NASA’s Perseverance probe landed safely and on time on Mars, at 3:55 p.m. EST, Thursday, marking another success for the U.S. space agency.The nuclear-powered probe made its way through a harrowing landing process, deemed by some engineers as “seven minutes of terror” because it involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane” that gently lowers Perseverance onto a challenging, rocky area of Martian surface. After a confirmed safe landing, members of the probe’s Mission Control erupted in applause and cheers. NASA has now successfully landed nine of 10 probes sent to the Red Planet. Minutes after touching down, Perseverance beamed back a black-and-white image from the surface as more applause broke out at Mission Control.Safe on Mars. https://t.co/heoYjkwfty— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021The probe is equipped with a microphone, which should have recorded its descent. Later Thursday, President Joe Biden sent a congratulatory tweet, saying: “Today proved once again that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.” Perseverance, and its helicopterlike companion drone, Ingenuity, began the 300-million-mile journey in July. Ingenuity will test if powered flight can be done in Mars’ thin atmosphere. The six-wheeled Perseverance, which looks like the other four rover probes that have landed on Mars, set down in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed and a potential source for remnants of ancient life. Determining if Mars once hosted life is the primary goal of the probe’s two-year mission. During its search, the probe will take samples from the Red Planet’s surface and store them in its 43 sample tubes. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars to retrieve the tubes sometime in the early 2030s. Before collecting samples, NASA will spend the next weeks making sure Perseverance’s systems are all working. You can follow Perseverance’s progress on its Twitter account.
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Month: February 2021
NASA and the United States have successfully landed the Perseverance on Mars after the rover left the company of spacecrafts from the UAE and China in orbit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, challenges for the rover – and potentially a treasure trove of discoveries – await.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, so the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report said.Unlike past U.N. reports that focused on one issue and avoided telling leaders what actions to take, Thursday’s report combined three intertwined environment crises and told the world what must change. It called for changing what governments tax, how nations value economic output, how power is generated, the way people get around, fish and farm, as well as what they eat.FILE – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Dec. 18, 2020.”Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature. The result is three interlinked environmental crises.”Thus the 168-page report title is blunt: “Making Peace With Nature.””Our children and their children will inherit a world of extreme weather events, sea level rise, a drastic loss of plants and animals, food and water insecurity, and increasing likelihood of future pandemics,” said report lead author Sir Robert Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports on climate change and biodiversity loss.”The emergency is in fact more profound than we thought only a few years ago,” said Watson, who has been a top-level scientist in the U.S. and British governments.This year “is a make-it or break-it year indeed, because the risk of things becoming irreversible is gaining ground every year,” Guterres said. “We are close to the point of no return.”The report highlighted what report co-author Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia called “a litany of frightening statistics that hasn’t really been brought together”:• Earth is on the way to an additional 3.5 degrees warming from now (1.9 degrees Celsius), far more than the international agreed-upon goals in the Paris accord.• About 9 million people a year die from pollution.• About 1 million of Earth’s 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.• Up to 400 million tons of heavy metals, toxic sludge and other industrial waste are dumped into the world’s waters every year.• More than 3 billion people are affected by land degradation, and only 15% of Earth’s wetlands remain intact.• About 60% of fish stocks are fished at the maximum levels. There are more than 400 oxygen-depleted “dead zones,” and marine plastics pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.”In the end it will hit us,” said biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who was a scientific adviser to the report. “It’s not what’s happening to elephants. It’s not what’s happening to climate or sea level rise. It’s all going to impact us.”The planet’s problems are so interconnected that they must be worked on together to be fixed right, Warren said. And many of the solutions, such as eliminating fossil fuel use, combat multiple problems, including climate change and pollution, she said.The report “makes it clear that there is no time for linear thinking or tackling problems one at a time,” said University of Michigan environment professor Rosina Bierbaum, who wasn’t part of the work.The report also gave specific solutions that it said must be taken. It used the word “must” 56 times and “should” 37 times. There should be 100 more because action is so crucial, said former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who wasn’t part of the report.”Time has totally ran out. That’s why the word ‘must’ is in there,” Figueres said.FILE – Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup oilfield platforms and accommodation jack-up rig Haven are pictured in the North Sea, Norway, Dec. 3, 2019.Change in tax policyThe report called for an end to fossil fuel use and said governments should not tax labor or production, but rather use of resources that damages nature.”Governments are still playing more to exploit nature than to protect it,” Guterres said. Globally, countries spend about $4 trillion to $6 trillion a year on subsidies that damage the environment, he added.Scientists should inform leaders about environmental risks “but their endorsement of specific public policies threatens to undermine the credibility of their science,” said former Republican Representative Bob Inglis, who founded the free-market climate think tank RepublicEn.org.The report also told nations to value nature in addition to the gross domestic product when calculating how an economy is doing.Getting there means changes by individuals, governments and business, but it doesn’t have to involve sacrifice, said U.N. Environment Program Director Inger Andersen.”There’s a country that has been on that path for 25 years: Costa Rica,” Andersen said. “Yes, these are difficult times, but more and more leaders are stepping in.”
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An international backlash was growing Thursday to Facebook blocking users of its platform in Australia from viewing or sharing links to domestic and international news stories, with the social media giant accused of behaving like a “bully.”
Facebook’s move to block the content ahead of Australian lawmakers approving a new measure forcing the company to pay media organizations is prompting widespread condemnation from politicians in Europe and North America.
They say the social media giant is being disrespectful of democracy and shamelessly exploiting its monopolistic commercial power.Campbell Brown, head of Facebook’s news partnerships team, introduces Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Paley Center, Oct. 25, 2019 in New York.”What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, wrote in a post Wednesday. “I hope in the future, we can include news for people in Australia once again.”
Rights groups also joined in with scathing criticism. Amnesty International said it was “extremely concerning that a private company is willing to control access to information that people rely on.”
