If you’ve been on social media the last few days you may have seen the hashtag #BoycottTraderJoes going around. But why exactly are people calling for the boycott of one of the most beloved grocery chains in the country? It all has to do with an employee who was fired...

Google has fired one of its top artificial intelligence researchers, Margaret Mitchell, escalating internal turmoil at the company following the departure of Timnit Gebru, another leading figure on Google’s AI ethics team.

In a statement to Reuters, Google said the firing followed a weeks-long investigation that found she moved electronic files outside the company. Google said Mitchell violated the company’s code of conduct and security policies.

Gebru said Google fired her after she questioned an order not to publish a paper claiming AI that mimics language could hurt marginalized populations.

Q. I accidentally made everyone hate me: I’m a first-year teacher at an urban Title I middle school. As is common for many teachers in my position, I’m using my personal paycheck to cover the gaps that classroom funding doesn’t. After I realized at the beginning of the year that many of my students were having trouble concentrating, I started keeping a stash of healthy snacks near my desk. The students know they can come take a snack when they need one. The costs add up quickly, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make if it helps my kids focus.

Not long after I started keeping the food in my room, I began noticing it disappearing dramatically between the time I left each afternoon and the time I clocked in the next morning. The only staff who have a key to my room are the custodians and the administrators—both of whom are fed a meal by the cafeteria if they work nights. Because I rarely stay late enough to see the night staff in person, I started leaving notes on the snacks, stating that they were for students. When that didn’t work, I eventually hid them in my desk or closet (neither of which lock). They were still being taken. I weighed my options and realized I was either going to have to stop buying food for the kids or tell someone, so I mentioned what was happening to our head of facilities. Unbeknownst to me, our head of security hid a camera in the classroom, caught the custodian who was stealing, and promptly fired him.

My students’ food is no longer disappearing, but now I have another problem: All my co-workers hate me! The administrative assistant told anyone who would listen what happened, and now everyone is angry that I caused someone to lose his job. Some of the other teachers had also grumbled in the teachers’ lounge about food going missing from their rooms, so I know I’m not the only one who was upset, but apparently I broke some unspoken rule about tolerating food theft. Was I wrong to report it? I’m seriously considering quitting because so many people are suddenly being hostile and treating me like an entitled Karen.

Tyson Foods has fired seven plant management employees after an independent investigation into claims that leaders at the company bet on how many workers would become infected with COVID-19, the company announced Wednesday. The allegations against managers at the Waterloo, Iowa, plant were part of a lawsuit filed by the son of an employee who died of the coronavirus in April.

"We value our people and expect everyone on the team, especially our leaders, to operate with integrity and care in everything we do," Tyson Foods President and CEO Dean Banks said in a statement. "The behaviors exhibited by these individuals do not represent the Tyson core values, which is why we took immediate and appropriate action to get to the truth. Now that the investigation has concluded, we are taking action based on the findings."

The lawsuit, filed in early November, alleges that the plant manager of the Waterloo facility "organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19."

A Utah teacher has admitted having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old pupil — even sneaking her into their school in a large storage bin, according to an affidavit.

Father of four Lucas Sloan Talley, 38, had “personal contact via text message and email with multiple young girls” during his 12 years at South Hills Middle School in Riverton, according to the affidavit obtained by Deseret News.

That increased when the school shut down because of the pandemic and he “struggled” with no longer getting the girls’ “validation” that he “thrives on,” he told investigators, according to the affidavit.

People infected with COVID-19 may be likely to suffer long-term health effects from the virus, including erectile dysfunction among men, according to medical experts.

Infectious disease expert Dr Dena Grayson says there are now fears the disease could affect a man's ability to perform in the bedroom even after they've recovered.

'There is some real concern here that men could have long-term issues of erectile dysfunction from this virus because we know that it causes issues in the vasculature,' Grayson told NBC Chicago's LX this week.

In a group chat dated Wednesday, Dumont High School teachers appear to bash the sexual orientation and lifestyle of one of their co-workers.

“Why is that kid with the gay gym teacher?” asks one, according to a screenshot of the chat posted online.

Dear Prudence,

I’ve been dating an Asian American man for the better part of a year, and he’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. His mother and I got along for about six months. I was invited over for dinner, stayed at their house (he lives with his parents), and we even exchanged phone numbers. My boyfriend agrees that I was polite to her and never stepped on her toes. Recently they got into an argument (she didn’t know I was there), and she went on a tirade about how he shouldn’t bring his “little girlfriend” into her house anymore, that I was not a member of their family and was no longer welcome. He tried to reassure me that it was something she said in the heat of the moment, but she’s stood by those words. I’m devastated.

