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Two hours and 37 minutes is pretty long for a “ballad,” but you can’t call it “The Hunger Games: The Three-Cycle Opera of Songbirds and Snakes” now, can you? Concision was never much in favor in the four “Hunger Games” films, which reached a seeming finale with 2015’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2.”The intervening years have done nothing to shrink the ambitions of this unapologetically gaudy dystopic series where the brutal deaths of kids are watched over by outrageously styled Capitol denizens with names like Effie Trinket. That clash of YA allegory and color palette is just as pronounced, if not more so, in “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel set 64 years before the original books, adapted from Suzanne Collins’ 2020 book of…

The Energy Department is making a push to strengthen the U.S. battery supply chain, announcing up to $3.5 billion for companies that produce batteries and the critical minerals that go into them. Batteries are seen as an important climate solution because they can power cars, which are a major cause of climate change when they burn gasoline. They are also a solution when they store clean electricity made from solar panels or wind turbines, allowing gas or coal power plants that cause climate change to turn off. Lithium ion is currently the dominant battery type both for electric vehicles and clean electricity storage. The DOE wants to strengthen the supply because even though there is plenty of work underway to develop alternatives, it estimates demand for lithium batteries will increase…

Warren Buffett’s company unloaded a number of the smaller investments from its portfolio in the third quarter including General Motors, Mondelez and Johnson & Johnson. Berkshire Hathaway filed a quarterly update on its $313 billion portfolio with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the story of this quarter might be what’s not in the report because Berkshire got permission from regulators to exclude one or more holdings while it is making changes to them. Those investments will be disclosed later after Berkshire does its buying. Many investors like to follow the changes in Berkshire’s portfolio because they want to see Buffett’s latest investment decisions, although some of the smaller changes made each quarter are likely the work of one of Berkshire’s two other stock pickers. The filing doesn’t make clear…

Nearly nine out of 10 parents believe their child is performing at grade level despite standardized tests showing far fewer students are on track, according to a poll released this week by Gallup and the nonprofit Learning Heroes. Report cards, which many parents rely on for a sense of their children’s progress, might be missing the whole picture, researchers say. Without that knowledge, parents may not seek opportunities for extra support for their children. “Grades are the holy grail,” said Bibb Hubbard, founder and president of Learning Heroes. “They’re the number one indicator that parents turn to to understand that their child is on grade level, yet a grade does not equal grade-level mastery. But nobody’s told parents that.” In the Gallup survey, 88% of parents say their child is…

Apple has agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations that it engaged in a pattern of discriminatory hiring practices when filling some of its jobs during 2018 and 2019. The deal announced last week resolved a lengthy investigation by the Department of Justice into alleged violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Federal regulators said an inquiry that began in 2019 determined that Apple’s hiring practices discriminated against U.S. candidates for jobs that were awarded to some immigrant workers seeking to be granted permanent resident status in the country. In some instances, Apple also discriminated against non-U.S. residents, according to the settlement. Apple vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the formal seven-page settlement defended its hiring record in a statement. “Apple proudly employs more than 90,000 people in the United…

In the fast-paced world of technology, a revolutionary development is on the horizon – Project Alaska. Following the announcement of Vision Pro, Apple is now looking to redefine the spatial computing era with an affordable, consumer-focused headset for the masses. INTRODUCING PROJECT ALASKA Vision Pro marked Apple’s entry into mixed-reality headsets, a bold step that garnered widespread attention. The device, which is set to be released in early 2024 in select markets, is the company’s first product in another major category since the Apple Watch in 2015 and a lot is riding on its success. The Vision Pro is billed as a “spatial computer”, meaning that it is designed to integrate digital media with the real world and allow users to interact with it using physical inputs such as motion…

