Month: November 2022

EXPLAINER: Nasa’s New Mega Moon Rocket, Orion Crew Capsule

NASA is kicking off its new moon program with a test flight of a brand-new rocket and capsule.

Liftoff was slated for early Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The test flight aims to send an empty crew capsule into a far-flung lunar orbit, 50 years after NASA’s famed Apollo moonshots.

The project is years late and billions over budget. The price tag for the test flight: more than $4 billion.

A rundown of the new rocket and capsule, part of NASA’s Artemis program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister:

Rocket power

At 322 feet (98 meters), the new rocket is shorter and slimmer than the Saturn V rockets that hurled 24 Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. But it’s mightier, packing 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust. It’s called the Space Launch System rocket, SLS for short, although a less clunky name is under discussion. Unlike the streamlined Saturn V, the new rocket has a pair of side boosters refashioned from NASA’s space shuttles. The boosters peel away after two minutes, just like the shuttle boosters. The core stage keeps firing before crashing into the Pacific. Less than two hours after liftoff, an upper stage sends the capsule, Orion, racing toward the moon.

Moonship

NASA’s high-tech, automated Orion capsule is named after the constellation, among the night sky’s brightest. At 11 feet (3 meters) tall, it’s roomier than Apollo’s capsule, seating four astronauts instead of three. For the test flight, a full-size dummy in an orange flight suit occupies the commander’s seat, rigged with vibration and acceleration sensors. Two other mannequins made of material simulating human tissue — heads and female torsos, but no limbs — measure cosmic radiation, one of the biggest risks of spaceflight. Unlike the rocket, Orion has launched before, making two laps around Earth in 2014. For the test flight, the European Space Agency’s service module was attached for propulsion and solar power via four wings.

Flight plan

Orion’s flight is set to last 25 days from its Florida liftoff to Pacific splashdown, about the same as astronaut trips. It takes nearly a week to reach the moon. After whipping closely around the moon, the capsule enters a distant orbit with a far point of close to 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers). That would put Orion about 270,000 miles (435,000) from Earth, farther than Apollo. The big test comes at mission’s end, as Orion hits the atmosphere at 25,000 mph (40,000 kph) on its way to a splashdown in the Pacific. The heat shield uses the same material as the Apollo capsules to withstand reentry temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,750 degrees Celsius). But the advanced design anticipates the faster, hotter returns by future Mars crews.

Hitchhikers

Besides three test dummies, the test flight includes a slew of stowaways for deep space research. Ten shoebox-size satellites pop off once Orion is hurtling toward the moon. NASA expects some to fail, given the low-cost, high-risk nature of these mini satellites. In a back-to-the-future salute, Orion carries a few slivers of moon rocks collected by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, and a bolt from one of their rocket engines, salvaged from the sea a decade ago.

Apollo vs. Artemis

More than 50 years later, Apollo still stands as NASA’s greatest achievement. Using 1960s technology, NASA took just eight years to go from launching its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, and landing Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. By contrast, Artemis already has dragged on for more than a decade, despite building on the short-lived moon exploration program Constellation. Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972, staying no longer than three days at a time. For Artemis, NASA will draw from a diverse astronaut pool and is extending the time crews spend on the moon to at least a week. The goal is to create a long-term lunar presence that will grease the skids for sending people to Mars.

What’s next

There’s a lot more to be done before astronauts step on the moon again. A second test flight will send four astronauts around the moon and back, perhaps as early as 2024. A year or so later, NASA aims to send another four up, with two of them touching down at the lunar south pole. Orion doesn’t come with its own lunar lander like the Apollo spacecraft did, so NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide its Starship spacecraft for the first Artemis moon landing. Two other private companies are developing moonwalking suits. The sci-fi-looking Starship would link up with Orion at the moon and take a pair of astronauts to the surface and back to the capsule for the ride home. So far, Starship has only soared six miles (10 kilometers).

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FBI Says It has ‘National Security Concerns’ About TikTok

FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that the bureau has “national security concerns” about popular short-form video hosting app TikTok as the Chinese-owned company seeks U.S. government approval to continue operating in the country.

Speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee hearing on “worldwide threats to the homeland,” Wray said the FBI’s concerns about TikTok include “the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users.”

There is also concern, Wray said in response to a question, that the Chinese government could “control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations … or to control software on millions of devices, which gives the opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices.”

In written testimony, Wray called the foreign intelligence and economic threat from China “the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s ideas, innovation, and economic security.”

But he declined to answer in an open session a lawmaker’s question about whether the Chinese government has been leveraging TikTok to collect data about U.S. citizens.

Concerns about ties to Chinese government

TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government have been a flashpoint among U.S. lawmakers and officials for years. The app grew in popularity in recent years after its parent company, ByteDance, a China-based company with suspected ties to the Chinese government, bought and later absorbed Musical.ly, which allowed users to create and share lip-sync videos.

Citing national security concerns, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2020 that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States. But the social platform sued to block Trump’s executive order.

Last year President Joe Biden revoked the Trump directive, asking the Treasury Department to examine security concerns associated with the app.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an interagency body headed by the Treasury Department that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companies, has been examining TikTok’s proposal to continue to remain active in the U.S. market and the risks associated with it.

Noting that the FBI’s foreign investment unit is part of the CFIUS review process, Wray said that “our input would be taken into account in any agreements that might be made to address the issue.”

U.S. lawmakers question how data used

Although TikTok has denied having ties to China’s ruling Communist Party, U.S. lawmakers have long expressed concern about the Chinese government’s ability to access U.S. user data collected by the app.

Questioning Wray during Tuesday’s hearing, Republican Representative Diana Harshbarger cited a recent Forbes article that reported ByteDance “planned to use the TikTok app to track the physical location of specific American citizens.”

TikTok later dismissed the allegation raised in the article, saying in a statement it “does not collect precise GPS location information from U.S. users.”

In a June letter, TikTok sought to reassure U.S. lawmakers about its data security, writing that it now stores “100% of US user data, by default, in the Oracle cloud environment.”

‘Spinach’ vs. ‘opium’ versions

Last week, the U.S. TV news magazine “60 Minutes” reported that TikTok has two versions — a limited, educational “spinach version” for Chinese consumers, and an addictive “opium version” for the rest of the world.

While the version used in the West “has kids hooked for hours at a time,” in China, children under 14 years can use TikTok for only 40 minutes per day and view only videos about science experiments, museum exhibits, patriotic videos and educational videos, according to “60 Minutes.”

Wray said the online “threat to our youth is something we’re always concerned about.” The FBI is just as concerned about the way the Chinese government uses its laws as “an aggressive weapon against companies, both U.S. companies and Chinese companies,” he said.

“Under Chinese law, Chinese companies are required to essentially — and I’m going to shorthand here — basically do what the Chinese government wants them to do, in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government,” Wray said. “And so, that’s plenty of reason by itself to be concerned.”

Beijing has denied similar allegations in the past.

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Beyoncé Leads Grammy Nominations with 9, Ties Record

Beyoncé has propelled herself into the highest Grammy echelon: The singer claimed a leading nine nominations Tuesday, making her tied — with her husband, Jay-Z — as the most nominated music act in the history of the awards show. 

Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” reeled in record and song of the year nominations, while “Renaissance,” which ventured into the world of dancehall music, netted an album of the year nod. With Jay-Z also earning five nods this year, each spouse now holds the record for the most-ever Grammy nominations at 88 apiece. 

Kendrick Lamar came away with the second-most nominations, with eight. Adele and Brandi Carlile both received seven nods. Harry Styles, Mary J. Blige, Future, DJ Khaled, The-Dream and mastering engineer Randy Merrill each picked up six. 

Nearly half of this year’s leading nominees are women and more than half are people of color, according to the recording academy. The ceremony will be held February 5 in Los Angeles. 

“This makes me feel very proud, but it makes me conscious of the fact that we have to maintain the work we have done,” said Harvey Mason jr., the Recording Academy’s CEO. He said there have been strides in the peer-driven voting system and increased membership, but he still believes more progress can be made. 

“We have almost 13,000 voters now.” Mason said. … “I’m pleased to think they spent the time listening to the music and evaluating. I think you see by the type of nominations that they are not only going for just popular music or music that has a lot of streams. It’s just music of high quality.” 

