Britain’s Top Cop Calls for Law on Police Use of Artificial Intelligence
Britain’s most senior police officer on Monday called on the government to create a legal
framework for police use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.Speaking about live facial recognition, which police in London started using in January, London police chief Cressida Dick said that she welcomed the government’s 2019 manifesto pledge to create a legal framework for the police use of new technology like AI, biometrics and DNA.”The best way to ensure that the police use new and emerging tech in a way that has the country’s support is for the government to bring in an enabling legislative framework that is debated through Parliament, consulted on in public and which will outline the boundaries for how the police should or should not use tech,” Dick said.”Give us the law and we’ll work within it,” she added. Dick rejected evidence that facial recognition algorithms are racially discriminatory in that their accuracy rates vary depending on the skin colour of the person they detect.”We know there are some cheap algorithms that do have ethnic bias but, as I’ve said, ours doesn’t and currently the only bias in it is that it shows it is slightly harder to identify a wanted woman than a wanted man,” she said. The London police’s facial recognition technology is provided by NEC, a Japanese company.
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Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty in Landmark #MeToo Moment
Harvey Weinstein was convicted Monday at his sexual assault trial, sealing his dizzying fall from powerful Hollywood studio boss to archvillain of the (hash)MeToo movement.
He was found guilty of criminal sex act for assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 and third-degree rape of a woman in 2013. The jury found him not guilty on the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, that could have resulted in a life sentence.
The verdict followed weeks of often harrowing and excruciatingly graphic testimony from a string of accusers who told of rapes, forced oral sex, groping, masturbation, lewd propositions and that’s-Hollywood excuses from Weinstein about how the casting couch works.
The conviction was seen as a long-overdue reckoning for Weinstein after years of whispers about his behavior turned into a torrent of accusations in 2017 that destroyed his career and gave rise to (hash)MeToo, the global movement to encourage women to come forward and hold powerful men accountable for their sexual misconduct.
The jury of seven men and five women took five days to find him guilty.
The case against the once-feared producer was essentially built on three allegations: that he raped an aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013, that he forcibly performed oral sex on Haleyi and that he raped and forcibly performed oral sex on “Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra in her apartment in the mid-1990s.
Three additional women who said they, too, were attacked by Weinstein also testified as part of an effort by prosecutors to show a pattern of brutish behavior on his part.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sex crimes unless they grant permission, as Haleyi and Sciorra did.
Jurors signaled their struggles with the Sciorra charges four days into deliberations. On Friday, after reviewing sections of her testimony and related evidence, they sent a note to the judge indicating they were deadlocked on the counts but had reached a unanimous verdict on the others. After some debate in the courtroom, the judge ordered jurors to keep deliberating.
While Weinstein did not testify, his lawyers contended that any sexual contact was consensual and that his accusers went to bed with him to advance their careers.
The defense seized on the fact that two of the women central to the case stayed in contact with Weinstein through warm and even flirty emails — and had sex with him — well after he supposedly attacked them.
The hard-charging and phenomenally successful movie executive helped bring to the screen such Oscar winners as “Good Will Hunting,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The King’s Speech” and “Shakespeare in Love” and nurtured the careers of celebrated filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.
Weinstein now faces charges in Los Angeles. In that case, announced just as the New York trial was getting under way on Jan. 6, authorities allege Weinstein raped one woman and sexually assaulted another on back-to-back nights during Oscars week in 2013. One of those women testified as a supporting witness at the New York trial.
The trial was the first criminal case to arise from a barrage of allegations against Weinstein from more than 90 women, including actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek and Uma Thurman. Most of those cases were too old to prosecute.
During the trial, Weinstein regularly trudged into the courthouse stooped and unshaven, using a walker after recently undergoing back surgery — a far cry from the way he was depicted in court as a burly, intimidating figure whose eyes seemed to turn black with menace when his anger flared.
Many of Weinstein’s accusers described him as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character who could be incredibly charming at first, making jokes and showing interest in using his immense power to help their careers.
But that was an act, they said, meant to gain their trust and get them to a place — often a hotel room or an apartment — where he could violate them.
“If he heard the word ‘no,’ it was like a trigger for him,” his rape accuser testified.
Several women testified that Weinstein excused his behavior as the price for getting ahead in Hollywood. One said that when she laughed off his advances, he sneered, “You’ll never make it in this business. This is how this industry works.”
The jury heard lurid testimony that Weinstein injected himself with a needle to get an erection, that his genitals appeared disfigured, that he sent Sciorra a box of chocolate penises and that he once showed up uninvited at her hotel room door in his underwear with a bottle of baby oil in one hand and a video in the other.
The prosecution’s task was made more complicated because two of the women at the very center of the case didn’t just abandon Weinstein after the alleged encounters: Haleyi testified that she had sex with him two weeks later, while the rape accuser whose name was withheld said she had a sexual encounter with him more than three years afterward.
Like Haleyi, she sent Weinstein friendly and sometimes flirtatious emails, such as “Miss you big guy” and “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.”
During a cross-examination from Weinstein’s lawyers so exhaustive that she broke down in tears on the stand, the woman said she sent him flattering emails and kept seeing him because she was afraid of his unpredictable anger and “I wanted him to believe I wasn’t a threat.”
To blunt that line of questioning, prosecutors called to the witness stand a forensic psychiatrist who said that most sexual assault victims continue to have contact with their attackers and that they hope what happened to them “is just an aberration.”
During closing arguments, Weinstein lawyer Donna Rotunno charged that Weinstein had become “the target of a cause and a movement” — (hash)MeToo — and asked the jury to ignore “outside forces.”
“This is not a popularity contest,” she said.
She said the case against Weinstein amounted to “regret renamed as rape,” arguing that the women exercised their free will to try to further their careers.
Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the jury that Weinstein considered himself such a big shot in Hollywood that he thought he could get away with treating women as “complete disposables.”
“The universe is run by me and they don’t get to complain when they get stepped on, spit on, demoralized and, yes, raped and abused by me — the king,” she said, mimicking Weinstein.
Rumors about Weinstein’s behavior swirled in Hollywood circles for a long time, but he managed to silence many accusers with payoffs, nondisclosure agreements and the constant fear that he could crush their careers if they spoke out.
Weinstein was finally arrested and led away in handcuffs in May 2018, seven months after The New York Times and The New Yorker exposed his alleged misconduct in stories that would win the Pulitzer Prize.
Among other men taken down by the (hash)MeToo movement since the scandal broke: news anchors Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, actor Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.
Weinstein, the product of a working-class family from Queens, achieved success at two movie studios he created with his brother Bob: Miramax — named for their parents, Miriam and Max — and then the Weinstein Co.
