The Daily Money: Google gets tough with Gaza protesters

Good morning! It's Daniel de Visé with your Daily Money.

For years, as part of a progressive work culture that prized free expression and open debate, Google encouraged employees to bring their whole selves to work. 

And Google employees did. On internal message boards and on the streets, Jessica Guynn reports, they agitated for change around the globe and inside their own company.

But when employees held sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, earlier this month to protest a $1.2 billion contract to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services, the company called the police. Then it fired them. 

Will other employers crack down?

Rent or buy?

If you’re a big city dweller, it’s officially better to rent than buy a home pretty much anywhere, Medora Lee reports.

The monthly cost of renting across all 50 of the largest metro statistical areas is 37% cheaper than buying a typical home, Bankrate said. As of February, the typical monthly mortgage payment of a median-priced U.S. home was $2,703, while the typical monthly rent was $1,979.

Does that mean everyone should rent?

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A disconcerting question has been burning up the internet: Why, in the name of all that's holy, does the Nestle Drumstick refuse to melt?

Social media users, particularly on TikTok, have been conducting science experiments with the frozen dairy dessert in recent weeks to prove that it doesn’t melt, Amaris Encinas reports. 

Most of the melt tests came in response to a video posted by the brand in February that showed a young woman who was “studying” until her drumstick melted.  She held a hand-held blowtorch to the cone, which left the cone seemingly unaffected. The video left many confused and concerned.

What is the science behind this alarming development? 

About The Daily Money

Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer news from USA TODAY. We break down financial news and provide the TLDR version: how decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.

Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA Today.