The moon gave us a show we won’t again see for another three years. Plus, the U.K. is set for its first satellite launch, and NASA’s Artemis program is poised for another try. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
…
Month: November 2022
People who have had COVID-19 more than once are two or three times more likely to have a range of serious health problems than those who have only had it once, the first major study on the subject said Thursday.
Multiple infections have surged as the pandemic rumbles on and the virus mutates into new strains, but the long-term health effects of reinfection have not been clear.
The U.S. researchers said their new study published in the Nature Medicine journal was the first to look at how reinfection increases the risk of health problems from acute cases as well as long COVID.
The researchers analyzed the anonymous medical records of 5.8 million people in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ national health care database.
More than 443,000 had tested positive for COVID-19 at least once between March 1, 2020, and April this year.
Nearly 41,000 of that group had COVID more than once. More than 93% had a total of two infections, while 6% had three, and nearly 1% had four.
The other 5.3 million never contracted COVID-19.
When the researchers compared the health outcomes of the different groups, they found that “people who got reinfected have an increased risk of all sorts of adverse health problems,” Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis and the study’s senior author, told AFP.
People with repeat infections were twice as likely to die prematurely and three times more likely to be hospitalized with illness than those who had not been reinfected, the study found.
Heart and lung problems were more than three times more common for people who had been reinfected.
Reinfection also contributes to brain conditions, kidney disease and diabetes, the study said.
And the risk of such problems could increase with each infection, it suggested.
Al-Aly warned that this means that continuous reinfections “would likely elevate the burden of disease in the population.”
Epidemiologist recommends masks
Ahead of a feared COVID-19 spike during the holiday season, he called on people to wear masks to protect themselves.
He also urged authorities to do more to stop the disease from circulating.
“The reason reinfection is happening is that our current vaccine strategy does not block transmission,” he said.
“I think reinfections will continue to happen until we have vaccines that block transmission, offer more durable protection, and are variant proof,” he said.
‘Worrisome’ findings
The authors said the limitations of the study included that most of the veteran participants were older white males.
When the study was released as a preprint in June, U.S. expert Eric Topol described the findings as “worrisome.”
In a Substack post, Topol pointed out that reinfections became “much more common” after April — when the study’s timeframe ended — because of new, more transmissible omicron variants.
…
China Wednesday said it would not pay into a climate loss and damage fund for developing nations, after small island nations cited its responsibility as a high carbon emitter at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt, COP27.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, on behalf of the Association of Small Island States, Tuesday called for major greenhouse gas emitters China and India to chip in for a fund to compensate poor countries for the consequences of climate change.
It was the first time developing nations have included China and India among countries financially accountable for emissions.
Beijing would support such a mechanism, but would not pay cash into the loss and damage fund, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said Wednesday.
Xie added that China does is not obliged to contribute but reiterated the country’s alignment with developing nations in seeking such fund from developed countries.
Despite being the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter China has long been categorized as a developing nation and is put into the same group with developing countries at COP for climate discussions.
Developing countries have long urged wealthier nations to deliver on promises of $100 billion a year for climate mitigation and adaptation, but rich nations were found to fall short on that pledge, according to an OECD report.
The pressure from developing nations for China to pay for loss and damage reflects a “diluted view” of the argument that historic emitters should pay the most, according to Scott Moore, director of China programs and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in environmental sustainability and international relations.
“There is a lot of legitimacy to the historic emissions argument. On the other hand, China, in particular, its emissions growth really just in the last 20, 25 years has been so enormous that its emissions are kind of starting to veer into a territory where you can argue that China is actually responsible for a significant share of cumulative emissions,” Moore told VOA by video call.
Historically, China has contributed to about 13% of the world’s carbon emissions since the start of the industrial revolution, while the United States and the EU account for over 20% each. China, along with the United States, was found to release more carbon than their share of world population – China has 19% of the world’s population, but has produced over one-fourth of the world’s carbon emissions.
China’s shifting role
During COP26, last year’s U.N. climate change conference, in Glasgow, Scotland, China and other developing nations sought $1.3 trillion per year from wealthier nations starting 2030. A report from high-level experts at the United Nations, published this month, said by 2030, $2.4 trillion a year would be but only for developing countries “other than China.” The report also said China, along with Western Europe and North America, has dominated the world’s climate finance.
Beijing has been slowly shifting its role to being a donor country, according to Gørild Merethe Heggelund, research professor at Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, who focuses on China’s climate change policies.
“China was a recipient of climate finance for years, but China has now become a donor country. Their role as an aid country is becoming stronger and becoming clearer as it goes on and getting more experience,” Heggelund told VOA via a video call.
At COP21 in 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping established the $3.1 billion South-South Climate Cooperation Fund in a move scientists called “significant,” as it was one of the largest single pledges from developing countries to support climate action. In June this year, Xi injected another $1 billion in the fund that is now named “he Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund.
The addition is part of Xi’s new 2021 Global Development Initiative, which aims to fund projects in the Global South to boost sustainable development and capacity building. In September, officials said over 1,000 programs are planned under the GDI.
Piqued by internal challenges and geopolitics
China is likely to focus more on domestic mitigation efforts than international contributions, Heggelund said.
“China is highly vulnerable to climate change and we’ve seen some of the droughts this summer. They have some challenges at home that they need to address and that they are addressing. I think we can see a little bit of a difference between what China is doing on the global scene and the negotiations, and what they are doing domestically,” he said.
Despite a 3.9% economic growth in this year’s third quarter, China is expected to have a bumpy road to recovery over its continued COVID-19 lockdown curbs, a global recession and a sluggish property market.
Geopolitics will also inevitably play a role in climate negotiations for China, Moore said. “I think for a long time we had sort of hoped and thought that climate change could be kind of special.”
The United States and China joined hands at COP26 for climate cooperation talks amid political tensions. Part of that agreement included discussions about “scaling up of financial and capacity-building support for adaptation in developing countries.”