The academy added a special song for social change and five new categories including songwriter of the year, which Harvey says will further help diversify the 65th edition of the annual awards. 

The non-classical songwriter category will recognize one individual who was the “most prolific” non-performing and non-producing songwriter for a body of new work during an eligibility year. It will take a different approach than song of the year, which awards the songwriters who wrote the lyrics or melodies to one song. 

Harvey said implementing the songwriter category is a significant step forward for the music industry. Last year, a rule update allowed that any songwriter, producer, engineer or featured artist on a work nominated for album of the year could ultimately earn a nomination. 

“The academy and voters are placing a high importance on the craft of songwriting,” Harvey said of the new category, in which nominees include The-Dream, Amy Allen, Nija Charles, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Laura Veltz. 

Harvey said it’s his priority to earn the trust from the music community including The Weeknd and Drake, who are still unwilling to submit any of their music. Drake declined to submit his album “Honestly Nevermind” for the awards, but the Canadian rapper still received four nominations, including album of the year for his co-writing efforts on Beyoncé’s “Renaissance.” 

Beyoncé, the most decorated woman in Grammy history with 28 wins, could break the late Hungarian-British conductor Georg Solti’s record for most awards won if she wins four awards. Solti, who has 31 Grammys, has held on to the record since 1997. 

For the first time in Beyoncé’s lauded career, she was nominated in the dance category. Her seventh studio project is up for best dance-electronic music album and “Break My Soul” is nominated for best dance-electronic recording. Other nominations include best R&B song for “Cuff It,” R&B performance for “Virgo’s Groove,” traditional R&B performance for “Plastic Off the Sofa” and song written for visual media for “Be Alive,” the Oscar-nominated song from the “King Richard” soundtrack. 

Other album of the year nominees include: Adele’s “30,” ABBA’s “Voyage,” Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” Mary J. Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous” (Deluxe), Carlile’s “In These Silent Days,” Coldplay’s “Music of the Spheres,” Lamar’s “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” Lizzo’s “Special” and Styles’ “Harry’s House.” Bad Bunny made history, with his album becoming the first sung entirely in Spanish to compete in the category. 

Tracks competing with “Break My Soul” for record of the year include Styles’ “As It Was,” Doja Cat’s “Woman,” Adele’s “Easy On Me,” ABBA’s “Don’t Shut Me Down,” Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous,” Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit,” Lamar’s “The Heart Part 5,” Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” and Carlile’s “You and Me On the Rock” featuring Lucius. 

Three of Jay-Z’s nominations came through DJ Khaled’s “God Did,” a song featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, John Legend and Fridayy. The track is up for best rap performance and rap song along with song of the year, which also has Jay-Z nominated for his writing efforts on Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul.” The rapper also received a nod for album of the year for his work on his wife’s “Renaissance” album. 

Young Thug and Gunna both received nominations despite being currently locked up in a racketeering criminal case. The rappers are up for best rap song and rap performance through Gunna’s “pushin P,” featuring Thug and Future. 

Christina Aguilera’s comeback to Latin music with her self-titled album earned her two nominations for best Latin pop album and immersive audio album. Among the 10 nominees for best new artist are Muni Long, Latto and Eurovision winner Maneskin. 

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Haiti Fears Spike in Cholera Cases as Fuel Blockade Lifts

Cholera cases are overwhelming Haiti, and experts warn the situation could worsen now that the country is bustling following the end of a paralyzing fuel blockade that lasted two months.

Dr. Jeanty Fils, a spokesman for Haiti’s Ministry of Health, told The Associated Press that people are back on the streets and likely spreading cholera as the government struggles to find life-saving equipment, including IV supplies, amid an ongoing discussion on whether to request cholera vaccines.

“We need more resources,” he said. “Cholera cases continue to climb in Haiti.”

At least 161 people have died and more than 7,600 are hospitalized, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and Haiti’s government, although officials believe the numbers are much higher as a result of underreporting. Cholera is caused by a bacteria found in contaminated food or water that leads to vomiting and diarrhea. If not treated in time, it can cause fatal dehydration.

The worsening situation led the United Nations to announce Tuesday that it, along with Haiti’s government and other partners, was seeking $146 million to help fight cholera. At least half a million people in Haiti are at risk of contracting the disease, according to PAHO and the World Health Organization.

“The surge in cases in recent weeks and the rapid spread of cholera in the country is worrying,” said Ulrika Richardson, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator.

Fils noted that cholera cases were likely contained during the fuel blockade as gas stations were closed and many in the country of more than 11 million people remained at home.

“Now people are going to move around more,” he said. “It could start spreading.”

Stephanie Mayronne, medical operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, agreed.

She said if people sickened with cholera start traveling to areas with poor sanitation and a lack of drinking water, the number of cases will likely rise.

“It’s a match that can light a fire,” she said.

The number of patients seeking help at Doctors Without Borders hospitals in the capital of Port-au-Prince has spiked in recent weeks, with more than 6,500 admitted so far. Beds filled up so quickly that the aid group was forced to open a fifth center two weeks ago, said Alexandre Marcou, Haiti’s field communication manager.

Inside that new center, mothers hovered over their children on a recent morning. One rearranged the tangle of intravenous cables surrounding her baby while another pumped the little cheeks of her young daughter to force her mouth open and give her an oral supplement. Nearby, adult patients sat in silence in plastic chairs with large white buckets between their legs, holding their head to one side with their arm. Some ate rice and red beans out of small containers that nurses later collected.

Marcou noted that people can survive cholera if treated in time, but the recent lack of fuel and ongoing violence between gangs that has worsened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse has prevented Haitians from reaching hospitals and medical clinics.

“There’s a huge security crisis. And we are tremendously lacking resources,” said Ralph Ternier, chief medical officer in Haiti for the nonprofit Partners in Health. “The epidemic is spreading so quickly that vaccines are really the tool that we need.”

PAHO told the AP that it is supporting Haiti’s government in preparing a request for vaccines as well as to plan and implement vaccination campaigns. But it wasn’t clear if and when that might happen.

In October, the World Health Organization announced a worldwide cholera vaccine shortage that has forced it to suspend the usual double-dose strategy “at a time of unprecedented rise in cholera outbreaks worldwide.” At least 29 countries have reported cholera cases this year, compared with fewer than 20 on average for the past five years, the agency said.

Mayronne said cholera vaccines can be a useful tool but noted that a single dose can lower one’s risk by only 40%.

“In and of itself, a vaccine is not a be-all and end-all,” she said.

Amid the lack of vaccines in Haiti, crushing poverty made worse by a spiraling economic crisis and double-digit inflation is contributing to the spread of cholera because many are unable to access or afford potable water or food that isn’t contaminated.

Lovena Shelove, 30, lost her 2-year-old son to cholera despite a kind neighbor who brought drinking water to try to revive the toddler after severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea.

“I don’t have anything in the house,” she said in a soft voice. “I could not afford anything to provide for the kids.”

Her other child, a 7-month-old daughter, is still hospitalized.

Cholera is easily transmitted, especially in crowded and unhygienic conditions. Sanitation further worsened during the fuel blockade because companies that supplied drinking water were forced to suspend operations.

Haiti’s first outbreak occurred in 2010 after U.N. peacekeepers introduced the bacteria into the country’s largest river by sewage runoff from their base. Nearly 10,000 people died, and thousands of others were sickened.

The number of cases eventually dwindled, and the World Health Organization was preparing to declare Haiti cholera-free until the government announced in early October that at least three people had died — the first deaths reported in three years.

Patrick Joseph, 40, was among the thousands recently hospitalized after he became severely dehydrated.

“I don’t know where I got cholera from,” he said, although he suspects it’s from the water he buys from a seller who claims it’s treated. “I feared that I would die if I did not go to the doctor.”

It’s a feeling familiar to street vendor Lucna Francois, who had been relying on well water because the fuel blockade prevented her from accessing potable water. The 24-year-old got so sick on a recent evening that she called a relative to take her to the hospital.

“I am dying,” she recalled telling them. “I was very, very weak.”

Fils, with Haiti’s health ministry, said another big challenge the government faces is that many people don’t believe cholera exists and are not taking measures to avoid becoming sick.

“Prevention, it’s a must,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of drinking (clean) water.”

