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  The Biden administration has announced that certain categories of immigrants, including those seeking green cards and spouses of H-1B visa holders, would be permitted to use their expired work permits for an additional 18 months, offering a reprieve to thousands of Indians working in this country and prevent further disruption for US employers. A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card , is a document issued to immigrants as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently in the US. The move announced by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday will go into effect from May 4, 2022. Read Full Article Here

  Meta-owned WhatsApp has confirmed that it is running a cash-back campaign in India to drive more users on its digital payments service. The company is giving away Rs 11 cashback up to three times by sending money to three different contacts via unified payments interface (UPI) on WhatsApp. "We are running a campaign offering cashback incentives in a phased manner to our users as a way to unlock the potential of payments on WhatsApp," a company spokesperson told IANS. "We'll continue to drive awareness of payments on WhatsApp as part of our broader efforts to bring the next 500 million Indians onto the digital payments ecosystem," the spokesperson added. Read More

  TikTok rival YouTube Shorts is now averaging over 30 billion daily views -- four times as much as a year ago, as short-form content is witnessing huge adoption across the globa, including India. According to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai , viewers are watching over 700 million hours of YouTube content on televisions every day. "Just as YouTube evolved from desktop to mobile, and that created huge opportunities, we are excited about the new opportunities we see now. Short-form video is one," he said during the company's earnings call late on Tuesday. YouTube Shorts has been rolled out to over 100 countries, and is helping creators monetise their short-term videos. Read More

  Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc for $44 billion on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world's richest person. Elon Musk to buy Twitter Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer.   Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price. The deal ends Twitter's run as a public company since its 2013 initial public offering. Click Here

  As countries reopen and millions rejoin offices, video collaboration and chat app Zoom has seen a massive erosion in its stock value -- nearly 80 per cent -- from its high in 2020. The demand for Zoom soared in the two years of the pandemic as companies shut offices and employees had to work from home.  Remote learning and telemedicine also gave a boost to Zoom Video 's cloud-based services. Now, the growth of Zoom has slowed down as in-person meetings resume and schools/colleges reopen. Zoom is now undergoing a year of transition in 2022. Read More

  After 20 months of travel restrictions, the US is reopening its land and air borders to foreign visitors fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from Monday. The United States is flinging its doors wide open to vaccinated international travellers on Monday, welcoming many visitors who've been shut out of the country for 20 months, reported CNN. The United States is largely wide open, although there are some state and local restrictions that still apply. For example, there are mask mandates in Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Washington, DC and Puerto Rico also require masks in indoor public spaces. Click Here

  Facebook and Instagram have removed from their platforms a live broadcast that Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro delivered in which he said people in the U.K. who have received two coronavirus vaccine doses are developing AIDS faster than expected. Facebook's press office confirmed in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that the content was removed Sunday night because it violated Facebook policy regarding COVID-19 vaccines . Our policies don't allow claims that COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people, the statement said. The company didn't respond to AP questions regarding why three days elapsed before the much-criticised content was removed nor whether language barriers played a role, as Bolsonaro was speaking in Portuguese. Read More

  A consignment of made-in-China toys , which are highly popular among children in India, has been seized in the US after they were found to be coated with dangerous chemicals, according to officials. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ahead of the holiday shopping season, warned consumers to be extra diligent while shopping online for children's toys after the recent seizure of toys that were coated in unsafe levels of lead, cadmium and barium. The CBP officers and a Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) compliance investigator initially inspected the toys on July 16, according to an official statement. The shipment of seven boxes, which arrived from China, included 295 packages of Lagori 7 Stones, a popular children's game in India where children throw a ball at seven stacked square stones. Read More

  Over the last six months, consumers have lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency to scammers impersonating Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk , according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). For years, scammers have posed as Musk to fraud social media users out of cryptocurrency, The Verge reported. They use deceptive tactics on sites like Twitter, often using the same avatar images as Musk's account and slightly misspelling his username. "Promises of guaranteed huge returns or claims that your cryptocurrency will be multiplied are always scams," the commission said in its report on Monday. Pretending to be Musk, the scammers will ask victims to send currency to a specific wallet address in exchange for receiving a larger payment in return. Click Here

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it fully supported proposed new laws in Australia that would force internet giant Google and social media heavyweight Facebook Inc to pay domestic media outlets for their content. "While Microsoft is not subject to the legislation currently pending, we'd be willing to live by these rules if the government designates us," the software giant said in a statement. Both Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook have called the laws unworkable and said last month they would withdraw key services from Australia if the regulations went ahead. Read More

  What the pro-Trump rioters attacked was not only a building but also the Constitution, the electoral system, our democratic process Wednesday was a horrifying and shameful moment in American history. I’ve covered attempted coups in many countries around the world, and now I’m finally covering one in the United States. US Capitol Attack Trump and his enablers talk a good game about patriotism. They denounced President Barack Obama for sometimes not wearing a flag lapel pin. They criticized Colin Kaepernick for protesting police brutality by taking a knee rather than standing during the national anthem — and then Trump incited a mob on Wednesday to invade the United States Capitol. The rioters encountered a minimal police response, not the kind that Black Lives Matter protesters received. Click Here

  Starting from Wednesday, most retail stores will be closed except for those covering daily or holiday needs Germany will enter a stricter lockdown from Wednesday, which will include the closure of non-essential shops and limiting the size of private gatherings, over the resurgence of new coronavirus cases , Chancellor Angela Merkel said here. The tighter restrictive measures, which will be effective until January 10, 2021, were in response to the "exponential growth" in the number of fresh confirmed cases reported across the country, Xinhua news agency quoted Merkel as saying to journalists on Sunday. "Today is the day to do what is necessary," Merkel told journalists in Berlin on Sunday. Starting from Wednesday, most retail stores will be closed except for those covering daily or holiday needs, such as supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and Christmas tree shops. Click Here