The Biden administration approved more than $23 billion worth of licenses for companies to ship U.S. goods and technology to blacklisted Chinese companies in the first quarter of 2022, a Republican lawmaker said Tuesday. The data comes amid growing pressure on the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden to further expand a broad crackdown on shipments of sensitive U.S. technology to China from Republican lawmakers, who now control the House of Representatives. “Overwhelmingly, [the Commerce Department] continues to grant licenses that allow critical U.S. technology to be sold to our adversaries,” Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said at a hearing on combating the generational challenge of Chinese aggression, as he grilled U.S. officials for allowing the licenses to be approved. “How does this align with your statement that ‘we’re doing everything within [the Commerce Department’s] power to prevent sensitive U.S. technologies from getting in the hands of [Chinese] military, intelligence services or other parties?’” McCaul said the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, denied only 8% of license requests to sell to companies on the U.S. trade blacklist during the January to March period last year. Commerce Department official Alan Estevez, who oversees U.S. export policy, told the hearing that a Trump-era policy that allows China’s blacklisted telecommunications equipment maker Huawei to receive some U.S. technology below the “5G level” is “under assessment.” Estevez also described TikTok as a “threat,” noting that a powerful committee that reviews foreign investments in the United …
Mexican President Says Tesla to Build Plant in Mexico
Mexico’s president announced Tuesday that electric car company Tesla has committed to building a major plant in the industrial hub of Monterrey in northern Mexico. President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said the promise came in phone calls he had Friday and Monday with Tesla head Elon Musk. It would be Tesla’s third plant outside the U.S., after one in Shanghai and one near Berlin. Lopez Obrador had previously ruled out such a plant in the arid northern state of Nuevo Leon, where Monterrey is the capital, because he didn’t want water-hungry factories in a region that suffers water shortages. But he said Musk’s company had offered commitments to address those concerns, including using recycled water. “There is one commitment that all the water used in the manufacture of electric automobiles will be recycled water,” Lopez Obrador said. The president said it would be a large investment without giving a dollar amount and did not specify what the plant would produce. He said it was unclear if it would produce batteries, an industry Mexico desperately wants despite not having a current domestic supply of lithium. Lopez Obrador said the company planned to release details on Wednesday. “This is going to mean a considerable investment and many, many jobs,” he said. “My understanding is that it will be very big.” Investment estimated to be $10 billion Monterrey is highly industrialized and close to the U.S. border and had long been considered the frontrunner for any Tesla investment. But the city suffered water …
US: 25 Million Lives Saved by AIDS Program
The head of a U.S. government program to fight AIDS, Dr. John Nkengasong, says that in its 20 years of existence the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has saved 25 million lives. PEPFAR, set up in 2003 under the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush, has transformed the trajectory of HIV/AIDS, Nkengasong told reporters Tuesday while visiting South Africa. “Twenty-five million lives have been saved, 5.5 million children have been born free of HIV/AIDS, health systems have been strengthened in a remarkable way,” he said. Nkengasong, who comes from Cameroon, said there was once a “sense of hopelessness” in Africa, the continent worst-hit by HIV/AIDS, but since then countries’ economies have increased and life expectancy has improved. Some 95% of the total $110 billion spent through PEPFAR was spent on Africa as it bore the brunt of the disease, he said. “Before PEPFAR only 50,000 people, 50,000 people on the continent of Africa who were infected, were on treatment, 50,000. Today over 20 million people are receiving life-saving anti-retroviral therapy.” he said. Nkengasong said the infrastructure rolled out across Africa as part of the U.S. government program was also useful during the COVID-19 pandemic. The AIDS official said he was also “very positive” about the tools in the pipeline to combat HIV, including the roll out of pre-exposure prophylactics for HIV negative people that can be injected every three months and will stop the spread of new infections. …
Father of Cellphone Sees Dark Side but Also Hope in New Tech
Holding the bulky brick cellphone he’s credited with inventing 50 years ago, Martin Cooper thinks about the future. Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a thick gray prototype that our world — and our information — would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search, connect, like and buy. He’s optimistic that future advances in mobile technology can transform human lives but is also worried about risks smartphones pose to privacy and young people. “My most negative opinion is we don’t have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,” the 94-year-old told The Associated Press at MWC, or Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest wireless trade show where he was getting a lifetime award this week in Barcelona. Besides worrying about the erosion of privacy, Cooper also acknowledged the negative side effects that come with smartphones and social media, such as internet addiction and making it easy for children to access harmful content. But Cooper, describing himself as a dreamer and an optimist, said he’s hopeful that advances in cellphone technology have the potential to revolutionize areas like education and health care. “Between the cellphone and medical technology and the Internet, we are going to conquer disease,” he said. It’s a long way from where he started. Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on …