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World Population Hits 8 Billion, Creating Many Challenges

The world’s population is projected to hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa.

Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than 15 million people in Lagos compete for everything from electricity to light their homes to spots on crowded buses, often for two-hour commutes each way in this sprawling megacity. Some Nigerian children set off for school as early as 5 a.m.

And over the next three decades, the West African nation’s population is expected to soar even more: from 216 million this year to 375 million, the U.N. says. That will make Nigeria the fourth-most populous country in the world after India, China and the United States.

“We are already overstretching what we have — the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched,” said Gyang Dalyop, an urban planning and development consultant in Nigeria.

The U.N.’s Day of 8 Billion milestone Tuesday is more symbolic than precise, officials are careful to note in a wide-ranging report released over the summer that makes some staggering projections.

The upward trend threatens to leave even more people in developing countries further behind, as governments struggle to provide enough classrooms and jobs for a rapidly growing number of youth, and food insecurity becomes an even more urgent problem.

Nigeria is among eight countries the U.N says will account for more than half the world’s population growth between now and 2050 — along with fellow African nations Congo, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

“The population in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double between 2022 and 2050, putting additional pressure on already strained resources and challenging policies aimed to reduce poverty and inequalities,” the U.N. report said.

It projected the world’s population will reach around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in 2100.

Other countries rounding out the list with the fastest growing populations are Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines and India, which is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation next year.

In Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where more than 12 million people live, many families struggle to find affordable housing and pay school fees. While elementary pupils attend for free, older children’s chances depend on their parents’ incomes.

“My children took turns” going to school, said Luc Kyungu, a Kinshasa truck driver who has six children. “Two studied while others waited because of money. If I didn’t have so many children, they would have finished their studies on time.”

Rapid population growth also means more people vying for scarce water resources and leaves more families facing hunger as climate change increasingly impacts crop production in many parts of the world.

“There is also a greater pressure on the environment, increasing the challenges to food security that is also compounded by climate change,” said Dr. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “Reducing inequality while focusing on adapting and mitigating climate change should be where our policy makers’ focus should be.”

Still, experts say the bigger threat to the environment is consumption, which is highest in developed countries not undergoing big population increases.

“Global evidence shows that a small portion of the world’s people use most of the Earth’s resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions,” said Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India. “Over the past 25 years, the richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions.”

According to the U.N., the population in sub-Saharan Africa is growing at 2.5% per year — more than three times the global average. Some of that can be attributed to people living longer, but family size remains the driving factor. Women in sub-Saharan Africa on average have 4.6 births, twice the current global average of 2.3.

Families become larger when women start having children early, and 4 out of 10 girls in Africa marry before they turn 18, according to U.N. figures. The rate of teen pregnancy on the continent is the highest in the world — about half of the children born last year to mothers under 20 worldwide were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Still, any effort to reduce family size now would come too late to significantly slow the 2050 growth projections, the U.N. said. About two-thirds of it “will be driven by the momentum of past growth.”

“Such growth would occur even if childbearing in today’s high-fertility countries were to fall immediately to around two births per woman,” the report found.

There are also important cultural reasons for large families. In sub-Saharan Africa, children are seen as a blessing and as a source of support for their elders — the more sons and daughters, the greater comfort in retirement.

Still, some large families “may not have what it takes to actually feed them,” says Eunice Azimi, an insurance broker in Lagos and mother of three.

“In Nigeria, we believe that it is God that gives children,” she said. “They see it as the more children you have, the more benefits. And you are actually overtaking your peers who cannot have as many children. It looks like a competition in villages.”

Politics also have played a role in Tanzania, where former President John Magufuli, who ruled the East African country from 2015 until his death in 2021, discouraged birth control, saying that a large population was good for the economy.

He opposed family planning programs promoted by outside groups, and in a 2019 speech urged women not to “block ovaries.” He even described users of contraceptives as “lazy” in a country he said was awash with cheap food. Under Magufuli, pregnant schoolgirls were even banned from returning to classrooms.

But his successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, appeared to reverse government policy in comments last month when she said birth control was necessary in order not to overwhelm the country’s public infrastructure.

Even as populations soar in some countries, the U.N. says rates are expected to drop by 1% or more in 61 nations.

The U.S. population is now around 333 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The population growth rate in 2021 was just 0.1%, the lowest since the country was founded.

“Going forward, we’re going to have slower growth — the question is, how slow?” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “The real wild card for the U.S. and many other developed countries is immigration.”

Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, says environmental concerns surrounding the 8 billion mark should focus on consumption, particularly in developed countries.

“Population is not the problem, the way we consume is the problem — let’s change our consumption patterns,” he said.

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Invasive Mosquito Threatens Malaria Control in Africa

Malaria exploded this year in the Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa, which saw more than 10 times as many cases between January and May as it did in all of 2019.

What made this spike in cases unusual is that it happened outside the rainy season, when malaria typically surges across Africa, and in an urban area — malaria is more of a rural problem on the continent. Cities are not immune, but they typically don’t see these kinds of outbreaks.

Something new and insidious has arrived in the Horn of Africa. An invasive species of mosquito called Anopheles stephensi threatens to unravel two decades of gains in malaria control. And it may bring the deadly disease to more of the continent’s rapidly growing cities.

“There is real fear that it could start more transmission in these areas that traditionally don’t have as much malaria,” said Arran Hamlet, a disease modeling expert with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “And they don’t have infection control strategies implemented to the same levels.”

The new mosquito arrives at a bad time in the fight against malaria.

Africa’s native mosquitoes have become increasingly resistant to insecticides. (Anopheles stephensi is already resistant.) In addition, the malaria parasite is getting not only tougher to kill, but tougher to spot. Malaria strains that don’t show up on rapid diagnostic tests are becoming more common.

“We don’t want the three to meet — the drug resistance, the diagnostic resistance and the highly efficient vector [Anopheles stephensi],” said Fitsum Girma Tadesse, a molecular biologist at Ethiopia’s Armauer Hansen Research Institute.

“What happens if they coexist? We don’t know,” he said. “It’s really dangerous. You can’t detect the parasite. You can’t kill it with a drug. And the mosquito is wise enough to evade your [control] mechanisms.”

Fitsum and his colleagues linked Anopheles stephensi to the Dire Dawa outbreak in a study presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Seattle this month. It is the strongest evidence yet that the mosquito is increasing malaria rates in Ethiopia.

A different mosquito

Malaria fighters started the millennium strong.

With insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor insecticide spraying campaigns and new artemisinin-based drugs, deaths from malaria plunged from nearly 900,000 in 2000 to around 560,000 in 2015. But since then, progress has stalled.

And the tools that have worked up until recently won’t help much against Anopheles stephensi.

“This [mosquito] is different and more insidious than some of the other mosquitoes that transmit malaria that we’re used to seeing in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs epidemiologist April Monroe.

Africa’s native malaria mosquitoes prefer to bite people inside their homes late at night. That’s why bed nets and indoor spraying have been so effective.

But Anopheles stephensi bites earlier in the evening. When it goes searching for a meal, “people aren’t actually in bed yet, and so they don’t get the same protection” from bed nets, Hamlet said.

It also prefers to take its blood meal outdoors. Or if it does bite indoors, it doesn’t rest there, thereby avoiding indoor insecticides.

The new mosquito’s habitat is different, too. Most malaria mosquitoes live in rural Africa. But Anopheles stephensi is “really highly adapted to urban areas, which isn’t what we typically see,” Monroe said.

It likes to lay its eggs in water storage containers, which are especially common in Africa’s fast-growing unplanned urban areas that lack piped water, Fitsum noted.

Newcomer

Originally from South Asia, Anopheles stephensi was first spotted on the African continent in Djibouti in 2012.

The small nation was on the verge of eliminating malaria at the time. It recorded just 27 cases that year. In 2020, there were more than 73,000.

Besides Djibouti and Ethiopia, the mosquito has turned up in Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria.

One study estimates the mosquito may put an additional 126 million people at risk of malaria in cities across Africa.

In Ethiopia alone, Hamlet and colleagues estimate that Anopheles stephensi could increase malaria cases by 50% and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to control.

“This is very much possibly a cheap option compared to letting Anopheles stephensi spread around the country,” Hamlet said. “There is a lot of economic burden on both individuals and the wider economy in this level of malaria increase.”