The Weinstein Co. went bankrupt after his disgrace. A tentative settlement was reached last year to resolve nearly all lawsuits stemming from the scandal. It would pay Weinstein’s alleged victims about $25 million. Under the proposed deal, Weinstein would not have to admit any wrongdoing or personally pay anything; the studio’s insurance companies would cover the cost.
Weinstein’s efforts to silence his accusers and thwart journalists who sought to expose his secrets included hiring Black Cube, an Israeli spy agency staffed by former Mossad agents. Asked one day as he left court why he hired that firm, Weinstein turned to a reporter and said: “For days like this.”
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NASA Says Pioneering Black Mathematician Katherine Johnson Has Died
NASA says Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who worked on NASA’s early space missions and was portrayed in the film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died.
In a Monday morning tweet, the space agency said it celebrates her 101 years of life and her legacy of excellence and breaking down racial and social barriers.
Johnson was one of the so-called “computers” who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits by hand during NASA’s early years.
Until 1958, Johnson and other black women worked in a racially segregated computing unit at what is now called Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Their work was the focus of the Oscar-nominated 2016 film.
In 1961, Johnson worked on the first mission to carry an American into space. In 1962, she verified computer calculations that plotted John Glenn’s earth orbits.
At age 97, Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Johnson focused on airplanes and other research at first. But her work at NASA’s Langley Research Center eventually shifted to Project Mercury, the nation’s first human space program.
“Our office computed all the [rocket] trajectories,” Johnson told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2012. “You tell me when and where you want it to come down, and I will tell you where and when and how to launch it.”
In 1961, Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 Mission, the first to carry an American into space. The next year, she manually verified the calculations of a nascent NASA computer, an IBM 7090, which plotted John Glenn’s orbits around the planet.
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A Painting Exhibition Tells Iraqi Stories
As Iraq struggles through economic and political instability, a handful of Iraqi artists attempt to document the harsh lives of the Iraqi people through paintings. Six painters and artists in Sulaymaniyah have come together and opened an exhibition. VOA’s Rebaz Majeed has filed a report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Los Angeles Honors Kobe, Gianna Bryant With Public Memorial
Thousands of mourners will gather in Staples Center on Monday to say farewell to Kobe and Gianna Bryant.
The basketball superstar and his 13-year-old daughter will be honored in a public memorial at the arena where Bryant played for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant died along with seven others on Jan. 26 in a helicopter crash.
The Celebration of Life will feature speakers reflecting on Kobe Bryant’s impact on his sport and the world, along with music and retrospectives on Bryant’s on-court achievements. Bryant became active in film, television and writing after he retired from basketball in 2016.
Bryant’s family, dozens of sports greats and many major figures in Bryant’s public life are expected to attend.
Staples Center is sold out for the memorial. The money made from ticket sales will be given to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, which supports youth sports programs in underserved communities and teaches sports to girls and women.
Bryant played his entire 20-year NBA career with the Lakers, including the final 17 seasons at Staples Center, which opened in 1999. The five-time NBA champion’s two retired jersey numbers 8 and 24 hang high above the arena where he became the third-leading scorer in league history until Lakers star LeBron James passed him on the night before Bryant’s death.
Bryant’s death caused an outpouring of grief across Los Angeles, where he remained the city’s most popular athlete into retirement. Dozens of public memorials and murals have been installed around the sprawling metropolis, and thousands of fans gathered daily outside Staples Center to commiserate after the crash.
Symbolic meanings will run throughout the ceremony, which will be held on a 24-foot-by-24-foot stage. Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s wife and Gianna’s mother, chose Feb. 24 as the date in honor of the uniform numbers of Kobe and Gianna, who wore No. 2 on her youth basketball teams.
A private funeral was held for Kobe and Gianna Bryant in Orange County on Feb. 7.
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Brooklyn Illustrator Puts Harriet Tubman On $20 Bills
A recently planned redesign of the twenty dollar bill would have put the image of famous abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front, but that was shelved by the Trump Administration. So New York Illustrator Dena Cooper has decided to go ahead and start putting Tubman on as many 20’s as she could find. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Barbara ‘B.’ Smith, Model Turned Lifestyle Guru, Dead at 70
Barbara “B.” Smith, one of the nation’s top black models who went on to open restaurants, launch a successful home products line and write cookbooks, has died at her Long Island home at age 70 after battling early onset Alzheimer’s disease.Smith’s family announced on social media that she died Saturday evening.“Heaven is shining even brighter now that it is graced with B.’s dazzling and unforgettable smile,” Smith’s husband Dan Gasby said on Facebook.Smith’s eponymous Manhattan restaurant opened in 1986 and attracted a following among affluent black New Yorkers, The New York Times recalled. Essence magazine described it as the place “where the who’s who of black Manhattan meet, greet and eat regularly.”Smith wrote three cookbooks, founded three successful restaurants and launched a nationally syndicated television show and a magazine. Her successful home products line was the first from a black woman to be sold at a nationwide retailer when it debuted in 2001 at Bed Bath & Beyond.In 1976, she became the second black model to be on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine, after Joli Jones in 1969.“You epitomized class, true beauty and dignity. Rest well Queen,” actress Viola Davis wrote on Twitter.Smith was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2013. She and Gasby raised awareness of the disease, and particularly its impacts on the African-American community, following her diagnosis.Some described Smith as a “black Martha Stewart,” a comparison she said she didn’t mind though she believed the two lifestyle mavens were quite different.“Martha Stewart has presented herself doing the things domestics and African Americans have done for years,” she said in a 1997 interview with New York magazine. “We were always expected to redo the chairs and use everything in the garden. This is the legacy that I was left. Martha just got there first.”In the same interview, Gasby said, “Martha is perfection and Barbara is passion.”Smith began suffering from memory problems years before her diagnosis. She once froze for several seconds while being interviewed on the “Today Show,” prompting a doctor’s visit that led to her diagnosis. A few months later, she was missing in New York City for a day.In 2018, Gasby revealed that he was in a relationship with another woman while caring for his ailing wife, leading to harsh criticism from some of her fans. He fired back at critics with a Facebook post about the pain of living with Alzheimer’s in the family. “I love my wife but I can’t let her take away my life,” he wrote.The couple co-authored a book, “Before I Forget: Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our fight Against Alzheimer’s,” and have partnered with the Brain Health Registry.Smith, a native of Pennsylvania, began her career as a fashion model in Pittsburgh and went on to serve as a spokeswoman for Verizon, Colgate, Palmolive Oxy and McCormick’s Lawry seasonings. She hosted the nationally syndicated television show “B. Smith with Style” for nearly a decade, which aired on NBC stations.Smith is survived by Gasby, whom she married in 1992, and her stepdaughter Dana Gasby.
