Explosion and fire erupt at Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; no injuries

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An apparent explosion caused a fire Saturday at a Quaker Oats plant in Iowa that the company touts as the largest milling facility in the world. No one was hurt, fire officials said.

The Cedar Rapids Fire Department said firefighters responded to the call at about 4:45 p.m. Video and photos posted to social media showed black smoke over the downtown of the city of about 140,000.

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As the US and China form AI blocs, countries are increasingly torn between them

HONG KONG (AP) — With the two leading AI powers, the United States and China, forming their own AI blocs, other countries are maneuvering to harness the strengths of both groupings and avoid losing out.

As the rivalry intensifies, experts say the window for countries to be able to choose freely between the two AI superpowers may be narrowing, forcing them to at one point pick between the U.S.-led Pax Silica and the China-inspired World AI Cooperation Organization.

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Why popular airplanes are getting scrapped years early

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — An Airbus A320neo, one of the world's most popular planes, rolled off the Mobile, Alabama, factory line in July 2022, painted bright yellow for its next destination: Spirit Airlines.

It was built to fly for decades. But this May, less than four years later, it was stripped for parts worth millions and crushed, the steel teeth of an excavator tearing through its fuselage at a facility on the outskirts of Phoenix.

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A consultant is going viral for exposing the cringe-worthy DMs bosses send employees

A management consultant is going viral after he started sharing cringe-worthy anonymous DMs employees get from bosses. Like, ones they get on their wedding day and worse.

Bad bosses beware. Cringeworthy interactions between managers and employees are all over social media platforms - maybe not always to shame, but to encourage better behavior, like BJ Leiderman writing our theme music. Colorado Public Radio's Ryan Warner has this profile of the leadership coach behind this.

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Americans can't get enough of mahjong. These traditional makers are cashing in

TAIXING, China — In the eastern Chinese city of Taixing, a two-story village home doubles as a workshop manufacturing mahjong — a Chinese tile-based game that's having a moment in the United States.

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