Puerto Rico bans discrimination against those who wear Afros, other styles
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s governor on Wednesday signed a law that prohibits discrimination against people wearing Afros, curls, locs, twists, braids and other hairstyles in the racially diverse U.S. territory.
The move was celebrated by those who had long demanded explicit protection related to work, housing, education and public services.
“It’s a victory for generations to come,” Welmo Romero Joseph, a community facilitator with the nonprofit Taller Salud, said in an interview.
The organization is one of several that had been pushing for the law, with Romero noting it sends a strong message that “you can reach positions of power without having to change your identity.”
While Puerto Rico’s laws and constitution protect against discrimination, along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a precedent was set in 2016 when a U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed a discrimination lawsuit and ruled that an employer’s no-dreadlock policy in Alabama did not violate Title VII.
Earlier this year, legislators in the U.S. territory held a public hearing on the issue, with several Puerto Ricans sharing examples of how they were discriminated against, including job offers conditional on haircuts.
It’s a familiar story to Romero, who recalled how a high school principal ordered him to cut his flat top.
“It was a source of pride,” he said of that hairstyle. “I was a 4.0 student. What did that have to do with my hair?”
With a population of 3.2 million, Puerto Rico has more than 1.6 million people who identify as being of two or more races, with nearly 230,000 identifying solely as Black, according to the U.S. Census.
“Unfortunately, people identified as black or Afro descendant in Puerto Rico still face derogatory treatment, deprivation of opportunities, marginalization, exclusion and all kinds of discrimination,” the law signed Wednesday states.
While Romero praised the law, he warned that measures are needed to ensure it’s followed.
On the U.S. mainland, at least two dozen states have approved versions of the CROWN Act, which aims to ban race-based hair discrimination and stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.”
Among those states is Texas, where a Black high school student was suspended after school officials said his dreadlocks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes, violating the dress code.
A March report from the Economic Policy Institute found that not all states have amended their education codes to protect public and private high school students, and that some states have allowed certain exceptions to the CROWN Act.
A federal version was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, but it failed in the Senate. In May, Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the legislation.
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US claims TikTok collected user views on issues like abortion, gun control
WASHINGTON — In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.
Government lawyers wrote in a brief filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China.
TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said.
One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted.
The new court documents represent the government’s first major defense in a consequential legal battle over the future of the popular social media platform, which is used by more than 170 million Americans. Under a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, the company could face a ban in a few months if it doesn’t break ties with ByteDance.
The measure was passed with bipartisan support after lawmakers and administration officials expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion towards Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds.
The Justice Department warned, in stark terms, of the potential for what it called “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government, saying the algorithm could be designed to shape content that users receive.
“By directing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate that algorithm; China could for example further its existing malign influence operations and amplify its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions,” the brief states.
The concern, they said, is more than theoretical, alleging that TikTok and ByteDance employees are known to engage in a practice called “heating” in which certain videos are promoted in order to receive a certain number of views. While this capability enables TikTok to curate popular content and disseminate it more widely, U.S. officials posit it can also be used for nefarious purposes.
Justice Department officials are asking the court to allow a classified version of its legal brief, which won’t be accessible to the two companies.
Nothing in the redacted brief “changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement.
“The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the 1st Amendment,” Haurek said. “As we’ve said before, the government has never put forth proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, once again, the government is taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind secret information. We remain confident we will prevail in court.”
In the redacted version of the court documents, the Justice Department said another tool triggered the suppression of content based on the use of certain words. Certain policies of the tool applied to ByteDance users in China, where the company operates a similar app called Douyin that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.
But Justice Department officials said other policies may have been applied to TikTok users outside of China. TikTok was investigating the existence of these policies and whether they had ever been used in the U.S. in, or around, 2022, officials said.
The government points to the Lark data transfers to explain why federal officials do not believe that Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the tech giant Oracle, is sufficient to guard against national security concerns.
In its legal challenge against the law, TikTok has heavily leaned on arguments that the potential ban violates the First Amendment because it bars the app from continued speech unless it attracts a new owner through a complex divestment process. It has also argued divestment would change the speech on the platform because a new social platform would lack the algorithm that has driven its success.