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WHO Warns It is Running Out of Money to Tackle Ebola Epidemic in DRC
The World Health Organization is urgently appealing for $40 million to salvage its operation to bring the Ebola epidemic to an end in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Ebola operation in eastern DR Congo’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces is on financial life-support. The World Health Organization reports its coffers will be empty at the end of this month. It is urging donors to step up immediately and contribute the money needed to tackle this virulent disease. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says failure to support this operation would be tragic as good progress is being made in containing the Ebola virus. Over the past two months, he says between three and 15 cases of Ebola have been reported each week. This is compared to 120 reported cases of Ebola in April 2019.“Last week there was only one case reported and we are down to only two health zones in eastern DRC where we have Ebola cases. But again, if we do not receive this funding, we risk obviously to have more spread of the virus. So, therefore, there is this appeal to get more funding,” he said. WHO reports 3433 cases of Ebola, including 2253 deaths, for an overall case fatality rate of 66 percent. Jasarevic says money from the $40 million appeal also will be used for preparedness activities in neighboring countries. FILE – A person dressed in Ebola protective apparel is seen inside an Ebola care facility at the Bwera general hospital near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in Bwera, Uganda, June 14, 2019.He notes a modest WHO investment of $18 million in helping Uganda set up screening, monitoring and other systems succeeded in stopping Ebola from taking root in that country last year.He tells VOA it is crucial that the Ebola operation not be interrupted because as long as there is one case of the disease, there will be a risk of further spread.“So, we have to really get down to zero. We are making progress, but again, whether you have one case, or you have more cases, the activities that you have to put in place are the same. So, we need to make sure that activities are funded,” said Jasarevic. There have been eight confirmed cases of Ebola reported from Beni and Mabalako in North Kivu Province in the past 21 days. But WHO reports there have been no new cases reported for more than 42 days from Butembo and Mambasa Health Zones. WHO calls the reduction of geographic spread of the Ebola virus and the declining number of cases encouraging.
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Brazilian Transgender Dancer Shatters Carnival Parade Taboo
When dancer Camila Prins entered Sao Paulo’s Carnival parade grounds, a costume of feathers clinging to her sinuous body, she fulfilled a dream of feminine beauty nearly three decades old.Prins says she first realized she wanted to be a woman at a Carnival party at age 11, when, like the other boys, she was allowed to dress like a girl as part of the burlesque festivities. Now, in the final minutes of Saturday, she became the first transgender woman to lead the drum section of a top samba school in either of the renowned Carnival parades put on in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.Prins, 40, was hand-picked to be “godmother” of the Colorado do Bras samba school’s drum section, an iconic role fought over by dozens of models and TV celebrities. Her duty was to dance infectiously for 65 minutes in front of the drummers, using her legs to drive their rhythm while judges assessed the school’s parade.“Gorgeous women wanted to be here. I’m very excited because this shows we can be anywhere. We can be godmother of the drummers, we can be owners of a samba school,” Prins told The Associated Press before the parade. “Soon they will see many other transgender girls, who will find it easier than I did.”Transgender godmother Camila Prins from the Colorado do Bras samba school performs during a Carnival parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 23, 2020. Prins fulfilled a dream nearly three decades old.Samba league’s bold decisionColorado do Bras, which rose to Sao Paulo’s top samba league only two years ago, made a bold decision in picking Prins for the role, despite Brazil’s Carnival being a party at which few things have never been tried.Transgender people remain something of a taboo among Brazilians, even in Sao Paulo, the country’s most cosmopolitan city and host to the world’s largest gay pride parade. Brazil has more killings of transvestites and transgender people than any country in the world. In 2019, 124 were killed, 21 of them in Sao Paulo state.As godmother of the drum section, Prins teamed up with a drum queen who has a similar role, and together they worked to dazzle fans in the Sambadrome bleachers with their beauty and sex appeal. Prins said she was counting on her penetrating brown eyes, long blond hair, strong legs, open smile and imposing breasts to help win points from the judges.Colorado do Bras finished the 2019 parade in 11th place, only two spots above the cutoff for being relegated back to a lower league. Directors of the samba school decided to try for something different this year, since the group has fewer resources than richer samba schools. Its floats and costumes were clearly less luxurious than the main challengers for the title.Camila Prins sits in a chair as she has her makeup done before performing for Colorado do Bras samba school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 22, 2020. Her costume is ready on a nearby bed.A new normalKeila Simpson, president of Brazil’s National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals, was happy Prins secured her prominent Carnival role, and said their community aims to make cases like hers the new normal.“We have to be proud of Camila and hope her symbolic message allows us to think of reducing violence against trans people. Why can people celebrate her at the Sambadrome while trans people on the street are subject to violence?” Simpson said. “We don’t have data, but there are many violent cases against us during Carnival. Because there’s more of us outside, there’s more attacks.”Sao Paulo is trying to root out persecution of LGBT people during Carnival, and this year set up 20 tents spread among major street parties to handle cases of violence against the community. Psychologists, police officers and social workers are on hand until Wednesday for revelers who are victimized.English teacher Alessandra Salvador, a transgender woman who encouraged revelers to come to the city hall tent at the LGBT street party Minhoqueens, said she was excited by Prins’ selection.“I don’t even watch parades that much, but this year I will when she is on,” Salvador said. “It is good to see one of us being talked up. We don’t get it so often. If we don’t get that in Carnival, we won’t get it anywhere else.”Long road to big leaguesIt’s been a long road for Prins to reach the big leagues. She has worked as a professional dancer for 20 years and, though she lives in a small town in Switzerland with her husband, practices her steps at home all year and listens to samba incessantly. As Carnival nears, she splits her dance routine with ab workouts and squats at a gym, then makes her annual return to Brazil.Prins’ first time dancing as a samba school’s godmother came in 2018, in the second division of Sao Paulo’s Carnival league. And it wasn’t easy.“Many people turned their backs, because they thought I shouldn’t be there. They thought it was a role for a woman,” Prins said. “Little by little I won them over with a lot of respect and true dancing.”Prins said her friends in Switzerland feared for her because of the increase in violence against transgender people, and because of the rise of far-right political groups in Brazil. She said she was worried about an increase in hateful comments aimed at LGBT people since President Jair Bolsonaro took office Jan. 1, 2019, but she planned to keep her smile and march on.Just before midnight, when Colorado do Bras finally started its parade, a TV Globo reporter approached a tearful Prins in front of her drummers. She was already the most talked about of all 2,200 members of the samba school, even more than eight young topless women dressed as “goddesses of the sea.” “I feel so blessed this is happening. I came here to hold my banner and dance samba to the face of prejudice, for all the LGBT community,” she said. “Trans girls, I am sure your day will come, too. I am just the first, many more of you will follow.”