However, China suspended the bilateral cooperation in August, following U.S. House or Represenatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Beijing said such climate talks “cannot be separated from the broad climate of bilateral ties.” The two sides held unofficial talks at COP27, but have not confirmed whether they would resume climate cooperation.
“We will see climate change and climate action defined by as much by these geopolitical tensions and issues as anything else,” said Moore.
Published with support of Climate Tracker’s Climate Justice Fellowship
…
The widespread retrenchment in the U.S. technology industry has thrown thousands of workers in Silicon Valley out of work, a trend greatly amplified on Wednesday by Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, which announced it would eliminate 13% of its workforce, amounting to more than 11,000 jobs.
The announcement followed on the heels of major layoffs at other tech firms, most recently Twitter, which is restructuring in the aftermath of its takeover by Tesla founder Elon Musk, and also business software firm Salesforce and social media giant Snap, Inc.
Other major tech firms, including Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have said that they will slow or curtail new hiring.
Announcing the job cuts, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted he had made an error in judgment by assuming the sharp growth in online commerce that coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic signaled a permanent change in consumer habits.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in a statement released Wednesday. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Market reacts
The move by Meta to cut costs was applauded by many investors, some of whom have been calling on the company to pay more attention to its bottom line.
Brad Gerstner, founder of Altimeter Capital and a vocal proponent of change at Meta, used Twitter to voice his approval of Zuckerberg’s announcement on Wednesday morning.
Calling the move an “important first step,” he wrote, “Innovation wins when companies are healthy and fit. The cultural mindset shift from the dangerous era of excess/free money will define the next [generation] of winners.”
Meta’s share price, which had plunged from more than $345 last November to below $89 last week, got a boost from the news. After closing at $96.48 on Tuesday, Meta shares opened the day above $100, and closed up 5% at $101.47.
Other layoffs
Employees leaving Meta and seeking other employment in the tech sector will enter a challenging environment, given the sudden layoffs of thousands of their fellow workers across the sector.
Last week, Twitter announced it would lay off about 3,700 people, or approximately half of its workforce. The layoffs occurred in Twitter offices around the world but were concentrated in the United States. The company has reportedly asked some of the workers originally let go to return, but the overwhelming majority are expected to remain separated from the company.
San Francisco-based Salesforce announced Monday it would lay off approximately 2,500 people. That revelation came just weeks after the company’s largest competitor, software giant Microsoft, eliminated nearly 1,000 jobs in October.
This continues a trend that has been accelerating since early this year as a parade of other tech firms, including Seagate, Snap, Intel, Netflix, Shopify, Lyft and others have either cut jobs or restricted hiring.
Some perspective
Representative Ro Khanna, the Democratic member of Congress who represents a district including large segments of Silicon Valley, was asked during an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday whether he thought the region would be able to “survive” the economic shock of the thousands of layoffs.
Khanna said some perspective was in order, noting that his district alone is home to companies with $10 trillion in market value and would be able to bounce back, though perhaps not without a broader economic recovery.
“I think we’re a leading indicator of some of the slowing in the economy,” Khanna said. “But I have no doubt that these companies are very resilient and we’ll come back.”
Visa holders
The impact of the layoffs will be particularly harsh on immigrants working at U.S. tech firms. Many hold H-1B visas, which means their ability to remain in the U.S. is dependent on continued employment by a company willing to sponsor their visa applications.
H-1B visa holders, in general, face a 60-day deadline to find a new job. If they fail to do so, they are required to leave the country.
According to data compiled by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the overwhelming majority of H-1B visa holders work in the technology field. In 2019, the agency reported that of the 387,492 H-1B visa holders in the country whose occupations were known, 256,226, or 66%, worked in “computer-related fields.”
H-1B visas are disproportionately issued to citizens of India, who held 71.7% of outstanding visas in 2019. The next largest recipient are citizens of China, who held 13% of H-1B visas in 2019. Canada came in third at 1.2% and no other country’s citizens held more than 1% of the total.
In his public statement, Zuckerberg acknowledged that “this [workforce reduction] is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa.” He said Meta would have dedicated immigration specialists available “to help guide you based on what you and your family need.”
Global impact
The layoffs in Silicon Valley-based tech firms have also echoed around the world, particularly at Twitter, where staff at several international offices were let go en masse.
Bloomberg News reported that Twitter laid off some 90% of its employees in India, the majority in the company’s product and engineering teams. In Ghana, the site of the company’s only office on the African continent, nearly all of the company’s 20 employees received termination notices.
Meta has several hundred employees in India, spread across Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, two other social media companies it owns. It was unclear Wednesday how the layoffs would affect staff there.
…
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Wednesday announced the creation of a carbon offset plan meant to help developing countries speed their transition away from fossil fuels.
Kerry launched the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) with the intention of funding renewable energy projects and accelerating clean energy transitions in developing countries.
The United States will develop the program with the Bezos Earth Fund and Rockefeller Foundation, with input from the public and private sectors which would operate through 2030 and possibly be extended to 2035.
Kerry said Chile and Nigeria were among the developing countries to have shown early interest in the ETA, and that Bank of America, Microsoft, PepsiCo and Standard Chartered Bank had voiced interest in “informing the ETA’s development”.
“Our intention is to put the carbon market to work to deploy capital to speed the transition from dirty to clean power specifically, to retire unabated coal-fired power and accelerate the buildout of renewables,” he said at the event launch on Wednesday. Kerry added that the carbon credits used in the program would be “high quality” and meet “strong safeguards”.
The U.S. climate envoy acknowledged widespread criticism of voluntary carbon offset schemes raised by environmental groups and a task force created by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which on Tuesday recommended that carbon credits be used sparingly by companies and governments to avoiding undermining their net-zero emission plans.
Kerry said Guterres was supportive of the U.S.-led carbon market initiative provided there were safeguards to it.
The two had met earlier on Wednesday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
Environmental groups panned the initiative, saying that the scheme would delay real efforts to slash emissions.
“A voluntary carbon credit program won’t guarantee deep, real cuts in emissions – it’s tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs as the climate ship is going down,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
At the event launch, a protester interrupted Kerry saying: “You’re providing false solutions.”