Jezebel, the sharp-edged feminist website that found an impassioned and devoted following at the height of the blogosphere era but ended up struggling with its business model, is shutting down after 16 years, its parent company announced. It is the latest gender-focused media site to fold as the media industry struggles with plummeting digital advertising that has also cut into the profitability of major tech companies from Google to Facebook. Bitch Media, which had a print magazine, website and podcast, closed last year after 25 years, citing sustainability. The Washington Post folded The Lily, its freestanding publication on gender an identity issues, into its main website last year. G/O Media said 23 staffers would be laid off, including Jezebel’s team, as part of a restructuring to cope with economic headwinds…

Board members from Hollywood’s actors union voted to approve the deal with studios that ended their strike after nearly four months, with the union’s leadership touting the gains made in weeks of methodical negotiations. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ executive director and chief negotiator, announced at an afternoon news conference that the tentative agreement was approved with 86% of the vote. The three-year contract agreement next goes to a vote from the union’s members, who are now learning what they earned through spending the summer and early fall on picket lines instead of film and television sets. That vote begins last week and continues into December. Crabtree-Ireland said the deal “will keep the motion picture industry sustainable as a profession for working class performers.”…

This summer, Daniel Goldstein’s 86-year-old mom got an email that looked like it was from her bank. She was alarmed because she hadn’t spent the money it mentioned, so she called a help number on the email. The person on the other end of the line asked for her bank account information and made her believe she would get her money back. Instead, she lost $600 to a scammer. Last year, consumers of all ages were scammed out of $8.8 billion. And older adults lost the most money compared to other age groups, according to the Federal Trade Commission. While everyone wants to protect their parents and grandparents from scammers, sometimes these conversations can be complicated to navigate. “We encourage people to think in multigenerational approaches. Everyone is getting scammed,…

YouTube is rolling out new rules for AI content, including a requirement that creators reveal whether they’ve used generative artificial intelligence to make realistic looking videos. In a blog post this week outlining a number of AI-related policy updates, YouTube said creators that don’t disclose whether they’ve used AI tools to make “altered or synthetic” videos face penalties including having their content removed or suspension from the platform’s revenue sharing program. “Generative AI has the potential to unlock creativity on YouTube and transform the experience for viewers and creators on our platform,” Jennifer Flannery O’Connor and Emily Moxley, vice presidents for product management, wrote in the blog post. “But just as important, these opportunities must be balanced with our responsibility to protect the YouTube community.” The restrictions expand on rules…

New York City officials say retailers and food delivery companies must do more to halt the proliferation of unsafe e-bike and e-scooter batteries, after a fire blamed on an electric scooter’s lithium ion battery killed three people over the weekend. “There is blood on the hands of this private industry,” Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said at a news conference Monday in front of the charred remains of the Brooklyn row house where the early Sunday blaze killed Albertha West, 81, her son Michael West, 58, and her grandson Jamiyl West, 33. Fire officials said the fire broke out on the ground floor of the building. “It’s extensively damaged,” Kavanagh said, adding that the battery that sparked the fire was for a “scooter of some kind.” The city has seen hundreds…

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday was summoned to federal court for the second time in two weeks to testify in an antitrust trial threatening to topple a pillar of an internet empire that he helped build. In his latest court appearance in San Francisco, Pichai spent more than two hours defending the business practices of the Google Play Store, which distributes apps for the company’s Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones. At times, the soft-spoken Pichai looked nonplussed and frustrated by the confrontational questioning he faced. Other times he came across as a professor explaining complex subjects to the trial’s 10-person jury located just a few feet from a podium Pichai was allowed to use because he has difficulty sitting for prolonged periods. Epic Games, the…

ESPN Bet, a sports-gambling service rebranded with the name of the Disney-owned sports channel, launched Tuesday in 17 U.S. states. Penn Entertainment, which owns the service, signed a $1.5 billion deal with ESPN for rights to the sports media giant’s name in August. Under the agreement, Penn will operate ESPN Bet while ESPN promotes the app across its online and broadcast platforms. A Penn spokesperson said the ESPN Bet app was also scheduled to launch Tuesday afternoon, but did not provide a specific time. ESPN Bet was set to go live in the following states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Under August’s agreement, Penn’s rights to the ESPN brand will initially run for a decade…