The last thing African countries need, however, is new disease vector that is expensive to control.

“Most of the countries affected by malaria have limited resources to deal with already existing prevalent diseases,” Fitsum said.

One bit of relatively good news is that since Anopheles stephensi breeds in the same places as the mosquitoes that carry yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue, efforts that target one would also control the others.

Fitsum says covering water containers with polystyrene beads can help prevent the mosquitoes from laying eggs. He advises people to cover water containers tightly and get rid of any they don’t need.

And keep using bed nets and indoor sprays, he added. Native mosquitoes are still out there.

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40 States Settle Google Location-tracking Charges for $392 Million

Search giant Google has agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users’ locations, state attorneys general announced Monday. 

The states’ investigation was sparked by a 2018 Associated Press story, which found that Google continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called “location history.” 

The attorneys general called the settlement a historic win for consumers, and the largest multistate settlement in U.S history dealing with privacy. 

It comes at a time of mounting unease over privacy and surveillance by tech companies that has drawn growing outrage from politicians and scrutiny by regulators. The Supreme Court’s ruling in June ending the constitutional protections for abortion raised potential privacy concerns for women seeking the procedure or related information online. 

“This $391.5 million settlement is a historic win for consumers in an era of increasing reliance on technology,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “Location data is among the most sensitive and valuable personal information Google collects, and there are so many reasons why a consumer may opt-out of tracking.” 

Google, based in Mountain View, California, said it fixed the problems several years ago. 

“Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this investigation, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” company spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement. 

Location tracking can help tech companies sell digital ads to marketers looking to connect with consumers within their vicinity. It’s another tool in a data-gathering toolkit that generates more than $200 billion in annual ad revenue for Google, accounting for most of the profits pouring into the coffers of its corporate parent, Alphabet — which has a market value of $1.2 trillion. 

In its 2018 story, the AP reported that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store users’ location data even if they’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so. Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request. 

Storing such data carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects. 

The AP reported that the privacy issue with location tracking affected some 2 billion users of devices that run Google’s Android operating software and hundreds of millions of worldwide iPhone users who rely on Google for maps or search. 

The attorneys general who investigated Google said a key part of the company’s digital advertising business is location data, which they called the most sensitive and valuable personal data the company collects. Even a small amount of location data can reveal a person’s identity and routines, they said. 

Google uses the location information to target consumers with ads by its customers, the state officials said. 

The attorneys general said Google misled users about its location tracking practices since at least 2014, violating state consumer protection laws. 

As part of the settlement, Google also agreed to make those practices more transparent to users. That includes showing them more information when they turn location account settings on and off and keeping a webpage that gives users information about the data Google collects. 

The shadowy surveillance brought to light by the AP troubled even some Google engineers, who recognized the company might be confronting a massive legal headache after the story was published, according to internal documents that have subsequently surfaced in consumer-fraud lawsuits. 

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed the first state action against Google in May 2020, alleging that the company had defrauded its users by misleading them into believing they could keep their whereabouts private by turning off location tracking in the settings of their software. 

Arizona settled its case with Google for $85 million last month, but by then attorneys general in several other states and the District of Columbia had also pounced on the company with their own lawsuits seeking to hold Google accountable for its alleged deception. 

 

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Pakistan’s Ban on Prizewinner ‘Joyland’ Movie Sparks Outrage

In a last-minute controversial move, Pakistan has banned the screening of its international award-winning movie, “Joyland” in theaters across the country for containing “highly objectionable” content.

The movie, which features a married man falling for a transgender woman, was supposed to be released in Pakistani cinemas Friday.

In May, “Joyland” became the first Pakistani feature film to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is also Pakistan’s entry for the 2023 Academy Awards in the United States.

The government-led Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) had in August formally granted the filmmaker the license to screen the movie in cinemas.

A federal information ministry statement, however, said that it had stopped the screening of the movie as the material in question does not “conform with the social values and moral stands of our society.”

The material in question is “clearly repugnant to the norms of decency and morality” in line with the relevant laws, said the statement without elaborating.

The director of “Joyland” denounced the decision as “absolutely unconstitutional and illegal.”

“We — a team — are gutted by this development but fully intend to raise our voice against this grave injustice,” Saim Sadiq said in an Instagram post late Sunday.

Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, who represents the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party in the upper house of parliament, was leading the campaign against the screening of “Joyland” in Pakistan. He praised the government’s decision to revoke the license.

“Pakistan is an Islamic state where no law, no step and no ideology against Islam can work here,” Khan wrote on Twitter.

Sadiq criticized the government, saying it “caved under pressure from a few extremist factions … and made a mockery of our federal censor board.” He urged the information ministry to review its decision.

Independent critics, Pakistani show business celebrities and social media activists also questioned the movie ban in a country that recognizes and gives legal rights to transgender people.

Salman Sufi, a key government adviser, announced Monday on Twitter that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had constituted a high-level committee to “assess the complaints as well as merits to decide on its release in Pakistan.”

“I personally do not believe in banning films that highlight issues faced by marginalized segments of our society. People should be trusted to watch & make their own mind,” Sufi tweeted Sunday in response to the widespread outcry sparked by the ban.

Pakistan has in recent years taken significant legal and administrative measures in its bid to protect the rights of transgender people who are often considered outcasts in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

The reforms effectively started with a landmark Supreme Court ruling a decade ago, which directed authorities to register transgender people as voters and give them, among others, equal inheritance and job opportunity rights.

The government launched a hotline this past September for transgender people, estimated to number around 500,000, to protect them against discrimination and harassment.

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California City Designates ‘Little Arabia’ Neighborhood

California is home to the largest Arab American community in the United States. That growing economic and political visibility is evident in Southern California’s newly designated “Little Arabia” neighborhood. For VOA, Genia Dulot takes us there. Videographer and producer: Genia Dulot

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Claim of New World Record for Longest Beard Chain in Wyoming

Facial hair enthusiasts claimed to have set a new world record for longest beard chain during an event in Wyoming on Friday, the Casper Star-Tribune reports.

Participants gathered at Gaslight Social, a bar in Casper, where they stood side by side and clipped their beards together to create a hairy chain that was measured at 150 feet long, according to the newspaper. That’s more than double the Guinness World Record of 62 feet, 6 inches, set in Germany in 2007.

To participate, people needed to sport a beard at least 8 inches long, according to the Star-Tribune.

The event occurred on the sidelines of the National Beard and Moustache Championships, which took place Saturday at the city’s Ford Wyoming Center.

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Musk Touches on Twitter Criticism, Workload at G20 Forum

It’s not easy being Elon Musk.

That was the message the new Twitter owner and billionaire head of Tesla and SpaceX had for younger people who might seek to emulate his entrepreneurial success.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Musk told a business forum in Bali on Monday when asked what an up-and-coming “Elon Musk of the East” should focus on.

“I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same,” he continued. “I mean, the amount that I torture myself, is the next level, frankly.”

Musk was speaking at the B-20 business forum ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies taking place on the Indonesian resort island. He joined the conference by video link weeks after completing his heavily scrutinized takeover of Twitter.

He had been expected to attend the event in person, but Indonesian government minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who’s responsible for coordinating preparations for the summit, said Musk could not attend because he’s preparing for a court case later in the week.

He’s got plenty else to keep himself busy.

“My workload has recently increased quite a lot,” he said with a chuckle in an apparent reference to the Twitter deal. “I mean, oh, man. I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure.”

The businessman appeared in a darkened room, saying there had been a power cut just before he connected.

His face, projected on a large screen over the summit hall, appeared to glow red as it was reflected in what he said was candlelight – a visage he noted was “so bizarre.”

While Musk was among the most anticipated speakers at the business forum, his remarks broke little new ground. Only the moderator was able to ask questions.

The Tesla chief executive said the electric carmaker would consider making a much cheaper model when asked about lower-cost options for developing countries like India and G-20 host Indonesia. 

“We do think that making a much more affordable vehicle would make a lot of sense and we should do something,” he said.

Musk also reiterated a desire to significantly boost the amount and length of Twitter’s video offerings, and share revenue with people producing the content, though he didn’t provide specifics.

He bought Twitter for $44 billion last month and quickly dismissed the company’s board of directors and top executives.