Kerry responded that fossil fuel companies would not participate in the program.
…
Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.
The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.
Zuckerberg as well said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic ended.
“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a prepared statement. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.
An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta’s woes. This summer, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.
Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.
Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day,” though did not provide details about the losses.
Meta has worried investors by pouring over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.
Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple’s privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.
Competition from TikTok is also an a growing threat as younger people flock to the video sharing app over Instagram, which Meta also owns.
“We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint,” Zuckerberg said. ”We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.”
Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go.
…
NASA again rescheduled its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Nicole churned toward the east coast of Florida, officials said.
A launch attempt, which had been scheduled for November 14, will now take place on November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the U.S. space agency, said on Twitter.
It is the third delay of the highly anticipated launch in as many months.
“Our people are the most important aspect of our mission,” wrote Free, who is NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development. “Adjusting our target launch date for #Artemis I prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to tend to the needs of their families and homes.”
The Atlantic Ocean storm was expected to develop into a hurricane Wednesday near the Bahamas, before making landfall in Florida either later that evening or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.
A hurricane warning has been issued near the Kennedy Space Center, where the rocket — NASA’s most powerful ever — is to blast off.
With Nicole gaining strength, “NASA … has decided to retarget a launch for the Artemis I mission for Wednesday, November 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday evening.
NASA added that a launch occurring during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) on November 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, December 11.
A back-up launch date has been set for November 19.
NASA said it would leave the 98-meter SLS rocket on the launch pad, where it had been placed several days before.
After two launch attempts were scrubbed this summer because of technical problems, the rocket had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building to protect it from Hurricane Ian.
Earlier Tuesday, Nicole was packing sustained winds near 100 kilometers per hour with higher gusts and was expected to strengthen even further, according to the NHC.
Some experts have voiced concern that the rocket, which is estimated to cost several billion dollars, could be damaged by debris from the hurricane if it remains exposed.
The SLS rocket is designed to withstand 136 kph winds at the 18-meter level, NASA said. It is designed to also withstand heavy rains at the launch pad and the spacecraft hatches have been secured to prevent water intrusion.
The uncrewed mission, dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.
The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.
Mannequins are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration, and radiation levels.
…
The Horn of Africa’s record drought has dried up wide areas of land and vegetation, left millions of livestock dead and threatened the survival of both wildlife and people. In Kenya, to reduce the impact of drought, a Dutch conservation group is helping ethnic Maasai to restore parched lands through rainwater harvesting. But with a failed rainy season forecast for the fifth time in a row, some are asking whether conservation efforts will be enough. Reporter Juma Majanga has more from Amboseli Kenya. Videographer: Juma Majanga
…
The Ugandan government says it will end the school year earlier than planned because of an Ebola outbreak that has affected 23 students, including eight children who died.
Millions of Ugandan students in primary and secondary schools will be affected by the decision to end the semester two weeks early, due to the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak.
Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the state minister for education, announced the closure on Tuesday.
“Pre-primary, primary and secondary schools will close for Term 3 holidays on Friday, 25th November 2022,” Kaducu said.
According to the Ministry of Education, Ebola cases were found at five schools in the Kampala, Wakiso and Mubende districts.
Kaducu said the Cabinet of President Yoweri Museveni made the decision to close schools nationwide based on concerns that crowded schools will increase infection rates for the virus.
The schools with affected children have been cordoned off and are being asked to decontaminate their facilities so children can safely return after the new year.
The decision to end the school term early is a disappointment to many families. Ugandan schools were closed for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic before reopening earlier this year.
…
Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter comes as the U.S. holds midterm elections this week, with observers warning that online misinformation about the credibility of the electoral process can have real-world effects. Is Twitter, under Musk, ready? Tina Trinh reports. Michelle Quinn contributed.
…
Jimmy Kimmel is ready to host the Oscars again, completing a trilogy that started with him presiding over the chaotic “envelope-gate” ceremony.
The late-night talk show host will preside over the ceremony in March, the show’s producers said Monday.
“We’re super thrilled to have Jimmy score his hat trick on this global stage,” executive producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner said in a joint statement. “We know he will be funny and ready for anything!”
Kimmel has hosted the show twice before, in 2017, when he managed the chaotic final moments in which the wrong best picture winner was called, and then the next year, which came just months into the #MeToo reckoning.
“Being invited to host the Oscars for a third time is either a great honor or a trap,” Kimmel said. “Either way, I am grateful to the academy for asking me so quickly after everyone good said no.”
After the 90th Oscars in 2018, which Kimmel hosted to generally positive reviews, the Academy Awards went without a host until the 94th ceremony earlier this year when Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes shared the stage.
“Jimmy is the perfect host to help us recognize the incredible artists and films of our 95th Oscars,” added academy CEO Bill Kramer and academy President Janet Yang. “His love of movies, live TV expertise, and ability to connect with our global audiences will create an unforgettable experience for our millions of viewers worldwide.”
Molly McNearney, who is the co-head writer and executive producer of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and is married to Kimmel, will also serve as an executive producer on the Oscars broadcast. Ratings have been on a bit of a rollercoaster for the esteemed Hollywood awards show. The 94th Oscars was an improvement with 15.36 million viewers, but that was also in comparison to the previous year’s record low, which befell many COVID-modified awards shows. As always ratings will be paramount for broadcaster ABC.
“Having Jimmy Kimmel return to host the Oscars is a dream come true. As we see every night on his own show, Jimmy can handle anything with both heart and humor, and we know that he will deliver the laughs and celebratory moments that define the Oscars,” said Craig Erwich, president of ABC Entertainment, Hulu & Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals. “We love being the home of Hollywood’s biggest night and can’t wait to toast the success of this year’s cinema and storytelling.”
This next event is a landmark anniversary year for the show, and the first to follow “the slap,” in which Will Smith struck presenter Chris Rock on stage. Smith, who went on to win best actor that night, was banned from the Oscars for 10 years as a result. The organization’s leadership has said that they’d like to move on from the slap and focus on a ceremony that celebrates cinema.
