like rabbits and guinea pigs—have partly shifted between these two categories, currently serving as both food and pets. But one species has left its past as a food source behind entirely. And, in another rarity, it ended up serving not so much as a companion but as a decoration.

We're talking goldfish here, and we've now gotten a look at their genome. And it's almost as weird as the fish themselves are.

A fine kettle of fish

It's worth stopping for a moment to consider just how weird they are within the realm of domestication. They started out just as slightly colored variants of a carp that is otherwise used entirely for aquaculture. We've completely removed them from the food chain and turned them into pets, but they're not the sort of pets that we interact with like a dog or cat, or even a guinea pig. Largely, they just sit there and look decorative. And in the process of making them even more decorative, we've bred a lot of varieties that are far less functional as fish.

Enlarge / HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA - NOVEMBER 05: A child holds a sign as dozens of people calling for stopping the vote count in Pennsylvania due to alleged fraud against President Donald Trump gather on the steps of the State Capitol on November 5, 2020 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The activists, many with flags and signs for Trump, have made allegations that votes are being stolen from the president as the race in Pennsylvania continues to tighten in Joe Biden's favor. (credit: Spencer Platt | Getty Images)

Facebook and Twitter are struggling to contain rising anger from Donald Trump’s supporters online, as a wave of momentum builds around the US president’s claims that the election is being stolen from him.

In the past 24 hours, Facebook has invoked emergency measures to make it harder for users to share posts that contain misleading information, to remove such posts from people’s newsfeeds, and to restrict the circulation of poll-related livestreams.

The social media company has also expanded its warning labels from posts by political candidates to a wider web of rightwing influencers, many of whom were echoing Mr. Trump’s messages, saying that it was flagging individuals based on whether their posts were going viral.