Slack works to fix error in new feature
Workplace messaging app Slack said it was working to fix an error in the direct-messaging feature it introduced Wednesday that could lead to online harassment.
The feature enabled users to send direct messages to anyone inside or outside their company through Slack Connect. Users could send an invite to any partner and start messaging as soon as it is accepted, the company said in a blog post.
After rolling out the feature, Slack received feedback from users about how email invitations to use the feature could potentially be used to send abusive or harassing messages, Jonathan Prince, vice president of communications and policy at Slack, said in a statement.
The company, which is being acquired by Salesforce, said it would address the issue by removing the ability to customize a message when a user invites someone to Slack Connect direct messages.
Powell says pandemic will slow rate hikes
The Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates until a nearly complete recovery from the pandemic’s economic damage, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Thursday, a process probably only relevant “in the longer run.”
Powell reiterated the Fed’s plan to reduce its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases after the United States makes “substantial further progress toward our goals” of maximum employment and inflation anchored securely at the Fed’s 2 percent target.
But in an interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” he put a rate hike further down the road. His use of the term “longer run” appeared to put a rate increase outside the roughly three-year window, through 2023, used in Fed officials’ most recent individual economic projections.
U.S. health advisers sharply criticized an experimental arthritis drug Thursday, saying that it was too risky, even with limits on its use. The expert panel for the Food and Drug Administration voted 19 to 1 that the drug’s modest benefits don’t outweigh its considerable risks, even with proposed measures to restrict who gets the medicine. Pfizer is seeking FDA approval of the drug, called tanezumab, to treat pain from mild to moderate arthritis in the hips and knees. In studies, a small percentage of participants saw their joint damage get worse faster, sometimes requiring hip or knee replacements. Others had swelling or nerve damage.
Americans earned an additional $1.1 trillion last year — the most ever in data dating back to 1930 — thanks to stimulus checks and other government aid. Total U.S. personal income rose 6.1 percent last year to $19.7 trillion as a surge in pandemic-era aid outpaced gains in wages, property values and other sources of wealth, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
United Airlines will expand domestic flights that bypass its hub airports. Starting in late May, United is planning 26 nonstop flights from seven Midwestern cities to three destinations in South Carolina, one in Florida and one in Maine, according to a statement Thursday. The new service follows the November addition of direct flights to Florida from the East and Midwest that avoided the company’s hubs in Chicago and Newark.
The American Petroleum Institute board voted Thursday to endorse putting a tax or other price on carbon dioxide emissions. The oil industry lobbying group cast its support for a so-called carbon price as part of a broader plan for combating climate change. But API support for the carbon price hinges on the policy being applied economywide and replacing existing regulations on greenhouse gases — a trade-off seen as key to luring support from GOP lawmakers.
Britain’s competition watchdog on Thursday gave Facebook and Giphy five working days to offer proposals to address its concerns over their merger deal, which could affect digital advertising and the supply of animated images. The British Competition and Markets Authority began an initial investigation in January as the U.S.-based social media network firm was under global regulatory scrutiny over antitrust concerns. It found that Giphy, once a rival to Facebook in digital ads through paid sponsorships outside Britain, had plans to expand sponsorship deals to other countries, including Britain.
8:30 a.m.: Commerce Department releases personal income and spending for February.