Death Toll in Equatorial Guinea Marburg Outbreak Rises to 11
Two more people in Equatorial Guinea have died of Marburg hemorrhagic fever, a cousin of the Ebola virus, bringing the toll of fatalities to 11, the authorities say. “Two days ago, the monitoring system recorded eight notifications, including the deaths of two people with symptoms of the disease,” Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba said in a statement issued late Tuesday. Work is underway “to strengthen assessment of the spread of the epidemic,” said the statement, read on national television. “Forty-eight contact cases have been documented, four of whom have developed symptoms, and three who have been quarantined in hospital,” it added. The Marburg virus is a rare but highly dangerous pathogen that causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure. It is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes the Ebola virus, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa. The central African state announced on February 13 that nine people had died from Marburg between January 7 and February 7. The U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency session the following day. The national authorities have declared a health alert in the remote northeastern province of Kie-Ntem province and in the neighboring district of Mongomo, which are located on the border with Cameroon and Gabon. Measures include a lockdown plan implemented in collaboration with the WHO. In their statement of February 13, the authorities had reported only three cases of infection in addition to the fatalities — individuals who were being isolated …
EU Defends Talks on Big Tech Helping Fund Networks
Europe’s existing telecom networks aren’t up to the job of handling surging amounts of internet data traffic, a top European Union official said Monday, as he defended a consultation on whether Big Tech companies should help pay for upgrades. The telecom industry needs to reconsider its business models as it undergoes a “radical shift” fueled by a new wave of innovation such as immersive, data-hungry technologies like the metaverse, Thierry Breton, the European Commission’s official in charge of digital policy, said at a major industry expo in Barcelona called MWC, or Mobile World Congress. Breton’s remarks came days after he announced a consultation on whether digital giants should help contribute to the billions needed to build the 27-nation bloc’s future communications infrastructure, including next-generation 5G wireless and fiber-optic cable connections, to keep up with surging demand for digital data. “Yes, of course, we will need to find a financing model for the huge investments needed,” Breton said in a copy of a keynote speech at the MWC conference. Telecommunications companies complain they have had to foot the substantial costs of building and operating network infrastructure only for big digital streaming platforms like Netflix and Facebook to benefit from the surging consumer demand for online services. “The consultation has been described by many as the battle over fair share between Big Telco and Big Tech,” Breton said. “A binary choice between those who provide networks today and those who feed them with the traffic. That is not how I see things.” …
US Ambassador: China Should Be Candid About COVID Origins
The U.S. ambassador to China says Beijing needs to be more forthcoming about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a day after reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded the outbreak likely began because of a Chinese laboratory leak. Nicholas Burns told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event by video link Monday that China needs to “be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis.” Wuhan is the Chinese city where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in December 2019. His comments come a day after U.S. media reported that the Energy Department determined the pandemic likely arose from a laboratory leak in Wuhan. The department made its judgment in a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development, citing people who read the report. The WSJ said the Energy Department intelligence agency was now the second U.S. intelligence agency after the FBI to conclude a Chinese lab leak was the probable cause of the pandemic, although U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus. White House national security spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment. “There has not been a definitive conclusion and consensus in the U.S. government on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kirby told reporters Monday when asked about the WSJ report. The Energy Department assessment was made with “low confidence,” while the FBI conclusion was …
US Cybersecurity Official Calls Out Tech Companies for ‘Unsafe’ Software