It added, “Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources also stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content and disinformation on the platform.”The ABC News Facebook page is seen on a screen in Canberra, Australia, Feb. 18, 2021.Access cut
Facebook’s action means that users located outside Australia are unable to access via the platform news produced by Australian broadcasters and newspapers, and people inside Australia cannot access any news content via Facebook at all.
Facebook’s move is not deterring the Australian Parliament from approving the new law — the world’s first to require social media companies to pay media outlets for using their content.FILE – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is pictured in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2020.The law will likely come into force next week. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Facebook had “unfriended Australia.” He described the company as arrogant and bullying and warned that Facebook was stoking international fears about oversized technology companies.
Under Australia’s new media code, social media companies will be required to reach a payment deal for news content linked or shared on their platforms. If an agreement proves elusive, an independent arbitrator can set pricing.
Facebook’s block took effect overnight Wednesday, with the digital giant preventing the sharing of news, including content from the country’s public broadcasters, as well as government pages featuring weather and emergency service warnings. Sharing or linking to community, women’s health and domestic violence pages also disappeared.
Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said it was a “dangerous turn of events. Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable.”
“We will not be intimidated by this act of bullying by Big Tech,” Morrison said in a statement.
He added, “These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them. They may be changing the world, but that doesn’t mean they should run it.”
Morrison’s remarks were echoed elsewhere.
In Britain, Facebook’s action was described by Conservative lawmaker Julian Knight, chairman of a parliamentary culture and media committee, as “one of the most idiotic but also deeply disturbing corporate moves of our lifetimes.
“Australia’s democratically elected government is democratically elected. And they have the right to make laws and legislation. And it’s really disrespecting democracy to act in this fashion,” he told British broadcaster Sky News.
In 2019, a British government review found that Facebook and Google had a damaging impact on Britain’s news media because they attracted the lion’s share of online advertising revenue, starving private sector broadcasters and newspapers of income. Researchers found that 61% of British media advertising goes to either Facebook or Google.
Google threatened to take similar action, but last week it began signing preemptive payment deals. Google also has been striking voluntary deals in Britain and some European countries.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said Facebook and Google, owner of the world’s most used search engine, act like “a de facto duopoly.”
In a post, Facebook told Australia’s 18 million users that it had acted reluctantly and argued the new law misunderstood the relationship between Facebook and publishers who use it to share news content.Facebook advocates
But Facebook also has defenders in the tech industry.
Mike Masnick, founder of the California-based blog Techdirt.com, said users are not being blocked from accessing news. “Contrary to the idea that this is an ‘attack’ on journalism or news in Australia, it’s not. The news still exists in Australia. News companies still have websites. People can still visit those websites,” he said in a blog post.
Australia’s move to tax links is alarming, Masnick adds. “This is fundamentally against the principles of an open internet. The government saying that you can’t link to a news site unless you pay a tax should be seen as inherently problematic for a long list of reasons. At a most basic level, it’s demanding payment for traffic.”
On Thursday, the tech giant started to allow access via its platform from public health websites.
Facebook’s move to block media content in Australia was lambasted by Britain’s News Media Association. Henry Faure Walker, chairman of the group, said the action showed why countries need to coordinate robust regulation. He said the action was “a classic example” of a monopoly power “trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves.”
Facebook’s British critics also highlighted emerging news that the tech giant has accepted funding from China’s state-controlled media organizations, including the China Daily newspaper and China Global Television Network (CGTN), to promote Chinese government denials that Beijing has been targeting ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang in what the U.S. government has labeled a “genocide.”
An investigation this week by Britain’s trade journal the Press Gazette unearthed details of payments being made by Chinese state-controlled media to Facebook to advertise and promote the stories dismissing international concerns over the plight of the Uighurs as Western “disinformation.”
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Millions of people in the United States are facing frigid, stormy weather, although the number of people without power in the southwestern state of Texas dropped below a half million on Thursday for the first time in four days.
Electricity in Texas, the country’s second-biggest state, was restored to about 2.5 million people. The head of the cooperative that is responsible for most of the state’s electricity said there was progress Wednesday in boosting available power and that officials hoped that soon people would only have to deal with rolling blackouts before service is fully restored.
But the state faced a new problem, with officials ordering 7 million people, about a quarter of its population, to boil tap water before drinking it because of damaged infrastructure and frozen pipes.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott urged residents, if possible, to shut off water to their homes, to prevent pipes from bursting and preserve water pressure in municipal systems.
The massive storm system has been blamed for at least 30 deaths in the U.S. this week. In the Houston area, the Associated Press reported that one family died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to car exhaust in their garage, while a grandmother and three children were killed by flames that escaped the fireplace they were using to keep warm.
The National Weather Service says the storm is moving across several states on a 2,300-kilometer track to the northeast, with 38 centimeters of snow on the ground in the state of Arkansas to the east of Texas, heavy snow and ice further north through the Appalachian Mountains and up to 20 centimeters of snow predicted Thursday and Friday in the New York metropolitan region
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Canada’s cancellation of the 2021 Alaska cruise ship season due to the coronavirus pandemic has angered the U.S. state’s politicians and rattled the tourism industry in both countries. Those on the ground in both Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia are dealing with the fallout.Citing continuing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Transportation Ministry has extended the prohibition of any passenger cruise vessels carrying over 100 people between Canada and Alaska. The order extends through February 2022.
In a terse statement, Alaska’s U.S. congressional delegation complained that the decision was made arbitrarily by Canada with no consultation or advance notice. The statement, from the two U.S. senators and the state’s only representative, also says it was made without any consideration for Alaska or the state’s economy. FILE – The Grand Princess cruise ship in Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska, May 30, 2018.According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, in 2019 the state welcomed more than 1.3 million visitors who arrived on cruise ships, comprising 60 percent of the state’s summer visitors.
The association’s CEO, Sarah Leonard, is urging a temporary waiver to the U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act to allow cruise ships to sail from American ports, like Seattle, directly to Alaska. Adopted in 1886, the act still prohibits cruise ships from sailing directly between American ports, forcing Alaska-bound vessels to either start from or stop in Canada. “We’ve long advocated since the beginning of the pandemic for a potential temporary waiver of that federal legislation, which would again potentially allow large ship cruise passengers or large ship cruise operations to travel to Alaska,” she said.