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Italy Town Shuts Schools, Cafes as 6 Test Positive for Virus
Italian officials ordered schools, public buildings, restaurants and coffee shops closed in a tiny town in northern Italy Friday after six people tested positive for the new virus, including some who had not been to China or the source of the global health emergency.
The new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and tripled the country’s total to nine. The first to fall ill met with someone in early February who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said.
Authorities think that person passed the virus onto the 38-year-old Italian, who went to a hospital in the town of Codogno with flu-like symptoms on Feb. 18 but was sent home. He returned to the hospital after his conditions worsened and is now in intensive care, Lombardy region public welfare director Giulio Gallera said.
The man’s wife and a friend who did sports with him have also tested positive for the virus. The Italian Health Ministry ordered anyone who came into direct contact with the three to be quarantined for 14 days. About 150 people, including medical personnel, were in isolation undergoing tests.
Another three people in the Lombardy region also tested positive Friday, the health ministry said later.
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US States Step Up Funding for Planned Parenthood Clinics
Several states have begun picking up the tab for family planning services at clinics run by Planned Parenthood, which last year quit a $260 million federal funding program over a Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions.
States including New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii already are providing new funding, and Democratic governors in Connecticut and Pennsylvania have proposed carving out money in state budgets to counter the effects of the national provider’s fallout with the Republican presidential administration.
The proposals have stirred political debates over abortion at the state level, with some opponents claiming it’s a government endorsement of abortion and an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont earmarked $1.2 million for Planned Parenthood in his new budget proposal. The executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, Christopher Healy, criticized it as a purely political act.
“Where is the pressing need here to do this?” Healy said, arguing Planned Parenthood does not need taxpayer money. “They have the ability to raise money.”
Lamont said he wants to help cover an expected shortfall for Planned Parenthood to ensure women in Connecticut have access to all the health services they need. A spokesman for Lamont said the administration doesn’t want the abortion debate to stymie access to things like contraception and cervical cancer screenings.
“Look, this is the law of the land. Here in a state like this, we believe that abortion rights are right, and we believe they ought to be affordable for folks who otherwise might not have that availability,” Lamont said. “So I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Nationwide, about 4 million women across the U.S., many low-income and uninsured, were receiving services last year under the Title X federal program, including STD testing, various screenings, education and wellness exams. Planned Parenthood and some other providers decided to withdraw from the program rather than comply with what Planned Parenthood calls the Trump administration’s “gag order,” which bars clinics that participate in Title X from referring women for abortions. The move caused a money crunch for some clinics.
Since then, some of the rejected federal funds have been replenished by state or local funds in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, California and New York. Hawaii’s current fiscal year budget sets aside $750,000 to partly cover a $2 million loss in Title X grant money.
In Massachusetts, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed legislation authorizing up to $8 million. In California, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors last year voted to cover a $482,000 expected shortfall for six Planned Parenthood clinics serving 36,274 patients. And Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, has included a $3 million line item in his proposed 2020-21 budget to also help offset the funding loss for Planned Parenthood providers.
In Oregon, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rule, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon said the agency has been “working closely with state officials to create critical backstops and protect access to care for all Oregonians who need it, regardless of federal action on Title X,” and commended Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, for prioritizing funding for reproductive health services.
Abortion opponents have accused governors of providing the money to gain favor with an organization that often supports Democrats at election time.
In New Jersey, where Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy last month signed legislation that set aside $9.5 million in state money for family planning at Planned Parenthood, New Jersey Right to Life called it a disgraceful money grab.
“The taxpayers of NJ should not be forced to fund abortion, and make no mistake, that is what this bill will do,” Marie Tasy, the group’s executive director, said in a written statement.
Title X regulations prohibit funds from being used for abortions, with some narrow exceptions, and the money Lamont has proposed would fund Title X services and not on abortions, according to Connecticut’s Department of Public Health.
Abortion opponents in Connecticut have argued for years that state funds should not be used for abortions or abortion referrals. The state’s health insurance program paid for 6,995 abortions in 2018. A Department of Social Services spokesman said Connecticut is under a court order to pay for any abortion for a Medicaid-covered woman that she and her doctor have determined to be necessary.
The state money budgeted by Lamont would not go toward abortions, as it would fund only Title X services, according to state health officials. But opponents say that regardless of where it goes, the money for Planned Parenthood makes it appear the state is outwardly advocating for abortion.
“I’m disturbed by it, that it’s now state policy to outwardly advocate it no, matter what,”said Chris O’Brien, executive director of Connecticut Right to Life.
It’s unclear how long the help from states will continue.
Jacqueline Ayers, vice president of government relations and public policy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said it’s “encouraging” that governors and state legislators are trying to fill the gap, but said the state-by-state efforts cannot replace the nearly 50-year-old Title X program.
“While we applaud leaders in the states for taking these temporary but critical steps, we must continue fighting for a nationwide solution,” Ayers said. “Only Congress has the power to permanently stop this harmful rule, and people across the country are continuing to call on them to do so.”
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Firm Wants to Recover Titanic’s Iconic Telegraph Machine
The salvage firm that has plucked silverware, china and gold coins from the wreckage of the Titanic now wants to recover the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Machine that transmitted the doomed ship’s increasingly frantic distress calls.
Lawyers for the company, R.M.S. Titanic, Inc., called witnesses before a federal judge on Thursday to explain why the company should be allowed to possibly cut into the rapidly deteriorating ship to recover the device before it’s irretrievable.
“It’s one of those iconic artifacts, like the signal flares (that the sinking ship launched),” testified David Gallo, an oceanographer who retired from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and is now a paid consultant for the firm.
Gallo, who testified in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, said that salvaging the device would not be “grave robbery” but a way to connect people to the ship’s legacy and honor its passengers.
U. S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters, said it was too early for her to make any decisions on the proposal. She said she needed more details and proposed scheduling another hearing sometime in the future.
The Titanic was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. The large and luxurious ocean liner sent out distress signals using the relatively new Marconi wireless radio system.
The messages were picked up by other ships and onshore receiving stations. They included: “We require immediate assistance” … “Have struck iceberg and sinking” … “We are putting women off in boats.”
The ship sank in less than three hours, with the loss of all but 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.
An international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard located the wreckage in 1985 on the North Atlantic seabed, about 400 miles (645 kilometers) off Newfoundland, Canada.
RMS Titanic Inc., oversees a collection of thousands of items recovered from the site over the years as the court-recognized salvor, or steward of the artifacts.
The company has argued that time is running out to retrieve the telegraph machine. It has been referred to as the voice'' of the Titanic, which also delivered the ship's last words.has been against disturbing the wreck since 1985 because it is a gravesite.”
The device is located in a room on the ship's deck. A gymnasium on the other side of the grand staircase has already collapsed. The roof above the telegraph machine has begun to perforate.
