News for the week of April 10

News for the week of April 10

1st Article:

Isaac, Mike. "Uber Settles Suit Over Driver Background Checks." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/technology/uber-settles-suit-over-driver-background-checks.html?ref=technology>.

In case you do not know, Uber is an app that allows you to call an Uber driver to drive you somewhere for a fee. The issue with this was that Uber failed to make sure that their drivers had to make sure they had performed good background checks. As a punishment, Uber had to pay $10 million and will have to pay fifteen more if they do not put better background checks in place. Uber had actually lobbied for less background checks in the past. After that, they faced another lawsuit and although they paid it, they claimed they did nothing wrong. Now Uber says that they are happy that this is over and that they can get better.

Uber has always been fascinating to me. While we may not have flying cars, we do have Uber. However, whenever I explain Uber to someone they always ask the same thing: What if you have a bad driver? This is why I am glad that Uber had lost this. I think they definitely should make tougher background checks and allow fewer people to be drivers. I hope they will follow through with this and that Uber will be much safer.

2nd Article:

Wahba, Phil. "Starbucks Roastery in New York Will Be Its Largest Store." Time. Time, 5 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://time.com/4283209/starbucks-roastery-nyc-largest-store/>.

On April 5, Starbucks announced they would open a new location in NYC. However, it is not just any old location. It is a “roastery.” This means that it will be the Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory for coffee. It will be 20,000 square feet, which makes it the largest Starbucks store in the world. It will open in 2018.

Throughout my education I have been taught about monopolies time and time again. Now, today there are not supposed to be any. Since Starbucks has 220 locations just in NYC, I think it is safe to say that Starbucks has a monopoly. While this is actually a good idea, the roastery will take up 20,000 square feet. If they did not do this many small businesses could take that location. These would be locations that would each have something interesting about them and not just be a terrible coffee place.

3rd Article (longer one):

Klug, Foster. "North Korea Says It Tested A New Long-Range Rocket Engine." Time. Time, 9 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://time.com/4287556/north-korea-claims-test-new-long-range-rocket/?xid=homepage>.

Yesterday North Korea claimed they tested a new long-range  rocket engine, and it worked. This may not be true since North Korea is not always the most reliable. The difference between this and the tests that North Korea has done in the past is that this missile could reach the U.S. mainland. This rocket could also go into the atmosphere and come back into it for re-entry. The rocket also would be very hard to detect if they truly have gotten this technology to work. The only evidence provided is a photo of Kim standing by what appears to be a rocket, which proves nothing.

Young dictators that have too much control have always been a fascination of mine. It is amazing to see how we view nations run by these people. In at least every other line of this article, the author includes a line to clarify this. I think that this would not happen if Russia claimed it had developed a new type of rocket. Also, it was interesting that at the top of the article, in bold, the author states that the rocket could hit the U.S. I think the author did this to get views, which is the exact reason I hate most news.