Vancouver, British Columbia, is the principal starting point for most cruise ships heading to ports of call in Alaska, with nearby Seattle providing competition. According to the Port of Vancouver, 2019 was a record-breaking year with more than 288 cruise ship visits, a 22 percent increase from the previous year.
Walt Judas is the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia.He is concerned a temporary waiver to the Passenger Vessel Services Act might become permanent to the detriment of British Columbia’s tourism industry. “Once you set a precedent like that, even if only on a temporary basis, who’s to stop a lobby from making that permanent? And so that would be a big concern, if you start to sail from, say, Alaska to Seattle, and vice versa, and you cut out the Canadian ports. Now, you’ve lost a huge amount of business for the visitor economy. And for the economy. In general, we’re talking more than $2 billion [Canadian] in economic impact,” said Judas.
The Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates each ship’s visit brings at least $2.2 million in economic benefits, including Vancouver hotel bookings before and after cruises. FILE – The Carnival Spirit cruise ship sits docked at Canada Place as a seabus (R) commuter boat makes its way across the inner harbor in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sept.17, 2008.
Judas is still hoping, with enough pressure on the Canadian government and positive development in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, that there might be a way to salvage at least a portion of the cruise ship season this year.
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Pushed to the back of Gen Z anxieties by the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming stressor for many people younger than 30 remains climate change, say experts.
“Natural disasters precipitated by climate change, including hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods can lead to … increased rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health disorders,” according to researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. FILE – Firefighters battle the Morton Fire as it burns a home near Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
The authors label the fear “eco-anxiety, climate distress, climate change anxiety, or climate anxiety,” writing in the respected British medical and science journal, The Lancet Planetary Health.
In other words, the future is not looking bright from the perspective of many people under 30.
Xiye Bastida, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, has been fighting the climate crisis since her hometown in Mexico flooded when she was 13. She calls it a pivotal moment in her environmental activism.
“Sometimes we don’t realize when we actually start caring about something and acting upon it,” she said.
Mexican-Chilean Bastida is one of the founding members of the New York City chapter of Fridays for Future, a strike movement that pressures public officials about climate change by protesting outside schools and government offices. She is also the co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, which seeks to educate the public about climate issues.
Bastida’s generation might be more likely than adults to experience climate anxiety, the Lancet Planetary Health paper states.
“They are at a crucial point in their physical and psychological development,” the authors wrote, “when … stress and everyday anxiety elevate their risk of developing depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.”
Bastida said she has experienced eco-anxiety and burnout from climate activism. She ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations because she was so stressed, she told VOA.
“For me, the way I experienced and dealt with climate anxiety was just by always blaming myself for not doing enough,” Bastida explained.
She continued, “If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t take care of your home, if you don’t take care of your well-being, you cannot take care of the world.”
“Climate change is rapidly creating a less safe, less secure [food security, national security], less healthy, and less prosperous world,” Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication (4C), wrote to VOA.
“Today’s young people will be living in this world, as conditions deteriorate, unless the nations of the world rise to the challenge they currently face.
“In my view, young people who don’t care about climate change are not paying attention,” he wrote.
But many young people are paying attention and trying to effect change. The children and grandchildren of those who planted trees for the creation of Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, are giving environmental justice a hard push forward.
The movement has been propelled by young people everywhere.FILE – Climate change environmental activist Greta Thunberg joins Red Cloud Indian School student and activist Tokata Iron Eyes at a youth panel at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota, Oct. 8, 2019.Sweden’s Greta Thunberg riveted global attention as she sat outside a Swedish Parliament meeting, her expression capturing the impatient disgust of her generation with inactivity over climate change.
Other famous young environmentalists include Canadian Autumn Peltier from the First Nations community, Argentinian Bruno Rodriguez, and Helena Gualinga from the Ecuadorian Amazon. FILE – Young environmental activists Ayakha Melithafa of S. Africa, Naomi Wadler of the US, Autumn Peltier of Canada and Melati Wijsen of Indonesia take part in a forum during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2020.
Nikayla Jefferson is a volunteer writer for the Sunrise Movement, co-founder of the San Diego hub, and a doctoral candidate at University of California-Santa Barbara. For her, the scariest part of climate change is basic, she says.
“The total loss of human life and the land that gives us our history and story,” she said. “We understand climate change science and how devastating it is to the Earth, but addressing carbon emissions is not enough,” Jefferson wrote to VOA. “We need to look at climate change through a human lens because climate change is the not the only existential threat people are facing.”
Anxiety about climate change and a desire to act erases political lines, according to research from Pew, Brookings Institution and 4C. In the 2020 presidential election, climate change was among the top three issues to young voters. COVID-19, Race, Climate Change Dominate Youth Vote IssuesStudent debt polls lower in face of news events
And 4C’s Maibach says that youth leadership about climate change has woven generations together on the issue.
“Politicians and CEOs alike have every reason to want to keep young people happy, because they won’t keep their jobs for long if they don’t,” Maibach wrote. As the percentage of younger votes eclipses those of Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, the Gen Z and millennial vote becomes more powerful.
“CEOs are not directly accountable to the public, but corporations are becoming increasingly sensitive to public opinion, especially that of young people, because they want to attract the best and brightest young people as employees, and they want to earn the loyalty of young customers,” Maibach wrote.
While Bastida said she still worries about the future, she looks on the bright side and believes her generation can have an impact.
“I think that we have to realize that that timeline is already running out,” she said. “And we cannot just keep talking about what we’re going to do, we need to actually start doing it. And when I see people actually doing things, when I see initiatives coming up, when I see companies changing their whole business model, that’s what makes me optimistic.”