The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live on ABC in more than 200 territories worldwide.
…
Facebook parent company Meta is preparing to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to U.S. media reports.
The layoffs, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are expected to affect thousands of employees and would be the company’s first job cuts of this scale in its 18-year history.
The job cuts are expected to come as early as Wednesday.
Meta has not commented on the news reports.
The expected layoffs would follow a string of job cuts at technology companies in recent months, including Twitter, Microsoft, Lyft and Stripe.
Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said in his company’s last earnings call in October that “we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
He said the company would focus its investments on a small number of “high priority growth areas” while most other teams would “stay flat or shrink over the next year.”
Meta, along with other technology firms, are facing economic pressures on several fronts, including slowing economic growth, rising interest rates that force digital advertisers to cut back, and increasing interest rates, which make it more expensive for companies like Meta to borrow money.
Social media companies are also facing growing competition from newer rivals like TikTok and Snapchat.
Twitter cut around half of its staff last week after Tesla billionaire Elon Musk took over the company.
Bloomberg News is reporting that Twitter is now reaching out to dozens of recently fired employees and asking them to return.
It said some employees were let go by mistake while others were laid off before management realized their skills would be useful for the company’s plans.
Some information in this report came from Reuters.
Better catch the moon’s disappearing act Tuesday — there won’t be another like it for three years.
The total lunar eclipse will be visible throughout North America in the predawn hours — the farther west, the better — and across Asia, Australia and the rest of the Pacific after sunset. As an extra treat, Uranus will be visible just a finger’s width above the moon, resembling a bright star.
Totality will last nearly 1 1/2 hours — from 5:16 a.m. to 6:42 a.m. EST — as Earth passes directly between the moon and sun.
Known as a blood moon, it will appear a reddish orange from the light of Earth’s sunsets and sunrises. At the peak of the eclipse, the moon will be 390,653 kilometers away, according to NASA scientists. Binoculars and telescopes will enhance viewing, provided the skies are clear.
South America will get a glimpse of Tuesday’s lunar eclipse, weather permitting. Striking out altogether, Africa, the Middle East and most of Europe will have to wait until 2025.
Among those providing a livestream of Tuesday’s lunar extravaganza: Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and the Italian-based Virtual Telescope Project.
It’s the second total lunar eclipse this year; the first was in May. The next one won’t be until 2025. Plenty of partial lunar eclipses will be available in the meantime.
…
Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, with an announcement planned as early as Wednesday.
Meta declined to comment on the WSJ report.
Facebook parent Meta in October forecasted a weak holiday quarter and significantly more costs next year wiping about $67 billion off Meta’s stock market value, adding to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already lost this year.
The disappointing outlook comes as Meta is contending with slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to bear fruit. In the meantime, he has had to freeze hiring, shutter projects and reorganize teams to trim costs.
“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas. So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today” Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call in late October.
The social media company had in June cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30%, with Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for an economic downturn.
Meta’s shareholder Altimeter Capital Management in an open letter to Zuckerberg had previously said the company needs to streamline by cutting jobs and capital expenditure, adding that Meta has lost investor confidence as it ramped up spending and pivoted to the metaverse.
Several technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., Twitter and Snap have cut jobs and scaled back hiring in recent months as global economic growth slows due to higher interest rates, rising inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.
…
Kenyans Evans Chebet and Sharon Lokedi made huge splashes in their New York City Marathon debuts Sunday.
Chebet won the men’s race and Lokedi the women’s race in her first-ever marathon on an unseasonably warm day, with temperatures in the 70s making it one of the hottest in race history since the marathon was moved to November in 1986.
Chebet finished in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 41 seconds, which was 13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Shura Kitata of Ethiopia.
There was a scary moment in the men’s race when Daniel Do Nascimento, who had been leading the entire way, collapsed 21 miles in. Race officials said later that he was OK.
The Brazilian ran the first half of the race in a blistering 1:01.22, which put him 2 minutes ahead of the course record pace. He had been leading by nearly 2 minutes for the first 15 miles before he started to slow down a bit.
Do Nascimento went down right before heading back into Manhattan and was quickly attended to by medical professionals. A few miles earlier, he had taken a quick 20-second bathroom break and also had stopped to walk briefly a few minutes before he collapsed.
Chebet saw Do Nascimento on the ground and said he “felt bad for him but had to continue to race.”
“He knew that it was hot and humid and (Do Nascimento) was going at a high pace,” Chebet said through a translator. “He has a lot of experience, and he knew he was going to surpass him.”
Chebet, 33, pulled away from the pack when chasing Do Nascimento as they headed over the bridge into Manhattan for the first time. After Do Nascimento’s collapse, Chebet took the lead and wasn’t threatened the rest of the way.
Chebet won the Boston Marathon earlier this year.
“Boston was actually harder and it prepared him for the win for New York,” the translator said for Chebet. “He’s very thankful.”
The victory continued a drought for American men in the race: No runner from the U.S. has won since 2009. The Americans’ top hope, Galen Rupp, was in the chase pack before withdrawing from the race right before the 19-mile mark.
It was Lokedi’s first-ever marathon, and she finished in 2:23.23 — just ahead of Lonah Chemtai Salpeter of Israel.
“I’m just so happy that I just won, you know?!” said Lokedi, laughing. “I’m really excited, just so happy that I did it here. The people out there, the course was amazing, the cheers, everything. I’m just thankful.”
The 28-year-old was in a tight race before she pulled ahead of Chemtai Salpeter in the final 2 miles to win by seven seconds and finish about 50 seconds off the course record.
“I didn’t expect to win, I expected to run well,” Lokedi said. “It was a good outcome and I’m really excited.”
An hour earlier, the men’s and women’s wheelchair races ended with course records being broken.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland was victorious in the men’s wheelchair race for the fifth time, tying Kurt Fearnley for most-ever victories in that event. Hug finished the 26.2-mile (42.2 kilometers) course that goes through all five boroughs of New York in 1:25.26 to break the previous mark of 1:29.22 set by Fearnley of Australia in 2006.