In its response, the Justice Department argued TikTok has not raised any valid free speech claims, saying the law addresses national security concerns without targeting protected speech, and argues that China and ByteDance, as foreign entities, aren’t shielded by the First Amendment.
TikTok has also argued the U.S. law discriminates on viewpoints, citing statements from some lawmakers critical of what they viewed as an anti-Israel tilt on the platform during its war in Gaza.
Justice Department officials disputes that argument, saying the law at issue reflects their ongoing concern that China could weaponize technology against U.S. national security, a fear they say is made worse by demands that companies under Beijing’s control turn over sensitive data to the government. They say TikTok, under its current operating structure, is required to be responsive to those demands.
Oral arguments in the case is scheduled for September.
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NASA Mars rover captures rock that could hold fossilized microbes
washington — NASA’s rover Perseverance on Mars has made what could be its most astonishing discovery to date: possible signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.
The six-wheeled robotic explorer came across an intriguing, arrow-shaped rock dubbed “Cheyava Falls” that may harbor fossilized microbes from billions of years ago, when Mars was a watery world.
Perseverance drilled into the enigmatic rock to collect a core sample on July 21, as it traversed Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley.
The samples carefully stowed beneath the rover’s belly are destined to eventually return to Earth, where they will undergo more comprehensive analysis.
“Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance,” project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech said Thursday.
Three compelling clues have scientists buzzing.
White calcium sulfate veins run the length of the rock, a telltale sign that water once flowed through it.
Between these veins is a reddish middle area, teeming with organic compounds, as detected by the rover’s SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument.
Finally, tiny off-white splotches ringed with black, reminiscent of leopard spots, contain chemicals that suggest energy sources for ancient microbes, according to scans by the PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instrument.
“On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
The quest to confirm ancient Martian life is far from over, however.
The real test will come when Perseverance’s precious rock samples are returned to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return Program, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency slated for the 2030s.
While there are alternative explanations for these findings that do not involve microbes, there is a tantalizing chance that Perseverance’s core sample might contain actual fossilized microbes — potentially making history as the first proof of life beyond Earth.
“We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable,” said Farley.
“Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give. To fully understand what really happened in that Martian river valley at Jezero Crater billions of years ago, we’d want to bring the Cheyava Falls sample back to Earth, so it can be studied with the powerful instruments available in laboratories,” he explained.
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Advocates hail sub-Saharan Africa’s lead in global HIV response
washington — Thousands of policymakers, health care professionals and advocates gathered this week in Munich, Germany, to take stock of the global fight against HIV as they try to meet the 2030 deadline set by world leaders for eliminating AIDS as a public health threat.
Advocates hailed sub-Saharan Africa’s progress in the global HIV response, with tens of millions of people now on lifesaving drugs.
A new UNAIDS survey released during the conference reported that “approximately 30.7 million of the estimated 39.9 million people living with HIV globally were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2023.”
The report called that result a “landmark public health achievement,” and health officials at the conference said it would not be possible without the “immense political will” of regional leaders and NGOs.
Anne Githuku-Shongwe, the UNAIDS regional director for eastern and southern Africa, told VOA from Johannesburg that recently there has been a “huge focus” on ensuring that anyone living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa gets access to testing and treatment to ensure virus suppression, so the virus becomes untransmissible.
“The data is telling us that 84% of people living with HIV in our region have access to treatment. And 94% of those on treatment have been able to keep [the virus] suppressed so it is untransmissible,” she said.
However, Githuku-Shongwe pointed out that despite the progress that has been made, some countries in Africa are lagging behind in the battle against HIV/AIDS, partly because of civil wars, humanitarian setbacks and sheer negligence. She mentioned South Sudan, Angola, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Comoros as examples.
“[Countries] like Mauritius are barely at 50% of the treatment target,” she said, adding that another critical challenge being faced is the lack of attention to children living with the virus.
The report said children aged 0-14 years are still contracting HIV. An estimated 120,000 children got the virus in 2023, bringing the number of children living with HIV globally to 1.4 million, 86% of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UNAIDS report.
Worries about donor funding
Githuku-Shongwe said there have been major investments from partners – particularly from PEPFAR, a U.S.-funded initiative to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She noted that in some countries, up to 99% of the HIV response is externally funded.
