The Miami Marlins hired Kim Ng as Major League Baseball’s first female general manager on Friday.”I entered Major League Baseball as an intern and, after decades of determination, it is the honor of my career to lead the Miami Marlins as their next general manager,” Ng said in a statement.Ng, 51, has more than 30 years of experience in the majors, working in the front offices of the Chicago White Sox (1990-96), New York Yankees (1998-2001) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2002-11), and in the MLB Commissioner’s Office (2011-20).Most recently she was the MLB senior vice president of baseball and softball development. She is the first woman hired to the general manager position by any of the professional men’s sports teams in the North American major leagues.”All of us at Major League Baseball are thrilled for Kim and the opportunity she has earned with the Marlins,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Kim’s appointment makes history in all of professional sports and sets a significant example for the millions of women and girls who love baseball and softball. The hard work, leadership and record of achievement throughout her long career in the national pastime led to this outcome, and we wish Kim all the best as she begins her career with the Marlins.”Born in Indianapolis to parents of Chinese descent, Ng also becomes the first Asian American GM in the majors.Ng developed a working relationship with Marlins CEO Derek Jeter during her time with the Yankees.The Marlins, under National League Manager of the Year Don Mattingly, finished second in the N.L. East with a 31-29 record during the abbreviated 2020 season.They were swept by the Atlanta Braves in the division series.”This challenge is one I don’t take lightly,” Ng said. “When I got into this business it seemed unlikely a woman would lead a major league team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals.”My goal is to bring championship baseball to Miami. I am both humbled and eager to continue building the winning culture our fans expect and deserve.”
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Month: November 2020
Parler: A New Social Media Hangout for Conservatives
When Twitter started blocking President Donald Trump’s postings claiming widespread voter fraud, some cheered. Others started looking for the social media exits.
They found a new option at Parler.
Fed up with what they see as an anti-conservative bias by managers of the major social media platforms, Trump supporters are telling their followers on Twitter and Facebook to “Follow me on Parler.”
From the French word “to speak” or “to talk” but pronounced “PAR-lor,” the social media app is a lot like Twitter, with users posting messages and following topics searchable as hashtags.
Launched in 2018 in Nevada, Parler welcomed newcomers to “a non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights.”
Over the past year, conservative celebrities have flocked to Parler, a trend that has accelerated since the 2020 U.S. election. As Twitter and Facebook tried to tamp down misinformation about the election, more than 4 million accounts were launched on the app within days, the company says.
Among Parler users are Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Posts on Parler are called “parlays.” One on Thursday, under the hashtag #StoptheSteal, said “Shocker Pro Marxist Pope Francis congratulates Crooked Joe!”
“To parlay is to have a discussion bridging the differences,” said Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer. “Coming to an understanding between two different viewpoints, and this is the sort of discussion that we want to foster on Parler.”
Previous alternatives to Facebook and Twitter have popped up in the U.S. claiming to be true bastions of free speech. Gab, which became a haven for neo-Nazis, was booted from the app stores of Apple and Google because it didn’t take down hate speech.
But the popularity of Parler – and other right-wing sites such as MeWe and Rumble, a video site – comes amid growing pressure on social media firms to do more to monitor their sites, particularly addressing misinformation about voting and the election results.
Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent Google, the owner of YouTube, have put labels on tweets, posts and videos that claim election fraud. In some cases, they stopped the content from being shared and spreading.
Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 11 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 19 MB720p | 32 MB1080p | 66 MBOriginal | 255 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioMuch of the conversation on Parler echoes Trump’s unsupported claim that the November 3 election was stolen by Democrats through massive voter fraud. #StoptheSteal is a top hashtag for those who claim without proof that former Vice President Joe Biden, the projected winner of the 2020 presidential race, stole the election.
Last week, Facebook took down a Stop the Steal group that had gained more than 300,000 users in 24 hours. Facebook said it stopped the group because it was trying to incite violence.
“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokesman told The New York Times.
Parler users have also crossed that line at times: An Arkansas police chief used the site to urge violence against Democrats he claimed were preventing Trump’s reelection. When the posts appeared in news stories, his public account was removed and he was forced to resign.
While the Parler algorithm does not promote posts to keep users engaged, the company says it is serious about its commitment to free speech and does not block extremist content.
“The fact that we don’t block out the content from various extremists does not mean that our goal is to further all of those views,” said Parler’s Peikoff. “What we are planning to do is give the widest freedom possible so that people can have a full discussion.”
For years, the leading social media companies have been criticized for their finely tuned algorithms designed to boost users’ time spent on the sites. That has led to some users receiving a stream of increasingly extremist content on their feeds, according to Michael Karanicolas, the Wikimedia fellow at the Yale School of Law.
The rise of Parler, he said, “potentially suggests that if platforms do try and steer people away from these echo chambers and steer people away from what they want, the people will just migrate elsewhere.”
There is one potential customer that Parler has not yet managed to attract: Trump, himself.
