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Brittney Griner Pleads Guilty In Russia, Gets Biden Note

by Author30/09/202307/08/2023

Basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a Russian courtroom on Thursday, but not before she was handed a note from President Joe Biden.

With the hope that a guilty plea might be her best shot at a lenient sentence in what experts fear is a sham trial, the WBNA player admitted to taking hashish oil into Russia by accident because she had been in a hurry when she packed.

“Brittney sets an example of being brave. She decided to take full responsibility for her actions as she knows that she is a role model for many people,” read a statement from Griner’s Russian legal team, Maria Blagovolina from the firm Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Alexander Boykov from the Moscow Legal Center.

“Considering the nature of her case, the insignificant amount of the substance and BG’s personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport, the defense hopes that the plea will be considered by the court as a mitigating factor and there will be no severe sentence,” the lawyers said.

The attorneys said they expected Griner’s trial to conclude around the start of August.

Griner has been detained in Russia for more than four months after authorities said they found small amounts of hash oil in vape pens in her luggage.

“Brittney has admitted to making a mistake, and I hope the Russian authorities recognize that humbling act and respond with compassion,” Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement passed on by Griner’s team.

This Haitian Town Hopes To Become A Surfing Destination

by Author22/09/202307/08/2023

The trouble began in July 2018 in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, 54 miles north.

The government had just announced a 50% increase in fuel prices following an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, eliciting protests that turned violent, with demonstrators looting stores and police firing tear gas. The protesters called for accountability, most notably regarding the whereabouts of $2 billion from PetroCaribe, an oil deal with Venezuela that was meant to help Haiti invest in infrastructure and social programs.

Economic growth was grinding to a halt and inflation was soaring. The question on everyone’s mind: What did Haiti have to show for the $13 billion from the world, thousands of volunteers, and countless projects?

Tourists were barely coming to Haiti — and many Haitians were leaving, including Gilles, who moved to the Dominican Republic in December 2019 for two years so he could find a job and save some money. Today, he’s trying to set up a small shop selling snacks and drinks on the Haiti–Dominican Republic border. Though he longed to stay in southern Haiti, he said, “I really want a job and to feel independent.”

Around half a dozen of Surf Haiti’s founders and older members were among those who left, most of them to the US, after getting into college or finding jobs.

When boards began breaking, there wasn’t anyone to bring new ones. Wax became scarce. Visitors slowed to a trickle, and the kids who had waited by the shore for Pierce to paddle back

Facebook Spanish Language Moderators Say They’re Treated Worse Than English Counterparts

by Author14/09/202307/08/2023

At the Richardson, Texas, office of Genpact, a Meta subcontractor, Spanish-language moderators told BuzzFeed News they’ve been required to report to the office since April 2021, despite the emergence of both Delta and Omicron variants that caused COVID infections to spike across the US. Throughout this time, they said, moderators reviewing English-language content have been allowed to cycle through the office in three-month rotations.

“Being in the office … has been nothing short of a nightmare,” one moderator said.

BuzzFeed News spoke to three members of Genpact’s so-called Mexican market team who described a pattern of inequitable treatment of Spanish-language moderators. All of these individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity as Genpact requires them to sign nondisclosure agreements and they feared for their jobs. They said that in addition to reporting to the office for the last nine months while their English-language counterparts could work from home, Spanish-language moderators are held to unrealistic performance standards and are not compensated for working in two languages, which they say is more time-consuming. In addition, they face the pressures of managing a Facebook market that has long been criticized as under-moderated amid the threat of active COVID cases.

Genpact spokesperson Danielle D’Angelo declined to comment on all of the specific claims made by Spanish-language moderators, including the claim that its Mexican market team was not allowed to work from home while other teams were rotated out.

“We would like to stress that employee safety is our top priority and that has and