I can’t stop thinking that perhaps she wanted her son to date someone else. My free trial in their home has expired, and she’s ready for her son to date a woman from their heritage. When I’ve been in the house since then, she stands in the backyard until I leave. English is not her first language, and I’m not sure it’d be productive for me to talk to her myself. What would you do in this situation?

—No Longer Welcome

A tattoo-covered kindergarten teacher in France, who has spent nearly 500 hours under the needle, was prohibited from teaching children under the age of six after a parent complained that he gave their child nightmares.

Sylvain Helaine, now 35, began covering his entire body in tattoos after going through an “existential crisis” at 27 years old while working for a private school in London, according to Reuters. Not only has he covered his entire face and tongue in ink, but he even surgically altered the whites of his eyes to appear black.

However, last year, while teaching kindergarten at the Docteur Morere Elementary School in Palaiseau, a suburb of Paris, parents of a three-year-old student complained to officials, the outlet reported. Although their son wasn't taught by Helaine, they claimed their son had nightmares after seeing him.

Dear How to Do It,

I have been married to my wife for almost 20 years. It was a second marriage for both of us. A year into the marriage, I contracted an STD and found out she had it since her teens. At parties with her friends, I started hearing about how promiscuous she had been in her younger years, and I just accepted that it was before me. We have always had a real good sex life and discussed how great it has been, but now, she wants to practically stop having sex. I’m handsome, in great shape, and a very understanding and sensitive lover. She is still beautiful, attractive, and has no serious medical conditions. She explains that she had so much sex in her teens and early 20s that she can take it or leave it. In this case, it’s leaving it, and being the person who married her, I am now starting to pay a price for her early wild times. Is this a common rationale for writing off sex? I’m now convinced this may be a reason not to be so promiscuous in younger years.

—Horny History

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a quasi-independent agency of the federal government, is suing grocery chain Kroger, alleging that two employees were fired because they refused to wear aprons bearing a rainbow heart.

“The women believed the emblem endorsed LGBTQ values and that wearing it would violate their religious beliefs,” says an EEOC press release. The suit alleges the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans religious discrimination in employment.

The two, Brenda Lawson and Trudy Rickerd, worked at a Kroger store in Conway, Ark., near Little Rock. They have “sincerely held religious beliefs that homosexuality is a sin,” according to the EEOC complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Restaurants are trying to keep customers safe from COVID-19 – by wearing masks, serving outdoors and disinfecting from top to bottom – but a new study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests it might not be enough.

Adults with confirmed COVID-19 are twice as likely to have dined out at a restaurant in the 14 days before becoming sick than those who tested negative, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report issued Thursday.

Positive patients were also more likely to report going to a bar or coffee shop when the analysis was limited to those without close contact to people with known coronavirus.

White parents often avoid talking openly about race with white children because of the unfounded fear that it will call attention to differences that kids wouldn’t otherwise notice. Some insist their kids are just too young for such conversations.

If parents don’t explain why these inequities exist — that they exist because of longstanding systemic racism in this country — children will assume they must be justified or “natural.”

We asked experts to share some of the problematic things white kids commonly say and how parents can respond in order to further the conversation and create a teachable moment.

It's a sad day for Slurpee lovers everywhere.

The convenience retailer has celebrated July 11 (7/11) every summer since 2002 as 7-Eleven Day, with free Slurpees for all who visited one of the stores. But it's been canceled this year. And, yes, you can blame it on the pandemic.

Instead, 7-Eleven said it would celebrate its birthday by donating one million meals to Feeding America, a national nonprofit.

A Texas pastor has apologized for failing to keep people socially distanced at his evangelical church, after he and dozens of congregants reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.

Calvary Chapel of San Antonio has held multiple indoor, in-person services since it reopened in early May, right after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) let the state’s stay-at-home order expire. As hospitalizations and positivity rates surged in Texas over the past few weeks, members of the church began testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

The church has at least 50 cases of the novel coronavirus, lead pastor Ron Arbaugh told ?NBC-affiliate WOAI-TV on Saturday. Most of the positive cases are staff members ? including Arbaugh, his wife, at least one other main pastor, and children’s ministry staff. The majority of impacted individuals have reported mild symptoms, the pastor said.