“But with time we are seeing that dwindling,” she said.
Nearly $19.8 billion was available in 2023 for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries, almost $9.5 billion short of the amount needed by 2025, the report said.
Catherine Connor, vice president in charge of public policy and advocacy at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, a Washington nonprofit, told VOA from Munich that the data on infections in children were “troubling” and pointed to a lackadaisical approach toward pediatric HIV.
“The report clearly shows that children are one out of every 10 new infections, which is really high,” she said. “But there’s also an outsized mortality issue around children. Children make up 3% of the HIV-infected population, but they represent 12% of deaths.”
Connor said there’s inequity in treatment, particularly for children living with HIV.
“Children can’t take themselves to clinics. They often don’t even know they’ve been exposed to HIV,” she said. “So they really rely on caregivers, the community around them, to ensure not just that they can be identified as being HIV-exposed or potentially HIV-positive, but also get the needed support to maintain their health, even if they are on treatment.”
Connor concluded that world leaders and policymakers should be made aware how significant it is to act on HIV prevention, because if the world fails to take steps to curtail the virus, then “we will not end AIDS.”
“It’s almost like having a dam holding back a river of water,” she said.
“HIV is preventable and treatable, but it is not curable. And so, if we let cracks in that dam get so bad, it’s going to break, and we are going to see a reemergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in ways we have never seen,” Connor said.
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Former US diplomat and author Martin Indyk dies at 73
NORWICH, Conn. — Veteran diplomat Martin S. Indyk, an author and leader at prominent U.S. think tanks who devoted years to finding a path toward peace in the Middle East, died Thursday. He was 73.
His wife, Gahl Hodges Burt, confirmed in a phone call that he died from complications of esophageal cancer at the couple’s home in New Fairfield, Connecticut.
The Council on Foreign Relations, where Indyk had been a distinguished fellow in U.S. and Middle East diplomacy since 2018, called him a “rare, trusted voice within an otherwise polarized debate on U.S. policy toward the Middle East.”
A native of Australia, Indyk served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995 to 1997 and from 2000 to 2001. He was special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during former President Barack Obama’s administration, from 2013 to 2014.
When he resigned in 2014 to join The Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, it had symbolized the latest failed effort by the U.S. to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. He continued as Obama’s special adviser on Mideast peace issues.
“Ambassador Indyk has invested decades of his extraordinary career to the mission of helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace. It’s the cause of Martin’s career, and I’m grateful for the wisdom and insight he’s brought to our collective efforts,” then-Secretary of State John Kerry said at the time, in a statement.
In a May 22 social media post on X, amid the continuing war in Gaza, Indyk urged Israelis to “wake up,” warning them their government “is leading you into greater isolation and ruin” after a proposed peace deal was rejected. Indyk also called out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June on X, accusing him of playing “the martyr in a crisis he manufactured,” after Netanyahu accused the U.S. of withholding weapons that Israel needed.
“Israel is at war on four fronts: with Hamas in Gaza; with Houthis in Yemen; with Hezbollah in Lebanon; and with Iran overseeing the operations,” Indyk wrote on June 19. “What does Netanyahu do? Attack the United States based on a lie that he made up! The Speaker and Leader should withdraw his invitation to address Congress until he recants and apologizes.”
Indyk also served as special assistant to former President Bill Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1995. He served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State from 1997 to 2000.
Besides serving at Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations, Indyk worked at the Center for Middle East Policy and was the founding executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Indyk’s successor at the Washington Institute called him “a true American success story.”
“A native of Australia, he came to Washington to have an impact on the making of American Middle East Policy and that he surely did — as pioneering scholar, insightful analyst and remarkably effective policy entrepreneur,” Robert Satloff said. “He was a visionary who not only founded an organization based on the idea that wise public policy is rooted in sound research, he embodied it.”
Indyk wrote or co-wrote multiple books, including Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East and Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy, which was published in 2021.
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US, Taiwan, China race to improve military drone technology
washington — This week, as Taiwan was preparing for the start of its Han Kuang military exercises, its air defense system detected a Chinese drone circling the island. This was the sixth time that China had sent a drone to operate around Taiwan since 2023.
