A 7.1 magnitude earthquake has rattled parts of Southern California, the biggest tremor to strike in 20 years.

It struck at the shallow depth of 0.9km (0.6 miles) and its epicentre was near the city of Ridgecrest, about 240km north-east of Los Angeles.

Read more at BBC News.

Taste Porto’s tours are rooted in fundamental beliefs about the gastronomic scene in Portugal’s second city. First, Portuenses like to keep things simple: so, no fusion experiments. Second, it’s as much about the people behind the food, as the food itself. “Food is an expression of culture,” says US-born Carly Petracco, who founded Taste Porto in 2013 with her Porto-born husband Miguel and his childhood buddy André. “We like to show who’s doing the cooking, who’s serving the food, who’s supplying the ingredients, and so on.”

Read more at The Guardian.

In 1856, some curious remains turned up at a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley in Germany. While the skull fragment and bones vaguely resembled those of modern humans, the brow was too robust, and the bones were too hefty. It took eight years for scientists to recognize the fossils as the first evidence of a whole other species of ancient human, Homo neanderthalensis.

Further discoveries have since revealed much more about the Neanderthals, including where they lived, how they cared for their young, and perhaps even their artwork. Now, using ancient DNA extracted from a pair of European Neanderthals, scientists are getting a more detailed picture of the species’ journey across our prehistoric planet.

Read more at National Geographic.

A new article by bipolar disorder experts reveals that people with this diagnosis often do not receive appropriate early care. Sufficient research around treatments for bipolar disorder is also lacking, and the specialists call for better practice and more in-depth studies to improve people's quality of life.

Read more at Medical News Today.

In an interview at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called for the federal government to shoulder the burden in election security, saying the social network doesn't "have the tools to make the Russian government stop."

The big picture: Over the past year, the Facebook CEO has continued to explain and defend the tech company's stance on data privacy, election security and content moderation.

Read more at Axios.

In 2018, the salaries offered Asian tech workers in the United States surpassed those offered to their white counterparts for the first time. Meanwhile, salaries offered black tech professionals slipped further behind. Those are the conclusions of an annual study of tech salaries conducted by job search firm Hired that analyzed 420,000 interview requests and job offers going out to some 98,000 job seekers during the past year.

In addition to painting an overall picture of the engineering job market in different regions of the world, Hired considered the impact of race and age on salaries. It calculated that in 2018, U.S. employers offered Asian tech job seekers an average annual salary of $137,000, while white job seekers were offered $135,000, Hispanic job seekers were offered $128,000, and black job seekers were offered $124,000. And that gap between the highest and lowest offers had widened significantly since 2017, from $6,000 to $13,000.

Read more at Spectrum.

Every tax season, Americans (hopefully) enjoy refunds and ponder what to do with the newly acquired stash of cash. Typical advice for spending a refund includes paying down high-interest debt, building an emergency fund or investing in your future. And all of these ideas are definitely worthwhile. However, have you considered taking your tax refund to the next level by using it to fund your own side hustle?

Read more at The Ladders.

The backdrop is fertile for gold prices to stay smoldering.

In case you have been living under a giant gold rock, the price of the yellow metal has surged about 11% to $1,413 an ounce in the past 30 days. Credit for the out-of-the-blue rise — which has also extended to gold mining stocks such as Barrick Gold (GOLD) (up 36% past month) — goes to President Donald Trump and his hand-picked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Read more at Yahoo Finance.

Investors who can afford to hire satellites to scan parking lots are finding a significant edge in the stock market.

Satellite speculators have reportedly used techniques like car-counting, tracking oil inventories or watching corn fields to make profitable forecasts of equity and commodity markets. Now, research from finance professors at UC Berkeley and the University of Kentucky provides the first independent evidence that these trading strategies work—and that they’re likely being used to the detriment of small-time investors.

Read more at QZ.

The GOP-held Senate on Wednesday passed a bipartisan $4.6 billion measure to deliver aid to the southern border before the government runs out of money to care for thousands of migrant families and unaccompanied children.

The sweeping 84-8 vote came less than 24 hours after the Democratic-controlled House approved a companion measure backed by party liberals that was weighed down by a White House veto threat and bipartisan rejection by the Senate.

Read more at PBS News.