He laid off much of the rest of the company’s full-time workforce by email on Nov. 4 and is now eliminating the jobs of outsourced contractors who are tasked with fighting misinformation and other harmful content.

Musk has vowed to ease restrictions on what users can say on the platform.

He’s reaped a heap of complaints — much on Twitter itself — and has tried to reassure companies that advertise on the platform and others that it won’t damage their brands by associating them with harmful content.

In his appearance Monday, Musk acknowledged the criticism.

“There’s no way to make everyone happy, that’s for sure,” he said.

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Olympics-Phrygian Caps to Be Paris 2024 Games Mascots 

Phrygian caps will be the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots as organizers look to to celebrate the French revolution’s spirit.

“‘Phryges’ aim to show that sport can change everything, and that it deserves to have a prominent place in our society,” Paris 2024 brand director Julie Matikhine said on Monday.

The Phrygian caps were favored over animals, who have mostly been the first choice in other Olympics — such as the ‘Bing Dwen Dwen’ panda at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing this year.

“We were almost ready not to make a mascot if we didn’t find a real reason to do so, and a real message to convey,” said Matikhine.

“The mascot must embody the French spirit, which is something very fine to grasp. It’s an ideal, a kind of conviction that carries the values of our country, and which has been built up over time, over history.”

The red Phrygian caps come in two versions — the Olympic and the Paralympic one — with a blade leg.

The Olympic Games will be held from July 26-Aug. 11 and the Paralympics from Aug. 28-Sept. 8.

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New China COVID Rules Spur Concern as Some Cities Halt Routine Tests

Several Chinese cities began cutting routine community COVID-19 testing on Monday, days after China announced an easing of some of its heavy-handed coronavirus measures, sparking worry in some communities as nationwide cases continued to rise.

In the northern city of Shijiazhuang, some families expressed concern about exposing their children to the virus at school, giving excuses such as toothaches or earaches for their children’s absence, according to social media posts following a state media report that testing in the city would end.

Other cities, including Yanji in the northeast and Hefei in the east, also said they will stop routine community COVID testing, according to official notices, halting a practice that has become a major fiscal burden for communities across China.

On Friday, the National Health Commission updated its COVID rules in the most significant easing of curbs yet, describing the changes as an “optimization” of its measures to soften the impact on people’s lives, even as China sticks to its zero-COVID policy nearly three years into the pandemic.

The move, which cut quarantine times for close contacts of cases and inbound travelers by two days, to eight days total, was applauded by investors, even though many experts don’t expect China to begin significant easing until March or April at the earliest.

The changes come even as several major cities including Beijing logged record infections on Monday, posing a challenge for authorities scrambling to quell outbreaks quickly while trying to minimize the impact on people’s lives and the economy.

Some areas of Beijing are requiring daily tests.

The concern and confusion in Shijiazhuang was a top-five trending topic on the Twitter-like Weibo.

The city’s Communist Party chief, Zhang Chaochao, said its “optimization” of prevention measures should not be seen as authorities “lying flat” – an expression for inaction – nor is Shijiazhuang moving towards “full liberation” from COVID curbs.

The city, about 295 kms (183 miles) southwest of Beijing, reported 544 infections for Sunday, only three of which it categorized as symptomatic.

“I’m a little scared. In the future, public places will not look at nucleic acid tests, and nucleic acid test points will also be closed, everyone needs to pay for the tests,” one Weibo user wrote, referring to Shijiazhuang.

Gavekal Research said in a Monday note that it was “curious timing” for China to relax its COVID policies: “The combination of an intensifying outbreak and loosening central requirements has led to debate over whether China is now gradually moving to a de facto policy of tolerating Covid,” it said.

Fresh records

Nationwide, 16,072 new locally transmitted cases were reported by the National Health Commission, up from 14,761 on Sunday and the most in China since April 25, when Shanghai was battling an outbreak that locked down the city for two months.

Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Zhengzhou all recorded their worst days so far, though in the capital city the tally was a few hundred cases, while the other cities were counting in thousands.

Case numbers are small compared with infection levels in other countries, but China’s insistence on clearing outbreaks as soon as they emerge under its zero-COVID policy has been widely disruptive to daily life and the economy.

Under the new rules unveiled on Friday, individuals, neighborhoods and public spaces can still be subject to lockdowns, but the health commission relaxed some measures.

In addition to shortening quarantines, secondary close contacts are no longer identified and put into isolation – removing what had been a major inconvenience for people caught up in contact-tracing efforts when a case is found.

Despite the loosening of curbs, many experts described the measures as incremental, with some predicting that China is unlikely to begin reopening until after the March session of parliament, at the earliest.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said on Monday that rising cases in cities including Guangzhou and Chongqing and the continuation of the zero-COVID policy pose downside near-term economic risks. 

 

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Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1616 Nude to Be Digitally Unveiled

Art restorers in the Italian city of Florence have begun a six-month project to clean and virtually “unveil” a long-censored nude painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most prominent women in the history of Italian art.

Swirling veils and drapery were added to the “Allegory of Inclination” some 70 years after Gentileschi painted the life-size female nude, believed to be a self-portrait, in 1616.

The work to reveal the image as originally painted comes as Gentileschi’s contribution to Italian Baroque art is getting renewed attention in the #MeToo era, both for her artistic achievements but also for breaking into the male-dominated art world after being raped by one of her art teachers.

Her work was featured in a 2020 exhibit at the National Gallery in London.

“Through her, we can talk about how important it is to restore artwork, how important it is to restore the stories of women to the forefront,” said Linda Falcone, coordinator of the Artemisia Up Close project.

“Allegory of Inclination” originally was commissioned for the family home of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, the great-nephew of the famed artist. The building later became the Casa Buonarotti museum, and the painting was displayed until recently on the ceiling in a gilded frame. When lead conservator Elizabeth Wick removed the painting in late September, a shower of 400-year-old dust was released.

Wick’s team of restorers is using ultraviolet light, diagnostic imaging and X-rays to differentiate Gentileschi’s brush strokes from those of the artist that covered the nudity. The public can watch the project underway at the museum through April 23.

Restorers won’t be able to remove the veils because the cover-up was done too soon after the original, raising the risk that Gentileschi’s painting would be damaged in the process.

Instead, the restoration team plans to create a digital image of the original version that will be displayed in an exhibition on the project opening in September 2023.

Gentileschi arrived in Florence shortly after the trial in Rome of her rapist, during which the then-17-year-old was forced to testify with ropes tied around her fingers that were progressively tightened in a test of her honesty.

She also had to endure a physical examination in the courtroom behind a curtain to confirm that she was no longer a virgin. Eventually, her rapist was convicted and sentenced to eight months in prison.

“Somebody else would have been crushed by this experience,” Wick said. “But Artemisia bounces back. She comes up to Florence. She gets this wonderful commission to paint a full-length nude figure for the ceiling of Casa Buonarroti. So, I think she’s showing people, ‘This is what I can do.'”

While in Florence, Gentileschi also won commissions from the Medici family. Her distinctive, dramatic and energetic style emerged, taking inspiration from the most renowned Baroque painter of the time, Caravaggio. Many of her paintings featured female heroines, often in violent scenes and often nude.

She was 22 when she painted “Allegory of Inclination,” which was commissioned by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Another member of the family, Leonardo Buonarroti, decided to have it embellished to protect the sensibilities of his wife and children.

“This is one of her first paintings. In the Florentine context, it was her debut painting, the same year she was then accepted into the Academy of Drawing, which was the first drawing academy in Europe at the time,” Falcone said.

With the younger Michelangelo as her patron, Gentileschi gained entry to the cultural milieu of the time.

“She was able to hobnob with Galileo and with other great thinkers. So this almost illiterate woman was suddenly at the university level, producing works of art that were then, you know, appreciated by the Grand Duke,” Falcone said. “And she became a courtly painter from then on.”

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Musk’s Latest Twitter Cuts: Outsourced Content Moderators

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is further gutting the teams that battle misinformation on the social media platform as outsourced moderators learned over the weekend they were out of a job.

Twitter and other big social media firms have relied heavily on contractors to track hate and enforce rules against harmful content.

But many of those content watchdogs have now headed out the door, first when Twitter fired much of its full-time workforce by email on Nov. 4 and now as it moves to eliminate an untold number of contract jobs.