“The conditions were great for us. A tail wind the first half. It was very good conditions. I think that’s the reason,” Hug said of the record time. “I didn’t know the time. My goal was to go as fast as possible and didn’t focus on the time.”
Hug, who also won the race last year, earned $50,000 for besting the course record. He crossed the finish line more than 2 minutes ahead of second-place finisher Daniel Romanchuk of Illinois.
The 36-year-old Hug, nicknamed the “The Silver Bullet,” has been on quite a streak, winning four gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics last year as well as the Tokyo, Berlin, London and Chicago Marathons in 2022.
Susannah Scaroni also broke the course record in the women’s wheelchair race, finishing in 1:42.43. That was 21 seconds better than the old mark, which was held by Tatyana McFadden.
Scaroni, a 31-year-old from Illinois, pulled away from the field early and also earned the bonus money for topping the course record. Scaroni won the Chicago Marathon last month and was victorious for the first time in New York after finishing third in 2019.
The warm weather wasn’t ideal for the 50,000 runners who started the 51st edition of the marathon, which was back to full capacity for the first time since the pandemic. Race organizers said that there were nine misting stations on the 26.2-mile (42.2 kilometers) racecourse and there was plenty of water available along the way as well as bananas and energy gels.
There were a couple of celebrities who ran the race, including Ashton Kutcher and Chelsea Clinton, who completed it for a second straight year. Both were running for charity.
Samantha Judge, the wife of New York Yankees’ home run champion Aaron Judge, also ran the marathon. The baseball free agent presented her with her medal when she finished along with Yankees outfielder/designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton.
…
When world leaders, diplomats, campaigners and scientists descend on Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for talks on tackling climate change, don’t expect them to part the Red Sea or other miracles that would make huge steps in curbing global warming.
Each year there are high hopes for the two-week United Nations climate gathering and, almost inevitably, disappointment when it doesn’t deliver another landmark pact like the one agreed 2015 in Paris.
But those were different days, marked by a spirit of cooperation between the world’s two biggest polluters — the United States and China — as well as a global realization that failure to reach an agreement would put humanity on a self-chosen track to oblivion.
This November the geopolitical tiles have shifted: a devastating war in Ukraine, skyrocketing energy and food prices, and growing enmity between the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other make for difficult conditions at a gathering that requires cooperation and consensus.
“There’s a lot of high and low expectations around this Egypt COP, a lot of mix of ambition and fatalism,” said Avinash Persaud, special envoy for the Barbados prime minister.
Here’s what to look out for during the 27th Conference of the Parties, or COP27, from Nov. 6-18 and why it might still end up being a success.
Science warnings
Scientists are more concerned about global warming than three decades ago, when governments first came together to discuss the problem because the pace of warming in the past decade is 33% faster than in the 1990s.
Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, while tangible impacts from climate change are already being felt around the world.
But there is some progress. Before Paris, the world was heading for 4.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times.
Recent forecasts have that down to 2.6 C, thanks to measures taken or firm commitments governments have already made. That’s far above the 1.5 C limit countries agreed to seven years ago, however, and the time for keeping that target is fast running out.
Researchers say the world has already warmed by 1.2 C and capping temperatures at 1.5 C would require emissions to drop by 43% by the end of the decade, a highly ambitious goal. To get to the less ambitious 2 C goal emissions have to fall 27%.
“The 1.5 degrees is in intensive care and the machines are shaking. So, it is in high danger. But it is still possible,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “My objective in Egypt is to make sure that we gather enough political will to make this possibility really moving forward, to make the machines work … We’re getting close to moments where tipping points might, at a certain moment, make it irreversibly impossible to achieve. Let’s avoid it at all costs.”
Energy scramble
Prices for oil, coal and natural gas have jumped since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some countries have responded by trying to tap new sources of fossil fuel.
This has raised concerns about governments backsliding on their commitments to cut emissions, including the agreement at last year’s climate talks to “phase down” the use of coal and sharply reduce the amount of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — released into the atmosphere.
At the same time, rising fossil fuel prices have made renewable energy more competitive. Building solar and wind power plants remains more expensive for developing countries though. To help them cut their emissions quickly, rich nations are negotiating aid projects known as ‘just transition energy partnerships’, or JET-Ps, with several major emerging economies including Indonesia and India that could be finalized during or shortly after COP27.
Climate finance
One of the big sticking points in past negotiations concerned the financial support poor countries receive from rich nations to cope with climate change.
A deadline to provide $100 billion annually by 2020 was missed and now looks set to be achieved only next year. Future funding needs are likely to be in the trillions, not billions, said Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s lead negotiator.
“The gap on finance is huge,” he said, noting that half the population of Africa doesn’t yet have access to electricity, much less clean energy.
Developed countries including the United States have also yet to make good on a pledge to double the amount they provide for adaptation, and make that half of the overall funding.
Discussions on climate finance also include the highly contentious issue of countries being compensated for the irreparable harm they’ve suffered as a result of global warming. Big polluters have strongly opposed demands for ‘loss and damage’ payments in the past, but observers say they’ve seen a softening of positions recently, including by the United States.
“I think that people are not expecting miracles in terms of a huge fund just miraculously appearing, but they are expecting a credible, meaningful pathway,” said Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.
This would give countries that have done very little to cause the climate crisis but are on the front line of dealing with it “something to hold on to,” she said.
Activist voices
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is not coming to this year’s gathering and recently called the U.N. process a “scam.”
Other activists have also voiced frustration at the slow pace of negotiations, given the scale of the threat posed by climate change. But Harjeet Singh of Climate Action Network International said there is no other space where all countries are equal.
“Tuvalu theoretically is as powerful as the U.S. and Malawi as powerful as the European Union,” he said of the talks. “For us as civil society it’s also a place to call out these countries, to call their bluff, to put a spotlight on those polluters and raise our voices.”