Drones like the one that flew around Taiwan, which are tasked with dual-pronged missions of reconnaissance and intimidation, are just a small part of a broader trend that is making headlines from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Taiwan Strait and is changing the face of warfare.
The increasing role that unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, play and rising concern about a Chinese invasion of democratically ruled Taiwan is pushing Washington, Beijing and Taipei to improve the sophistication, adaptability and cost of drone technology.
‘Hellscape’ strategy
Last August, the Pentagon launched a $1 billion Replicator Initiative to create air, sea and land drones in the “multiple thousands,” according to the Defense Department’s Innovation Unit. The Pentagon aims to build that force of drones by August 2025.
The initiative is part of what U.S. Admiral Samuel Paparo recently described to The Washington Post as a “hellscape” strategy, which aims to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan through the deployment of thousands of unmanned drones in the air and sea between the island and China.
“The benefits of unmanned systems are that you get cheap, disposable mass that’s low cost. If a drone gets shot down, the only people that are crying about it are the accountants,” said Zachary Kallenborn, a policy fellow at George Mason University. “You can use them at large amounts of scale and overwhelm your opponents as well as degrade their defensive capabilities.”
The hellscape strategy, he added, aims to use lots of cheap drones to try to hold back China from attacking Taiwan.
Drone manufacturing supremacy
China has its own plans under way and is the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial drones. In a news briefing after Paparo’s remarks to the Post, it warned Washington that it was playing with fire.
“Those who clamor for turning others’ homeland into hell should get ready for burning in hell themselves,” said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese defense ministry.
“The People’s Liberation Army is able to fight and win in thwarting external interference and safeguarding our national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Threats and intimidation never work on us,” Wu said.
China’s effort to expand its use of drones has been bolstered, analysts say, by leader Xi Jinping’s emphasis on technology and modernization in the military, something he highlighted at a top-level party meeting last week.
“China’s military is developing more than 50 types of drones with varying capabilities, amassing a fleet of tens of thousands of drones, potentially 10 times larger than Taiwan and the U.S. combined,” Michael Raska, assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, told VOA in an email. “This quantitative edge currently fuels China’s accelerating military modernization, with drones envisioned for everything from pre-conflict intel gathering to swarming attacks.”
Analysts add that China’s commercial drone manufacturing supremacy aids its military in the push for drone development. China’s DJI dominates in production and sale of household drones, accounting for 76% of the worldwide consumer market in 2021.
The scale of production and low price of DJI drones could put China in an advantageous position in a potential drone war, analysts say.
“In Russia and Ukraine, if you have a lot of drones – even if they’re like the commercial off-the-shelf things, DJI drones you can buy at Costco – and you throw hundreds of them at an air defense system, that’s going to create a large problem,” said Major Emilie Stewart, a research analyst at the China Aerospace Studies Institute.
China denies it is seeking to use commercial UAV technology for future conflicts.
“China has always been committed to maintaining global security and regional stability and has always opposed the use of civilian drones for military purposes,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA. “We are firmly opposed to the U.S.’s military ties with Taiwan and its effort of arming Taiwan.”
Drone force
With assistance from its American partners, pressure from China and lessons from Ukraine, Taiwan has been pushing to develop its own domestic drone warfare capabilities.
The United States has played a pivotal role in Taiwan’s drone development, and just last week it pledged to sell $360 million of attack drones to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, or TECRO, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington.
“Taiwan will continue to build a credible deterrence and work closely with like-minded partners, including the United States, to preserve peace and stability in the region,” TECRO told VOA when asked about the collaboration between Taipei and Washington. “We have no further information to share at this moment.”
The effort to incorporate drones into its defense is crucial for Taiwan, said Eric Chan, a senior nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
“The biggest immediate effects of the U.S. coming into this mass UAV game is to give Taiwan a bigger advantage to be able to, first, detect their enemy and, second, help them build a backstop to their own capabilities as well,” Chan said.
With the potential for China to consider using drones in an urban conflict environment, Taiwan is recognizing the importance of stepping up its counter-drone defense systems.