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Malawi will reopen schools on Monday (Feb 22), five weeks after President Lazarus Chakwera suspended classes due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Malawi’s Presidential Task-Force on COVID-19 determined it is safe to resume classes after a drop in the rate of infection.Co-Chairperson of the Presidential Task-Force on COVID-19 Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said in a televised address Wednesday night the infection rate is at 16%, down from 30% in January, when classes were suspended.She said, “Actually what we wanted is that once we reopen the schools our children should be safe because we know that when we were closing the schools, some teachers were COVID-19 positive and were on quarantine. So we wanted to give them enough time to recover.”However, Kandodo Chiponda, who is also minister of health, said some schools will require students to produce COVID-19-negative certificates to be allowed into class.She asked parents to comply with such a requirement, saying the government has enough COVID-19 test kits in all public hospitals in the country.She said, “I would like to ask schools with such a requirement not to suspend learners with positive COVID-19 results but reverse their places and give them enough time to recover.”Critics say the decision to resume classes has been rushed and many schools, especially in rural areas, are not ready to reopen.They say unmet requirements include on-the-campus water sources for hand washing and enough classrooms for proper social distancing when learning. But Education Minister Agness Nyalonje says everything is set and that the ministry has allocated about $6 milion for the reopening of schools.Nyalonje said part of the money will be used to drill 400 boreholes in primary schools and 240 in secondary schools to improve sanitation.“My ministry has made money [available] directly to schools through zonal accounts for them to procure soaps, to procure masks, to procure buckets where buckets need replacing, to make sure that when schools open, these things are in place,” she said.She said the challenge is to find tents for additional classrooms in highly congested schools.“Because it so happens that globally, the scramble for tents is very, very high but we are very advanced to get tents and we are hopeful that we will find tents and probably within a week,” said Nyalonje. Nyalonje also said the government has recruited 2,275 auxiliary teachers to ease pressure on permanent teachers.
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Facebook is blocking Australian users from sharing or viewing news content amid a dispute over a proposed law. Australia wants tech giants like Facebook and Google to pay for the content reposted from news outlets.“A bombshell decision” is how Facebook’s move is being reported in Australia. The social media giant said it was banning Australians from sharing and reading news stories on its platform with a “heavy heart.” The government in Canberra, though, has said it won’t back down. Ministers have said the Facebook ban highlighted the “immense market power of these digital social giants.” About 17 million Australians visit Facebook every month.The media bargaining code legislation has already been passed by the lower house of the Australian parliament and is expected to receive final approval by the upper chamber, the Senate, next week. It would make Australia the first country to force big tech firms to pay for news content. Communications Minister Paul Fletcher is scathing about Facebook’s actions.“Facebook needs to think very carefully about what this means for its reputation and standing,” Fletcher said. “They are effectively saying on our platform there will not be any information from organizations which employ paid journalists. They are effectively saying any information that is available on our site does not come from these reliable sources.”The progress of Australia’s social media laws is reportedly being closely followed in other parts of the world, including Canada and the European Union.Facebook said the legislation “fundamentally misunderstands” the relationship between itself and publishers. Large technology companies, including Google, have argued that by using stories from other publishers they generate more internet traffic and revenue for the websites run by traditional media outlets. They have complained that as their advertising revenues have collapsed, social media platforms have benefited from their quality journalism without paying for it. In contrast to Facebook, Google has this week signed multi-million dollar deals with three major Australian broadcasters and publishers.
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Former Japanese athlete Seiko Hashimoto has become the new president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee after Yoshiro Mori resigned following sexist remarks about women.
Hashimoto, a 56-year-old lawmaker in Japan’s ruling party, participated in seven Summer and Winter Olympics as a skater and a cyclist.
She was named president of the committee after a meeting with a male-dominated executive board.
Hashimoto replaced Mori, the 83-year-old former prime minister.
Mori said at a Feb. 3 Olympics board of trustees meeting that women talk too much, declaring that “board meetings with lots of women take longer” because “if one member raises her hand to speak, others might think they need to talk, too.”
Mori retracted his comments and apologized the next day and said he would not resign before stepping down last week.
His remarks, which were leaked to Japanese media, sparked public debate in the country about gender equality and fueled concerns over the feasibility of holding the games later this year.
Organizers previously made the risky decision to begin the Games on July 23 in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic with 11,000 athletes.
Hashimoto is tasked with ensuring athletes and others are protected from the coronavirus in the face of strong public opposition to the Games.
“As someone with an athletic background, I will carry out a safe Games for both athletes and citizens,” Hashimoto said at a news conference.
More than 80% of the Japanese public believes the games should be cancelled or postponed, according to recent polls.
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For two decades, global news outlets have complained internet companies are getting rich at their expense, selling advertising linked to their reports without sharing revenue.
Now, Australia is joining France and other governments in pushing Google, Facebook and other internet giants to pay. That might channel more money to a news industry that is cutting coverage as revenue shrinks. But it also sets up a clash with some of the tech industry’s biggest names.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., has announced agreements to pay publishers in Australia while Facebook said Thursday it has blocked users in the country from viewing or sharing news. What Is Happening in Australia?
Facing a proposed law to compel internet companies to pay news organizations, Google has announced deals with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Seven West Media. No financial details were released. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. is in negotiations.
Google accounts for 53% percent of Australian online advertising revenue and Facebook 23%, according to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Google had threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia in response to the legislation, which would create a panel to make pricing decisions on news.
On Thursday, Facebook responded by blocking users from accessing and sharing Australian news.
Facebook said the proposed law “ignores the realities” of its relationship with publishers that use its service to “share news content.” That was despite Frydenberg saying this week Google and Facebook “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.” What Is Happening in Other Countries?
Australia’s proposed law would be the first of its kind, but other governments also are pressuring Google, Facebook and other internet companies to pay news outlets and other publishers for material.
In Europe, Google had to negotiate with French publishers after a court last year upheld an order saying such agreements were required by a 2019 European Union copyright directive.
France is the first government to enforce the rules, but the decision suggests Google, Facebook and other companies will face similar requirements in other parts of the 27-nation trade bloc.
Google and a group of French publishers have announced a framework agreement for the American company to negotiate licensing deals with individual publishers. The company has deals with outlets including the newspaper Le Monde and the weekly magazine l’Obs.