“I'm not sure if we go in 2020 that the roof won't be collapsed on everything” testified Paul Henry Nargeolet, director of the company's underwater research program.
The company is already facing resistance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which represents the public's interest in the wreck site.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Virginia represents NOAA. Its attorneys argued in court documents that the proposed retrieval runs contrary to prior court orders that prohibit the firm from cutting holes or taking items from the wreck.
The items that the firm has salvaged came from a debris field outside the ship.
“It seems clear that this is not simply a `one-off' proposal for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph, but a placeholder for future requests to take similar actions in order to recover other artifacts from inside the wreck,'' federal attorney Kent P. Porter wrote.
Porter also wrote that the court must consider international agreements involving the wreck as well as archaelogical standards to determine whether the retrieval is justified. He cited the United Kingdom-based Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee, which said the company has failed to adequately justify its proposal.
Karen Kamuda, president of the Massachusetts-based Titanic Historical Society, Inc., told The Associated Press in an email that the society
“As usual, its all about money,” she wrote.
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Iran Reports Two More Deaths, 13 New Cases of New Coronavirus
Iranian health authorities on Friday reported two more deaths from the new virus that emerged in China and said the fatalities were from among 13 new confirmed cases of the virus in Iran.
The report by the semiofficial Mehr news agency came as Iranians voted in nationwide parliamentary elections. After authorities reported two earlier deaths this week, the death toll from COVID-19, the illness caused by virus, stands at four in Iran.
So far, 18 cases have been confirmed in Iran, including the four who died.
The spokesman of the health ministry, Kianoush Jahanpour, said the newly detected cases are all linked with city of Qom where the first two elderly patients died on Wednesday.
Jahanpour said the new cases were either from Qom or had visited the city recently. He said four of them have been hospitalized in the capital, Tehran, and two in northern province of Gilan.
Minoo Mohraz, an Iranian health ministry official, said the virus possibly came from Chinese workers who work in Qom and traveled to China.'' She did not elaborate. A Chinese company has been building a solar power plant in Qom.good health” and the ministry was also following up on the cases of two other people suspected of having the illness.
In Lebanon, Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Friday reported the Mediterranean country's first case of the new virus.
At a news conference in Beirut, he said the patient was a 45-year-old woman who arrived Thursday on a flight from Qom. He said the woman was in
The woman and two other suspected victims were quarantined at the Rafik Hariri government hospital in Beirut.
Concerns over the spread of the virus, which originated in central China, prompted authorities in Iran this week to close all schools and Shiite seminaries in Qom, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Tehran.
Also, earlier news reports said Iran had recently evacuated 60 Iranian students from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicenter of the epidemic. The students were quarantined upon their return to Iran and were discharged after 14 days without any health problems.
Qom is a popular religious destination and a center of learning and religious studies for Shiite Muslims from inside Iran, as well as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. It is also known for its cattle farms.
Iran once relied heavily on China to buy its oil and some Chinese companies have continued doing business with Iran in the face of U.S. sanctions. Unlike other countries _ such as Saudi Arabia, which barred its citizens and residents from traveling to China _ Iran has not imposed such measures. But it has suspended all passenger flights with China for the past two weeks, allowing only cargo flights.
Iran’s civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh said on Thursday that the cargo flights, if necessary, are under supervision, and controls imposed by the health ministry are carried out.
In Turkey, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said officials have started to screen travelers arriving from Iran at border gates and are refusing entry to anyone with signs of illness. He also said Iranians who have traveled to Qom in the past 14 days will be refused entry.
The new virus emerged in China in December. Since then, more than 76,000 people have been infected globally, in as many as 27 countries, with more than 2,200 deaths being reported, mostly in China.
The new virus comes from a large family of coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. It causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath. It can worsen to pneumonia, which can be fatal. The World Health Organization recently named the illness it causes COVID-19, referring to both coronavirus and its origin late last year.
There have been few virus cases in the Middle East so far. Nine cases have been confirmed in the United Arab Emirates, which is a popular tourist destination, and one case in Egypt. Of the nine in the UAE, seven are Chinese nationals, one is a Filipino and another an Indian national.
Iran’s neighbor Iraq, which has reported no cases of the virus, took measures to contain it by suspending visas on arrival for Iranian passport holders and direct flights between the two countries.
Also Friday, one of 11 Israelis who were flown home after being quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan has tested positive for the virus, the first case to be reported inside Israel, the Health Ministry.
The Israeli cruise ship passengers, who had all initially tested negative, arrived on a charter plane overnight. They were met by medics in protection suits and immediately taken to the Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv, where they will be kept in quarantine.
Another four Israelis were hospitalized in Japan after testing positive for the virus. Israel has cancelled all flights to and from China, and is requiring Israelis returning from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore or Thailand to be quarantined at home for two weeks.
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Woman Plays Violin During Brain Surgery
A procedure one might expect to see only on an episode of popular television show Grey’s Anatomy actually occurred at a London hospital recently as a patient played the violin while undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor. Dagmar Turner, 53, has had a passion for playing the violin since she was 10, and she is currently a member of the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra. So losing the ability to play because of a brain tumor was an especially frightening scenario for her. During a symphony performance in 2013, Turner suffered a seizure that brought to light the slow-growing brain tumor. Located on the right frontal lobe of her brain, it threatened to damage her left hand’s fine motor skills — the hand that controls the notes being played on the violin. According to King’s College Hospital, where Turner was treated, her first course of treatment was radiotherapy. But after that proved unsuccessful and the tumor continued to grow, surgery became the next best option. Surgery put her hand mobility and playing abilities at risk, though, and it was a possibility Turner could not ignore. It was neurosurgeon consultant Keyoumars Ashkan, a professor at the college, who understood firsthand Turner’s concerns about the surgery, since he is an accomplished pianist with a music degree. So they designed a plan specifically for Turner’s January 31 surgery. First, her brain was mapped, allowing doctors to recognize and identify sections that were active while she played the violin, as well as sections that dictated movement and language. Then, halfway through surgery, Turner would be awakened to play her violin so surgeons could avoid the sections of her brain that were active as she moved her hands to play. With the brain having no pain receptors, Turner was able to be fully awake and performing as the tumor was removed. Turner’s surgery was a success, and she was released from the hospital and back home in just three days. She plans to resume playing soon in the orchestra.