“After multiple intrusions of Chinese drones in outlying islands, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense now places great emphasis on anti-drone capabilities,” said Yu-Jiu Wang, chief executive of Tron Future, an anti-drone company working with the Taiwanese military.
The demand is one that Wang said his company is willing and ready to fill.
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Video game performers to strike over artificial intelligence concerns
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood’s video game performers voted Thursday to go on strike, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.
The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.
SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.
Fran Drescher, the union’s president, said in a prepared statement that members would not approve a contract that would allow companies to “abuse AI.”
“Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” Drescher said.
A representative for the studios did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.
“Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable AI protections, but rather flagrant exploitation,” said Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee Chair Sarah Elmaleh.
Last month, union negotiators told The Associated Press that the game studios refused to “provide an equal level of protection from the dangers of AI for all our members” — specifically, movement performers.
Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.
The last interactive contract, which expired November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.
The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 “off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers,” according to the union.
Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered indie and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected.
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UN chief: Earth becoming hotter and more dangerous for all
United Nations — The U.N. Secretary-General warned Thursday that the Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, killing nearly a half-million people annually, and he blamed fossil fuels for driving global warming.
“Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic — wilting under increasingly deadly heat waves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling,” Antonio Guterres told reporters.
Sunday was the Earth’s hottest day on record, only to have the record broken the following day. Temperatures have been rising steadily, with scientists declaring the last 13 consecutive months all heat record-breakers. Urban areas are heating up at twice the global average.
Heat waves have killed scores of people this year in India and in Africa’s Sahel region. Last month, extreme heat killed 1,300 Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. This month, Europe, the United States and Asia have also seen exceptional heat.
He said that the World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization estimate that improvements to heat health warning systems in 57 countries could save nearly 100,000 lives a year.
Fossil fuels
Guterres has repeatedly called on greenhouse gas emitters to meet the 2015 Paris Climate Accord’s target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — a goal that many worry is slipping away. He said that fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are obstacles to meeting that target.
“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” he said. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future.”
He urged leaders to quickly and fairly phase out fossil fuels and end new coal projects.
“The G20 must shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and support vulnerable countries and communities,” he said of the world’s largest economies.
And he urged more climate adaptation and mitigation financing from the richest countries — which are the biggest emitters — to help the poorest, most vulnerable nations that have contributed the least to global warming.
Guterres said he is launching a global call to action focused on caring for the most vulnerable, including protecting workers who are exposed to extreme heat.
“A new report from the International Labor Organization — being released today — warns that over 70% of the global workforce — 2.4 billion people — are now at high risk of extreme heat,” he said.
In addition to the rights and health of individual workers, there are economic impacts of extreme heat too.
“Heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030. Up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s,” Guterres said, adding measures need to be taken to “heat proof” critical sectors of the global economy, like farming and construction work.
The U.N. chief warned that extreme heat widens social inequality, undermines development, furthers food insecurity, and pushes people deeper into poverty.
“Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” he said.
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YouTube star sets Domino installation world record
YouTube star Lily Hevesh has been mesmerizing viewers with domino creations for 15 years. Last weekend, at the National Building Museum in Washington, she completed her most ambitious project yet: she brought down an installation of 100,000 dominoes and set a world record. Maxim Adams reports. Camera: Dmitry Shakhov, Artem Kohan.
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NASA telescope spots super Jupiter that takes more than a century to go around its star
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A super Jupiter has been spotted around a neighboring star by the Webb Space Telescope — and it has a super orbit.
The planet is roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter’s.
One big difference: It takes this planet more than a century, possibly as long as 250 years, to go around its star. It’s 15 times the distance from its star than Earth is to the sun.
Scientists had long suspected a big planet circled this star 12 light-years away, but not this massive or far from its star. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. These new observations show the planet orbits the star Epsilon Indi A, part of a three-star system.
An international team led by Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Elisabeth Matthews in Germany collected the images last year and published the findings Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Astronomers directly observed the incredibly old and cold gas giant — a rare and tricky feat — by masking the star through use of a special shading device on Webb. By blocking the starlight, the planet stood out as a pinpoint of infrared light.
The planet and star clock in at 3.5 billion years old, 1 billion years younger than our own solar system, but still considered old and brighter than expected, according to Matthews.