Last year, Facebook announced it would pay U.S. news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today for headlines. No financial details were released.
In Spain, Google shut down its news website after a 2014 law required it to pay publishers. Why Does This Matter?
Developments in Australia and Europe suggest the financial balance between multibillion-dollar internet companies and news organizations might be shifting.
Australia is responding to complaints internet companies should share advertising and other revenue connected to news reports, magazine articles and other content that appears on their websites or is shared by users.
The government acted after its competition regulator tried and failed to negotiate a voluntary payment plan with Google. The proposed law would create a panel to make binding decisions on the price of news reports to help give individual publishers more negotiating leverage with global internet companies.What Does This Mean for The Public?
Google’s agreement means a new revenue stream for news outfits, but whether that translates into more coverage for readers, viewers and listeners is unclear.
The union for Australian journalists is calling on media companies to make sure online revenue goes into news gathering.
“Any monies from these deals need to end up in the newsroom, not the boardroom,” said Marcus Strom, president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. “We will be pressing the case for transparency on how these funds are spent.”
In the meantime, access occasionally could suffer: Facebook’s move Thursday initially blocked some Australian commercial and government communications pages.
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Facebook has blocked Australian account holders from viewing or sharing all news content over a dispute with a government proposal to make digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content.Thursday’s move by the U.S.-based social media company was made despite ongoing negotiations between Facebook and rival Google with Australian media companies.Facebook regional director Will Easton said in a written statement that the proposed law “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”Easton said the proposal left Facebook “facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters.Treasurer Josh Frydenberg tweeted Thursday that he and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had “a constructive discussion” in which Zuckerberg “raised a few remaining issues” with the government’s news media bargaining code.Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years.Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content.But the company has already signed a number of separate agreements with such Australian media giants as the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
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The latest NASA probe to Mars is set to land Thursday after a journey that began last July.Perseverance’s entry into the Martian atmosphere was set to start at 3:55 p.m. EST, starting a seven-minute process that scientists hope will be successful. During the landing, NASA has no ability to control the probe.The elaborate landing process involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane,” which is expected to lower Perseverance onto the Martian surface using cables.”I can tell you that Perseverance is operating perfectly right now, and that all systems are go for landing,” Jennifer Trosper, a NASA deputy project manager for the rover mission, said during a press briefing Tuesday.Perseverance is targeting a landing in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed. There, it will search for signs of ancient life.The terrain around the landing site is rocky, making landing difficult, but NASA said the probe is up to the challenge.“When the scientists take a look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?” said Al Chen, who is in charge of the entry, descent and landing team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, according to The Associated Press. “When I look at Jezero, I see danger. There’s danger everywhere.”NASA has successfully landed eight of nine probes on Mars.Perseverance is similar in appearance to other Mars rovers, but it carries a helicopter-type drone, Ingenuity, which will test if powered flight on Mars is possible.
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President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to improve the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. This week, the first federally supported mass vaccination sites opened in California. Matt Dibble reports.
Camera: Matt Dibble Producer: Matt Dibble
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Artworks owned by the late artist Christo and his wife, Jean-Claude, a duo famed for wrapping landmarks in fabric, sold for $9.6 million at auction on Wednesday.The 28 lots under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Paris included drawings for the couple’s “The Umbrellas (Joint project for Japan and USA),” two spectacular installations by the couple in 1991 consisting of thousands of umbrellas erected simultaneously in Japan and Los Angeles.Less than a year after his death at the age of 84, Christo is evidently more in demand than ever, with more than three quarters of the works on sale selling above estimate.The works, snapped up by buyers in the United States, Asia and Europe, had been expected to sell for between $3 million and $4.5 million collectively.The preparatory drawings for the yellow Californian umbrellas set a new record for a work by the Bulgarian-born U.S. artist at $2 million, while the Japanese version sold for about $1.4 million.A second set of works from the couple’s private collection are due to go on sale Thursday.Christo collaborated with Jeanne-Claude, his wife of 51 years, until her death in 2009 and continued to produce dramatic pieces into his 80s.From Paris’s oldest bridge to Berlin’s Reichstag, they spent decades wrapping landmarks and creating improbable structures around the world.Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect, but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.
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The U.N. secretary-general called on the world’s largest economies Wednesday to create a task force to plan and coordinate a global COVID-19 vaccination plan. “The world urgently needs a global vaccination plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production and financial capacities,” Antonio Guterres told a high-level virtual meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the global vaccine rollout. “I believe the G-20 is well-placed to establish an emergency task force to prepare such a global vaccination plan and coordinate its implementation and financing.” He said the task force should include the World Health Organization (WHO), the global vaccine alliance Gavi, international financial institutions, as well as the international vaccine alliance COVAX, and all countries that have the capacity to develop vaccines or produce them if licenses are available. “The task force would have the capacity to mobilize the pharmaceutical companies and key industry and logistics actors,” Guterres added. Leaders of the G-7 are holding a virtual summit this Friday, and Guterres said they could use that session to create momentum to mobilize the necessary financial resources. “The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines is generating hope,” he noted, but warned that people affected by conflict and insecurity are at risk of being left behind. US to pay WHO U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his international debut at the online meeting. He said the Biden administration will work with partners to expand COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution capacity, and increase access, including to marginalized populations. He also said Washington would pay over $200 million in assessed and current obligations to WHO by the end this month. Funding stopped to the organization last year under the Trump administration, which did not like how WHO handled the coronavirus pandemic. “This is a key step forward in fulfilling our financial obligations as a WHO member,” Blinken said. “It reflects our renewed commitment to ensuring the WHO has the support it needs to lead the global response to the pandemic, even as we work to reform it for the future.” India to vaccinate UN peacekeepers Security Council member India, which is a major pharmaceutical manufacturer and is currently producing two vaccines, one of which it developed, announced it would contribute 200,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the U.N. peacekeeping division to inoculate their troops and police. The United Nations has about 95,000 peacekeepers, which means double doses could be available to all of them. Britain presides over the 15-nation Security Council this month and organized Wednesday’s session, which drew nine foreign ministers and one prime minister. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called for a U.N. Security Council resolution to facilitate COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people in conflict areas. “Local cease-fires are going to be essential to enable lifesaving vaccinations to take place, and they are essential to protect the brave health workers and humanitarian workers working in incredibly challenging conditions in conflict zones,” Raab said. He said that more than 160 million people are at risk of not receiving COVID-19 vaccinations because of instability and conflict in places including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Ethiopia. In July, after three months of negotiations, the council adopted a resolution supporting the U.N. secretary-general’s global cease-fire to assist international containment efforts. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether the British proposal for smaller cease-fires would have the council’s full support. China’s foreign minister also participated. Beijing has been the subject of some international criticism for its handling of the coronavirus and for a lack of transparency about its origin in the city of Wuhan. “We need to resist prejudice, respect science and reject disinformation and attempts to politicize the pandemic,” Wang Yi said. “In this regard, members of the Security Council should lead by example.” He also said China would help realize vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. “At the request of the WHO, China has decided preliminarily to donate 10 million doses of Chinese vaccine to help developing countries,” he announced. The U.N. says progress on vaccinations has been extremely uneven and unfair, with just 10 countries having administered 75% of all COVID-19 vaccines, while more than 130 countries have not received a single dose.
