Category: Silicon Valley

Funding for a global initiative aimed at creating more environmentally friendly and climate-resilient farming has grown to $13 billion, co-leaders the United States and the United Arab Emirates said Monday.

That money means the Agriculture Innovation Mission (AIM) for Climate, launched in 2021, now exceeds its $10 billion target for the COP28 climate talks, to be hosted by the UAE in November and December.

“Climate change continues to impact longstanding agricultural practices in every country and a strong global commitment is necessary to face the challenges of climate change head-on,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

Vilsack and his Emirati counterpart Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri, the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, are co-hosting an AIM for Climate Summit in Washington this week.

“I think the beauty of this is that of the $13 billion, $10 billion comes from the government and three billion is coming from the private sector,” said Almheiri.

Between a quarter and a third of global greenhouse emissions come from food systems, from factors like deforestation to make way for agricultural land, methane emissions from livestock, the energy costs associated with supply chains and energy used by consumers to store and prepare food.

At the same time, the changing climate is threatening food security across the world, as global warming increases the frequency of punishing heat waves, droughts and extreme weather events.

Projects underway include developing newer, greener fertilizers that use less fossil fuels to create, and returning to so-called “regenerative agriculture” practices that restore soil biodiversity, thus improving both yield and carbon sequestration while reducing the need for fertilization.

Artificial intelligence-enhanced tools meanwhile are being developed to take data from sources including satellites and ground sensors to then accurately estimate how carbon-rich any given plot of land is, which could help farmers boost soil health or enable the creation of a viable carbon offset market.

Also on the group’s agenda are efforts to adopt more efficient farming techniques and to switch to growing crops that require less water in some climate-impacted areas.

“Black farmers, Indigenous farmers, low-income farmers, they need access to this innovation as well,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and climate activist told the summit’s opening meeting.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, as well as ministers from Britain, the European Commission, Australia, Kenya, Mexico and Panama are all set to address the conference.
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For the first time, the U.S. government will pay for a large study measuring whether overdoses can be prevented by so-called safe injection sites, places where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs and be revived if they take too much.

The grant provides more than $5 million over four years to New York University and Brown University to study two sites in New York City and one opening next year in Providence, Rhode Island.

Researchers hope to enroll 1,000 adult drug users to study the effectiveness of the sites to prevent overdoses, to estimate their costs and to gauge potential savings for the health care and criminal justice systems.

The universities announced the grant Monday. The money will not be used to operate the sites, the universities said.

With U.S. drug overdose deaths reaching nearly 107,000 in 2021, supporters contend safe injection sites, also called overdose preventions centers, can save lives and connect people with addiction treatment, mental health services and medical care.

Opponents worry the sites encourage drug use and that they will lead to the deterioration of surrounding neighborhoods.

“There is a lot of discussion about overdose prevention centers, but ultimately, we need data to see if they are working or not, and what impact they may have on the community,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which awarded the grant.

Sites operate in 14 countries, including Canada, Australia and France, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a group working for decriminalization and safe drug use policies.

In the U.S., New York City opened the first publicly recognized safe injection site in 2021, and Rhode Island became the first state to authorize them that year.

States including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico have considered allowing them. The governors of California and Vermont vetoed bills allowing safe injection sites last year, and Pennsylvania’s Senate last week voted for a ban on them.

The grant marks another move by the Biden administration toward what is known as harm reduction, a strategy focused on preventing death and illness in drug users while helping them get care, as opposed to punishment.

The White House’s drug control strategy is the first to emphasize harm reduction, and the Justice Department has signaled it will allow safe injection sites.

In December, the National Institutes of Health established a harm reduction research network to study programs providing services and supplies, including naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses, and materials to test drugs for fentanyl, a powerful opioid driving record numbers of overdoses. The new study on safe injection sites will be part of that project.
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Most Democrats and Republicans agree that the federal government should better regulate the biggest technology companies, particularly social media platforms. But there is little consensus on how it should be done. 

Concerns have skyrocketed about China’s ownership of TikTok, and parents have grown increasingly worried about what their children are seeing online. Lawmakers have introduced a slew of bipartisan bills, boosting hopes of compromise. But any effort to regulate the mammoth industry would face major obstacles as technology companies have fought interference. 

Noting that many young people are struggling, President Joe Biden said in his February State of the Union address that “it’s time” to pass bipartisan legislation to impose stricter limits on the collection of personal data and ban targeted advertising to children. 