The star is so close and bright to our own solar system that it’s visible with the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.
Don’t bet on life, though.
“This is a gas giant with no hard surface or liquid water oceans,” Matthews said in an email.
It’s unlikely this solar system sports more gas giants, she said, but small rocky worlds could be lurking there.
Worlds similar to Jupiter can help scientists understand “how these planets evolve over giga-year timescales,” she said.
The first planets outside our solar system — dubbed exoplanets — were confirmed in the early 1990s. NASA’s tally now stands at 5,690 as of mid-July. The vast majority were detected via the transit method, in which a fleeting dip in starlight, repeated at regular intervals, indicates an orbiting planet.
Telescopes in space and also on the ground are on the hunt for even more, especially planets that might be similar to Earth.
Launched in 2021, NASA and the European Space Agency’s Webb telescope is the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever placed in space.
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Young Ethiopian Space Program graduates aim for the skies
A group of young African students is shooting for the stars thanks to a program called ‘Pathways to Space.’ Aerospace company Boeing and a South African science organization backed an education program that just celebrated its first batch of graduates. Vicky Stark reports from Cape Town.
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Drill team cultivates sense of identity for Chinese American girls
In the Pacific Northwest, there is a marching group that has thrilled parade audiences for more than 70 years. The Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team has brought a sense of community and identity for generations of Chinese American girls. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya reports.
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CrowdStrike blames bug for letting bad data slip through, leading to global tech outage
your ad herePolio at high risk of spreading within Gaza Strip
Geneva — A senior World Health Organization official expressed alarm Tuesday at the high risk of polio spreading within the Gaza Strip because of dire sanitary conditions in the war-wracked enclave, and that the paralytic disease it causes could spill across borders without prompt action to stem the outbreak.
“I am, like, super worried,” Dr. Avadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at the WHO in the occupied Palestinian territory, told journalists from Jerusalem. “I am extremely worried about an outbreak happening in Gaza … and that it may spill over internationally at a very high point.”
Saparbekov, who recently returned from a weeklong visit to Gaza, confirmed that “circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2” has been identified in samples of Gazan sewage assessed by researchers and that an epidemiological probe “to identify the potential source of this importation” is underway.
“Based on the results of the assessment, WHO and the GPEI (Global Polio Eradication Initiative) partners will consolidate a set of recommendations, including the need for a mass vaccination campaign,” he said.
On July 16, the Global Polio Laboratory Network isolated the virus in six environmental surveillance samples collected from sewage on June 23 in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah in Gaza.
The WHO reports that further genomic sequencing of the samples by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that they are related to environmental samples that were circulating in Egypt during the second half of last year.
“It is important to note that poliovirus has been isolated from environmental samples only at this time; no associated paralytic cases have been detected,” Saparbekov stressed.
Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus is transmitted from person to person mainly through the fecal-oral route. It can invade a person’s nervous system and cause paralysis and death.
“We have not yet collected the human samples to identify any viruses because of the lack of equipment to collect those and lack of capacity to test those samples,” Saparbekov said, noting that WHO and UNICEF teams entering Gaza on Thursday will bring up to 50 sample collection kits “so we will be able to collect human samples, stool samples from humans.”
The samples, he said, will be sent to a lab in Jordan to confirm any cases of infection.
“Until that is done, I cannot say that there are any humans that are affected with this circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus,” he said.
The WHO said that wild poliovirus was eliminated more than 25 years ago in the Palestinian territories. Before the start of the war in Gaza, following a vicious attack on Israel by Hamas militants on October 7, the U.N. health agency says 89% of the population was vaccinated against polio, primarily conducted through routine immunization.
Last Sunday, Israel’s military said it would offer polio vaccinations to soldiers serving in Gaza to protect against the paralytic disease.
Saparbekov said the WHO will be reaching out to COGAT, the Israeli authority responsible for the coordination of government activities in the Palestinian territories, “to see how they can facilitate” the response to the outbreak. One way to do that, he added, is to have vaccines available for Gazans in case “there is a decision to conduct a mass campaign.”
“We have so far received assurances that this will be done,” he said.
