FTC reverses its request for a delay in an Amazon trial, says it has resources to litigate the case
By HALELUYA HADERO
A lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission has walked back his comments about a lack of resources and staff turnover interfering with the agency’s preparations for a trial involving Amazon’s Prime program.
US workers with remote-friendly jobs are still working from home nearly half the time, 5 years after the pandemic began
By Radostina Purvanova, Drake University and Alanah Mitchell, Drake University, (THE CONVERSATION)
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted office life, American workplaces are settling into a new rhythm. Employees in remote-friendly jobs now spend an average of 2.3 days each week working from home, a research team that tracks remote employment has found. And when you look at all workers – and not just those in remote-friendly positions – they’re working remotely 1.4 days a week, or 28% of the time.
That’s a huge change from 2019, when remote work accounted for only 7% of the nation’s paid workdays, even if it’s down from the height of the pandemic in 2020, when 61.5% of all work was remote. And it’s a giant leap from 1965, the dawn of telework. At that time, fewer than 0.5% of all paid workdays were out of the office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As management professors who study remote work and collaboration, we’ve learned a lot about remote work’s challenges and its often underappreciated advantages. In analyzing the latest data, we’ve observed that employers and employees are still trying to strike the balance between working from home and at the office. That’s why employers’ requirements for in-person work don’t always align with their employees’ preferences.
Meta to start testing crowd-sourced fact-checking, based on X example, next week
By BARBARA ORTUTAY, Associated Press
Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms Inc. said Thursday it will begin testing its crowd-sourced fact-checking program, Community Notes, on March 18. It will initially based on a ratings system used by Elon Musk’s X.
Meta ended its fact-checking program in January. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that fact-checkers had become “politically biased,” using some of the language that conservatives have long used to criticize his platforms. But media experts and those who study social media were aghast at Meta’s policy shift.
The decision “not only removes a valuable resource for users, but it also provides an air of legitimacy to a popular disinformation narrative: That fact-checking is politically biased. Fact-checkers provide a valuable service by adding important context to the viral claims that mislead and misinform millions of users on Meta,” said Dan Evon, lead writer for RumorGuard, the News Literacy Project’s digital tool that curates fact checks and teaches people to spot viral misinformation.
Average US rate on a 30-year mortgage edges higher, ending a seven-week slide
By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. edged higher this week, ending a seven-week slide that helped ease borrowing costs for home shoppers leading into the spring homebuying season.
February US wholesale prices unchanged showing inflation easing, though trade wars threaten trend
By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale inflation decelerated last month, suggesting that price pressures are easing for now. But the progress may not last as President Trump intensifies his trade wars.