“We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” Biden said.

A look at some of the areas of potential regulation: 

Children’s safety

Several House and Senate bills would try to make social media, and the internet in general, safer for children who will inevitably be online. Lawmakers cite numerous examples of teenagers who have taken their own lives after cyberbullying or have died engaging in dangerous behavior encouraged on social media. 

In the Senate, at least two bills are focused on children’s online safety. Legislation by Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, approved by the chamber’s Commerce Committee last year would require social media companies to be more transparent about their operations and enable child safety settings by default. Minors would have the option to disable addictive product features and algorithms that push certain content. 

The idea, the senators say, is that platforms should be “safe by design.” The legislation, which Blumenthal and Blackburn reintroduced last week, would also obligate social media companies to prevent certain dangers to minors — including promotion of suicide, disordered eating, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and other illegal behaviors. 

A second bill introduced last month by four senators — Democratic Senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Katie Britt of Alabama — would take a more aggressive approach, prohibiting children under 13 from using social media platforms and requiring parental consent for teenagers. It would also prohibit companies from recommending content through algorithms for users under 18.

Critics of the bills, including some civil rights groups and advocacy groups aligned with tech companies, say the proposals could threaten teens’ online privacy and prevent them from accessing content that could help them, such as resources for those considering suicide or grappling with their sexual and gender identity. 

“Lawmakers should focus on educating and empowering families to control their online experience,” said Carl Szabo of NetChoice, a group aligned with Meta, TikTok, Google and Amazon, among other companies. 

Data privacy 

Biden’s State of the Union remarks appeared to be a nod toward legislation by Senators Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, that would expand child privacy protections online, prohibiting companies from collecting personal data from younger teenagers and banning targeted advertising to children and teens. The bill, also reintroduced last week, would create an “eraser button” allowing parents and kids to eliminate personal data, when possible. 

A broader House effort would attempt to give adults as well as children more control over their data with what lawmakers call a “national privacy standard.” Legislation that passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee last year would try to minimize data collected and make it illegal to target ads to children, usurping state laws that have tried to put privacy restrictions in place. But the bill, which would have also given consumers more rights to sue over privacy violations, never reached the House floor. 

Prospects for the House legislation are unclear now that Republicans have the majority.

TikTok, China 

Lawmakers introduced a raft of bills to either ban TikTok or make it easier to ban it after a combative March House hearing in which lawmakers from both parties grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew over his company’s ties to China’s communist government, data security and harmful content on the app. 

Chew attempted to assure lawmakers that the hugely popular video-sharing app prioritizes user safety and should not be banned because of its Chinese connections. But the testimony gave new momentum to the efforts. 

Soon after the hearing, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, tried to force a Senate vote on legislation that would ban TikTok from operating in the United States. But he was blocked by a fellow Republican, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who said that a ban would violate the Constitution and anger the millions of voters who use the app. 

Another bill sponsored by Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida would, like Hawley’s bill, ban U.S. economic transactions with TikTok, but it would also create a new framework for the executive branch to block any foreign apps deemed hostile. His bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, and Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican. 

There is broad Senate support for bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and South Dakota Senatpr John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, that does not specifically call out TikTok but would give the Commerce Department power to review and potentially restrict foreign threats to technology platforms. 

The White House has signaled it would back that bill, but its prospects are uncertain. 

Artificial intelligence 

A newer question for Congress is whether lawmakers should move to regulate artificial intelligence as rapidly developing and potentially revolutionary products like AI chatbot ChatGPT begin to enter the marketplace and can in many ways mimic human behavior. 

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has made the emerging technology a priority, arguing that the United States needs to stay ahead of China and other countries that are eyeing regulations on AI products. He has been working with AI experts and has released a general framework of what regulation could look like, including increased disclosure of the people and data involved in developing the technology, more transparency and explanation for how the bots arrive at responses.

