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Amazon mandates five days a week in office

Amazon.com said it would require employees to return to the office five days per week, effective Jan. 2, 2025. The company further said it would bring back assigned desk arrangements in locations that were previously organized that way, including the U.S. headquarters locations.

As part of an organizational restructuring, Amazon is looking to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025. In May last year, employees at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters staged a walkout protesting changes to the ecommerce giant’s climate policy, layoffs and a return-to-office mandate.

Meta bans Russian state media

Facebook owner Meta said it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks, alleging the outlets used deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations while evading detection on the social media company’s platforms.

The announcement comes days after Washington unveiled sanctions against Moscow backed outlets. The Biden administration also announced the launch of a diplomatic effort to alert international community to what U.S. officials have described as RT’s role as “fully-fledged member of the intelligence apparatus” of Moscow. The ban will be rolled out on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

Apple iPhone 16 faces weak demand

Shares of Apple fell nearly 3% on Monday after some analysts said delivery times for the new iPhone 16 Pro models indicated weaker-than-expected demand, possibly due to the delayed rollout of key artificial intelligence features. Early pre-order data showed shorter global shipping times for the iPhone 16 Pro models compared with last year’s 15 Pro models, three days after Apple started taking pre-orders.

Apple Intelligence is set to arrive in the U.S. version of the English language in beta next month, and for other versions as late as next year, potentially keeping some customers on the fence about upgrading to the 16 series.