Tag: UCLA

Wisconsin Senator Baldwin Proposes Tax Increase for Corporations With Overseas Locations

Bradley Vasoli

U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is urging fellow members of Congress to pass a measure to raise taxes on corporations with operations in low-tax foreign countries. 

The legislation, called the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act, would effect American participation in a global minimum tax, a major Biden-administration policy priority. In 2021, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined 130 nations to negotiate a framework to equalize corporate taxation so companies could not escape high taxes in their home countries. Two months ago, all 27 member states of the European Union agreed on a plan for their involvement in such a system. 

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Apple Reportedly Developing iPhone Technology That Knows When You’re Depressed

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Person holding an iPhone

Apple is reportedly working on iPhone technology capable of detecting and diagnosing depression, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The tech giant is developing the iPhone features to reliably detect and diagnose depression as well as cognitive decline, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ. The technology is being developed in partnership with researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and pharmaceutical company Biogen.

The technology is in its early stages of development, according to the WSJ, but will collect data on iPhone users’ mobility and sleep patterns, physical activity, and other behaviors. However, researchers are still unsure whether they can create algorithms that reliably detect the mental health state of users.

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University of California Doctors Challenge Its COVID Vaccine Mandate as ‘Irrational’

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A new category of professional has joined the legal challenges to university vaccine mandates: doctors.

University of California Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine psychiatrist and medical ethicist Aaron Kheriaty is suing the university system to recognize his natural immunity from COVID-19 recovery, and he’s getting help from fellow UC medical professors.

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Students and Parents of Columbia Prep School Decry New ‘Porn Literacy’ Class

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Group of students reading

The Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City is facing widespread backlash from both students and parents after it rolled out a bizarre new class on “porn literacy,” the New York Post reports.

Junior year students at the Manhattan-based school had to attend a “health and sexuality workshop,” expecting it to be a generic sexual education class. However, the class was revealed to be officially known as “Pornography Literacy: An intersectional focus on mainstream porn,” taught by the Director of Health and Wellness at the Dalton School, Justine Fonte. The class was made mandatory, and neither students nor parents were informed about the class’s contents ahead of time, or given the option to withdraw from the class.

Fonte’s presentation to the class of roughly 120 students included explicit photos in order to determine “what is porn and what is art,” as well as a list of the most-searched keywords in porn in 2019, and the most popular sub-genres of pornography.

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UCLA Professor Laura Gomez: Give Reparations to Latinos, Too

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A book titled, Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism, written by University of California Los Angeles School of Law professor, Laura Gomez, is advocating for the United States to provide reparations for the Latino community.

According to Gomez’s website, the main theme of the book, as described from an excerpt from the introduction, is “the how and why of Latinx identity becoming a distinctive racial identity.” Furthermore, it says, “this book explains how and why Latinos became cognizable as a racial group— a racial group that is Other and inferior to Whites.”

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UCLA Professor Found Guilty of Conspiring to Steal US Missile Guidance Technology for China

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by Ethan Cai   A jury found an electrical engineer and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor guilty of exporting stolen U.S. military technology to China. UCLA adjunct professor Yi-Chi Shih was convicted June 26 on 18 federal charges, Newsweek reported, and could now lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also facing up to 219 years behind bars for numerous violations of the law. These include conspiracy to break  the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), committing mail and wire fraud, lying to a government agency, subscribing to a false tax return, and conspiring to gain unauthorized access to information on a protected computer, according to a Department of Justice news release. Shih and co-defendant Kiet Ahn Mai tried to access illegally a protected computer owned by a U.S. company that manufactured semiconductor chips called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs). MMICs are used by the Air Force and Navy in fighter jets, missiles and missile guidance technology, and electronic military defense systems. The chips were exported to Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC), a Chinese company, without a required Department of Commerce license. Shih previously served as the president of CGTC, which made the Commerce Department’s Entity List in 2014 “due to its involvement…

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