Only fascinating stories

Emily Cohn  Welcome back. This is deputy editor in chief Emily Cohn, filling in again for Nicholas Carlson. Over the weekend, I thought a lot about the juicy topic of “overemployment,” which is when remote workers have more than one full-time job. I wasn’t alone. Our readers were fascinated by Equifax’s recent firing of at least 24 overemployed workers, including one who was moonlighting as a nurse.  Impressive? Or deceptive? Some are fuming about the trend (more on that below) but others have pointed out that execs like Elon Musk are able to lead multiple companies at once — so why can’t workers?

The latest Kanye West will acquire the conservative social-media platform Parler, per the current owner. What we know about the deal. Europe’s energy crisis will worsen as China stops selling natural gas. Here’s what’s going on. Trump's secret, ugly breakup with Deutsche Bank is revealed in new allegations by New York's attorney general. Get the latest.

For the past two years, writer Evan Ratliff followed a woman named Albertina Geller around the internet. He first saw her on LinkedIn, then Pinterest, then online health forums, and even on her own website and blog.    And while this might sound ominous, there's something he quickly realized about Albertina: She isn't human. She’s the product of artificial intelligence.   Albertina was created by a piece of software called a Generative Adversarial Network, which studies faces in order to make its own. This isn't the familiar kind of deepfakes you might know — those manipulate images of real people. Instead, GANs create nonexistent people. They're meant to mimic the fundamentals of human appearances.   Since finding Albertina, Evan has been “quietly stalking” these counterfeit humans online. Check out his full investigation into this new kind of online fakery here — and see examples of other counterfeit humans and fake websites, to boot.

Ex-Californians share the bigger, better homes they could afford after leaving the state. We spoke to seven people who left California as they reflected on the homes they could buy or rent after moving to states like Colorado or Idaho. See some of their upgraded properties.  Wall Street is skeptical Netflix’s new ad-supported tier can boost subscriptions. After months of losses, the streamer is under pressure to prove its new Basic with Ads subscription can stop the bleeding. With Netflix reporting earnings tomorrow, here’s what analysts are looking for.  A tech CEO sparked controversy after calling overemployment a “new form of theft and deception.” In a now-viral LinkedIn Post, the CEO said the company had fired two engineers who were secretly working two full-time jobs simultaneously, saying “this isn't some fun new social trend.” Here’s what else the CEO said.  How a 26-year-old quit his corporate job and became a millionaire. Just seven months after graduating college, Cody Berman quit his high-paying job in commercial real estate lending — and grew his “infinitely scalable” side hustle into a seven-figure venture. We’ve got a look at how he did it. Disney has restored Walt's Mickey Mouse One Gulfstream private plane. Left to rot in the Florida heat for the past 40 years, the airplane has been refurbished, and is now on display at the Palm Springs Air Museum. Check out Mickey Mouse One in its "full original glory.”

Today’s sound bite “People think I just popped up the day after Mark passed away and said ‘I’m going back to work!’ and that’s not the case.”