University of Maryland social scientist Dana Fisher, who studies the environmental movement, said given Egypt’s authoritarian government and an escalation of in-your-face tactics by frustrated protestors, especially youth, she would not be surprised if there are clashes.
“There’s going to be a vanguard of them who are going to be willing to break the law and engage in probably what will start out as civil disobedience, peaceful civil disobedience,” Fisher said. “And they’re probably going to get beaten up. And it’s going to be very good for mobilizing sympathizers.”
Egypt has insisted that campaigners will have “full opportunity of participation, of activism, of demonstration, of voicing that opinion.”
Eye on Africa
The gathering in Egypt will be the first time since 2016 that U.N. climate talks have taken place in Africa. Experts say it is important the continent gets more attention, given how heavily it is affected by rising temperatures.
“If we look at the 50 countries that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts and who have the least resilience, these are low income countries and most of them are in Africa,” said Preety Bhandari of the World Resources Institute. “So it is fortuitous that we are having this particular COP in Africa to highlight what the vulnerable countries are asking from the climate regime.”
Campaigners say that recognizing the challenges Africa faces and prioritizing the needs of vulnerable countries is essential for a successful outcome this year.
…
South Korean team DRX were crowned League of Legends world champions on Saturday after scoring a surprise 3-2 victory over compatriots T1 in a thrilling final of the eSports tournament in San Francisco.
T1, the most successful team in eSports history, started as favorites and took the lead in the first round of the competition.
But DRX took command after many upsets, in particular thanks to 19-year-old Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo.
Their win, the team’s first-ever, was highly anticipated for talented 26-year-old Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu, who started competing in 2014 but had only made it past the quarterfinals once, also in 2014.
No player so “old” had ever won the world championships until this year.
The final took place at the Chase Center in San Francisco, home to the Golden State Warriors NBA team, in front of some 16,000 spectators.
The League of Legends World Championship is considered one of the most prestigious eSports tournaments.
…
The German version of the television show The Voice had a special guest Saturday on its final episode of the season.
Rana Mansour, an Iranian American singer, performed the protest song For, (Baraye) a song dedicated to Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian woman who died recently after being arrested by Iranian police. Amini was detained for wearing her headscarf “improperly.”
Mansour performed the song in English so that it could be understood by an international audience.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets across Iran since Amini’s death, protesting not only her death, but the restrictions that many, especially women, face in Iran.
At the end of her performance, Mansour held up her fingers in the Victory sign and said, “Woman, life, freedom,” a phrase chanted by Iranian protesters.
Mansour received a standing ovation.
…
For now and forever, Dusty Baker, the epic storyteller, first-class name-dropper, toothpick chewer and baseball lifer will bear a most distinguished title: World Series champion manager.
The man who can weave a tale like few others, wistfully recalling his time under Hank Aaron’s tutelage or chance encounters with Jimi Hendrix, John F. Kennedy Jr. and countless more, completed the only missing chapter in his own story Saturday night.
After 25 seasons as a big league skipper peppered with a couple of painful near-misses, the 73-year-old Baker finally made it all the way home when his Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 to win the title.
When Yordan Alvarez connected on a go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning, cameras panned to a beaming Baker who raised both arms high above his head.
He became the oldest manager to win a World Series in his third trip as a manager to the Fall Classic. As a player he went three times with the Dodgers, winning it all in 1981.
He entered Saturday’s game as the winningest manager without a World Series title and improved to 2,094-1,790 with this most memorable victory.
“I got 2,000 wins and all they talk about is I haven’t won the World Series yet,” he said Thursday.
They can’t say that anymore.
He joins Dave Roberts (Dodgers, 2020) and Cito Gaston (Blue Jays, 1992, 1993) as the only Black managers to win a World Series.
“I don’t think about being an African American manager because I look in the mirror every day and I know what I am,” he said before the game. “You know what I’m saying? (But) I do know that there’s certain pressure from a lot of people that are pulling for me, especially people of color. And that part I do feel. I hear it every day. and so I feel that I’ve been chosen for this.”
He helped the Astros to their second World Series title and first since the scandal-tainted one in 2017 that made Houston the most hated team in baseball. Baker helped clean up the team’s image after that and some begrudgingly began rooting for the Astros because they admired him.
While beloved across the game, he quickly became a fan favorite in Houston. Saturday night several fans proudly displayed signs that read “Do it 4 Dusty.”
Baker is the 12th manager in major league history to reach 2,000 wins and the first Black man to do it. Ten of the 11 other managers who have accumulated at least 2,000 wins are in the Hall of Fame. Bruce Bochy (2,003), who isn’t yet eligible, is the only exception.
Baker managed San Francisco, the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati and Washington before coming to Houston. He’s the only manager in major league history to take five different teams to the postseason.
Baker had come close before. In 2002, his San Francisco Giants starring Barry Bonds entered Game 6 against the Anaheim Angels a win away from a title. As the road team for the last two games of that series, the Giants squandered a five-run lead in a 6-5 loss in the sixth game before the Angels won the title with a 4-1 victory in Game 7.
After the crushing loss in Game 7, Baker met with his father, Johnnie B. Baker Sr., who delivered a harsh message.
“He goes: ‘Man, after the way (you) lost that one, I don’t know if you’ll ever win another one,’” Baker recalled last year.
Even though his father has been gone for more than a decade he still thinks about him every day and often recalls that moment. He’s been driven to prove his father wrong.
After being fired by the Nationals following a 97-win season in 2017, Baker wondered if he’d ever get another shot to manage, much less win that elusive title.
Back home in Northern California, as he worked on his wine business and grew collard greens in his garden, he often felt perplexed he had been passed over for interviews so many times as managerial openings came and went, having made inquiries that he said were unanswered over the years.
Then came 2019 and the stunning revelation that the Astros had illicitly stolen signs in 2017 and again in 2018. Manager A.J. Hinch was suspended for a year and subsequently fired, making way for Baker to return to the game.
Baker took over for the 2020 COVID-19-shortened season. The Astros squeaked into the postseason as a wild-card team before heating up in playoffs to come one win shy of reaching the World Series.