While @TeamTrump, Trump’s reelection campaign, is on the site with 2 million followers, the president isn’t on Parler, yet.
With nearly 89 million followers on Twitter, Trump is still tweeting, even as Twitter has been putting warning labels on more of his tweets.
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Parler: Social Media Hangout for Conservatives
With Twitter and Facebook blocking and labeling more social media posts, some American conservatives are flocking to alternatives like Parler, which says it won’t censor speech. Matt Dibble reports.
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Report: Over 130 Secret Service Officers Test Positive for Coronavirus
More than 130 U.S. Secret Service officers have tested positive for the coronavirus or have been in close contact with infected colleagues, according to The Washington Post newspaper.The report, published Friday, was attributed to three people “familiar with agency staffing.”The Secret Service officers, who, among other duties, are tasked with protecting President Donald Trump when he travels and at the White House, were ordered recently to isolate, the report said.FILE – U.S. Secret Service agents gather for coronavirus tests prior to President Donald Trump’s departure for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, May 27, 2020.The sources, who the Post says spoke anonymously in order to speak more freely, said the infections are believed to be related to campaign rallies Trump held before the Nov. 3 presidential election. The report also cites the sources as saying that about 10% of the agency’s primary security team has been “sidelined.”Trump, members of his immediate family, and an increasing number of White House and campaign officials have tested positive recently for the coronavirus in the wake of campaign events, where many administration officials and other attendees did not wear masks.The White House and the Secret Service did not immediately comment on the report, but White House spokesman Judd Deere told the Post the administration takes “every case seriously” and directed the Post to the Secret Service for answers to questions about the outbreak. An agency spokesperson declined to comment to the Post.The reported outbreak among the officers occurred as the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. continues to worsen. More than 153,000 new infections in the U.S. were reported Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University, the first time new single-day totals exceeded 150,000.Nearly 10.6 million people in the U.S. have contracted the coronavirus, while the country’s death toll approaches 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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1960s Era Rocket May Have Returned to Earth Orbit
Scientists at the U.S. space agency NASA say the remnants of a 1960s unmanned lunar mission may have returned to orbit the Earth 54 years later.
Scientists first discovered the object in September, using a special survey telescope on the Hawaiian island of Maui. They originally believed it to be a small asteroid, and named it 2020 SO. When they discovered the object’s path would bring it close to Earth, it came to the attention of the Center for Near Earth Objects (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
But the scientists there quickly noticed the object’s orbit was different than a normal asteroid. While the typical asteroid has an elongated orbit and is tilted relative to Earth, the orbit of this object was on nearly the exact orbital plane as Earth.
CNEOS Director Paul Chodas says further study and measurements of the object made it clear it was likely man-made, based on its size and density, and likely a piece of a rocket. Chodas suspected it was a remnant of a lunar mission, and to prove it, he ran 2020 SO’s orbit backwards, tracing its closest path to Earth to September 1966.
That matched the launch date for NASA’s Surveyor 2 lunar lander, an unmanned probe designed to land on the surface of the Moon and survey possible landing sites ahead of the Apollo missions, which would put men on the lunar surface for the first time in 1969.
The probe was launched on an Atlas-Centaur rocket and separated from its Centaur upper stage booster shortly after liftoff. The spacecraft malfunctioned a day later when one of its boosters failed to ignite, and the probe crashed into the Moon. The spent Centaur upper-stage rocket, meanwhile, sailed past the Moon and disappeared into an unknown orbit around the Sun.
Now, it appears to be back, if only for a relatively brief visit. NASA scientists believe Earth’s gravity pulled 2020 SO into an outer orbit on November 8, circling about 1.5 million kilometers above our planet. They expect it will remain there for about four months before escaping into a new orbit around the Sun in March.
NASA says 2020 SO will make two large loops around Earth with its closest approach December 1. That is when astronomers will get a closer look and study its composition using spectroscopy to confirm if it is indeed an artifact from the early Space Age.
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Ivy League Cancels Winter Sports Because of COVID-19
The Ivy League became the first Division I conference this year to cancel all winter sports, including men’s and women’s basketball.
The decision Thursday came 13 days before the scheduled start of the college basketball season. The league had decided this past summer, when it canceled fall sports, not to allow any of its sports to start play before early December.
“Regrettably, the current trends regarding transmission of the COVID-19 virus and subsequent protocols that must be put in place are impeding our strong desire to return to intercollegiate athletics competition in a safe manner,” the Ivy League presidents said in a joint statement.
“Student-athletes, their families and coaches are again being asked to make enormous sacrifices for the good of public health — and we do not make this decision lightly.
“While these decisions come with great disappointment and frustration, our commitment to the safety and lasting health of our student-athletes and wider communities must remain our highest priority.”
Coaches and athletes were informed of the news on video conference calls Thursday evening.