The WHO official expressed hope that the epidemiological investigation and risk assessment would be completed by the end of the week, such that his team “will have a joint recommendation from the GPEI network about what to do with this particular outbreak” by Sunday.
In the meantime, he said, aid workers are doing their best to inform the population as to health measures they must take to prevent a polio outbreak.
“Given the water and sanitation limitations in Gaza, it will be very difficult for the population to follow the advice to wash their hands, to drink safe water,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the majority that live in shelters with one toilet for 600 people and maybe 1.5 liters of water per person, will definitely not be able to follow the recommendations that we are providing,” he said.
While reiterating concerns about polio spreading in the Palestinian enclave, WHO health emergency chief Saparbekov said he also is very worried about the possible outbreak of other communicable diseases.
“We had Hepatitis A confirmed last year and now we may have a polio outbreak,” he said. “So, with the crippled health system, lack of water and sanitation, as well as lack of access of the population to health services, specifically primary health services, this is going to be a very bad situation that will happen in Gaza.
“We may have more people dying from communicable diseases than from injuries and related conditions,” he warned.
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LogOn: Device may help disabled vocal cords speak again
Some people who have lost the ability to speak can still move their vocal cords. California researchers are working to transform those muscle movements into audible speech. Genia Dulot reports from Los Angeles in this week’s edition of LogOn.
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UN: Nearly 40 million had HIV in 2023, many died due to lack of treatment
United Nations — Nearly 40 million people were living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS last year, over 9 million weren’t getting any treatment, and the result was that every minute someone died of AIDS-related causes, the U.N. said in a new report launched Monday.
While advances are being made to end the global AIDS pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking, and new infections are rising in three regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America.
In 2023, around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, a significant decline from the 2.1 million deaths in 2004. But the latest figure is more than double the target for 2025 of fewer than 250,000 deaths, according to the report by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the global effort to end the pandemic.
Gender inequality is exacerbating the risks for girls and women, the report said, citing the extraordinarily high incidence of HIV among adolescents and young women in parts of Africa.
The proportion of new infections globally among marginalized communities that face stigma and discrimination – sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people who inject drugs also increased to 55% in 2023 from 45% in 2010, it said.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “World leaders pledged to end the AIDS pandemic as a public health threat by 2030, and they can uphold their promise, but only if they ensure that the HIV response has the resources it needs, and that the human rights of everyone are protected.”
As part of that pledge, leaders vowed to reduce annual new HIV infections to below 370,000 by 2025, but the report said in 2023 new infections were more than three times higher at 1.3 million.
Last year, among the 39.9 million people globally living with HIV, 86% knew they were infected, 77% were accessing treatment, and for 72% the virus was suppressed, the report said
Cesar Nunez, director of the UNAIDS New York office, told a news conference there has been progress in HIV treatments — injections that can stay in the body for six months, but the two doses cost $40,000 yearly, out of reach for all but the richest people with the virus.
He said UNAIDS has been asking the manufacturer to make it available at lower cost to low and middle-income countries.
Nunez said there have also been seven cases where people with HIV who were treated for leukemia emerged with no sign of the HIV virus in their system.
He said injections and the seven cases will be discussed at the 25th International AIDS Conference which began Monday in Munich.
At present, he said, daily treatment with pills costs about $75 per person per year. It has allowed many countries to increase the number of people with HIV to receive treatment.
Nunez said UNAIDS will continue advocating for a vaccine to prevent AIDS.
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Ukraine’s largest music festival returns with break from inescapable reality of war
Kyiv, Ukraine — This year, Ukraine’s largest music festival struck a different chord. Gone were the international headliners, the massive performance halls and the hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Instead, beloved local artists graced the stage this past weekend at the Atlas Festival — the first since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — for a smaller but still ebullient crowd. The stage was erected in a shopping mall parking lot, the only option with a shelter large enough to contain the 25,000 people expected in the event of an air raid.
Carefree youth danced, romanced and sang along, rubbing shoulders with hardened military commanders as famous singers who crooned lyrics imbued with national pride. Music was the main goal, but so was shattering the illusion that the capital is invulnerable to the bloody battles hundreds of miles away.