The White House has been focused on the issue as well, with a recent announcement of a $140 million investment to establish seven new AI research institutes. Vice President Kamala Harris met Thursday with the heads of Google, Microsoft and other companies developing AI products.
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Immigrants in the western U.S. state of Colorado have a unique place to go when they are not feeling well: a health care clinic that serves newcomers from many countries. For VOA, Svitlana Prystynska has more about the facility, which was founded by a Ukrainian immigrant. Camera: Olena Andrushenko 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says America’s leading cause of overdose deaths is synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, which can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin. U.S. law enforcement says illicit fentanyl is cheaply made from chemicals mostly coming from China, trafficked through Mexico, and then smuggled into the United States. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya looks at fentanyl in Washington state in a series that today explores how stigmas about fentanyl abuse complicate treatment for addicts.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says America’s leading cause of overdose deaths is synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, which can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin. U.S. law enforcement says illicit fentanyl is cheaply made from chemicals mostly coming from China, trafficked through Mexico, and then smuggled into the United States, says U.S. law enforcement. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya looks at fentanyl in a series from the state of Washington that concludes by showing how breaking free from addiction can be a lifelong journey.
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Tracking down accurate information about Philadelphia’s elections on Twitter used to be easy. The account for the city commissioners who run elections, @phillyvotes, was the only one carrying a blue check mark, a sign of authenticity.

But ever since the social media platform overhauled its verification service last month, the check mark has disappeared. That’s made it harder to distinguish @phillyvotes from a list of random accounts not run by the elections office but with very similar names.

The election commission applied weeks ago for a gray check mark — Twitter’s new symbol to help users identify official government accounts – but has yet to hear back from the Twitter, commission spokesman Nick Custodio said. It’s unclear whether @phillyvotes is an eligible government account under Twitter’s new rules.

That’s troubling, Custodio said, because Pennsylvania has a primary election May 16 and the commission uses its account to share important information with voters in real time. If the account remains unverified, it will be easier to impersonate – and harder for voters to trust – heading into Election Day.

Impostor accounts on social media are among many concerns election security experts have heading into next year’s presidential election. Experts have warned that foreign adversaries or others may try to influence the election, either through online disinformation campaigns or by hacking into election infrastructure.

Election administrators across the country have struggled to figure out the best way to respond after Twitter owner Elon Musk threw the platform’s verification service into disarray, given that Twitter has been among their most effective tools for communicating with the public.

Some are taking other steps allowed by Twitter, such as buying check marks for their profiles or applying for a special label reserved for government entities, but success has been mixed. Election and security experts say the inconsistency of Twitter’s new verification system is a misinformation disaster waiting to happen.

“The lack of clear, at-a-glance verification on Twitter is a ticking time bomb for disinformation,” said Rachel Tobac, CEO of the cybersecurity company SocialProof Security. “That will confuse users – especially on important days like election days.”

The blue check marks that Twitter once doled out to notable celebrities, public figures, government entities and journalists began disappearing from the platform in April. To replace them, Musk told users that anyone could pay $8 a month for an individual blue check mark or $1,000 a month for a gold check mark as a “verified organization.”

The policy change quickly opened the door for pranksters to pose convincingly as celebrities, politicians and government entities, which could no longer be identified as authentic. While some impostor accounts were clear jokes, others created confusion.

Fake accounts posing as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the city’s Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation falsely claimed the city was closing one of its main thoroughfares to private traffic. The fake accounts used the same photos, biographical text and home page links as the real ones. Their posts amassed hundreds of thousands of views before being taken down.

Twitter’s new policy invites government agencies and certain affiliated organizations to apply to be labeled as official with a gray check. But at the state and local level, qualifying agencies are limited to “main executive office accounts and main agency accounts overseeing crisis response, public safety, law enforcement, and regulatory issues,” the policy says.

The rules do not mention agencies that run elections. So while the main Philadelphia city government account quickly received its gray check mark last month, the local election commission has not heard back.

Election offices in four of the country’s five most populous counties — Cook County in Illinois, Harris County in Texas, Maricopa County in Arizona and San Diego County — remain unverified, a Twitter search shows. Maricopa, which includes Phoenix, has been targeted repeatedly by election conspiracy theorists as the most populous and consequential county in one of the most closely divided political battleground states.

Some counties contacted by The Associated Press said they have minimal concerns about impersonation or plan to apply for a gray check later, but others said they already have applied and have not heard back from Twitter.

Even some state election offices are waiting for government labels. Among them is the office of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.

In an April 24 email to Bellows’ communications director reviewed by The Associated Press, a Twitter representative wrote that there was “nothing to do as we continue to manually process applications from around the world.” The representative added in a later email that Twitter stands “ready to swiftly enforce any impersonation, so please don’t hesitate to flag any problematic accounts.”