The news comes as the coronavirus cases are soaring across the U.S. Newly confirmed cases per day in the U.S. have rocketed more than 70% over the past two weeks, reaching an average of about 127,000 — the highest on record. And the number of people hospitalized with the virus hit an all-time high of more than 65,000.
Deaths per day in the U.S. have soared more than 40% over the past two weeks, from an average of about 790 to more than 1,100 as of Wednesday, the highest level in three months. That’s still well below the peak of about 2,200 deaths per day in late April.
The Ivy League has tried to be in front of the virus. The league was the first conference to scrap its postseason basketball tournament last March. That preceded a cascade of cancellations. All major college and professional sports were halted within days.
The Ivy League announcement affects not just basketball, but wrestling, indoor track and field, swimming, fencing and other sports. The league also said that spring sports are postponed through at least the end of February 2021.
Also Thursday, Pittsburgh’s game at Georgia Tech was postponed after the Panthers were forced to pause team activities due to COVID-19 protocols.
The Atlantic Coast Conference said both teams were having COVID-19 issues and the game slated for Saturday will instead be played Dec. 12.
Also, Conference USA announced Rice at Louisiana Tech scheduled for Saturday had been postponed because of COVID-19 issues with La Tech. No make-up date has been set.
There have been 57 games between schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision to be canceled or postponed because of the pandemic since late August — and 10 this week.
The Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 have all been forced to scramble at times this season. The Atlantic Coast Conference has not been immune, though most of the issues were in early September. This is the fifth conference game in the ACC to be postponed. One has already been made-up and Louisville at Virginia is scheduled to be played Saturday after it was postponed last week.
The conference has enjoyed relatively smooth sailing in recent weeks, though several high-profile players have been dealing with COVID-19, including Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
Pitt is still scheduled to host Virginia Tech in its home finale on Nov. 21 and travel to Clemson on Nov. 28.
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Australia Showcases Diverse Indigenous Languages
A new project is celebrating the linguistic culture of Australia’s Aboriginal communities by working to introduce Australians to everyday words and phrases from hundreds of Indigenous languages.The 50 Words Project is an interactive online language map. Words and phrases from across the continent are brought to life with recordings from Indigenous speakers. It is run by the University of Melbourne’s Research Unit for Indigenous Language and aims to maintain linguistic and cultural heritage. Jill Vaughan from the academic unit says she hopes it will help more Australians understand rich linguistic traditions. “It is, unfortunately, quite a common misconception that there is only one Indigenous Australian language, when, in fact, there are hundreds of languages, each with thousands and thousands of words,” she said. “It is also the case that for some Australians, they assume that Indigenous languages are just a relic of the past, and this isn’t the case at all.” Researchers say the sounds used in Australia’s Indigenous languages are very similar across the country. Neighboring communities, however, can have very different words for the same things. Some Indigenous languages in Australia have faded away since European colonization, while others are spoken by just a handful of people and are considered critically endangered. Until the 1970s, government policies banned and discouraged Aboriginal people from speaking their mother tongues. Indigenous communities consider languages to be living things that connect people to their land, culture and the spirits of their ancestors. Aboriginal history in Australia dates back up to 65,000 years. Indigenous people make up about 3% of the national population of 25 million.
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Parler: A New Social Media Hangout for Conservatives to Vent, Plan
When Twitter started blocking President Donald Trump’s postings claiming widespread voter fraud, some cheered. Others started looking for the social media exits.
They found a new option at Parler.
Fed up with what they see as an anti-conservative bias by managers of the major social media platforms, Trump supporters are telling their followers on Twitter and Facebook to “Follow me on Parler.”
From the French word “to speak” or “to talk” but pronounced “PAR-lor,” the social media app is a lot like Twitter, with users posting messages and following topics searchable as hashtags.
Launched in 2018 in Nevada, Parler welcomed newcomers to “a non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights.”
Over the past year, conservative celebrities have flocked to Parler, a trend that has accelerated since the 2020 U.S. election. As Twitter and Facebook tried to tamp down misinformation about the election, more than 4 million accounts were launched on the app within days, the company says.
Among Parler users are Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Posts on Parler are called “parlays.” One on Thursday, under the hashtag #StoptheSteal, said “Shocker Pro Marxist Pope Francis congratulates Crooked Joe!”
“To parlay is to have a discussion bridging the differences,” said Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer. “Coming to an understanding between two different viewpoints, and this is the sort of discussion that we want to foster on Parler.”
Previous alternatives to Facebook and Twitter have popped up in the U.S. claiming to be true bastions of free speech. Gab, which became a haven for neo-Nazis, was booted from the app stores of Apple and Google because it didn’t take down hate speech.
But the popularity of Parler – and other right-wing sites such as MeWe and Rumble, a video site – comes amid growing pressure on social media firms to do more to monitor their sites, particularly addressing misinformation about voting and the election results.
Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent Google, the owner of YouTube, have put labels on tweets, posts and videos that claim election fraud. In some cases, they stopped the content from being shared and spreading.
