Young People Hate Offices, Harvard Seeks Space Aliens, Orlando In Covid Crisis … and More

The mayor of Florida’s Orange County, Jerry Demings, said Monday that that county, which includes Orlando, is “now in crisis mode” as COVID-19 cases surge the area. Demings noted that the positivity rate in the county for COVID-19 tests is now at 13.96 percent, which has drastically changed from the 4.28 percent reported a month earlier. The county is reportedly seeing nearly 1,000 new COVID-19 cases per day. The mayor called the numbers "extraordinary." "Those are the numbers we saw at the highest peak last year,” Demings said. “A thousand a day is extraordinary. We are now in crisis mode.”

California will require millions of health care workers and state employees to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or get tested weekly, announcing a broad measure Monday to try to slow rising coronavirus infections in the nation’s most populous state, mostly among the unvaccinated. The new rule, to take effect next month, is the latest example of California and politically progressive cities nationwide cracking down on a virus that has upended life since March 2020. New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced a similar plan Monday that requires 340,000 city employees, including teachers and police officers, to show proof of vaccination or undergo weekly testing. Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, has reimposed an indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, and San Francisco announced it would require its 35,000 employees to get inoculated, get an exemption or lose their job.

Astrophysicist Avi Loeb is leading the Galileo Project, a program that will search for signs of extraterrestrial life and alien technology. The $1.75 million project, backed by at least four philanthropists, aims to use a network of Earth-based telescopes to look for interstellar objects that could be extraterrestrial in nature. The group will also hunt for potential alien ships in Earth's orbit, as well as unidentified flying craft in our atmosphere.

A generation gap has emerged between them and colleagues who value the workplace over the advantages of remote work. Bridging it may require flexibility. While workers of all ages have become accustomed to dialing in and skipping the wearying commute, younger ones have grown especially attached to the new way of doing business. And in many cases, the decision to return pits older managers who view working in the office as the natural order of things against younger employees who’ve come to see operating remotely as completely normal in the 16 months since the pandemic hit. Some new hires have never gone into their employers’ workplace at all.

In opting for full-length unitards, “We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear.” The team first wore its unitards in April at the European championships, with the German Gymnastics Federation describing the outfitting choice as a “statement against sexualization” that allowed competitors to “present themselves aesthetically, without feeling uncomfortable.” Typically, women’s teams wear bikini-cut leotards, but the German design — which covers the arms and legs, more like the uniforms worn by men’s teams.

The new MagSafe Battery Pack that Apple debuted this week is arriving to customers starting today. As the name suggests, the ‌MagSafe Battery Pack‌ is designed to attach magnetically to the back of an iPhone 12 model. It's sized to take up much of the entire back of the iPhone 12 mini below the camera, and on other models, it's a bit smaller. It's constructed from a hard, white plastic. That's a plus because it's unlikely to get dirty and attract dust and lint, but it may show scuffs and scratches, and it's a bit slippery. The ‌MagSafe Battery Pack‌ has a 11,130 mWh battery capacity, which for most of the ‌iPhone 12‌ models, will be a partial charge.