Melissa Ingle, who worked at Twitter as a contractor for more than a year, was one of a number of contractors who said they were terminated Saturday. She said she’s concerned that there’s going to be an increase in abuse on Twitter with the number of workers leaving.

“I love the platform and I really enjoyed working at the company and trying to make it better. And I’m just really fearful of what’s going to slip through the cracks,” she said Sunday.

Ingle, a data scientist, said she worked on the data and monitoring arm of Twitter’s civic integrity team. Her job involved writing algorithms to find political misinformation on the platform in countries such as the U.S., Brazil, Japan, Argentina and elsewhere.

Ingle said she was “pretty sure I was done for” when she couldn’t access her work email Saturday. The notification from the contracting company she’d been hired by came two hours later.

“I’ll just be putting my resumes out there and talking to people,” she said. “I have two children. And I’m worried about being able to give them a nice Christmas, you know, and just mundane things like that, that are important. I just think it’s particularly heartless to do this at this time.”

Content-moderation expert Sarah Roberts, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who worked as a staff researcher at Twitter earlier this year, said she believes at least 3,000 contract workers were fired Saturday night.

Twitter hasn’t said how many contract workers it cut. The company hasn’t responded to media requests for information since Musk took over.

At Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and other offices, contract workers wore green badges while full-time workers wore blue badges. Contractors did a number of jobs to help keep Twitter running, including engineering and marketing, Roberts said. But it was the huge force of contracted moderators that was “mission critical” to the platform, said Roberts.

Cutting them will have a “tangible impact on the experience of the platform,” she said.

Musk promised to loosen speech restrictions when he took over Twitter. But in the early days after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and dismissed its board of directors and top executives, the billionaire Tesla CEO sought to assure civil rights groups and advertisers that the platform could continue tamping down hate and hate-fueled violence.

That message was reiterated by Twitter’s then-head of content moderation, Yoel Roth, who tweeted that the Nov. 4 layoffs only affected “15% of our Trust & Safety organization (as opposed to approximately 50% cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact.”

Roth has since resigned from the company, joining an exodus of high-level leaders who were tasked with privacy protection, cybersecurity and complying with regulations.

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Taylor Swift Wins Most Prizes at MTV Europe Music Awards

Taylor Swift walked away with four prizes at MTV’s Europe Music Awards on Sunday, including best video for her 10-minute “All Too Well.”   

Double-award winners included Nicki Minaj for best song and best hip-hop, and the French DJ and record producer David Guetta won the best electronic award and best collaboration.   

The event, broadcast on MTV from Duesseldorf in western Germany, honored musicians from Brazil to South Korea.   

It featured an appearance by Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which performed “Stefania” in an arena glowing with Ukraine’s national colors of blue and yellow.   

The U.S. pop singer Swift, wearing a dress of bejeweled mesh, won best artist, best pop, best video and best long form video.   

“I felt like I learned so much about how making film can be a natural extension of my storytelling,” Swift said as she accepted the long form video award.   

In “All Too Well,” Swift draws inspiration from 1970s Hollywood and recounts a fraying romantic relationship that disintegrates, leaving behind only a scarf and memories.   

“It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well,” Swift sings.   

Minaj’s winning song “Super Freaky Girl” incorporates the 1981 hit “Super Freak” with lyrics “I can lick it, I can ride it while you slippin’ and slidin’.”   

British pop star Harry Styles won in the “best live” category and the Thai-born Lalisa ‘Lisa’ Manoban won best K-pop. South Korea’s BTS, the global K-pop sensation, won the biggest fans category.   

The hosts for the show were British pop star Rita Ora and the film director Taika Waititi, who married this year. Ora herself won for “best look.”   

Duesseldorf has a musical heritage as home to the pioneering German electronic band Kraftwerk, which influenced generations of pop and dance musicians with mesmerizing tracks such as “Autobahn.”   

The city also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011.   

Screaming teens watched the stars walk down a red carpet before the event was broadcast from the PSD Bank Dome.   

Julian Lennon, the son of the Beatles’ John Lennon, said as he entered that he had not seen a concert in years and was looking forward to it.   

The rock band Muse, which won the best rock award, said it was dedicating its victory to the people of Ukraine and Iran.   

Kalush Orchestra’s frontman Oleh Psiuk, donning a pink hat, said before the performance that he hoped more Ukrainian bands would be present next year.

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‘Black Panther’ Sequel Scores 2nd Biggest Debut Of 2022

The box office roared back to life with the long-awaited release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

The Marvel sequel earned $180 million in ticket sales from more than 4,396 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to estimates from The Walt Disney Co. on Sunday, making it the second biggest opening of the year behind “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Overseas, it brought in an additional $150 million from 50 territories, bringing its worldwide total to $330 million.

“Wakanda Forever” was eagerly anticipated by both audiences and exhibitors, who have weathered a slow spell at the box office since the summer movie season ended and there were fewer bigger budget blockbusters in the pipeline. The film got off to a mighty start a bit stronger than even the first film with an $84 million opening day, including $28 million from Thursday previews.

“Some may have hoped for $200 million like the first film, but this is solid,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst. “This is the type of movie that theaters really need to drive audiences.”

The first film opened to $202 million in February 2018 and went on to gross over $1.4 billion worldwide, making it one of the highest grossing films of all time and a cultural phenomenon. A sequel was inevitable, and development began soon after with director Ryan Coogler returning, but everything changed after Chadwick Boseman’s unexpected death in August 2020. “Wakanda Forever” became, instead, about the death of Boseman’s King T’Challa/Black Panther, and the grieving kingdom he left behind. Returning actors include Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke and Danai Gurira, who face off against a new foe in Tenoch Huerta’s Namor. The film would face more complications too, including Wright getting injured and some COVID-19 related setbacks. All told, it cost a reported $250 million to make, not accounting for marketing and promotion.

AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote in his review that, “‘Wakanda Forever’ is overlong, a little unwieldy and somewhat mystifyingly steers toward a climax on a barge in the middle of the Atlantic. But Coogler’s fluid command of mixing intimacy with spectacle remains gripping.”

It currently holds an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and, as is often the case with comic book films, the audience scores are even higher.

Superhero films have fared well during the pandemic, but none yet have reached the heights of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which opened to $260.1 million in Dec. 2021. Other big launches include “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($187.4 million in May), “Thor: Love and Thunder” ($144.2 million in July) and “The Batman” ($134 million in March).

“Wakanda Forever” is the first film to open over $100 million since “Thor” in July, which has been difficult for exhibitors that are already dealing with a calendar that has about 30% fewer wide releases than in a normal year.

Holdovers populated the rest of the top five, as no film dared launch nationwide against a Marvel behemoth. Second place went to the DC superhero “Black Adam,” with $8.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $151.1 million. “Ticket to Paradise” landed in third, in weekend four, with $6.1 million. The Julia Roberts and George Clooney romantic comedy has made nearly $150 million worldwide. “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” and “Smile” rounded out the top five with $3.2 million and $2.3 million, respectively.

Some awards hopefuls have struggled in their expansions lately, but Searchlight Pictures’ “The Banshees of Inisherin,” with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, looks like an exception. The Martin McDonagh film expanded to 960 theaters in its fourth weekend and got seventh place on the charts with $1.7 million, bringing its total to $5.8 million.

“It’s been a very interesting post-summer period for movie theaters, with some gems out there doing well like ‘Ticket to Paradise’ and ‘Smile,'” Dergarabedian said. “But movie theaters can’t survive on non-blockbuster style films. The industry needs more of these.”

After “Black Panther,” the next blockbuster on the schedule is “Avatar: The Way of Water,” arriving Dec. 16.

The weekend wasn’t completely without any other high-profile releases. Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical drama ” The Fabelmans” opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles with $160,000. Universal and Amblin will roll the film out to more theaters in the coming weeks to build excitement around the likely Oscar-contender. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano play parents to the Spielberg stand-in Sammy Fabelman, who is falling in love with movies and filmmaking as his parents’ marriage crumbles.

“This will be an interesting holiday season,” Dergarabedian said. “I think a lot of the dramas and independent films will have their time to shine over the next couple months.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

  1. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” $180 million.

  2. “Black Adam,” $8.6 million.

  3. “Ticket to Paradise,” $6.1 million.