A top U.S. cybersecurity official launched a warning shot at major technology companies, accusing them of “normalizing” the release of flawed and unsafe products while allowing the blame for safety issues, security breaches and cyberattacks to fall on their customers. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly called Monday for new rules and legislation to hold technology and software companies accountable for selling products that she says are released despite known vulnerabilities. While massive hacking campaigns by China and other adversaries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, are a major problem, “cyber intrusions are a symptom rather than a cause,” Easterly told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “The cause, simply put, is unsafe technology products,” she said. “The risk introduced to all of us by unsafe technology is frankly much more dangerous and pervasive than the [Chinese] spy balloon, but somehow we’ve allowed ourselves to accept it.” The push for regulation and legislation is not entirely new. Both Easterly and former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, who stepped down earlier this month, warned during their confirmation hearings more than a year and a half ago that government action could be required if private companies refused to do more. “Enlightened self-interest, that’s apparently not working. … Market forces, that’s apparently not working,” Inglis said at the time. Now, with China running a “massive and sophisticated” hacking program, and threats from other countries and from cyber criminals constantly growing, “we have to make a fundamental shift,” Easterly …
Child Immunization Vaccine Shortage Hits Ghana
The Ghana Health Service says a shortage of routine vaccines for children blamed for a measles outbreak that infected 120 will be resolved within weeks. Health officials said the shortage of vaccines against polio, hepatitis B, and measles was caused by the depreciation of Ghana’s currency, the cedi. The Pediatric Society of Ghana warned childhood diseases could quickly spread if the vaccines were not soon made available. For months, nursing mothers have been complaining of shortage of vaccines meant for babies from birth to at least 18 months. The situation became worse in February after major health facilities in 10 out of the 16 administrative regions of Ghana kept turning nursing mothers away due to erratic supply. Vivian Helemi said her baby girl missed one of the key vaccinations last month and the situation has not changed after combing three health centers on Monday. Like other mothers, Helemi is worried the shortage of the essential vaccines for infants will pose a threat to her child. “It has been frustrating moving from one hospital to another,” she told VOA. “I don’t know what could happen to my baby because she is yet to receive her second vaccination. I am confused because no one is telling me when the vaccines will be ready.” Timely vaccination of children, according to UNICEF, is a proven method for saving lives from vaccine-preventable diseases. It can also help attain some targets like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 3, which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote …
Phone Firms Promise ‘Tsunami of Innovation’ at Barcelona Meeting
The big beasts of the telecom industry kicked off their most important annual get-together in Barcelona on Monday, promising to lead a “tsunami of innovation”, as they try to shrug off a major slump across the technology sector. Some 80,000 delegates are expected at the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is back to near full strength following years of pandemic-related disruption. Industrial titans like Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are set to showcase their latest innovations, flanked by smartphone makers like Oppo and Xiaomi and network operators like Orange, Verizon and China Mobile. “We are at the doors of a new change of era driven by the intersection of Telco, Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Web3,” said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, boss of Spanish operator Telefonica and current chairman of industry body GSMA, which organizes the Barcelona event. He promised the telecoms industry would be at the forefront of the “tsunami of innovation”, adding: “Without telcos there is no digital future.” But many of the firms are more concerned with finding a path back to profit as the global economy stutters and the wider tech sector slashes thousands of jobs. In the first clear sign that the ills of the wider tech sector are reaching telecoms, equipment maker Ericsson announced 8,500 layoffs last week. Overall sales of smartphones last year slumped by 11.3 percent compared with 2021, according to the IDC consultancy. Research firm Gartner reckons sales of smartphones, tablets and computers will fall again by four percent this year. And network …
‘An Absurdity’: Experts Slam WHO’s Excusal of Misconduct
Two experts appointed by the World Health Organization to investigate allegations that some of its staffers sexually abused women during an Ebola outbreak in Congo have dismissed the U.N. agency’s own efforts to excuse its handling of such misconduct as “an absurdity.” Some of the victimized women say — nearly four years later — they are still waiting for WHO to fire those responsible or be offered any financial compensation. In October 2020, Aichatou Mindaoudou and Julienne Lusenge were named by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to head a panel investigating reports that some WHO staffers sexually abused or exploited women in a conflict-ridden region of Congo during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak. Their review found there were at least 83 perpetrators of abuse who worked for WHO and partners, including complaints of rape, forced abortions and the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, in the biggest known sex abuse scandal in the U.N. health agency’s history. The panel also found that three WHO managers mismanaged a sexual misconduct case first reported by the Associated Press, involving a U.N. doctor signing a contract to buy land for a woman he allegedly impregnated. A confidential U.N. report submitted to WHO last month concluded that the managers’ handling of that case didn’t violate WHO’s sexual exploitation policies, because the woman wasn’t considered a “beneficiary” of WHO aid, since she didn’t receive any humanitarian assistance. “The restrictive approach favored by WHO is an absurdity,” Mindaoudou and Lusenge said in a statement, adding that beneficiaries …