Much of the conversation on Parler echoes Trump’s unsupported claim that the November 3 election was stolen by Democrats through massive voter fraud. #StoptheSteal is a top hashtag for those who claim without proof that former Vice President Joe Biden, the projected winner of the 2020 presidential race, stole the election.
Last week, Facebook took down a Stop the Steal group that had gained more than 300,000 users in 24 hours. Facebook said it stopped the group because it was trying to incite violence.
“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokesman told The New York Times.
Parler users have also crossed that line at times: An Arkansas police chief used the site to urge violence against Democrats he claimed were preventing Trump’s reelection. When the posts appeared in news stories, his public account was removed and he was forced to resign.
While the Parler algorithm does not promote posts to keep users engaged, the company says it is serious about its commitment to free speech and does not block extremist content.
“The fact that we don’t block out the content from various extremists does not mean that our goal is to further all of those views,” said Parler’s Peikoff. “What we are planning to do is give the widest freedom possible so that people can have a full discussion.”
For years, the leading social media companies have been criticized for their finely tuned algorithms designed to boost users’ time spent on the sites. That has led to some users receiving a stream of increasingly extremist content on their feeds, according to Michael Karanicolas, the Wikimedia fellow at the Yale School of Law.
The rise of Parler, he said, “potentially suggests that if platforms do try and steer people away from these echo chambers and steer people away from what they want, the people will just migrate elsewhere.”
There is one potential customer that Parler has not yet managed to attract: Trump, himself.
While @TeamTrump, Trump’s reelection campaign, is on the site with 2 million followers, the president isn’t on Parler, yet.
With nearly 89 million followers on Twitter, Trump is still tweeting, even as Twitter has been putting warning labels on more of his tweets.
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Zuckerberg Says Bannon Has Not Violated Enough Policies for Suspension
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
“We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely,” Zuckerberg said. “While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”
Bannon suggested in a video last week that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his re-election bid.
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannon’s page. The company had not previously answered questions about those actions and did not immediately respond to a Reuters request about Zuckerberg’s comments.
Twitter banned Bannon last week over the same content.
Zuckerberg spoke on the issue at a weekly forum with Facebook employees where he is sometimes asked to defend content and policy decisions, like the question on Thursday from a staff member asking why Bannon had not been banned.
Arrested in August, Bannon has pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the $25 million “We Build the Wall” campaign. Bannon has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
As Trump’s chief White House strategist, Bannon helped articulate Trump’s “America First” policy. Trump fired him in August 2017, ending Bannon’s turbulent tenure.
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US Sets Another Single-Day Record in COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations
The United States set another single-day record for the number of COVID-19 infections and hospitalization Thursday.COVID Tracking Project figures show that more than 150,000 new cases were reported across the U.S., surpassing the more than 144,000 new cases recorded the day before.The figures also indicate that more than 67,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, an increase of more than 1,700 from the previous day. Another 1,104 people died.The new figures add to the United States’ world-leading casualty figures of more than 10.5 million total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic reached its shores earlier this year, including more than 242,400 deaths, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.The nation’s most populous state, California, is nearing the 1 million mark of COVID-19 cases, following Texas, which is closing in on that threshold.Worldwide, Italy is the 10th country to surpass the 1 million mark of infections. India and Brazil follow the U.S., with more than 8.7 million and 5.7 million cases respectively. France is nearing 2 million infection cases, followed by Russia with 1.87 million. Over the 1 million mark are Spain, Britain, Argentina, and Colombia.In Brazil, the country with highest coronavirus tally in Latin America, the late-stage trials of a potential COVID-19 vaccine have resumed after the country’s health regulator called a halt due to an “adverse, serious event” involving a participant in the study.The vaccine, dubbed CoronaVac, is being developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. The vaccine had been denounced by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of China.In Japan, organizers for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics said Thursday that participating athletes will not have to enter a mandatory 14-day quarantine period when they arrive for the games next year. Games chief executive Toshiro Muto told reporters a decision on allowing foreign spectators to observe the events would be finalized next year, but said it is a possibility the two-week quarantine could be waived for them as well.The Tokyo Summer Games were initially scheduled to be held in July and August, but organizers in March decided to postpone them for a year due to the pandemic.
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Cruise Ship Forced to Dock After 5 Passengers Test Positive for Coronavirus in Caribbean
The first cruise ship to resume sailing in the Caribbean since the coronavirus outbreak expanded in March, is idled again after five passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.SeaDream, a Norway-based luxury cruise liner, issued a statement Thursday that all crew members had tested negative for the coronavirus and that the ship’s medical staff was in the process of re-testing passengers.SeaDream says it began strict safety protocols following a Norwegian cruise this summer, although passengers were not immediately required to wear masks when boarding the SeaDream.The 53 passengers and 66 crew members are reportedly self-quarantining aboard the ship docked at the Port of Bridgetown in Barbados.The cruise ship industry has been hard hit by the pandemic, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issuing an order banning sailing in March, citing cruise ship travel would worsen the global spread of COVID-19.