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New Mexico Sues Google over Collection of Children’s Data
New Mexico’s attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque claims Google is using its education services package that is marketed to school districts, teachers and parents as a way to spy on children and their families.Attorney General Hector Balderas said that while the company touts Google Education as a valuable tool for resource-deprived schools, it is a means to monitor children while they browse the internet in the classroom and at home on private networks. He said the information being mined includes everything from physical locations to websites visited, videos watched, saved passwords and contact lists.The state is seeking unspecified civil penalties.“Student safety should be the number one priority of any company providing services to our children, particularly in schools,” Balderas said in a statement. “Tracking student data without parental consent is not only illegal, it is dangerous.”Google dismissed the claims as “factually wrong,” saying the G Suite for Education package allows schools to control account access and requires that schools obtain parental consent when necessary.“We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads,” said company spokesman Jose Castaneda.“School districts can decide how best to use Google for education in their classrooms and we are committed to partnering with them.”Unlike Europe, the U.S. has no overarching national law governing data collection and privacy. Instead, it has a patchwork of state and federal laws that protect specific types of data, such as consumer health, financial information and the personal data generated by younger children.New Mexico’s claim cites violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting any information from children under 13.In a separate case, Google already has agreed to pay $170 million combined to the Federal Trade Commission and New York state to settle allegations its YouTube video service collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent.According to the New Mexico lawsuit, outside its Google Education platform, the company prohibits children in the U.S. under the age of 13 from having their own Google accounts. The state contends Google is attempting to get around this by using its education services to “secretly gain access to troves of information” about New Mexico children.The attorney general’s office filed a similar lawsuit against Google and other tech companies in 2018, targeting what Balderas described as illegal data collection from child-directed mobile apps. That case still is pending in federal court, but the companies have denied wrongdoing.The latest lawsuit claims more than 80 million teachers and students use Google’s education platform. Balderas said in a letter to New Mexico school officials that there was no immediate harm if they continue using the products and that the lawsuit shouldn’t interrupt activities in the classroom.
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Columbus Ship Replicas Sail into Mississippi Harbor
The Nina and Pinta have arrived along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, sailing into a Biloxi harbor as spectators lined a pier, aiming their phones out to the horizon.Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic on the Nina on his three voyages of discovery to the New World beginning in 1492.The original Nina was last heard from in 1501, but this replica, which was finished in 1991, serves as a floating museum. It was built entirely by hand, without the use of power tools, and is considered to be the most historically accurate Columbus ship replica ever built.
The Pinta replica was built in Brazil and launched in 2005 to accompany the Nina on travels. It’s a larger version of the archetypal “caravel,” the term for a Portuguese ship used by Columbus and many early explorers.
While in port, the ships will be open for public tours, beginning Thursday. They are scheduled to leave Biloxi on Monday, March 2.
After a week-long stop in Gulf Shores, Alabama, beginning March 4, the ships will head to Florida, where they have scheduled stops in Fort Walton Beach, Venice, Vero Beach and Fernandina Beach.
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Can AI Flag Disease Outbreaks Faster Than Humans? Not Quite
Did an artificial-intelligence system beat human doctors in warning the world of a severe coronavirus outbreak in China?In a narrow sense, yes. But what the humans lacked in sheer speed, they more than made up in finesse.Early warnings of disease outbreaks can help people and governments save lives. In the final days of 2019, an AI system in Boston sent out the first global alert about a new viral outbreak in China. But it took human intelligence to recognize the significance of the outbreak and then awaken response from the public health community.What’s more, the mere mortals produced a similar alert only a half-hour behind the AI systems.For now, AI-powered disease-alert systems can still resemble car alarms — easily triggered and sometimes ignored. A network of medical experts and sleuths must still do the hard work of sifting through rumors to piece together the fuller picture. It’s difficult to say what future AI systems, powered by ever larger datasets on outbreaks, may be able to accomplish.The first public alert outside China about the novel coronavirus came on Dec. 30 from the automated HealthMap system at Boston Children’s Hospital. At 11:12 p.m. local time, HealthMap sent an alert about unidentified pneumonia cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The system, which scans online news and social media reports, ranked the alert’s seriousness as only 3 out of 5. It took days for HealthMap researchers to recognize its importance.Four hours before the HealthMap notice, New York epidemiologist Marjorie Pollack had already started working on her own public alert, spurred by a growing sense of dread after reading a personal email she received that evening.“This is being passed around the internet here,” wrote her contact, who linked to a post on the Chinese social media forum Pincong. The post discussed a Wuhan health agency notice and read in part: “Unexplained pneumonia???”Pollack, deputy editor of the volunteer-led Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, known as ProMed, quickly mobilized a team to look into it. ProMed’s more detailed report went out about 30 minutes after the terse HealthMap alert.Early warning systems that scan social media, online news articles and government reports for signs of infectious disease outbreaks help inform global agencies such as the World Health Organization — giving international experts a head start when local bureaucratic hurdles and language barriers might otherwise get in the way.Some systems, including ProMed, rely on human expertise. Others are partly or completely automated.And rather than competing with one another, they are often complementary — HealthMap is intertwined with ProMed and helps run its online infrastructure.“These tools can help hold feet to the fire for government agencies,” said John Brownstein, who runs the HealthMap system as chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. “It forces people to be more open.”The last 48 hours of 2019 were a critical time for understanding the new virus and its significance. Earlier on Dec. 30, Wuhan Central Hospital doctor Li Wenliang warned his former classmates about the virus in a social media group — a move that led local authorities to summon him for questioning several hours later.Li, who died Feb. 7 after contracting the virus, told The New York Times that it would have been better if officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier. “There should be more openness and transparency,” he said.ProMed reports are often incorporated into other outbreak warning systems. including those run by the World Health Organization, the Canadian government and the Toronto startup BlueDot. WHO also pools data from HealthMap and other sources.Computer systems that scan online reports for information about disease outbreaks rely on natural language processing, the same branch of artificial intelligence that helps answer questions posed to a search engine or digital voice assistant.But the algorithms can only be as effective as the data they are scouring, said Nita Madhav, CEO of San Francisco-based disease monitoring firm Metabiota, which first notified its clients about the outbreak in early January.Madhav said that inconsistency in how different agencies report medical data can stymie algorithms. The text-scanning programs extract keywords from online text, but may fumble when organizations variously report new virus cases, cumulative virus cases, or new cases in a given time interval. The potential for confusion means there’s almost always still a person involved in reviewing the data.“There’s still a bit of human in the loop,” Madhav said.Andrew Beam, a Harvard University epidemiologist, said that scanning online reports for key words can help reveal trends, but the accuracy depends on the quality of the data. He also notes that these techniques aren’t so novel.“There is an art to intelligently scraping web sites,” Beam said. “But it’s also Google’s core technology since the 1990s.”Google itself started its own Flu Trends service to detect outbreaks in 2008 by looking for patterns in search queries about flu symptoms. Experts criticized it for overestimating flu prevalence. Google shut down the website in 2015 and handed its technology to nonprofit organizations such as HealthMap to use Google data to build their own models.Google is now working with Brownstein’s team on a similar web-based approach for tracking the geographical spread of tick-borne Lyme disease.Scientists are also using big data to model possible routes of early disease transmission.In early January, Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Toronto General Hospital, analyzed commercial flight data with BlueDot founder Kamran Khan to see which cities outside mainland China were most connected to Wuhan.Wuhan stopped outbound commercial air travel in late January — but not before an estimated 5 million people had fled the city, as the Wuhan mayor later told reporters.“We showed that the highest volume of flights from Wuhan were to Thailand, Japan, and Hong Kong,” Bogoch said. “Lo and behold, a few days later we started to see cases pop up in these places.”In 2016, the researchers used a similar approach to predict the spread of the Zika virus from Brazil to southern Florida.Now that many governments have launched aggressive measures to curb disease transmission, it’s harder to build algorithms to predict what’s next, Bogoch said.Artificial intelligence systems depend on vast amounts of prior data to train computers how to interpret new facts. But there are no close parallels to the way China is enforcing quarantine zones that impact hundreds of millions of people.