“Such kind of festivals can’t be separated from the life of the country. The country is at war. The core issues here should relate to the war,” said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, a businessman and one of the founders of the 13th “Khartia” Brigade, now a part of Ukraine’s National Guard and defending the front line in Kharkiv.
“People who are still young and who don’t join (the fight) should understand that they cannot live in a bubble,” he said.
And yet, a bubble is precisely how it feels to be in Kyiv, as the war approaches its third year. While Ukrainian soldiers are killed and wounded every day along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in the east, the capital is a contrast with its busy bars and clubs.
Every so often, Kyiv comes face to face with the war. Two weeks ago, a barrage of Russian missiles destroyed a children’s hospital and a private clinic, in one of the deadliest attacks since the full-scale invasion. Residents have grappled with power cuts caused by Moscow’s targeted destruction of Ukrainian energy generation at the height of a summer heat wave.
In every corner of the music festival, visitors were confronted with the inescapable reality that theirs is a country trapped in a bloody war of attrition. Festival organizers hoped to raise $2.2 million (2 million euros) to help soldiers purchase supplies for the front line.
In the mall’s basement parking lot, various military units, from Khartia to the 3rd Assault, offered interactive games to lure donations and possible recruits. A first-person shooter game offered visitors a chance to improve target practice by gunning down shadowy virtual infantrymen. In another corner, medics brandished severed plastic limbs and offered emergency medical training.
The festival concluded Sunday with a much-anticipated performance from Serhii Zhadan and his band Zhadan and the Dogs. Zhadan, a celebrated artist dubbed the poet of the Donbas, recently joined Khartia.
“It’s just a small break, an opportunity to take a breath,” said Zhadan, minutes before he took to the stage for a roaring crowd. “The most important things, they are happening over there, at the front line.”
On stage, Zhadan started with one of his most beloved songs “Malvi” or “Mallow.” The crowd sang along, word for word. “But what can you do with my hot blood,” they chanted. “Who will come at us.”
18-year old Viktoriia Khalis was excited to see his performance. She had been to the Atlas festival once before in 2021. The difference is stark, she said.
“The main thing that has changed, unfortunately, now the festival is connected with donations,” she said. But she also felt more connected to her homeland. “I feel this entire crowd is related to me. I feel unity.”
She was scared there would be another Russian air attack — a music festival with thousands of attendees would be a prime target — but said she couldn’t miss a chance to see her favorite artists.
For Nadiia Dorofeeva, one of Ukraine’s most famous singers, every concert feels different. “Before, when I entered a stage I was thinking only about if I looked good, sang well and if the people got what they came for. But now, I dream of having no air alarms, I am seeing how people cry at my concerts.”
One of Dorofeeva’s songs, “WhatsApp,” is about a girl waiting for her beloved to return from war. “She washed the phone with tears/Like rainy glass,” often moves listeners to tears.
Among the attendees was Lt. Gen. Serhii Naiev, an assistant deputy chief in Ukraine’s General Staff.
“There are well-known artists on stage, they are performing their concerts and there are a lot of Ukrainians around who are donating their money, much-needed money for the armed forces of Ukraine,” he said.
“We understand that our partners are supporting us, but we also understand that we could do a lot by ourselves, to be stronger,” he said.
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CrowdStrike: More machines fixed as customers, regulators await details on what caused meltdown
AUSTIN, Tex. — Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says a “significant number” of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday, causing global disruptions, are back in operation as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.
A defective software update sent by CrowdStrike to its customers disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and other critical services Friday, affecting about 8.5 million machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The painstaking work of fixing it has often required a company’s IT crew to manually delete files on affected machines.
CrowdStrike said late Sunday in a blog post that it was starting to implement a new technique to accelerate remediation of the problem.
Shares of the Texas-based cybersecurity company have dropped nearly 30% since the meltdown, knocking off billions of dollars in market value.
The scope of the disruptions has also caught the attention of government regulators, including antitrust enforcers, though it remains to be seen if they take action against the company.
“All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage, affecting industries from healthcare and airlines to banks and auto-dealers,” said Lina Khan, chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in a Sunday post on the social media platform X. “Millions of people and businesses pay the price. These incidents reveal how concentration can create fragile systems.”
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