🐤 Making the grade

Markets: Tuesday’s Wall Street woes did not extend to Wednesday, with investors encouraged by tech sector gains as well as the latest earnings numbers from United Airlines and Morgan Stanley. All three major indexes finished higher yesterday, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which hit a new all-time high close.

Merry Swift-mas: Each year around this time, we start hearing about the romance movies being released ahead of the holidays. And with the relationship between pop icon Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce still such a popular topic, it’s only natural that the plot of “Christmas in the Spotlight” seems to be lifted straight from reality. But the names were changed to pop star Bowyn, played by Jessica Lord, and pro football player Drew, played by Laith Wallschleger (and whose name could be a reference to two Drews in Swift’s previous songs).

Public reaction: Newfound interest in the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers convicted nearly 30 years ago for killing their parents, has resulted in renewed calls for resentencing. Documentaries and a popular streaming series have painted a more sympathetic portrait of the brothers and a group of supporters (including family and actress Rosie O’Donnell) staged a demonstration in Los Angeles recently in support of resentencing. District Attorney George Gascon is expected to issue a decision on the matter this month.

You be the Judge: You’d think Yankees players would know by now what it looks like when a home run ball flies off the bat of slugger Aaron Judge. At least Aaron Judge would think that. Second baseman Gleyber Torres tagged up at first base after a recent Judge at-bat, waiting to see if it would clear the wall. When it did, Judge had a bit of fun at his teammate’s expense in a postgame interview. “That was disrespect out of Gleyber, man,” he joked. “He’s seen me hit 58 of those things this year.” The Yankees could be a few games away from the World Series.

When life hands you lemons: If you’re trying to limit your sugar, there are many options available at your local supermarket — including Minute Maid Zero Sugar Lemonade. But the company’s parent, Coca-Cola, recently admitted that roughly 13,252 12-pack cases were mislabeled and actually included the original lemonade with 30 grams of sugar per can. According to a comparison of the two products’ respective nutrition facts, the mislabeled cans contained 30 times more calories and 20 times more carbohydrates than the sugar-free recipe.

The potential upside of artificial intelligence is that technology will make our lives easier by taking care of various common tasks. But there’s still a big question mark surrounding when and how we should use AI.

And education is a major topic of that ongoing debate, as evidenced by a case involving a high school student in Massachusetts.

See you in court

The parents of the teen say he received a low grade on a paper he submitted for which he used AI as a research tool. They stress that he wrote everything himself and simply used a large language model to help gather information.

While the school’s handbook broadly forbids AI use, describing it as cheating or plagiarism, the student’s parents say this case should not constitute a violation of the spirit of that rule.

Now they’re taking the case to court, insisting that this grade prevented him from landing a spot in the National Honor Society and might haunt him when the time comes to apply for college.

Making the case

The lawsuit offers a few reasons the complainants don’t believe the grade was fair. In addition to arguing that the blanket ban on AI wasn’t issued until after the paper was submitted, the parents say similar cases involving other students were handled with more leniency.

In order to resolve the issue, the parents are calling for:

• An updated policy regarding AI use for research
• Admittance for their son into the National Honor Society
• A revised grade of “B” on the assignment

It’ll probably be a while before there’s any real consensus regarding when and how AI should be used in education. But this case could soon bring at least a bit of resolution to a complex issue.

We’ve all heard of climate change and one of its most commonly cited traits: global warming. But as we get deeper into the cooler days of autumn, it can be easy to ignore this long-term trend on a short-term basis.

Hotter than expected

While climate scientists have long warned of global warming’s impact, recent statistics suggest the planet is actually heating up at a faster rate than previous models predicted.

NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt spent much of last year struggling to explain why the global sea surface temperature rose at such a sharp rate during what should’ve been a milder El Nino climate phase.

He had a few possible explanations for an especially warm 2023, including:

• The sun is currently more active than usual, making the planet generally warmer
• Stricter sulfur limits in the shipping industry could contribute to ocean heating
• A volcanic eruption in early 2022 released heat-trapping water vapor into the atmosphere

But it has yet to be determined whether any or all of these factors are truly to blame. In the meantime, Schmidt is calling on fellow climate experts to heed the latest data.

Plotting a response

For Schmidt, his urgent call for better information and a more effective climate response is both professional and personal.

“My daughter was born in 2015, which means that she may well live to 2100,” he said. “So the projections that we make, she’ll see how that all works out.”

And the sooner we obtain that data, Schmidt argues, the sooner we can expect change on a wide scale. As he recently told an interviewer: “I mean, if we really felt that people would make better decisions without information, you would not be a journalist. I would not be a scientist. We would not believe in democracy.”

Airbnb has faced criticism from both guests and hosts on a range of issues in recent years. To its credit, the company has responded by implementing a number of changes.

And it’ll be up to those disappointed guests and hosts to determine whether its latest grand gesture goes far enough.

Simplifying the process

One common complaint among Airbnb hosts involves the complexity of listing and managing properties advertised on the platform. Those individuals who maintain multiple listings say the process becomes increasingly arduous with each new property.

Airbnb apparently intended to offer a remedy in the form of its new “Co-Host Network” program. Thousands of top-rated hosts have already been added to the network, which allows members to seek or offer help with various property management tasks.

Here’s what we know about the “hosts for hire” feature:

• It’s expected to be included in the upcoming winter update
• Members can set their terms and prices for various management services
• Only those with a 4.8+ rating and at least 10 stays were included

In addition to the U.S., the new network is being launched in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Listening and adapting

Airbnb Vice President of Product Marketing Judson Coplan said this new approach offers a response to changing consumer expectations and concerns among hosts about property management.

“One of the requests that we had from hosts is that they would really love to be able to find professional, high-quality co-hosts with a great track record in their area whom they can trust,” Coplan said.

So far, many hosts are responding to the opportunity enthusiastically. Reports indicate that, on average, members of the network help manage seven properties.

Other updates include AI summaries and a feature showing prices for similar nearby properties.

Researchers believe dogs bark four times a day on average.

But that's just a ruff estimate.