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China Reports Fewest New Cases of Coronavirus Patients Since January
China is reporting its biggest drop in new cases of the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people on the mainland since the outbreak began more than two months ago.The country’s National Health Commission said there were just 394 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) Wednesday, compared to the 1,749 cases the previous day, the biggest drop since last month. The death toll rose to 2,118 after another 114 people died from the virus, while the total number of confirmed cases rose to 74,576.Chinese authorities have struggled to contain the spread of the new coronavirus since it was first detected in December in Hubei province, in the city of Wuhan. The province was placed under lockdown, with nearly all transportation in and out of Wuhan and several other cities halted.Outside of mainland China, at least 11 people have reportedly died from the virus, including one in South Korea, two people in Iran and an elderly couple in their 80s who were passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which been quarantined at the Japanese port city of Yokohama since its arrival on February 3. Japanese health officials placed the ship and its 3,700 passengers and crew under quarantine after a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the coronavirus. But the attempt to contain the spread of the virus backfired, as 621 people became infected, making it the largest cluster of confirmed cases outside of China.About 600 passengers are expected to leave the ship Thursday, a day after 500 passengers disembarked Wednesday after testing negative for the virus and showing no symptoms. Meanwhile, more than 150 Australian passengers arrived in Darwin early Thursday after being evacuated from Yokohama. The group was immediately placed in another 14-day quarantine. Canberra extended a ban on foreign nationals who have traveled mainland China from entering Australia until February 29.Russian passengers walk with their luggage after leaving the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship docked at Yokohama Port, south of Tokyo, Feb. 20, 2020.About 300 Americans were evacuated Monday and immediately placed in another 14-day quarantine. Several other governments, including Britain, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong, are also making plans to evacuate their citizens from Yokohama.Despite the drop in the daily number of confirmed cases, the World Health Organization cautioned people earlier this week against relaxing and believing the worst is over. The WHO said it is still too early to predict exactly which way the outbreak will go.
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Murals Dedicated to Kobe Bryant Draw Mourners in Los Angeles
Around 20,000 people are expected to attend the public memorial service for basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, which will be held at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California in late February. Bryant’s fans all over the world still mourn his sudden and tragic death, but fans in Los Angeles have special connection to the LA. based player, and are visiting some famous citywide images of the star. Gandira Pratama reports from Los Angeles
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Google Updates Terms in Plain Language After EU Scrutiny
Google is attempting to make sure people know exactly what they’re signing up for when they use its online services — though that will still mean reading a lengthy document.The company updated its terms of service on Thursday — its largest update to the general use contract since 2012 — in response to a pair of court orders in Europe.Google has been updating its policies and tweaking what is and isn’t allowed on its sites for the past couple of years as scrutiny of the tech industry heats up across the U.S. and Europe. Google, Facebook, Twitter and other digital companies have been forced under a spotlight as regulators and customers examine just how much the companies know about their users and what they do with that information.Facebook last year updated its terms of service to clarify how it makes money from user data.Google says it hasn’t changed anything significant in the document, but rather used plain language to describe who can use its products and what you can post online.“Broadly speaking, we give you permission to use our services if you agree to follow these terms, which reflect how Google’s business works and how we earn money,” the document reads.The document is now about 2,000 words longer than it was before, in part because Google included a list of definitions and expanded it to cover Google Drive and Chrome. The new terms take effect in March.Google’s privacy policy is separate and was substantially updated in 2018 after Europe enacted broad-reaching privacy laws.The company also separately updated its “About Google” page to explain how it makes money from selling advertisements, often informed by the vast amount of customer information it collects.As Britain prepares to leave the European Union, Google also announced it is switching the service provider for U.K. customers from one based in Ireland to its main U.S. provider. The company says that it won’t change how U.K. customers’ data is protected or used.
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Looted 18th Century Crown Returned to Ethiopia After Decades
A rare and looted crown from the 18th century was returned to Ethiopia on Thursday after it was discovered in the Netherlands two decades ago.The Dutch government facilitated the handover “with the belief that it has a duty to restitute this important artifact back to Ethiopia,” the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, sharing photos of a smiling Abiy holding the ceremonial crown.“This is a historic day for us,” Hirut Kassaw, Ethiopia’s minister for culture and tourism, told The Associated Press.The religious crown went missing in 1993 and was discovered in Rotterdam in October. “I still don’t know how this crown and the other items were looted and taken out of Ethiopia,” the culture minister said, adding that several other items were stolen including a cross.Ethiopia, like many African nations, has been outspoken about seeing artifacts returned home from museums and private owners around the world. Last year the National Army Museum in Britain said it would return two locks of hair from the widely revered Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros.The Dutch government in a statement Thursday said the crown was the property of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It said the crown went missing from the Holy Trinity Church in the village of Cheleqot.For years the crown was in the hands of Sirak Asfaw, a Dutch national of Ethiopian origin, the statement said. He reached out to the foreign ministry last year “through the mediation of art detective Arthur Brand, to discuss how to return this important cultural artifact.”“He told us someone gave him to look after it. But after realizing it was of Ethiopian origin, he refused to return it back to the owner and kept it for 21 years,” the culture minister said.The crown is on display at Ethiopia’s national museum in the capital, Addis Ababa, for a few days and then will be returned to its original place in the church in Cheleqot, the minister said.The Dutch minister for foreign trade, Sigrid Kaag, attended the handover ceremony.“We’re honored and delighted to have been able to facilitate the rightful return,” Kaag said.
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Weather and Protests Hamper Ukraine Quarantine Efforts
Ukraine’s effort to evacuate more than 70 people from China over the outbreak of a new virus faced setbacks Thursday as weather conditions delayed the return of the evacuees and protests broke out near a hospital where they are to be quarantined.