An email sent to Twitter’s press office and a company safety officer requesting comment was answered only with an autoreply of a poop emoji.

“Our job is to reinforce public confidence,” Bellows told the AP. “Even a minor setback, like no longer being able to ensure that our information on Twitter is verified, contributes to an environment that is less predictable and less safe.”

Some government accounts, including the one representing Pennsylvania’s second-largest county, have purchased blue checks because they were told it was required to continue advertising on the platform.

Allegheny County posts ads for elections and jobs on Twitter, so the blue check mark “was necessary,” said Amie Downs, the county’s communications director.

When anyone can buy verification and when government accounts are not consistently labeled, the check mark loses its meaning, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.

Griswold’s office received a gray check mark to maintain trust with voters, but she told the AP she would not buy verification for her personal Twitter account because “it doesn’t carry the same weight” it once did.

Custodio, at the Philadelphia elections commission, said his office would not buy verification either, even if it gets denied a gray check.

“The blue or gold check mark just verifies you as a paid subscriber and does not verify identity,” he said.

Experts and advocates tracking election discourse on social media say Twitter’s changes do not just incentivize bad actors to run disinformation campaigns — they also make it harder for well-meaning users to know what’s safe to share.

“Because Twitter is dropping the ball on verification, the burden will fall on voters to double check that the information they are consuming and sharing is legitimate,” said Jill Greene, voting and elections manager for Common Cause Pennsylvania.

That dampens an aspect of Twitter that until now had been seen as one of its strengths – allowing community members to rally together to elevate authoritative information, said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.

“The first rule of a good online community user interface is to ‘help the helpers.’ This is the opposite of that,” Caulfield said. “It takes a community of people who want to help boost good information, and robs them of the tools to make fast, accurate decisions.”
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“Being in hospitals during the early days of COVID-19 was terrifying, like I was going to war. But as far as I’m concerned, those days are done, Danielle King, a nurse working in Luling, Louisiana, told VOA.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that the pandemic was over a year ago,” she added. “The government’s lagging behind that reality, so maybe they’ll finally catch up.”

The U.S. government will take a big step in that direction Thursday as Washington officially declares an end to the coronavirus pandemic by allowing the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) to expire.

The emergency was first instituted more than three years ago to provide funding and resources that would keep Americans safe during the then-growing global pandemic.

While many health care officials agree the time is right to end the national emergency and let state and local governments allocate resources to the COVID-19 response, some worry the move will harm Americans — particularly the impoverished — who will be less likely to afford vaccinations and risk being dropped from government programs such as Medicaid.

“It’s regrettable, but we have no certainty on what impact the PHE’s end will have on the public,” said Amy Pisani, CEO of Vaccinate Your Family, a national nonprofit organization.

“Public health advocates haven’t had a seat at the table to discuss how the end of the PHE declaration will look,” she said. “We know, for example, that COVID-19 vaccinations have been essential in keeping us safe, but how will uninsured adults access and afford the vaccines when the PHE is done? How long will free vaccines be available? Will it vary from region to region? We have no idea. All we know is it’s going to affect a lot of people.”

‘No longer a threat’

The PHE was first declared in January 2020 by former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

Since entering office in 2021, President Joe Biden has repeatedly extended the emergency. Many public health officials, including Dr. Jeffrey Elder, associate chief medical officer for emergency management at LCMC Health in New Orleans, Louisiana, believe the emergency allowed the government to take sweeping steps to support the country’s economic, health and welfare systems throughout the crisis.

“The PHE supported and funded nationwide coronavirus testing, the research and distribution of vaccinations and treatments, telehealth services, disaster responses, hospital-at-home services, nurse aide training for nursing homes and so much more,” Elder told VOA.

“And it gave our patients the comfort of knowing they couldn’t be kicked off their Medicaid insurance coverage during the emergency,” he added. “It was invaluable.”

Most public health officials, however, acknowledge the coronavirus no longer presents the crisis it once did, and the PHE may no longer be necessary.

“While we continue to see illness and deaths from COVID-19, it is no longer the threat it once was, thanks to testing, vaccines and treatment,” said Dr. Susan Kansagra, director of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health.

She believes COVID-19 will soon be treated as routinely as other respiratory illnesses the country regularly faces.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said this is a good thing.