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German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday the so-called British variant of COVID-19 is spreading quickly in his country, now accounting for more than 20 percent of all tested cases, and nearly four times the rate of two weeks earlier. Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Spahn said that rate of spread indicates the variant virus strain, first identified in Britain, roughly doubles each week, as has been seen in other countries where it has been found. He said he expects it will soon become the dominant strain found in Germany. FILE – German Health Minister Jens Spahn speaks at the lower house of parliament Bundestag on the start of the coronavirus vaccinations, in Berlin, Germany, Jan. 13, 2021.Spahn said the good news is that overall, the number of new infections is decreasing, a sign that preventive measures, including the current lockdown, are working. He said German health officials will have to be exceptionally careful regarding the British strain when the country starts to ease restrictions.
Spahn said he expects Germany’s vaccination program to “significantly pick up speed” in the next several days. He said vaccination centers are becoming more efficient, and by the end of next week, they should have delivered 10 million additional doses.The health minister urged all those whose turn it is to receive the vaccine do so as soon as possible, so the largest number of people can be protected. He also sought to reassure those reluctant to get vaccinated because of safety concerns.”If a vaccine is approved by the European Union following a rigorous approval process, then it is safe and effective,” he said. Spahn said those who wait also make the situation worse for everyone.”Reason dictates that people should get vaccinated in a pandemic and those who wait risk a serious illness and spreading the virus,” he said.
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Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism.Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a statement.Australian users cannot share Australian or international news.International users outside Australia also cannot share Australian news.”The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” Facebook regional managing director William Easton said.”It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter,” Easton added.The announcement comes a day after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg described as “very promising” negotiations between Facebook and Google with Australian media companies.Frydenberg said after weekend talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, he was convinced that the platforms “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.”Frydenberg said he had had a “a constructive discussion” with Zuckerberg after Facebook blocked Australian news.”He raised a few remaining issues with the Government’s news media bargaining code and we agreed to continue our conversation to try to find a pathway forward,” Frydenberg tweeted.But communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the government would not back down on its legislative agenda.”This announcement from Facebook, if they were to maintain this position, of course would call into question the credibility of the platform in terms of the news on it,” Fletcher told Australian Broadcasting Corp.”Effectively Facebook is saying to Australians, ‘Information that you see on our platforms does not come from organizations that have editorial policies or fact-checking processes or journalists who are paid to do the work they do,’” Fletcher added.The Australian Parliament is debating proposed laws that would make the two platforms strike deals to pay for Australian news.The Senate will consider the draft laws after they were passed by the House of Representatives late Wednesday.Both platforms have condemned the proposed laws as unworkable. Google has also threatened to remove its search engine from the country.But Google is striking pay deals with Australian news media companies under its own News Showcase model.Seven West Media on Monday became the largest Australian news media business to strike a deal with Google to pay for journalism.Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has since announced a wide-ranging deal.Rival Nine Entertainment is reportedly close to its own pact and ABC is also in negotiations.News plays a larger part in Google’s business model than it does in Facebook’s.Easton said the public would ask why the platforms were responding differently to the proposed law that would create an arbitration panel to set a price for news in cases where the platforms and news businesses failed to agree.”The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news,” Easton said.Peter Lewis, director of the Australia Institute’s Center for Responsible Technology think tank, said Facebook’s decision “will make it a weaker social network.””Facebook actions mean the company’s failures in privacy, disinformation, and data protection will require a bigger push for stronger government regulation,” Lewis said. “Without fact-based news to anchor it, Facebook will become little more than cute cats and conspiracy theories.”
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South Africa has held its annual International Public Arts Festival (IPAF), despite the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing measures. Turnout was low but those attending welcomed the street festival, held Feb. 10-14, as a chance to get out of the house.Scores of people attended the IPAF’s opening in Cape Town this month – even though South Africa has been the country worst hit on the African continent by the coronavirus pandemic.The annual street arts festival strictly followed the government’s COVID-19 rules, including no groups larger than 50 people – said one of the organizers, Alexandre Tilmas.“The best way was to split people. Because we are painting outdoors, and the artists are outdoors, every guest that want[s] to visit us, we put them in tiny little groups and send them [to] visit the neighborhood.”The artists changed the landscape in the Salt River neighborhood, a former industrial area made famous by the colorful murals.The five-year-old festival usually attracts artists from abroad.But this year, because of the pandemic’s travel restrictions, just two showed up to create their murals.Despite the low turnout, festivals like the IPAF should be held to boost South Africa’s struggling tourism sector, said tour guide Analisa Zigana.“You know, you need to sanitize, we need to keep our social distance. If we keep to those regulations, then I think it’s still okay. So, we can continue with the festivals but, just make sure that we keep to the regulations, Zigana said.The World Travel Awards has voted Cape Town Africa’s leading festival and event destination for the last three years.But the tourism sector also is suffering amid the pandemic and Cape Town cancelled all big events again this year.Nonetheless, festival attendees like Laeti Maboang welcomed the break from pandemic lockdown measures aimed at preventing the virus from spreading.“The fact that it’s still happening even [when] the pandemic is still going on. And I feel like we are in need of this, we are in need of being out, interacting with people; even we have the mask,” Maboang said.South Africa a year ago enacted one of the severest lockdowns worldwide, with restrictions on gatherings, movement, and sales of alcohol.The country has registered the highest number of confirmed cases on the continent with nearly 1.5 million infections and more than 48,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.This year’s festival displayed more than 100 murals and focused on three points: creativity, sustainability and safety.