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Sniffer Dogs Beat Swabs in Detecting Coronavirus
Sniffer dogs are being used to identify people infected with the coronavirus, and early trials suggest they are incredibly accurate at detecting the disease. As Henry Ridgwell reports, this is raising hopes that our canine companions could soon be used to help fight the pandemic.Producer: Mary Cieslak. Camera: Henry Ridgwell.
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How Ordinary People Are Buying Masterpieces Worth Millions
Anyone can now own a small share of a great masterpiece. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Max Avloshenko
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Under Biden, Europe Hopes for Compromise in US Digital Tax Debate
For years, the European Union has been leading the fight to impose a global tax on technology multinationals. After years of resistance by the Trump administration, the Europeans now hope the incoming Biden administration will be willing to compromise – or face a possible digital tax.Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple: four companies dubbed as GAFA in France by those who criticize what they say are the multinationals’ avoidance of European taxes.The projected outcome of the presidential vote in the United States did not change Europeans’ eagerness to tackle the issue with a Biden administration after years of resistance by the Trump administration.Thierry Breton is the E.U.’s Internal Market Commissioner.He explains that Europe is not naive anymore in its expectations regarding its partnership with the United States. Europeans cannot afford to be naïve anymore, he said.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, hosted the international talks over digital taxation. Members postponed a deadline for an agreement into 2021 after the U.S. pulled out of talks in June due to the coronavirus pandemic.French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Washington is unlikely to drop what he called its confrontational stance on the issue no matter who is in the White House.”Digital giants are now the adversaries of governments,” Le Maire said, vowing that they would soon be taxed “at the same rate as French companies.” It is a position echoed by Commissioner Breton.He said that a discussion has been initiated by the OECD and even though the United States got out of it, he said this a negotiation and they can come back. Europeans set a deadline until June 2021 to complete this negotiation, Breton said. If all the other countries agree but the United States does not return to the negotiating table, Europe will take its responsibilities and we will impose a tax, Breton insists.Some in Europe warn that a Biden administration will still resist imposing a tax on U.S. technology companies. President-elect Biden and his vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, reportedly have as many connections with Silicon Valley as the Obama administration had between 2009 and 2017.Arno Pons is the head of Digital New Deal, a Paris research organization.Pons said Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president during an administration that was clearly pro-GAFA and probably has the same views now. As for Kamala Harris, originally from California, he sees her as having close ties to the executives of big technology firms. Pons cites as an example the recent nomination in the transition team of former employees from Apple and Facebook.Last month, the OECD warned that tensions over a digital tax could trigger a trade war that could wipe out one percent of global growth every year.
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Measles Cases and Deaths Soaring Worldwide, WHO Says
The World Health Organization reports measles cases and deaths have soared around the globe since 2016. It reports an increase in cases to nearly 270,000 last year, while more than 207,000 people died—a 50 percent increase from 2016 levels.The U.N. agency says the failure to inoculate children on time with two doses of measles vaccines is the main driver for increased cases and deaths. It says vaccination coverage remains well below the 95 percent needed to control the disease and prevent outbreaks and deaths.Added to this mix is the coronavirus pandemic. Although reported cases of measles are lower this year than last, WHO says efforts to control the coronavirus outbreak have resulted in disruptions in vaccination. WHO’s senior technical advisor for measles and rubella, Natasha Crowcroft, tells VOA different strategies are needed to prevent new measles outbreaks in the time of COVID-19, the disease brought on by the coronavirus. “The Number One action we need to take is to prevent outbreaks from happening in countries where we have got the highest risks…and there are several where there is not the ability to be able to put the health system in place to be able to rely on,” she said.Crowcroft says countries where routine immunization for children was happening will recover quickly from delays or suspended coverage during this difficult period. She says weak countries will continue to be at risk of deadly outbreaks unless swift action is taken to close this widening gap.The WHO reports more than 94 million people are at risk of missing vaccines because nationwide campaigns have been put on pause in 26 countries. This led to huge outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar. Eight of the 26 countries now have resumed their campaigns. They include Brazil, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines and Somalia.