“To call this an emergency is to elevate it above other viruses that are causing basically the same number of hospitalizations and deaths,” he said.

“I think there’s a danger to that, and I see that danger with some of my friends,” Offit said. “When their 8-year-old is sick they say, ‘Oh, I hope it’s not COVID,’ and then they test them. If they test negative, they just send them to school or to their grandparents or wherever they are going, as if it’s OK to pass on whatever disease they do have. Maybe putting coronavirus on the level of these other diseases will encourage us to take their spread all a little more seriously, as well.”

‘Wide-ranging chaos’

Coronavirus cases and deaths continue to drop, but thousands of Americans are still affected by the disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,773 people died of COVID-19 during the week ending April 5.

Some fear that with so many people still being impacted, suddenly ending the declaration could create a new set of problems.

“An abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Statement of Administration Policy earlier this year.

Dr. Joe McLaughlin, Alaska state epidemiologist, believes ending the PHE can reduce government spending and help the country return to a more traditional health care model. But he warns of downsides.

“We’re going to see fewer health care provider flexibilities, a reduction in access to over-the-counter tests and a decrease in some social safety net benefits. This is definitely going to affect people,” he said.

Of particular concern to health care providers is that states will no longer be forbidden from dropping enrollees from Medicaid, a federal health care program for the poor and disadvantaged, as they were during the PHE. In the months following the emergency’s conclusion, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that between 5.3 million and 14.2 million of America’s most vulnerable will lose their Medicaid coverage.

Additionally, it is expected that COVID-19 tests and vaccinations will no longer be offered free of charge. Once the government stops buying vaccines, the cost is expected to skyrocket. Pfizer announced it could charge as much as $130 per dose.

Challenge and opportunity

“I think it’s the right time to end it,” New Orleans nurse Brandon Legnion said of the PHE.

“I don’t think I’ve seen or heard of a single COVID-positive admission at our hospital in the last six months,” he told VOA. “The demand for PPE [personal protective equipment] and vaccines are way down, so maybe it’s time to treat coronavirus patients with the same well-researched protocols we use for other airborne transmitted diseases like tuberculosis or varicella [chickenpox].”

Ending the PHE will restructure the federal government’s COVID-19 response as an endemic, rather than a pandemic, managed through government agencies’ normal authorities. In addition to tapering coronavirus relief funds, the development of vaccines and treatments will be shifted away from federal government control.

State health department officials say the transition will be a challenge, but they are ready.

“We’ve been preparing for the possibility of the end of the federal public health emergency for some time now, and we released our state’s plan in a roadmap last year,” said AnneMarie Harper, communications director at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

“It’s a sustainable, continued response to COVID-19 that features partnerships between public and private entities that ensure all Coloradans are being taken care of, including those without insurance,” she said.

In Maryland, similar work has been done to prepare for what has become a critical transition in the country’s health care system.

Chase Cook, acting director of communications at the Maryland Department of Health, said ending the PHE makes sense because it aligns with a decrease in COVID-19 hospitalization and severity, as well as an increasing integration of coronavirus-related services into existing public health infrastructure.

“The end of the public health emergency can be seen as a challenge,” Cook told VOA, “but it’s also an opportunity … to continue responding to the effects of the pandemic on public health, to strengthen relationships within the health care system, to maintain public-private partnerships, to grow the public health workforce, and to build on renewed efforts to decrease health disparities in Maryland. It’s an opportunity, and we’re ready.” 
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Mohammed Azhar holds his baby niece next to a storm drain full of plastic and stinking black sludge, testament to India’s failure to treat nearly two-thirds of its urban sewage.

“We stay inside our homes. We fall sick if we go out,” the 21-year-old told AFP in the Delhi neighborhood of Seelampur, where open gutters packed with plastic and sickly greyish water flow alongside the narrow lanes.

“It stinks. It attracts mosquitoes. We catch diseases and the kids keep falling sick,” he added. “There is no one to clean the filth.”

India at the end of April was projected to have overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, according to the United Nations, with almost 1.43 billion people.

Its urban population is predicted to explode in the coming decades, with over 270 million more people forecast to live in its cities by 2040.

But of the 72 billion liters of sewage currently generated in urban centers every day, 45 billion liters — enough to fill 18,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — aren’t treated, according to government figures for 2020-21.

India’s sewerage system does not connect to about two-thirds of its urban homes, according to the National Fecal Sludge and Septage Management Alliance (NFSSM).