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Rush Limbaugh, a polarizing radio commentator who single-handedly amplified the voice of American conservatism, has died.Limbaugh, who was 70, had been diagnosed with final stage lung cancer in February 2020. A day after he publicized his diagnosis, President Donald Trump announced during his State of the Union speech he was awarding the broadcaster the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. Trump, who left office nearly a month ago, broke his post-presidency media silence and called into a Fox News television program Wednesday to eulogize Limbaugh. “He was with me right from the beginning,” Trump said, referring to the early months of his presidential campaign in 2015. “He liked what I said.” Trump said Limbaugh had “tremendous insight,” was “very street smart,” and “there’s never been anything like him,” describing his prominent supporter as “irreplaceable.” FILE – Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh reacts as he is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. first lady Melania Trump during U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 4, 2020.Former Vice President Mike Pence issued a statement saying, “Limbaugh gave voice to the ideals and values that made this country great. He inspired a generation of American conservatives, and he will be deeply missed. Rush Limbaugh made Conservatives proud, and he made conservatism fun.” Former Republican President George W. Bush said in a statement, “While he was brash, at times controversial, and always opinionated, he spoke his mind as a voice for millions of Americans and approached each day with gusto.” Limbaugh’s rise coincided with the Federal Communications Commission repealing a rule in 1987 that required broadcasters to provide equal time to liberal and conservative political viewpoints. Limbaugh demonstrated that hours of ad-libbed provocative conservative monologues could be highly profitable for hundreds of ailing AM radio stations that carried his syndicated program. It was also lucrative for Limbaugh, who commanded a salary as high as $85 million annually. The FCC rule change and Limbaugh’s ascent during the presidency of Republican Ronald Reagan saw the American media landscape depart from domination by several broadcast TV networks and a handful of major newspapers that were generally staid and balanced to a more fractured era in which information melded with entertainment, known as infotainment. “He took the terrain of conservatism of the 1980s and cobbled together a worldview that was not exactly Republican. He was very critical of the Republican Party in many ways but was a huge fan of Reagan,” according to Claire Potter, a history professor at the New School for Social Research and author of “Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Stole Our Democracy.” “He reshaped the media and Republican politics. He might be the single most important figure in late 20th and early 21st century politics,” according to Brian Rosenwald, scholar-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Talk Radio’s America.” FILE – Radio host Rush Limbaugh, right, is congratulated by Larry King at the Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, Ill., Nov. 7, 1993.Limbaugh was unapologetic in his personal attacks on liberal politicians and activists. Those advocating women’s rights were deemed “femi-Nazis,” while environmentalists were “wackos.” In his final year of broadcasting, he brushed off COVID-19 as nothing more serious than the common cold, arguing the pandemic was blown out of proportion to politically target Trump. A college dropout, former radio disc jockey and sports broadcaster, Limbaugh also downplayed climate change and opposed health care reform — which became templates for the Republican Party. Limbaugh overcame personal setbacks, including hearing loss reversed by a cochlear implant and an addiction to prescription painkillers that compelled him to seek rehabilitation treatment. Over the years, he moved further to the right, taking much of America with him. “There’s no such thing as a moderate. A moderate is just a liberal disguise,” he declared in 2005. Liberals loathed Limbaugh, accusing him of distorting facts and littering the airwaves with hate speech. “Rush Limbaugh helped create today’s polarized America by normalizing racism, bigotry, misogyny and mockery,” tweeted Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action. “He was a demagogue who got rich off of hate speech, division, lies and toxicity. That is his legacy.” Many Republican politicians, however, echoed Limbaugh to boost their election chances, as opposing his positions could imperil their careers. “Politically, the far right, warfare politics version of the Republican Party that exists today owes itself to his influence and the changes in the political media catalyzed by his rise,” Rosenwald told VOA. “Without him, the idea of a President Donald Trump is unfathomable — but his influence is far broader.” Many of Limbaugh’s fans, whom he referred to as “ditto heads,” relished his opposition to political correctness — the use of language and policies to eliminate verbal discrimination or negative stereotyping. He was effective at taking “monikers of shame being tossed out by liberals” and telling his fans to embrace the labels, Potter said. John Hensel attaches an American flag to the gate of the home of his friend and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, in Palm Beach, Fla., Feb. 17, 2021.For like-minded listeners, some who became prominent commentators in their own right, Limbaugh was their political professor, teaching them that “conservative ideas were intellectual ideas and that it was a system of thought that mattered,” Potter told VOA. Limbaugh wore criticism as a badge of honor, embracing the label of “the most dangerous man in America.” He was especially critical of President Barack Obama, whom he described as “an angry Black guy” and declared at the start of the Democrat’s’ presidency in 2009, “I hope he fails.” During the first impeachment of Trump, Limbaugh defended the Republican president, arguing he was being targeted because he was too successful in lowering taxes, resurrecting the economy and defending the rights of gun owners. Limbaugh backed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was riddled with widespread fraud and irregularities and did not regard Joe Biden’s victory as legitimate. He compared the rioters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to interrupt certification of the president-elect’s victory to the 18th-century colonists who opposed British rule in North America. When asked about Limbaugh’s death during the daily press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I don’t know that I anticipate a statement from the president, but I can certainly pass on his condolences and expression of support for the family.” “I think he’ll be missed by many people on the right,” Potter said. “But I think he’ll be missed by many of us on the left who never failed to turn to him when something was going on to say, ‘OK, what are conservative populists thinking now?'”