  4. “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile,” $3.2 million.

  5. “Smile,” $2.3 million.

  6. “Prey for the Devil,” $2 million.

  7. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” $1.7 million.

  8. “One Piece Film Red,” $1.4 million.

  9. “Till,” $618,000.

  10. “Yashoda,” $380,000.

 

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Unmanned, Solar-powered US Space Plane Back After 908 Days

An unmanned U.S. military space plane landed early Saturday after spending a record 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission and conducting science experiments.

The solar-powered vehicle, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its previous mission lasted 780 days.

“Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” said Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing, its developer.

For the first time, the space plane hosted a service module that carried experiments for the Naval Research Laboratory, U.S. Air Force Academy and others. The module separated from the vehicle before de-orbiting to ensure a safe landing.

Among the experiments was a satellite dubbed the FalconSat-8 that was designed and built by academy cadets in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory. It was deployed in October 2021 and still remains in orbit.

Another experiment evaluated the effects of long-duration space exposure on seeds.

“This mission highlights the Space Force’s focus on collaboration in space exploration and expanding low-cost access to space for our partners, within and outside of the Department of the Air Force,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations.

The X-37Be has now flown over 1.3 billion miles and spent a total of 3,774 days in space.

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Researchers Identify More Potential Hydro Energy Storage Sites 

Australian researchers have identified 1,500 additional locations across the country that could be used as pumped storage hydropower facilities. They have said it should reduce Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Academics at the Australian National University have said pumped storage hydropower is a “low-cost, mass storage option” that could help Australia reach its emissions reduction targets.

Emeritus Professor Andrew Blakers at the university’s College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics told VOA the process involves transferring water between two reservoirs or lakes at different elevations.

He said water is pumped to the higher reservoir when there are plentiful supplies of wind and solar energy. The water is then released at night, or at other times when it is not windy or sunny, maximizing the use of the stored energy in the reservoirs.

“We have two reservoirs; one at the top of a hill and the other down in a valley connected with a pipe or tunnel,” he said. “On sunny and windy days, the pump turbine pumps water uphill to the upper reservoir and then in the middle of the night the water is allowed to come back down through the turbine to recover the energy that was stored. So, the same water goes up and down between the two reservoirs for 100 years. So, if you want large-scale storage, you go to pumped hydro.”

Researchers studied the area near every reservoir in Australia looking for a potential site for another reservoir that could be used as pumped storage hydropower.

They identified 1,500 locations that could help Australia store the energy it generates from wind and solar projects.

Blakers says Australia is becoming a world leader in the field.

“All Australian governments and companies are focused on very rapid construction of solar and wind, and equally rapid construction of new transmission to bring the new power to the cities, and pumped hydro and battery storage to balance the variable solar and wind. Australia is the global pathfinder. We are leading in every department,” he said.

Australia has a target of producing 82% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

Because of the country’s heavy reliance on coal and natural gas, it has been one of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases, per capita.

Those fossil fuels continue to generate much of Australia’s electricity, but researchers believe that the country’s path toward a cleaner energy future is well underway.

The Australian National University study released Friday follows the team’s identification of 530,000 potential pumped-storage hydro sites across the world.

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After Hurricanes, Program Aims to Help Alleviate Stress

The 10 women gathered on yoga mats in a New Orleans suburb, the lights dimmed.

“I’d like to invite you to close your eyes,” instructor Stephanie Osborne said in a soothing voice from the front of the room. The only other noises were the hum of the air conditioner and the distant sounds of children playing in a nearby field.

For the next hour the women focused on various mindfulness exercises designed to help them deal with the stress of everyday life.

The six-week mindfulness program in Slidell, Louisiana, is the brainchild of Kentrell Jones, the executive director of East St. Tammany Habitat for Humanity, who was concerned about the health of her colleagues and others affected by Hurricane Ida, which ripped through this region east of New Orleans last year.

Participants meet for an hour once a week for six weeks beginning with the inaugural session this fall and plans for future sessions next year.

Prospective participants, who had to be living in the parish during Hurricane Ida, filled out a survey asking them questions such as whether they had struggled with lack of sleep or had problems paying bills or having to relocate since the hurricane. They don’t have to be clients of Habitat for Humanity’s housing programs, although some are.

Jones said the organization’s clients have struggled with being displaced from their homes, trying to complete repairs while dealing with insurance and living through another hurricane season in which the calendar is filled with anniversaries of previous storms and everyone keeps an eye glued to the television for weather alerts.

One family she works with had to move to Mississippi in the aftermath of Ida while their tree-damaged home was repaired. Just as the repairs were completed, the husband died of a heart attack.

“You have people that are stressed,” she emphasized.

The program hits on a growing concern — the long-term stress that extreme weather events such as hurricanes can take on the people who live through them. People who work in hurricane-affected areas often talk about the stress the long rebuilding process can take on people and the anxiety stirred up during hurricane season.

In late August, with anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina and Ida looming, the New Orleans emergency preparedness social media feed reminded residents of something called the “anniversary effect,” which might trigger feelings of depression or PTSD. After Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September, two men in their 70s took their own lives after seeing their losses.

In the north shore region of Louisiana, local mental health officials note that hurricanes are often followed by increased suicides in ensuing years. Nick Richard, who heads the local branch of the National Alliance on Mental Health, said that following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina suicides climbed by 46% in 2007. Other events such as 2008’s Hurricane Gustav or the 2016 floods have shown similar jumps.

Research also suggests extreme weather events such as hurricanes can have long-term health effects on survivors. A Tulane University study found hospital admissions for heart attacks were three times higher after Katrina than before the storm.

Another study published earlier this year looked at mortality rates for counties that experienced a tropical cyclone over a 30-year period, from 1988 to 2018. The research found there were increases for certain types of deaths, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease in the six months after landfall — suggesting death tolls often tabulated in the initial weeks after a storm might be undercounted.

The study’s lead author, Robbie Parks, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, said while major hurricanes such as this year’s Ian get a lot of attention, his research suggested repeated strikes with weaker cyclones also take a toll. He’s concerned that the full extent of events like hurricanes aren’t being captured. It’s an “incredible challenge” just counting the dead after a hurricane, he said.

“What if someone has a heart attack in the week after a hurricane?” he said. “Then you’re getting into subjective territory.”

One of the women taking part in the inaugural meditation course is Louise Mace of Slidell. She had just opened her shop selling home decor goods when Katrina wiped it out in 2005. Then, last year, Hurricane Ida’s winds and a tornado damaged her roof; she’s been battling with her insurance carrier ever since as she lives in a camper.

The stress has taken a toll on Mace’s health with her blood pressure jumping up and down. Her doctor recommended meditation and then she ran into Jones, who recruited her for the course. Mace said it has helped her learn techniques to deal with the stress and to know she’s not alone.

“You think you’re dealing. You think you’re fine. You’re not. Listening to other people made it better,” Mace said.

The program is funded by the Northshore Community Foundation. Susan Bonnett, the foundation’s president and CEO, says in the immediate aftermath of events like hurricanes the foundation would receive funding requests around traditional post-disaster needs — tarps for damaged roofs, for example.

But the foundation also noticed funding requests for mental health services months after the storm. At the same time, there was a dearth of mental health services in the region so the organization started looking for creative ways like Kentrell’s mindfulness proposal to address the problems they knew would build after events like Ida.

The mindfulness classes are designed to build skills that the participants can use to address any stresses in their lives, whether those are weather-related or something else like a conflict with a family member.

Instructor Stephanie Osborne says people don’t always realize the mental strain that extreme weather can cause.

Take the lead-up to Hurricane Ian, for example, when it wasn’t yet clear the storm was going to hit Florida and not Louisiana. Some of the women gathered outside the community room after the class and talked about whether they needed to book a hotel room in Baton Rouge or get gas for the generator. All of that buildup takes a toll, Osborne said.

“There is an anxiety, a stress around that, especially for folks who are struggling financially,” she said. And if people aren’t aware of how much anxiety they’re holding inside, it can affect things like their health or their jobs: “It starts spilling out in other ways.” 

 

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‘Death Every Day’: Fear and Fortitude in Uganda’s Ebola Epicenter

As Ugandan farmer Bonaventura Senyonga prepares to bury his grandson, age-old traditions are forgotten and fear hangs in the air while a government medical team prepares the body for the funeral — the latest victim of Ebola in the East African nation.