Twitter Lays Off 10% of Current Workforce – NYT
Twitter Inc has laid off at least 200 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, the New York Times reported late on Sunday, in its latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging site last October. The layoffs on Saturday night impacted product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, which helps keep Twitter’s various features online, the NYT report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees, according to Musk last month. The latest job cuts follow a mass layoff in early November, when Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who had acquired the company for $44 billion. Musk said in November that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation. Twitter recently started sharing revenue from advertisements with some of its content creators. Earlier in the day, The Information reported that the social media platform laid off dozens of employees on Saturday, aiming to offset a plunge in revenue. …
Launch of Space Station Crew Postponed
NASA and SpaceX postponed a planned Monday launch of a four-member crew to the International Space Station due to a ground systems issue. The decision came less than three minutes before the spacecraft was due to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. A backup launch date had already been set for early Tuesday. The four-person crew includes two Americans, one Russian and one astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. NASA said their planned six-month mission includes a range of scientific experiments including studying how materials burn in microgravity, collecting microbial samples from outside the space station and “tissue chip research on heart, brain, and cartilage functions.” …
SpaceX Preps Launch of Next ISS Crew for NASA
Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX was set to launch early Monday the International Space Station’s next long-duration team into orbit, with an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian cosmonaut joining two NASA crewmates for the flight. The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour, was set for liftoff at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-member crew should reach the International Space Station (ISS) about 25 hours later, Tuesday morning, to begin a six-month mission in microgravity aboard the orbiting laboratory some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth. Designated Crew 6, the mission marks the sixth long-term ISS team that NASA has flown aboard SpaceX since the private rocket venture founded by Musk – billionaire CEO of electric car maker Tesla and social media platform Twitter – began sending American astronauts to orbit in May 2020. NASA said the mission’s launch readiness review was completed Saturday, and that the flight was given a “go” to proceed to liftoff as planned. “All systems and weather are looking good for launch,” Musk wrote on Twitter Sunday. The latest ISS crew is led by mission commander Stephen Bowen, 59, a onetime U.S. Navy submarine officer who has logged more than 40 days in orbit as a veteran of three space shuttle flights and seven spacewalks. Fellow NASA astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg, 37, an engineer and commercial aviator designated as …
Mexican States in Hot Competition Over Possible Tesla Plant
Mexico is undergoing a fevered competition among states to win a potential Tesla facility in jostling reminiscent of what happens among U.S. cities and states vying to win investments from tech companies. Mexican governors have gone to extremes, like putting up billboards, creating special car lanes or creating mock-ups of Tesla ads for their states. And there’s no guarantee Tesla will build a full-fledged factory. Nothing is announced, and the frenzy is based mainly on Mexican officials saying Tesla boss Elon Musk will have a phone call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The northern industrial state of Nuevo Leon seemed to have an early edge in the race. It painted the Tesla logo on a lane at the Laredo-Colombia border crossing into Texas last summer and is erecting billboards in December in the state capital, Monterrey, that read “Welcome Tesla.” The state governor’s influencer wife, Mariana Rodriguez, was even shown in leaked photos at a get-together with Musk. However, López Obrador appeared to exclude the semi-desert state from consideration Monday, arguing he wouldn’t allow the typically high water use of factories to risk prompting shortages there. That set off a competitive scramble among other Mexican states. The governors’ offers ranged from crafty proposals to near-comic ones. “Veracruz is the only state with an excess of gas,” quipped Gov. Cuitláhuac García of the Gulf Coast state, before quickly adding “gas … for industrial use, for industrial use!” A latecomer to the race, García had to try harder: He noted …
Mobile Tech Fair to Show Off New Phones, AI, Metaverse