Baker made his return to the Series last season but came up short again as Houston fell to Atlanta in six games.
Baker was lifelong friends with Aaron, who died in January 2021 at 86. He joked that he probably didn’t have Aaron on his side last year against his Braves, but that things should be different this time around.
“He was probably rooting for the Braves last year,” Baker said last month. “I figure now he’s rooting for me.”
Hammerin’ Hank would certainly have been proud to see his buddy finally reach this milestone since Baker was by his side for his biggest one.
Baker was on deck and among the Braves congregated at the plate to celebrate with Aaron on April 8, 1974, when he hit his 715th home run to pass Babe Ruth for most all-time.
Baker thought about his dad, mom, Aaron and so many others he’s lost earlier this week.
“A couple days ago it was All Souls Day and I think about all the guys that I’ve played with and grew up with and that influenced my life,” he said. “And you think about the souls that – All Souls Day is about the angels that are protecting you. And I believe in that.”
Baker went through his normal routine before coming to the ballpark Saturday. He picked up coffee from a favorite spot in Rice Village and retrieved his clothes from the dry cleaners.
Baker also went to the cobbler to get some “expensive shoes” that he was having repaired because the sole came off.
Good thing, too, because after Saturday night’s win he’ll need a nice pair of shoes at the end of his career for a likely walk into the Hall of Fame.
…
U.N. rights chief Volker Turk on Saturday urged Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, to make respect for human rights central to the social network after he sacked around half the company’s employees.
Reports of Musk laying off the platform’s entire human rights team were “not, from my perspective, an encouraging start,” Turk said in an open letter.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was writing with “concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it.”
He warned against propagating hate speech and misinformation and highlighted the need to protect user privacy.
Musk, the richest person in the world, took control of the platform a week ago in a contentious deal.
After completing his mammoth $44 billion acquisition, Musk quickly set about dissolving Twitter’s board and sacking its chief executive and top managers.
Twitter on Friday fired roughly half of its 7,500-strong workforce.
“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” wrote Turk.
“Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution. In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership.”
Turk posted the open letter on Twitter, where he has more than 25,000 followers.
Turk, an Austrian longtime U.N. official who took up his post as the U.N. rights chief on Oct. 17, spelt out some fundamental human rights principles, urging Musk to put them at the heart of Twitter’s management going forward.
‘Horrific’ consequences
Turk urged Twitter to stand up for the rights to privacy and free expression to the fullest extent possible, under relevant laws, and to transparently report on government pressures that would infringe those rights.
But he said free speech “is not a free pass,” saying that the viral spread of harmful disinformation, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in real-world harm.
“Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplifying content that results in harms to people’s rights,” Turk said.
“There is no place for hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence on Twitter.
“Hate speech has spread like wildfire on social media… with horrific, life-threatening consequences.”
Twitter should therefore continue to bar such hatred on the platform, while every effort should be made to remove such content promptly, said Turk.
He also said free speech depended on the effective protection of privacy.
“It is vital that Twitter refrain from invasive user tracking and amassing related data and that it resist, to the fullest extent possible under applicable laws, unjustified requests from governments for user data,” Turk said.
He said research was essential to understand the impact of social media on societies, and therefore urged Musk to maintain access to Twitter’s data through its open application programming interfaces.
Finally, he stressed that Twitter should have content moderation capacity in all languages and contexts, not just in the United States or in English-language content.
…
Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead Saturday at his home in Southern California. He was 34.
Representatives for Carter’s family confirmed the singer’s death. They did not provide any immediate further comment.
Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brother’s boy band, and appeared on the family’s reality series “House of Carters” that aired on E! Entertainment Television.
Deputies responded around 11 a.m. following reports of a medical emergency at the home in Lancaster, a desert city about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles, said Deputy Alejandra Parra with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Parra said the deputies found a deceased person at the residence, but she could not immediately confirm it was Carter.
Carter’s fiancé, Melanie Martin, asked for privacy as the family grieves.
“We are still in the process of accepting this unfortunate reality,” Martin said in a statement Saturday. “Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.”
Hits included ‘I Want Candy’
Carter opened for the Backstreet Boys tour in 1997 — the same year his gold-selling debut self-titled album was released. He reached triple-platinum status with his sophomore album in 2000, “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” which produced hit singles including the title song and “I Want Candy.” His videos received regular airplay on Disney and Nickelodeon.
The singer earned acting credits through his appearance on television shows including “Lizzie McGuire.” He starred alongside his brother, Nick, and their siblings B.J., Leslie and Angel Carter on the E! unscripted series “House of Carters” in 2006.
Music and dancing
Carter made his Broadway debut in 2001 as JoJo in “Who in Seussical the Musical.” In 2009, he appeared on the ABC competition show “Dancing with the Stars,” finishing in fifth place with partner Karina Smirnoff. He was featured on the Food Network cooking show “Rachel vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off” in 2012.
In 2017, Carter opened up about his substance abuse on an episode of “The Doctors.” He was in rehab that same year after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and marijuana charges. He checked himself in for treatment on a few occasions in an effort to regain custody of his son Prince.
Carter’s fifth and final studio album, “LOVE,” was released in 2018.
…
Twitter on Saturday launched a subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check now given only to verified accounts as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the platform’s verification system just ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
In an update to Apple iOS devices, Twitter said users who “sign up now” can receive the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.” So far, verified accounts do not appear to be losing their checks.
Anyone being able to get the blue check could lead to confusion and the rise of disinformation ahead of Tuesday’s elections if impostors decide to pay for the subscription and co-opt the names of politicians and election officials. Along with widespread layoffs that began Friday, many fear the social platform that public agencies, election boards, police departments and news outlets use to keep people reliably informed could become lawless if content moderation and verification are chipped away.
The change represents the end of Twitter’s current verification system, which was launched in 2009 to prevent impersonations of high-profile accounts such as celebrities and politicians. Before the overhaul, Twitter had about 423,000 verified accounts, many of them rank-and-file journalists from around the globe that the company verified regardless of how many followers they had.
