Actions by Facebook and its parent Meta during last year's Gaza war violated the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation and non-discrimination, a report commissioned by the social media company has found.

The report Thursday from independent consulting firm Business for Social Responsibility confirmed long-standing criticisms of Meta's policies and their uneven enforcement as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It found the company over-enforced rules when it came to Arabic content and under-enforced content in Hebrew.

It, however, did not find intentional bias at Meta, either by the company as a whole or among individual employees. The report's authors said they found "no evidence of racial, ethnic, nationality or religious animus in governing teams" and noted Meta has "employees representing different viewpoints, nationalities, races, ethnicities, and religions relevant to this conflict."

Rather, it found numerous instances of unintended bias that harmed the rights of Palestinian and Arabic-speaking users.

In response, Meta said it plans to implement some of the report's recommendations, including improving its Hebrew-language "classifiers," which help remove violating posts automatically using artificial intelligence.

"There are no quick, overnight fixes to many of these recommendations, as BSR makes clear," the company based in Menlo Park, California, said in a blog post Thursday. "While we have made significant changes as a result of this exercise already, this process will take time — including time to understand how some of these recommendations can best be addressed, and whether they are technically feasible."

Meta, the report confirmed, also made serious errors in enforcement. For instance, as the Gaza war raged last May, Instagram briefly banned the hashtag #AlAqsa, a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, a flash point in the conflict.

Meta, which owns Instagram, later apologized, explaining its algorithms had mistaken the third-holiest site in Islam for the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular Fatah party.

The report echoed issues raised in internal documents from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen last fall, showing that the company's problems are systemic and have long been known inside Meta.

A key failing is the lack of moderators in languages other than English, including Arabic — among the most common languages on Meta's platforms.

For users in the Gaza, Syria and other Middle East regions marred by conflict, the issues raised in the report are nothing new.

Israeli security agencies and watchdogs, for instance, have monitored Facebook and bombarded it with thousands of orders to take down Palestinian accounts and posts as they try to crack down on incitement.

"They flood our system, completely overpowering it," Ashraf Zeitoon, Facebook's former head of policy for the Middle East and North Africa region, who left in 2017, told The Associated Press last year. "That forces the system to make mistakes in Israel's favor."

Israel experienced an intense spasm of violence in May 2021 — with weeks of tensions in east Jerusalem escalating into an 11-day war with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The violence spread into Israel itself, with the country experiencing the worst communal violence between Jewish and Arab citizens in years.

In an interview this week, Israel's national police chief, Kobi Shabtai, told the Yediot Ahronot daily that he believed social media had fueled the communal fighting. He called for shutting down social media if similar violence occurs again and said he had suggested blocking social media to lower the flames last year.

"I'm talking about fully shutting down the networks, calming the situation on the ground, and when it's calm reactivating them," he was quoted as saying. "We're a democratic country, but there's a limit."

The comments caused an uproar and the police issued a clarification saying that his proposal was only meant for extreme cases. Omer Barlev, the Cabinet minister who oversees police, also said that Shabtai has no authority to impose such a ban.

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Associated Press reporter Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem.

There is new evidence of how significantly the COVID-19 pandemic impacted learning loss in the classroom for students.

Those impacts — declines in reading and math scores in a majority of states — were noted in the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or The Nation's Report Card.

The report compared math and reading test scores in the fourth and eighth grades pre-pandemic in 2019 and post-pandemic this year.

In eighth grade, every state except Utah showed math test score declines. More than three dozen saw similar declines in the fourth grade.

In the fourth grade, a majority of states saw declines in reading test scores.

"I don't make this statement lightly because these aren't the kind of data that I would normally attribute cause and effect to," said Peggy Carr, commissioner at the National Center for Education Statistics. "But, it is very clear what we're looking at now is unprecedented disruption in the lives of everyone, including students, their academic careers, ya know, really pushed off-kilter, really knocked off rack. It is because of the pandemic."

Moving forward, Carr said school systems need to use this data to do a "reset" and refocus on learning and tutoring programs, as well as social and emotional mental health services for students.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Randy Waites never expected to find a family member by watching the local news. But that's exactly what happened one day in late December.

The sighting happened during a newscast of sister station KCRA, in a story about snowfall in Lake Tahoe. A man named Eddie Waites was being interviewed, and Randy wondered if there might be a family connection.

Randy's daughter, Cambria kicked off the search.

"I saw [Eddie's] features and he actually looked a lot like my Dad in the eyes. I did my research, searched up his name, looked up all I could," she said.

It wasn't long before the two men shared their first phone call.

"It just clicked, like we’ve been friends for 20 years," Randy said. "It's just unbelievable."