The latest folding-screen smartphones, immersive metaverse experiences, AI-powered chatbot avatars and other eye-catching technology are set to wow visitors at the annual MWC wireless trade fair that kicks off Monday. The four-day show, held in a vast Barcelona conference center, is the world’s biggest and most influential meeting for the mobile tech industry. The range of technology set to go on display illustrates how the show, also known as Mobile World Congress, has evolved from a forum for mobile phone standards into a showcase for new wireless tech. Organizers are expecting as many as 80,000 visitors from as many as 200 countries and territories as the event resumes at full strength after several years of pandemic disruptions. Here’s a look at what to expect: Metaverse There was a lot of buzz around the metaverse at last year’s MWC and at other recent tech fairs like last month’s CES in Las Vegas. Expect even more at this event. Several companies are planning to show off their metaverse experiences that will allow users to connect with each other, attend events far away, or enter fantastical new online worlds. Software company Amdocs will use virtual and augmented reality to give users a “metatour” of Dubai. Other tech and telecom companies promise metaverse demos to help with physical rehab, virtually try on clothes, or learn how to fix aircraft landing gear. The metaverse’s popularity exploded after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 exalted it as the next big thing for the internet and …
Spain: Patient Does Not Have Marburg Disease
A man in Spain who was suspected of having the deadly Marburg disease tested negative Saturday and does not have the virus, the health ministry said. Health authorities in Valencia earlier said they had detected the country’s first suspected case of the infectious disease that has led to the quarantining of more than 200 people in Equatorial Guinea. The 34-year-old man, who had recently been in Equatorial Guinea, had been given the all-clear but would be tested again in the coming weeks, officials said. He had been transferred from a private hospital to an isolation unit at the Hospital La Fe in Valencia while tests were being conducted, the Valencian regional health authorities said. Three health staff who are treating the man were also isolated as a precautionary measure, authorities said. Marburg virus can have a fatality rate of up to 88%, according to the World Health Organization. There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat it. Equatorial Guinea quarantined more than 200 people and restricted movement February 13 in its Kie-Ntem province, where the hemorrhagic fever was first detected. The small central African country has so far reported nine deaths as well as 16 suspected cases of the disease, with symptoms including fever, fatigue, blood-stained vomit and diarrhea, according to the WHO. Cameroonian authorities detected two suspected cases of Marburg disease February 13 in Olamze, a commune on the border with Equatorial Guinea, the public health delegate for the region, Robert Mathurin Bidjang, said February 14. Cameroon …
Spain Detects First Suspected Case of Marburg Disease
Spain has identified its first suspected case of Marburg disease. The Spanish patient is a 34-year-old man who had recently traveled to the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea. He was in a private hospital but has been transferred to an isolation unit at Hospital La Fe in Valencia for further tests, regional medical officials said. Marburg virus disease, or MVD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “is a rare but severe hemorrhagic fever which affects both people and non-human primates … Primates [including people] can become infected with Marburg virus, and may develop serious disease with high mortality.” Spanish health officials said Saturday that more than 200 people in Equatorial Guinea have recently been quarantined because of Marburg disease. Earlier this month, two suspected cases of Marburg were detected in Cameroon near its border with Equatorial Guinea. The World Health Organization says that the “highly virulent disease” can have “a fatality ratio of up to 88%” and “is in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola virus disease.” There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for Marburg. …
Uber Says Delhi’s Plans to Allow Only Electric Bike Taxis Will Impact Millions
Uber Technologies Inc. said on Friday plans by the local government in India’s Delhi city to only allow electric vehicles to function as bike taxis would risk “finishing off the sector” and impact the mobility needs of millions. Delhi’s plans, part of a new policy to regulate vehicles used by ride-hailing companies like Uber and rival Ola, are being finalized and will be rolled out soon, the Economic Times reported earlier this week. Reuters could not immediately confirm those plans. If implemented, this would mark an aggressive step towards the country’s ambitions to ramp up the transition to vehicles that run on clean energy to reduce oil imports and curb pollution. Uber, in a blogpost, said any such move would put at risk the livelihood of over 100,000 drivers in the city. “Steep and infeasible EV mandates risk finishing off the sector as we know it. The impact of such a decision on the livelihoods and mobility needs of millions of Delhiites is clear,” San Francisco-headquartered Uber said, urging the government to initiate industry dialog. Uber has set a 2040 target for 100% of its rides to be in zero-emission vehicles, public transport or with micro-mobility, including in India. Earlier this month, Uber announced plans to introduce 25,000 EVs over three years in India. Electric cars will however still be a fraction of Uber’s current overall active fleet of 300,000 vehicles in India. On Sunday, the Delhi government in newspaper ads said digital platforms offering two-wheeler bike taxi rides should …