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The U.S. Justice Department has indicted three North Korean computer programmers for trying to extort and steal more than $1.3 billion as part of a global cyber scheme that included the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment.A Canadian American who allegedly laundered some of the stolen money also pleaded guilty in the scheme.North Koreans Park Jin Hyok, Jon Chang Hyok and Kim Il are charged with criminal conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.Park, a computer programmer for North Korea’s intelligence service, was charged two years ago for his role in the Sony hack.That hack erased corporate data, obtained sensitive company emails among top Hollywood executives and forced the company to rebuild its entire computer network.The motivation for the hack was believed to be retaliation for the 2014 movie “The Interview,” which ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and even portrayed an assassination plot against him.As part of the scheme, the Justice Department said, the three plotted to steal more than $1.2 billion from banks in Vietnam, Mexico, Malta and other places. They also stole $75 million from a Slovenian cryptocurrency company and $11.8 million of digital currency from a New York financial services company.”The scope of the criminal conduct by the North Korean hackers was extensive and long-running, and the range of crimes they have committed is staggering,” Tracy L. Wilkison, acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “The conduct detailed in the indictment are the acts of a criminal nation-state that has stopped at nothing to extract revenge and obtain money to prop up its regime.”The three are also believed to have been behind the 2017 WannaCry 2.0 ransomware attack, which affected computers in 150 countries and most notably crippled the computer network of Britain’s National Health Service.The three North Koreans are unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. courtroom.
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A slew of attractive toy robots on the market today are teaching children important language and science, technology, engineering and math skills, while keeping them entertained. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.Producer: Julie Taboh/Adam Greenbaum
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Much of the United States was in the icy grip of an “unprecedented” winter storm on Monday as frigid Arctic air sent temperatures plunging, forcing hundreds of flight cancellations, making driving hazardous and leaving millions without power in Texas.Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for the southern state, and the National Weather Service (NWS) said more than 150 million Americans were under winter weather advisories.”I urge all Texans to remain vigilant against the extremely harsh weather,” Abbott said in a statement.The NWS described conditions as an “unprecedented and expansive area of hazardous winter weather” from coast-to-coast.More than 2.7 million people were without power in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, and temperatures in the major metropolis of Houston dipped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit (minus nine Celsius).President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for Texas on Sunday providing federal assistance to supplement state relief efforts.Texas is not used to such brutal winter weather and the storm caused havoc in parts of the state, including a 100-car pileup on Interstate 35 near Fort Worth last week that left at least six people dead.Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said that all flights had been canceled on Monday due to the “historic weather” and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport also shut down.The NWS said Arctic air was driving a “polar plunge” that is expected to bring record-low temperatures.Much of the United States has been shivering under chilly temperatures for days, with about half of all Americans now under some sort of winter weather warning.Temperatures have dropped across the country, with only parts of the southeast and southwest dodging it.The cold snap has led to heavy snowfalls and ice storms that have caused a spike in electricity demand and power outages.A truck drives past a highway sign on Feb. 15, 2021, in Houston. A frigid blast of weather across the U.S. plunged Texas into an unusually icy emergency Monday that knocked out power to more than 2 million people.’Polar plunge’ Besides Texas, weather-related emergencies have also been declared in Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.More than 300,000 customers are without power in Oregon.”Over 150 million Americans are currently under winter storm warnings, ice storm warnings, winter storm watches, or winter weather advisories as impactful winter weather continues from coast to coast,” the NWS said.”This impressive onslaught of wicked wintry weather across much of the Lower 48 (states) is due to the combination of strong Arctic high pressure supplying sub-freezing temperatures and an active storm track escorting waves of precipitation.”The NWS said record low temperatures were expected in much of the country.”Hundreds of daily low maximum and minimum temperatures have been/will be broken during this prolonged ‘polar plunge,’ with some February and even all-time low temperature records in jeopardy,” it said.In a large area known as the southern Plains that spans parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, temperatures are expected to fall well below typical readings for the time of year.”Temperature anomalies are likely to be 25 to 45 degrees (Fahrenheit) below normal for much of the central and southern Plains,” the NWS said.It said six to 12 inches of snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley and eastern Great Lakes to northern New England.Florida will remain the warmest spot in the continental United States, with highs above normal and temperatures generally around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius).
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Crowds of seals lie on the sand, some wriggling towards the water, on the northern French coast where they are staging a comeback. Drone images show around 250 wild grey seals, adults and cubs, frolicking at low tide near the town of Marck. Seals started to disappear from the Cote d’Opale in the 1970s, under pressure from fishermen who saw them as rivals for their catch. Seals, which have no natural predators in the English Channel, have been a protected species in France since the 1980s and as a result they have begun to return to the coast. Rescued grey seal cubs wait for fish during their quarantine at LPA animal refuge in Calais, France, Feb. 13, 2021.”At low tide, they settle here to get fat, to rest and to prepare for their upcoming hunt at sea,” seal enthusiast Jerome Gressier told Reuters. According to a 2018 report of the Hauts-de-France region’s Eco-Phoques project, at least 1,100 seals now live in the area. In the region’s Baie de Somme, harbor seal numbers grew by 14.4% between 1990 and 2017, while grey seals rose by 20%, the study found. Gressier uses a long-focus lens to identify injured seals. “It allows us to see if there are any animals who are caught in nets,” he said. “It hurts them enormously if they are caught by the neck.” Injured seals are treated at a nearby animal rescue center in Calais. Center manager Christel Gressier says many of the animals they deal with are seals, some abandoned by their mothers. “At around three weeks, the mother will quickly teach it to hunt, but if the seal is not able to manage, or do it quickly enough, she leaves and she goes about her business,” she said. “It is at this moment that we can intervene for seals that would not have been able to adapt quickly enough.”
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