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Greek-Turkish Rivalry Persists, Even in Celebration of Possible Coronavirus Vaccine
Greece and Turkey have long been at loggerheads over a host of issues – from a scattering of uninhabited islands in the Aegean Sea that divide them, to the origins of souvlaki.Now, they are trading jabs anew, this time trying to trump each other’s claims to Pfizer’s creation of what may be the world’s first demonstrably effective coronavirus vaccine.Since the company’s announcement earlier this week, media and medical experts from around the globe have hailed the drug’s pioneers, Dr. Ozlem Tureci and Dr. Ugur Sahin, as heroes.While both scientists are children of Turkish migrants who moved to Germany as part of the first guest worker generation in the late 1960s, the pair founded BioNTech in 2008 to develop new types of targeted cancer treatments.Two men wearing masks to help protect against the spread of coronavirus, watch their dogs playing in a public garden, in Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 12, 2020.As the coronavirus pandemic spread earlier this year, BioNTech, which employs 1,300 people, quickly moved to reallocate its resources, teaming up with the U.S. pharmacy industry giant Pfizer to develop 20 candidates for a vaccine.As the world this week breathed a sigh of relief at news that one of the experimental vaccines had shown results, Turkey, like perhaps no other state, went into a frenzy.Since the revelation, Turkish news media have splashed pictures and praise of the “Turkish dream team” on the fronts of newspapers, magazines and websites. Politicians have praised them for contributing to humanity. Even teachers across the nation are said to be aggressively lecturing students about what is being described as the great Turkish feat.On the other side of the Aegean divide, though, Greeks are giving scant coverage and little praise to the scientific duo, largely referring to them as Germans, rather than Turkish nationals.Pundits, press and politicians have instead taken to rejoicing their own national success: Albert Bourla, the Greek veterinarian at the helm of Pfizer and his strategy of striking a deal with BioNTech to produce and globally distribute the landmark drug.“A Greek yields hope of a breakthrough,” shouted the Athens-based Skai television network, featuring reports and special segments about Bourla and his rise from the humble origins in Thessaloniki, northern Greece.“The Greek who steers Pfizer,” blared the Capital.gr news site, as politicians across the divide posted pictures and praises for the leading Greek executive, fanning web chatter that the small and poor country, in the throes of a tragic COVID-19 comeback, would be the first to receive samples of the vaccine.5 Things to Know About Pfizer’s Coronavirus Vaccine Early results look great, but questions remain Having joined Pzifer’s animal-health division in 1993, Bourla became the company’s chief executive last year, striking a string of successful deals. In the first nine months of his tenure, he refocused the company toward patent-protected drugs and vaccines with the potential for significant sales growth.The drug maker’s announcement this week triggered a surge in BioNTech’s stock, pushing the company’s shares up by 23.4%, and rallying markets globally.BioNTech and Pfizer had been working together on a flu vaccine since 2018, but they agreed to collaborate on a coronavirus vaccine in March.Both sides left politics and age-old rivalries aside, bonding more over their shared backgrounds as scientists and immigrants.“We realized that he is from Greece, and I’m from Turkey,” Sahin said in a recent interview, avoiding mention of their native countries’ long-running antagonism. “It was very personal from the beginning.”While both NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have been at odds over air, sea and land rights for decades. They came to the brink of war in September before Washington waded into a standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, urging Ankara to recall a vessel exploring for energy off the coast of a Greek island. EU and U.S. diplomats have long tried to bridge the Greek-Turkish divide and build trust between the two sides through business. A major thawing of relations in 1999 saw trade between the two countries soar while cultural barriers eroded dramatically.Whether the Pfizer and BioNTech cooperation on good science can serve as a catalyst for improved Greek-Turkish relations remains unclear, pundits and politicians quip on both sides. For now, though, the rivalries seem to have no impact on Pfizer’s collaboration with BioNtech.“He’s a scientist and a man of principles,” Bourla said of Sahin, in a recent interview. “I trust him 100%.”
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US Sets New Single-Day Record for COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations
The United States set another single-day record for the number of COVID-19 infections on Wednesday.Data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project shows more than 144,000 new cases were reported across the U.S., surpassing the more than 136,000 new cases recorded just the day before. The data also shows 65,368 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, shattering the 61,964 mark set one day earlier Another 1,421 people died Wednesday, pushing the 7-day average over 1,000. Texas Surpasses 1 Million COVID-19 CasesCDC changes advice on wearing masks, saying they benefit both wearer and anyone nearby The new figures add to the United States’ world-leading casualty figures of more than 10.4 million total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic reached its shores earlier this year, including more than 241,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The nation’s most-populous state of California is nearing the 1 million mark of total COVID-19 cases, following Texas, which became the first U.S. state to reach the grim threshold on Wednesday. In Brazil, late-stage trials of a potential COVID-19 vaccine have resumed after the country’s health regulator called a halt due to an “adverse, serious event” involving a participant in the study. The vaccine, dubbed CoronaVac, is being developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. The vaccine had been denounced by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of China. Brazil has the highest coronavirus tally in Latin America, with more than 5.7 million confirmed cases and 168,368 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.In Spain, authorities announced Wednesday that travelers from countries considered high-risk areas for COVID-19 will have to show proof of a negative test before they can enter the country. Travelers must have a copy of the original document, either on paper or in an electronic format, that shows the test was conducted 72 hours before their planned departure. In Japan, organizers for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics said Thursday that participating athletes will not have to enter a mandatory 14-day quarantine period when they arrive for the games next year. Games Chief Executive Toshiro Muto told reporters that a decision on allowing foreign spectators to observe the events would be finalized next year, but said it is a possibility the two-week quarantine could be waived for them as well. The Tokyo Summer Games were initially scheduled to be held this July and August, but organizers in March decided to postpone them for a year due to the pandemic.