White House Braces for Ruling on Abortion Pill’s Fate
The Biden administration is preparing for a worst-case scenario if a conservative federal judge rules in favor of a lawsuit seeking to restrict access to one of the two drugs typically used to induce a medicated abortion. Two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, can be taken by women at home and are used for just over half of U.S. abortions. But that could be quickly changed by a lawsuit filed by an anti-abortion group in Texas that claims the Food and Drug Administration wrongly approved mifepristone for use more than 23 years ago. The case is before a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump. A ruling in favor of the abortion opponents could immediately shut down the sale of the drug, but women would still have access to medicated abortions with a regimen of misoprostol. Vice President Kamala Harris promised on Friday that the White House would push back on efforts to ban the drug, as she gathered a group of nearly a dozen doctors and abortion rights advocates to discuss a plan for responding to the looming threat to access to medical abortions. “There are now partisan and political attacks attempting to question the legitimacy of a group of scientists and doctors who have studied the significance of this drug,” Harris said. “There is now an attempt by politicians to remove it from the ability of doctors to prescribe and the ability of people to receive.” The lawsuit against mifepristone was filed by the Alliance for Defending Freedom, …
Russia’s War in Ukraine Still Impacting Food Security: Aid Organizations
The trickle-down effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine are still being felt on food prices in vulnerable places, nearly one year after Moscow invaded the neighboring country. …
Google Tests Blocking News Content for Some Canadians
Google is blocking some Canadian users from viewing news content in what the company said is a test run of a potential response to a Canadian government’s online news bill. Bill C-18, the Online News Act, would require digital giants such as Google and Meta, which owns Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for republishing their content on their platforms. The company said it is temporarily limiting access to news content for under 4% of its Canadian users as it assesses possible responses to the bill. The change applies to its ubiquitous search engine as well as the Discover feature on Android devices, which carries news and sports stories. All types of news content are being affected by the test, which will run for about five weeks, the company said. That includes content created by Canadian broadcasters and newspapers. “We’re briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 that impact a very small percentage of Canadian users,” Google spokesman Shay Purdy said in a written statement on Wednesday in response to questions from The Canadian Press. The company runs thousands of tests each year to assess any potential changes to its search engine, he added. “We’ve been fully transparent about our concern that C-18 is overly broad and, if unchanged, could impact products Canadians use and rely on every day,” Purdy said. A spokeswoman for Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canadians will not be intimidated and called it disappointing that Google is borrowing from Meta’s …
Redesigned Computers Could Reduce E-Waste
People generate more than 50 million tons of electronic waste every year, including copiers, televisions, and computers. Laptops are part of the problem, but engineers at Dell Technologies are working on a new approach to help keep them out of landfills. Tina Trinh reports. Camera: Deana Mitchell …
US Agency Proposes California Spotted Owl Protection
Federal wildlife officials on Wednesday announced a proposal to classify one of two dwindling California spotted owl populations as endangered after a lawsuit by conservation groups required the government to reassess a Trump administration decision not to protect the brown and white birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed that California spotted owls that have their habitats in coastal and Southern California be protected under the Endangered Species Act. That population “does not have a strong ability to withstand normal variations in environmental conditions, persist through catastrophic events, or adapt to new environmental conditions throughout its range,” which led the agency to propose listing it as endangered, wildlife officials said. The other California spotted owl population, which lives in Sierra Nevada forests in California and western Nevada, would be classified as threatened, the agency said. The habitat of the medium-sized brown owl with white spots on its head and chest and a barred tail is under serious threat from current logging practices and climate change, including increased drought, disease and more extreme wildfires. Most California spotted owls live on land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. How much the population has declined since conservation groups started their effort to protect it more than 20 years ago is unclear. The only available demographic data on spotted owls living in coastal and Southern California was collected in San Bernardino National Forest and shows a decline of 9%, the federal wildlife service said. The Sierra Nevada …