Experts have raised grave concerns about upending the platform’s verification system that, while not perfect, has helped Twitter’s 238 million daily users determine whether the accounts they were getting information from were authentic. Current verified accounts include celebrities, athletes, influencers and other high-profile public figures, along with government agencies and politicians worldwide, journalists and news outlets, activists and businesses and brands.
The update Twitter made to the iOS version of its app does not mention verification as part of the new blue check system.
Musk, who had earlier said that he wants to “verify all humans” on Twitter, has floated that public figures would be identified in ways other than the blue check. Currently, for instance, government officials are identified with text under names stating that they are posting from an official government account.
President Joe Biden’s @POTUS account, for example, says in gray letters it belongs to a “United States government official.”
Co-founder Dorsey apologizes for job losses
The change comes a day after Twitter began laying off workers to cut costs and as more companies are pausing advertising on the platform as a cautious corporate world waits to see how it will operate under its new owner.
About half of the company’s staff of 7,500 was let go, tweeted Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity.
He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group the least affected by the job cuts and that “efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combating state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.”
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey Saturday took blame for the widespread job losses. He had two runs as CEO of Twitter, with the most recent stretching from 2015 into 2021.
“I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly,” he tweeted. “I apologize for that.”
Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as a severance.
Revenue already falling
Meanwhile, Twitter has already seen “a massive drop in revenue” because of pressure from activist groups on advertisers to get off the platform, Musk tweeted Friday. That hits Twitter hard because of its heavy reliance so far on advertising to make money. During the first six months of this year, nearly $92 of every $100 it made in revenue came from advertising.
United Airlines Saturday became the latest major brand to pause advertising on Twitter, confirming the move but declining to discuss the reasons for it or what it would need to see to resume advertising on the platform.
It joined the growing list of big companies pausing ads on Twitter, including General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi.
Musk tried to reassure advertisers last week, saying Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” because of what he calls his commitment to free speech.
But concerns remain about whether a lighter touch on content moderation at Twitter will result in users sending out more offensive tweets. That could hurt companies’ brands if their advertisements appear next to them.
…
World health officials are linking a significant rise in African Ebola outbreaks in this century to climate change.
Uganda’s September 20 Ebola outbreak is just the latest in a growing number of eruptions of this deadly hemorrhagic disease in Africa. Since 2000, the World Health Organization has reported 32 outbreaks of Ebola, 19 in the last decade compared to 13 in the preceding one.
Ebola is one of a range of zoonotic diseases — infections originating in animals and jumping to humans. A WHO analysis finds Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers constitute nearly 70% of these outbreaks. The remaining 30% include dengue fever, anthrax, plague, and monkeypox.
WHO Africa incident manager for the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, Patrick Otim, says the number of zoonotic diseases occurring in the region in the last decade has increased by more than 63%.
“There have been a couple of researchers that have shown a possible link between the climatic changes that we are seeing and the increase in zoonotic diseases, and for this particular case for Ebola, for instance,” he said.
Otim said diseases are caused by several factors. Ebola, he said, is strongly influenced by the human factor. As populations increase and people encroach on wildlife habitats, interaction with animals increases. This, he said, increases the spread of disease to humans.
Otim said temperature and climatic changes also spur migration and movement of some Ebola virus hosts.
“For the Ebola virus, we know that the bats and other animals are hosts of this particular virus,” he said. So, when they move from areas where, for instance, there is drought or whether areas that are no longer conducive for them and they move to favorable areas, they may move into an area where the human population is inhabiting and therefore the interaction between the humans increases.”
WHO says Ebola now has spread to seven districts in Uganda beyond the original epicenter in the Mubende district. The latest reports put the number of cases at 131, including 48 deaths.
The current Ebola outbreak in Uganda has been triggered by the so-called Sudan strain for which there is no vaccine. WHO said several promising candidate vaccines soon will undergo clinical trials to evaluate their potential against Ebola.
…
More than 120 world leaders will attend this year’s U.N. climate talks, and requests by environmental activists to stage a rally during the event would be responded to “positively,” host Egypt said.
Veteran diplomat Wael Aboulmagd, who heads the Egyptian delegation, told reporters Friday that his country had been working for months to set the scene for “meaningful outcomes” at the two-week meeting in the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh starting Sunday.
“We have, I think about 121 maybe, and the number is growing, heads of state and government here,” he said during an online briefing. “We hope that it will be a watershed moment.” Leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed their attendance, but Aboulmagd said other major heads of state such as China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi would not be going.
Aboulmagd said recent scientific reports highlighted the urgency of tackling global warming.
“Everyone is now aware of the gravity of the situation, of the enormity of the challenge, and have come here hopefully to work together,” he said.
Greenhouse gases, financial aid
Several thorny issues will be discussed at the November 6-18 talks, including further cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting financial aid for poor countries struggling with the impacts of climate change. It is the first such meeting held in Africa since 2016. Over 40,000 people have registered for the event.
Aboulmagd appealed to negotiators to engage constructively. “We cannot afford to waste any time,” he said. “So everyone must rise to the occasion and must move away from the adversarial winner-takes-all approach that has plagued this process for too long.”
Civil society groups have expressed concern that their presence at this year’s talks will be restricted, citing Egypt’s questionable human rights record.
But Aboulmagd said activists would get their space, with special arrangements already put in place “for those who want to organize demonstrations or protests or stand-ins.”
Asked about the possibility of holding a large rally midway through the talks, as has traditionally happened in previous meetings, he said, “That will be taken care of.”
Organizers would need to submit the names of contact persons, and city officials must approve the planned route.
“Once a request to that effect comes, it will be responded to positively,” he said.
Egypt would press diplomats to live up to the lofty pledges their leaders had made, Aboulmagd said, warning that so far, these had not been translated into the negotiating rooms.
“This separation between the reality in the public sphere and what actually happens in negotiating rooms cannot continue,” he said. “It is about real lives that are being lost and future lives that will be devastated” by unchecked climate change.
…