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TikTok Faces Deadline for Divesting US Operations
The U.S. Treasury Department and China-based ByteDance say they are focused on resolving a battle over U.S. security concerns that prompted President Donald Trump to order the company to divest its popular TikTok app by Thursday.Trump signed an Aug. 14 order setting a 90-day deadline as he alleged that if the app remains under the control of a Chinese company, then the Chinese government could spy on TikTok users.TikTok says it is not a security threat. It has been pursuing an agreement with Oracle and Walmart to shift TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new company, and earlier this week asked a court to authorize an extension after receiving “no substantive feedback” from the Trump administration about its proposed fix.”Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement Tuesday.The Treasury Department said Wednesday it “remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, in accordance with the August 14 order signed by the President, and we have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.”TikTok has 100 million U.S. users.
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US Treasury Seeks ‘Resolution’ With ByteDance on Security Concerns
The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday it wants a resolution of national security risks it has raised over ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition on Musical.ly, which it then merged into the TikTok video-sharing app. The statement came a day after China-based ByteDance filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect on Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. “The Treasury Department remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly,” Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley said. “We have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.” TikTok did not immediately comment. President Donald Trump in an August 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, which falls on Thursday. The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations. ByteDance, which has been in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc. and Oracle Corp. to shift TikTok’s U.S. assets into a new entity, said Tuesday it was requesting a 30-day extension so that it can finalize terms. “Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement. TikTok announced a preliminary deal in September for Walmart and Oracle to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations called TikTok Global. Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.”
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Texas Surpasses 1 Million COVID-19 Cases
Texas became the first U.S. state Wednesday to surpass 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with California close behind.Health officials in the country’s second most populous state recorded 10,800 new cases on Tuesday, a one-day record. Although they gave no indication of imminent restrictions to slow the surge, The Associated Press reported that a top county official in Fort Worth, the state’s fifth-largest city, began pushing to halt youth and school sports. Some rural hospitals have set up outdoor medical tents.On Wednesday, state health officials reported 6,779 patients in hospitals, with 609 newly admitted patients — one of the highest single-day spikes since the state began keeping track.The true number of infections is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.NationwideThe United States recorded 61,964 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, breaking the previous one-day high from mid-April by more than 2,000.As the pandemic worsens across the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidance on the use of face masks. The federal health agency said Tuesday that wearing a mask not only protects other people but also protects the wearer.FILE – A sign encouraging the wearing of masks and adhering to social distancing stands at a street corner in downtown Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 5, 2020.The CDC cited several studies confirming that “universal masking” helped control the spread of the virus, including one involving two hairstylists who wore masks while suffering from symptoms. The study found that the stylists had not transmitted the coronavirus to 67 customers who were later notified by contact tracers.On Wednesday, White House political affairs director Brian Jack and former White House aide Healy Baumgardner tested positive for the coronavirus after attending an election night party at the White House on November 3. Since then, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson also tested positive.The U.S. leads the world with more than 10.2 million total cases, including more than 136,000 new cases reported on Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. reported more than 1 million new COVID-19 cases in just the first 10 days of November, averaging more than 110,000 new cases a day.WorldwideCOVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has claimed over 1.2 million lives worldwide since the first cases were recorded in December 2019.According to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins, more than 51 million cases have been confirmed around the world.A man wearing a face mask walks past a coronavirus sign during the second nationwide lockdown in London, Nov. 10, 2020.Britain on Wednesday became the fifth country in the world to record over 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus and currently has the highest COVID-19 death rate in Europe. British lawmakers mandated a countrywide lockdown last week as the nation began battling a resurgence of the virus.Spain has recorded over 40,000 deaths, while Italy, one of the worst-hit countries earlier this year in the pandemic, surpassed 1 million cases.Elsewhere in the world, Iran and Lebanon joined the growing list of nations that have imposed new restrictions to blunt a growing surge of infections that are pushing hospitals in each nation to the breaking point.Iran has ordered all restaurants and nonessential businesses in Tehran and other major cities to close at 6 p.m. local time for one month. In Lebanon, Prime Minister Hassan Diab has announced a one-month lockdown that will begin Saturday.Iran has more than 700,000 confirmed cases, including 10,339 on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins, while Lebanon has 96,907 confirmed cases, including 749 deaths.First case in VanuatuMeanwhile, the Pacific nation of Vanuatu announced its first confirmed infection, ending its status as one of the few places in the world that had been free of the coronavirus.Health authorities said the infected man, a 23-year-old native of Vanuatu, had returned home from the United States last week, with stops in Sydney and Auckland, Australia, and had been placed in quarantine. The man was asymptomatic when he returned but tested positive on Tuesday.Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan and other officials attend a press conference in Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2020. Hong Kong and Singapore will at month’s end allow travelers in both cities to visit the other without having to serve quarantine.Hong Kong and Singapore announced plans to start an air travel “bubble” this month that would allow travelers from each city to visit the other without entering quarantine. Beginning November 22, visitors must have a negative test at every stage of the journey.The two cities say the flights will be limited to one per day into each city, with just 200 passengers per flight. The goal is two flights a day beginning December 7. The bubble will be suspended if either city experiences a surge of infections.Richard Green and Esha Sarai contributed to this report.