"It was an instantaneous chill all the way from my head all the way down to my toes," Eddie said. "At first I thought, it’s not possible. Once I seen a picture of him, I seen my dad. I seen our dad. I knew it was real."

The connection has allowed Randy Waites an opportunity not only to connect with his brother, but also learn more about their father.

"I’ve never met my father, never saw a picture of him my entire life," Randy said. "[Eddie] has been texting me all kinds of different stuff, pictures of my grandfather, and filling in on the family history that I never had on that side."

Eddie and Randy grew up within just 30 miles of one another. On Saturday, they met for the first time.

"This is almost an out-of-body experience," Eddie said. "The whole thing is surreal. To have not only a brother, but a family I never knew existed is beyond words. It's unbelievable."

Both families greeted and embraced one another on Randy's front lawn in Lodi, California. The moment was markedly special also because it fell on Randy's son's 13th birthday.

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"It was crazy. I didn’t even know it was possible this could happen," said Dalton Waites. "My dad showed me a picture of his dad, and he looked exactly like me when I was little."

KCRA asked the brothers what their plans were for the weekend.

"Spending as much time with this guy as possible," Eddie said. "Filling him in on all the gaps he’s had in his life, and the gaps I’ve had in my life, and filling in that void we both have. I think that’s the most incredible thing ever."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the U.S. added 467,000 jobs in January, a report that far outpaced bleak projections by analysts who were concerned about the effect the omicron variant had on the economy last month.

CNBC reported on Wednesday that some projections showed the U.S. had lost as many as 400,000 jobs last month as the country saw record spread of COVID-19. The outlet reported that "consensus forecast" called for a gain of 150,000 jobs.

Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report noted that the unemployment rate was largely unchanged at 4%. December's jobs report indicated that the unemployment rate at that time was 3.9%.

While Friday's report was a good sign for the U.S. economy, Americans are still dealing with high rates of inflation, causing the prices of goods and services to skyrocket. Last week, the Federal Reserve noted that a key measure of prices had increased nearly 6% in the last year — the sharpest increase since 1982.

The Fed has already signaled that it plans to raise key interest rates in March in the hopes of curbing inflation.

In remarks from the White House on Friday, Biden touted his administration's job creation efforts during his first year in office.

"If you can't remember any year when so many people went to work in this country, there's a reason: it never happened," Biden said, noting his administration's single-year job growth.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A new watchdog report says almost 300 people working for the U.S. Census Bureau last year had "major" issues with their background checks.

The Office of Inspector General report released

last week says a lack of vetting oversight could pose risk to the public and the agency as it hires and deploys hundreds of thousands of census takers for the 2020 census.

As of November 2019, the Bureau "had not adjudicated more than 10,000 U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) background investigations, some which dated back to 2014," the report stated.

About 70 of those workers were in the field last fall verifying addresses ahead of the once-a-decade count.

The report stated that 700 indiviuals had issues that were deemed "major".

Principal Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Evaluation Mark H. Zabarsky proposed a few changes the Bureau should implement.

"Timely adjudication is vital to the Bureau’s ability to take appropriate action to remove unsuitable staff," Zabarsky said in the report. "To address the potential impact on Bureau programs, the Bureau should (1) ensure that background investigations are properly and timely adjudicated, (2) implement requirements to improve governance over background checks, (3) coordinate resources to manage the workload of adjudications, and (4) take appropriate actions to remove unsuitable staff."

More than a dozen other workers with some kind of derogatory information in their background checks had access to Census Bureau facilities and information systems.

Gabby Petito's disappearance and death have sparked many questions and stoked national attention, and on Tuesday a piece of the mystery could be revealed as authorities are scheduled to provide an update on her final autopsy report.

The Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue will discuss the ruling on 22-year-old Petito's autopsy at 12:30 p.m. local time (2:30 p.m. ET) and will follow up with a brief question-and-answer session, according to a news release from his office.

Blue previously ruled the manner of her death a homicide in his preliminary findings, but the cause of death remained pending further autopsy results, according to the FBI.

Petito had spent the summer traveling the Western U.S. with her fiancé, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, and documenting their adventures on social media. But when Laundrie returned to the Florida home they shared with his parents in their van, Petito wasn't with him.

She was first reported missing by her parents on Sept. 11, and after an extensive search, her remains were found on Sept. 19 in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Petito's body was found a five-to-10 minute walk from where her van was last seen in Wyoming, her mother Nichole Schmidt and stepfather Jim Schmidt said in an exclusive interview with Dr. Phil McGraw last week.