Bidding the dead goodbye is rarely a quiet affair in Uganda, where the bereaved seek solace in the embrace of community members who converge on their homes to mourn the loss together.

Not this time.

Instead, 80-year-old Senyonga is accompanied by just a handful of relatives as he digs a grave on the family’s ancestral land, surrounded by banana trees.

“At first we thought it was a joke or witchcraft but when we started seeing bodies, we realized this is real, and that Ebola can kill,” Senyonga told AFP.

His 30-year-old grandson Ibrahim Kyeyune was a father of two girls and worked as a motorcycle mechanic in central Kassanda district, which together with neighboring Mubende is at the epicenter of Uganda’s Ebola crisis.

Both districts have been under a lockdown since mid-October, with a dawn-to-dusk curfew, a ban on personal travel and public places shuttered.

The reappearance of the virus after three years has sparked fear in Uganda, with cases now reported in the capital, Kampala, as the highly contagious disease makes its way through the country of 47 million people.

In all, 53 people have died, including children, out of more than 135 cases, according to the latest Ugandan health ministry figures.

‘Ebola has shocked us’

In Kassanda’s impoverished Kasazi B village, everyone is afraid, says Yoronemu Nakumanyanga, Kyeyune’s uncle.

“Ebola has shocked us beyond what we imagined. We see and feel death every day,” he told AFP at his nephew’s gravesite.

“I know when the body finally arrives, people in the neighborhood will start running away, thinking Ebola virus spreads through the air,” he said.

Ebola is not airborne — it spreads through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea.

But misinformation remains rife and poses a major challenge.

In some cases, victims’ relatives have exhumed their bodies after medically supervised burials to perform traditional rituals, triggering a spike in infections.

In other instances, patients have sought traditional healers for help instead of going to a health facility — a worrying trend that prompted President Yoweri Museveni last month to order traditional healers to stop treating sick people.

“We have embraced the fight against Ebola and complied with President Museveni’s directive to close our shrines for the time being,” said Wilson Akulirewo Kyeya, a leader of the traditional herbalists in Kassanda.

‘I saw them die’

The authorities are trying to expand rural health facilities, installing isolation and treatment tents inside villages so communities can access medical attention quickly.

But fear of Ebola runs deep.

Brian Bright Ndawula, a 42-year-old trader from Mubende, was the sole survivor among four family members who were diagnosed with the disease, losing his wife, his aunt and his 4-year-old son.

“When we were advised to go to hospital to have an Ebola test, we feared going into isolation … and being detained,” he told AFP.

But when their condition worsened and the doctor treating them at the private clinic also began showing symptoms, he realized they had contracted the dreaded virus.

“I saw them die and knew I was next, but God intervened and saved my life,” he said, consumed by regret over his decision to delay getting tested.

“My wife, child and aunt would be alive, had we approached the Ebola team early enough.”

‘Greatest hour of need’

Today, survivors like Ndawula have emerged as a powerful weapon in Uganda’s fight against Ebola, sharing their experiences as a cautionary tale but also as a reminder that patients can survive if they receive early treatment.

Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng urged recovered patients in Mubende to spread the message that “whoever shows signs of Ebola should not run away from medical workers but instead run towards them, because if you run away with Ebola, it will kill you.”

It is an undertaking many in this community have taken to heart.

Dr. Hadson Kunsa, who contracted the disease while treating Ebola patients, told AFP he was terrified when he received his diagnosis.

“I pleaded to God to give me a second chance and told God I will leave Mubende after recovery,” he said.

But he explained he could not bring himself to do it.

“I will not leave Mubende and betray these people at the greatest hour of need.”

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UN Climate Talks Reach Halftime with Key Issues Unresolved

The U.N. climate talks in Egypt have reached the halfway mark, with negotiators still working on draft agreements before ministers arrive next week to push for a substantial deal to fight climate change.

The two-week meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh started with strong appeals from world leaders for greater efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and help poor nations cope with global warming.

Scientists say the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere needs to be halved by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord. The 2015 pact set a target of ideally limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century but left it up to countries to decide how they want to do so.

Here is a look at the main issues on the table at the COP27 talks:

What about the U.S. and China?

The top U.S. negotiator suggested that a planned meeting Monday between U.S. President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping of China on the sideline of the Group of 20 meeting in Bali could also provide an important signal for the climate talks as they go into the home stretch.

With impacts from climate change being felt across the globe, there’s been a push for rich polluters to donate more cash to help developing countries shift to clean energy and adapt to global warming; increasingly there are also calls for compensation to pay for climate-related losses.

China is the biggest polluter by far right now, but the U.S. has the most historical pollution over time.

Keeping cool

A group of major emerging countries that includes oil-and-gas exporting nations has pushed back against explicit references to keeping the target of limiting global warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Egypt, which is chairing the talks, convened a three-hour meeting Saturday in which the issue was raised several times.

“1.5 is a substantive issue,” said Wael Aboulmagd, a senior Egyptian negotiator, adding it was “not just China” which had raised questions about the language used to refer to the target. Still, he was hopeful of finding a way of securing a “maximum possible advance” on reducing emissions by the meeting’s close.

Cutting emissions

Negotiators are trying to put together a mitigation program that would capture the different measures countries have committed to in order to reduce emissions, including for specific sectors like energy and transport. Many of these pledges are not formally part of the U.N. process, meaning they cannot easily be scrutinized at the annual meeting. A draft agreement circulated early Saturday showed large sections were still unresolved. Some countries want the plan to be valid only for one year, while others say a longer-term roadmap is needed. Expect fireworks in the days ahead.

US-China relations

While all countries are equal at the U.N. meeting, in practice little gets done without the approval of the world’s two biggest emitters, China and the United States. Beijing canceled formal dialogue on climate following Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and relations have been frosty since. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Saturday that he had held only informal discussions with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua lately.

“I think we’re both waiting to see how things go with the G-20 and hopefully we can return,” he told reporters.

Shunning fossil fuels

Last year’s meeting almost collapsed over a demand for the final agreement to state that coal should be phased out. In the end, countries agreed on several loopholes, and there are concerns among climate activists that negotiators from nations that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels might try to roll back previous commitments.

Money matters

Rich countries have fallen short on a pledge to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 in climate financing for poor nations. This has opened a rift of distrust that negotiators are hoping to close with fresh pledges. But needs are growing, and a new, higher target needs to be set from 2025 onward.

Aminath Shauna, the environment minister of the Maldives, said her island nation conservatively estimates that it will need $8 billion for coastal adaptation. And even that may not be enough, if sea levels rise too much.

“It is very disheartening to see that it may be too late for the Maldives, but we still need to address (the issue of finance),” she said.

Compensation

The subject of climate compensation was once considered taboo because of concerns from rich countries that they might be on the hook for vast sums. But intense pressure from developing countries forced the issue of “loss and damage” onto the formal agenda at the talks for the first time this year. Whether there will be a deal to promote further technical work or the creation of an actual fund remains to be seen.

John Kerry said the United States is hopeful of getting an agreement “before 2024” but suggested this might not come to pass in Egypt. But he made it clear where the U.S. red line lies for Washington: “The United States and many other countries will not establish some … legal structure that is a tied to compensation or liability.” That doesn’t mean money won’t flow, eventually. But it might be branded as aid, tied into existing funds and require contributions from all major emitters if it’s to pass.

More donors

One way to raise additional cash and resolve the thorny issue of polluter payment would be for those countries that have seen an economic boom in the past three decades to step up. The focus is chiefly on China, the world’s biggest emitter, but others could be asked to open their purses too.

Side deals

Last year’s meeting saw the signing of a raft of agreements that weren’t formally part of the talks. Some have also been unveiled in Egypt, though hopes for a series of announcements on Just Transition Partnerships — where developed countries help poorer nations wean themselves off fossil fuels — aren’t likely to bear fruit until after COP27.

Hope until the end

Jennifer Morgan, a former head of Greenpeace who recently became Germany’s climate envoy, called the talks this year challenging.

“But I can promise you we will be working until the very last second to ensure that we can reach an ambitious and equitable outcome,” she said. “We are reaching for the stars while keeping our feet on the ground.” 

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