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Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo, First Female Olympic Oath Taker, Dies at 88
Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo, the first female athlete to deliver the Olympic oath, in 1956, and the first woman to win a Winter Games medal for Italy four years earlier, has died at the age of 88. The Italian was hailed by her country’s alpine skiing federation as “one of the greatest post-war champions.” Chenal-Minuzzo won downhill bronze in the 1952 Oslo Olympics, going on to claim a second bronze at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, that time in the giant slalom. FILE – Italian Alpine skier Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo reads the Olympic oath, on behalf of all the athletes taking part, at the opening ceremony of the seventh Winter Olympic Games, at Cortina, Italy, Jan.26, 1956.At the intervening 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Games, she broke ground by delivering the Olympic oath. First pronounced by Belgian athlete Victor Boin (water polo, swimming and fencing) at the 1920 Antwerp Summer Games, the Olympic oath of modern times was similar to that taken by the Olympic athletes of ancient times – but at the modern Olympic Games, the athletes swear on the Olympic flag, not on the entrails of a sacrificed animal. The modern Olympic oath, originally written by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president and founder Pierre de Coubertin, has been modified over time to reflect the changing nature of the sporting competition. The oath taker is from the host nation and takes the oath on behalf of all athletes participating at those Olympic Games. Oaths for officials and coaches were added in 1972 and 2010 respectively.
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Facebook Extends Ban on US Political Ads for Another Month
As election misinformation raged online, Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday its post-election ban on political ads would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia Senate races in January.
The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site, was supposed to last about a week but could be extended. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also appeared to be sticking with its post-election political ad ban.
“While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it’s important to help prevent confusion or abuse on our platform,” Facebook told advertisers in an email seen by Reuters. It said to expect the pause to last another month though there “may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”
Facebook later confirmed the extension in a blog post.
Baseless claims about the election reverberated around social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no significant irregularities, and legal experts cautioned he had little chance to overturn Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
In one Facebook group created on Sunday, which rapidly grew to nearly 400,000 members by Wednesday, members calling for a nationwide recount swapped unfounded accusations about alleged election fraud and shifting state vote counts every few seconds.
“The reality is right now that we are not through the danger zone,” said Vanita Gupta, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Google declined to answer questions about the length of its ad pause, although one advertiser said the company had floated the possibility of extending it through or after December. A Google spokeswoman previously said the company would lift its ban based on factors such as the time needed for votes to be counted and whether there was civil unrest.
The extensions mean that the top two digital advertising behemoths, which together control more than half the market, are not accepting election ads ahead of the two U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia that could decide control of that chamber.
Democratic and Republican digital strategists who spoke to Reuters railed against those decisions, saying the ad bans were overly broad and failed to combat a much bigger problem on the platforms: the organic spread of viral lies in unpaid posts.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, along with the Senate campaigns of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, called for an exemption for the Georgia Senate run-offs so they could make voters aware of upcoming deadlines.
Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, and Warnock faces incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
“It is driving us absolutely bonkers,” said Mark Jablonowski, managing partner of DSPolitical, a digital firm that works with Democratic causes.
“They’re essentially holding the rest of the political process hostage,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, who said he thought the companies’ concerns about ads on the election outcome did not require a blanket ban. “This is something that deserves a scalpel and they’re using a rusty ax,” he added.
The companies declined to say when they would lift other “break-glass” election measures introduced for unpaid posts, like Facebook’s limits on the distribution of live videos and demotions of content that its systems predict may be misinformation.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said those emergency measures would not be permanent, but that rollback was “not imminent.”
Google’s YouTube, which is labeling all election-related videos with information about the outcome, said it would stick with that approach “as long as it’s necessary.”
The video-sharing company bans “demonstrably false” claims about the election process, but has used the tool sparingly, saying hyperbolic statements about a political party “stealing” the election does not violate the policy.
However, Twitter Inc. has stopped using its most restrictive election-related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violating tweets. Instead, the company is now using lighter-touch labels that “provide additional context,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said.
Twitter placed a label reading “this claim about election fraud is disputed” on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning, but each was retweeted more than 80,000 times by that evening.
Democratic strategists, including members of the Biden campaign who tweeted criticism of Facebook, said social media companies’ measures were not effectively curbing the spread of viral lies.
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, said the ad pauses were needed but not sufficient for tackling false information.
“Clearly President Trump does not think the election is over, so I don’t think the platforms should treat it as if it is,” she said.
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