Her case has elicited heartbreak, outrage and intrigue in much of the public, but it has also highlighted the tens of thousands of missing persons' stories that do not garner such intense interest. There were nearly 90,000 active missing person cases as of the end of 2020, according to the National Crime Information Center. Few missing person cases are met with as much urgency and national attention as Petito's.

The mystery has deepened given the disappearance of Laundrie, who went for a hike in a local Florida nature reserve shortly after Petito was reported missing, according to his parents.

Laundrie has not been charged in the death of Petito, but he was indicted on charges of using two financial accounts that did not belong to him in the days following her death.

What we know about Petito's final days

From the posts on social media, Petito's final days looked idyllic. But after she was reported missing, accounts surfaced of rising conflict between the couple.

Petito called her mom regularly, and those conversations appeared to reveal there was "more and more tension" in Petito's relationship, according to a police affidavit for a search warrant of an external hard drive found in the couple's van.

On Aug. 27, an "odd text" from Petito worried her mother that something was wrong, according to a search warrant.

"Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls," the message read, according to the affidavit. Stan was a reference to Petito's grandfather, who her mother said Petito never referred to that way, according to the affidavit.

Along their travels, the couple was stopped by police after a 911 caller told dispatchers Aug. 12 he saw a man hitting a woman, according to audio provided by the Grand County Sheriff's Office in Moab, Utah.

"We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl," the caller said. "Then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off."

CNN obtained dispatch audio recordings from the Grand County Sheriff's office last month that shed more light on what Moab police were told about "some sort of altercation."

And on Aug. 27, a witness described a "commotion" as they were leaving the Merry Piglets Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming.

Petito was in tears and Laundrie was visibly angry, going into and out of the restaurant several times, showing anger toward the staff around the hostess stand, the witness Nina Angelo said. The couple's waitress was also visibly shaken by the incident, said Angelo, who told CNN she did not see any violence or physical altercation between Petito and Laundrie.

A manager at Merry Piglets, who declined to give her name, did see "an incident" at the restaurant and called the FBI, she told CNN. The manager declined to describe what happened and said the restaurant did not have surveillance video of the incident.

The search for Laundrie

Before he disappeared, police in North Port were surveilling Laundrie as best they legally could, a police spokesperson told CNN.

Investigators said Laundrie's parents told them on Sept. 17 that he had left home days earlier and was headed to the nearby Carlton Reserve — sparking a search of the nature reserve's 25,000 acres. Initially, his parents said he left on Sept. 14, but last week, Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino said, "We now believe the day Brian left to hike in the preserve was Monday, Sept. 13."

When he left, he didn't take his cell phone and wallet with him, and his parents were concerned he might hurt himself, a source close to Laundrie's family told CNN.

At the time, Laundrie was not wanted in connection with a crime, but North Port Police spokesperson Josh Taylor said Laundrie had an "enormous amount of pressure" on him to provide answers in Petito's disappearance.

The FBI searched the Laundrie home on Sept. 20, removing a number of items and towing away a Ford Mustang convertible.

Attention then turned toward the Carlton nature preserve, where authorities combed through swampland filled with snakes and alligators, utilizing drones, dive teams and bloodhounds.

After more than a week of searching for Laundrie, the FBI went back to his parents, asking for personal items of his to assist with DNA matching. They provided what they could, Bertolino, the Laundries' lawyer, told multiple news outlets.

Laundrie's father has participated in a search of the nature reserve for him, but he has no plans to assist in police searches and the couple will not take a polygraph test, Bertolino said.

Remembering Gabby

The identification of Petito's remains sparked mourning and memorials across the country — for those who knew her as well as those who felt connected to her.

Joseph Petito described his daughter in a eulogy as a "happy girl," who people would gravitate toward. She made others feel welcome, he said, and she loved being outdoors, scuba diving, hiking the Appalachian Trail or snowboarding down sand dunes in Colorado.

"I want you to be inspired by Gabby, that's what we're looking for," Joseph Petito said. "If there's a trip that you guys want to take, take it now. Do it now while you've got the time.

"If there's a relationship that you're in that might not be the best thing for you, leave it now," he said, an apparent reference to his daughter's relationship with Laundrie.

Petito's stepfather, Jim Schmidt, also gave a eulogy, telling those gathered, "Parents aren't supposed to bury their children. That's not how this is supposed to work."

Petito provides "an example for all of us to live by," Schmidt said, "to enjoy every moment in this beautiful world, as she did — to love and give love to all like she did."

People of color made up more than 55% of new hires at Walmart between February and July of this year, but none filled executive management roles or board of director vacancies, according to the company's website and its latest diversity, equity and inclusion report released Friday.