Dozens of local residents protested Thursday morning seeking to prevent the evacuees from being quarantined there because they fear being infected. People put up road blocks and burned tires, while Ukrainian media reported that there were clashes with police.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy weighed in saying that those demonstration show “not the best side of our character” and sought to assure people that the quarantined evacuees wouldn’t pose any danger to local residents.
In a statement published on his Facebook page, Zelenskiy said the people evacuated from China are healthy and will live in a closed medical center run by the National Guard in the village of Novi Sanzhary as a precaution.
“In the next two weeks it will probably be the most guarded facility in the country,” Zelenskiy said.
In the early hours of Thursday, a plane with 45 Ukrainians and 27 other foreign nationals took off from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak that has infected more than 75,000 people worldwide and killed over 2,100.
The plane stopped off in Kazakhstan to drop off two Kazakh passengers. Later, it sought to land in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, but could not due to bad weather conditions.
Instead it flew to Kyiv to refuel, and eventually arrived in Kharkiv.
Also Thursday, the Russian Embassy in Japan said that two more Russians aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with the virus, the Russian Embassy in Japan said. That raises to three the number of Russians on the ship confirmed to have the virus.
The two will be transferred to a hospital in Japan for treatment, according to the embassy.
The Diamond Princess has been docked in the Yokohama port near Tokyo since Feb. 4, when 10 people on board tested positive for the virus. So far 621 cases of the virus, which has been named COVID-19, have been confirmed among the the Diamond Princess’s original 3,711 people on board.
Russia so far has reported only two cases of the disease on its soil. Two Chinese nationals diagnosed with the virus and hospitalized in two different regions of Siberia in late January have recovered and have been released from hospitals.
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Chinese Study: New Coronavirus Spreads More Like Flu Than SARS
Scientists in China who studied the nose and throat swabs from 18 patients infected with the new coronavirus say it behaves much more like influenza than other closely related viruses, suggesting it may spread even more easily than previously believed.In at least in one case, the virus was present even though the patient had no symptoms, confirming concerns that asymptomatic patients could also spread the disease.Although preliminary, the findings published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, offer new evidence that this novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in China, is not like its closely related coronavirus cousins.“If confirmed, this is very important,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, a virologist and vaccine researcher with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved with the study.Easily spreadUnlike severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which causes infections deep in the lower respiratory tract that can result in pneumonia, COVID-19 appears to inhabit both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. That would make it not only capable of causing severe pneumonia, but of spreading easily like flu or the common cold.Researchers in Guangdong province monitored the amount of coronavirus in the 18 patients. One of them, who had moderate levels of the virus in their nose and throat, never had any disease symptoms.Among the 17 symptomatic patients, the team found levels of the virus increased soon after symptoms first appeared, with higher amounts of virus present in the nose than in the throats, a pattern more similar to influenza than SARS.The level of virus in the asymptomatic patient was similar to what was present in patients with symptoms, such as fever.“What this says is clearly this virus can be shed out of the upper respiratory tract and that people are shedding it asymptomatically,” Poland said.Related to SARS, not behaving like SARSThe findings add to evidence that this new virus, though genetically similar, is not behaving like SARS, said Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla who uses gene sequencing tools to track disease outbreaks.“This virus is clearly much more capable of spreading between humans than any other novel coronavirus we’ve ever seen.“This is more akin to the spread of flu,” said Andersen, who was not involved with the study.The researchers said their findings add to reports that the virus can be transmitted early in the course of the infection and suggest that controlling the virus will require an approach different from what worked with SARS, which primarily involved controlling its spread in a hospital setting.
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Barr Asks: Should Facebook, Google Be Liable for User Posts?
U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday questioned whether Facebook, Google and other major online platforms still need the immunity from legal liability that has prevented them from being sued over material their users post. “No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts. They have become titans,” Barr said at a public meeting held by the Justice Department to examine the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. “Given this changing technological landscape, valid questions have been raised about whether Section 230’s broad immunity is necessary, at least in its current form,” he said. Section 230 says online companies such as Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc. cannot be treated as the publisher or speaker of information they provide. This largely exempts them from liability involving content posted by users, although they can be held liable for content that violates criminal or intellectual property law. FILE – U.S. Attorney General William Barr is pictured in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 4, 2020.Barr’s comments offered insight into how regulators in Washington are reconsidering the need for incentives that once helped online companies grow but are increasingly viewed as impediments to curbing online crime, hate speech and extremism. The increased size and power of online platforms has also left consumers with fewer options, and the lack of feasible alternatives is a relevant discussion, Barr said, adding that the Section 230 review came out of the Justice Department’s broader look at potential anticompetitive practices at tech companies. Lawmakers from both major political parties have called for Congress to change Section 230 in ways that could expose tech companies to more lawsuits or significantly increase their costs. Lawmakers’ concernsSome Republicans have expressed concern that Section 230 prevents them from taking action against internet services that remove conservative political content, while a few Democratic leaders have said the law allows the services to escape punishment for harboring misinformation and extremist content. Barr said the department would not advocate a position at the meeting. But he hinted at the idea of allowing the U.S. government to act against recalcitrant platforms, saying it was “questionable” whether Section 230 should prevent the American government from suing platforms when it is “acting to protect American citizens.” Others at the meeting floated different ideas. FILE – Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general speaks to reporters in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sept. 9, 2019.The attorney general of Nebraska, Doug Peterson, noted that the law does not shield platforms from federal criminal prosecution; the immunity helps protect against civil claims or a state-level prosecution. Peterson said the exception should be widened to allow state-level action as well. Addressing the tech industry, he called it a “pretty simple solution” that would allow local officials “to clean up your industry instead of waiting for your industry to clean up itself.” Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which counts Google and Facebook among its members, said such a solution would result in tech giants having to obey 50 separate sets of laws governing user content. He suggested law enforcement’s energies might be better spent pursuing the millions of tips that the tech industry sent over every year, only a small fraction of which, he noted, resulted in investigations. “There appears to be some asymmetry there,” he said. Others argued that different rules should apply to different platforms, with larger websites enjoying fewer protections than internet upstarts. “With great scale comes great responsibility,” said David Chavern, of the News Media Alliance, whose members have bristled as Google and Facebook have gutted journalism’s business model. How to distinguishBut other panelists argued that distinguishing one site from another might be tricky. For example, would platforms like Reddit or Wikipedia, which have large reach but shoestring staffs, be counted as big sites or small ones? The panelists also briefly debated encryption, another area over which Barr has pressed the tech industry to change its modus operandi. Facebook in particular has drawn the ire of U.S. officials over its plans to secure its popular messaging platform. Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, urged caution. “This is a massive norm-setting period,” she said, with any alterations to one of the internet’s key legal frameworks likely to draw unexpected consequences. “It’s hard to know exactly what the ramifications might be.”
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ePUMB skype chat