Retired AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stevenson, who is White, joined Walmart's board of directors in March. He's the only director on Walmart's 12-member board appointed since the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, which motivated Walmart's leaders to create a $100 million center on racial equity program less than two weeks later.

Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon took the issue of racial inequality head on during one of the company's virtual employee meetings more than a year ago.

"The murder of George Floyd is tragic, painful, and unacceptable," McMillon told Walmart's global employees in June 2020. "Words and feelings matter, but they are not enough. More action is required. We will find new ways to accelerate the desired changes inside our company and we will also find the ways that our business can influence real change in our country."

Walmart is the nation's largest private employer by far, with more than 2 million employees on its global payroll, 1.5 million of them in the United States alone, according to the company's latest diversity, equity and inclusion report. Amazon is a distant second, with 798,000 employees as recently as 2019, according to Fortune.

McMillon said in June 2020 that roughly 340,000 of Walmart's employees are Black. The company's latest report confirms that more than 20% of its employees were Black as recently as July. They also make up the largest non-White employee segment of Walmart's workforce. African Americans made up 11.9% of the U.S. population in 2020, according to the latest U.S. Census.

Yet only about 9% of Walmart's corporate officers are African American, the company's latest demographic data confirms. The company says that's a 2.28% increase from this time last year.

Black members of Walmart's executive leadership team include executive vice president of neighborhood markets Kelvin L. Buncum, senior vice president and chief global culture, diversity, equity & inclusion officer Ben Hasan and Dr. Cheryl Pegus, the company's executive vice president of health & wellness.

Dacona Smith, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Walmart U.S., became the latest African American to join Walmart's executive leadership team in February 2020. He and Walmart U.S. executive vice president Latriece Watkins, who oversees the company's consumables business operations, round out the five Black Walmart executive managers out of 48 executive level positions (roughly 10%), according to its leadership web page.

Latinos make up nearly 18% of Walmart's employee population, but just 5.5% of the company's officers, according to the report. Asian people, who represent more than 4% of the retailer's employees, comprise more than 10% of its managers and 9% of its officers. White people make up more than 53% of Walmart's workforce and represent more than 63% of its managers and 74% of its officers.

The report also says people of color make up more than 46% of Walmart's workforce, but the company's website shows Black and Brown Americans comprise only about 16.7% of Walmart's 12-member board of directors.

NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde is the only Latin American on Walmart's board of directors. He and Morgan Stanley Vice Chair of Wealth Management Carla A. Lewis, who is Black, are the only people of color on Walmart's board.

People of color saw a slight uptick in promotions from hourly employees to management positions, which increased more than two percentage points between January and July, according to Walmart's 2020 end-of-year DEI report.

In its most recent DEI report, Walmart pointed out marginal gains women have made at the officer level, as well as the May launch of its Accessibility Center of Excellence, which is designed to advance equity and inclusion for people with disabilities.

"Although we have made progress, we still have more work to do," the company told CNN Business Friday via email.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — America’s infrastructure has scored near-failing grades for its deteriorating roads, public transit and storm water systems due to years of inaction from the federal government, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

In its “Infrastructure Report Card” released Wednesday, the group gave the nation an overall C- grade and called for “big and bold” relief to fix things.

The ASCE study evaluated 17 categories of infrastructure, with grades ranging from a B for rail to a D- for Transit.

“For the first time in 20 years, the country's infrastructure as a whole received a grade in the C range, meaning on average, the nation's infrastructure is in mediocre condition, has deficiencies and needs attention,” wrote ASCE in a press release.

However, 11 of the 17 categories in the “Report Card” received a grade in the D range: aviation, dams, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, public parks, roads, schools, stormwater, transit, and wastewater.

Over the past four years, the U.S. made incremental gains in some categories, according to the "Report Card." Due to increased investment, grades improved in aviation, drinking water, energy, inland waterways, and ports.

The ASCE estimates it would cost $5.9 trillion over the next decade to bring roads, bridges and airports to a safe and sustainable level. That’s about $2.6 trillion more than what government and the private sector already spend.

If the U.S. does not pay its overdue infrastructure bill, ASCE says by 2039, the U.S. economy will lose $10 trillion in growth and exports will decline by $2.4 trillion. Additionally, the group says more than 3 million jobs will be lost in 2039 and each American household will bear $3,300 in hidden costs per year.

President Joe Biden has said the nation's infrastructure is a priority of his and he campaigned on rebuilding it in a sustainable way that would create jobs. It could also present an opportunity for Democrats to work with Republicans, since both parties have complained about lack of progress on the issue. Much of that work will fall on Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was nominated by Biden to lead the Department of Transportation.