Many of the sewage treatment plants in operation don’t comply with standards, including 26 out of Delhi’s 35 facilities, according to media reports.

Coupled with huge volumes of industrial effluent, the sewage is causing disease, polluting India’s waterways, killing wildlife and seeping into groundwater.

Ecologically dead

Although India has made major progress in reducing child mortality, diarrhea — caused mostly by contaminated water and food — remains a leading killer.

More than 55,000 children under five died of diarrhea across India in 2019, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal BMC Public Health.

The Yamuna in Delhi is one of the world’s filthiest rivers and is considered ecologically dead in places, although people still wash clothes and take ritual baths in it.

It often billows with white foam, and facilities processing drinking water from the river for Delhi’s 20 million people regularly shut down because of dangerous ammonia levels.

Despite some bright spots, as well as efforts to plant more trees alongside rivers, the situation elsewhere is often no better in big cities including Mumbai and Chennai.

In Bengaluru, massive Bellandur Lake has on occasion caught fire when methane, generated by bacteria feasting on sewage in the oxygen-depleted water, ignited.

Water crisis

Mridula Ramesh, author of a book about India’s water woes who lives in a “nearly” net-zero-waste home, said properly treating sewage into useable water would help solve the crisis.

According to the World Bank, India is one of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world, with plummeting water tables and increasingly erratic monsoon rains.

Chennai nearly ran out of water briefly in 2019, and other cities may see similar calamities in the coming years due to excessive groundwater pumping and rainfall volatility.

“India is headed for a water crisis. Sewage can so easily be co-opted to fight that and help us to a very large extent solve the problem in our cities,” Ramesh told AFP.

This could be achieved with decentralized treatment plants partially funded by the private sector or non-governmental organizations, with some of the fully treated sewage reused or released into local lakes.

“India’s water is so seasonal. Many cities in India get 50 rain days… but sewage is available every day because you go to the bathroom every day… It’s such a powerful weapon,” she said.

For Khalil Ahmad, standing by the revolting open drain in Seelampur as flies buzz around, a solution can’t come soon enough.

“Children keep falling sick… If they don’t get treatment and medicine, the children will die,” he told AFP. 
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China has approved the safety of a gene-edited soybean, its first approval of the technology in a crop, as the country increasingly looks to science to boost food production.

The soybean, developed by privately owned Shandong Shunfeng Biotechnology Co. Ltd., has two modified genes, significantly raising the level of healthy fat oleic acid in the plant.

The safety certificate has been approved for five years from April 21, according to a document published last week by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Unlike genetic modification, which introduces foreign genes into a plant, gene editing alters existing genes.

The technology is considered to be less risky than GMOs and is more lightly regulated in some countries, including China, which published rules on gene-editing last year.

“The approval of the safety certificate is a shot in the arm for the Shunfeng team,” said the firm in a statement to Reuters on Thursday.

Shunfeng claims to be the first company in China seeking to commercialize gene-edited crops.

It is currently researching around 20 other gene-edited crops, including higher yield rice, wheat and corn, herbicide-resistant rice and soybeans and vitamin C-rich lettuce, said a company representative.

United States-based company Calyxt also developed a high oleic soybean, producing a healthy oil that was the first gene-edited food to be approved in the U.S. in 2019.

Several additional steps are needed before China’s farmers can plant the novel soybean, including approvals of seed varieties with the tweaked genes.

The approval comes as trade tensions, erratic weather and war in major grain exporter Ukraine have increased concerns in Beijing over feeding the country’s 1.4 billion people.

A growing middle class is also facing a surge in diet-related disease.

China is promoting GMO crops too, starting large-scale trials of GM corn this year.

Getting gene-edited crops onto the market is expected to be faster however, given fewer steps in the regulatory process.

Aside from the United States, Japan also has approved gene-edited foods, including healthier tomatoes and faster-growing fish.
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Google is planning to make its search engine more “visual, snackable, personal and human,” with a focus on serving young people globally, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing documents.

The move comes as artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as ChatGPT are rapidly gaining in popularity, highlighting a technology that could upend the way businesses and society operate.

The tech giant will nudge its service further away from “10 blue links,” which is a traditional format of presenting search results and plans to incorporate more human voices as part of the shift, the report said.

At its annual I/O developer conference in the coming week, Google is expected to debut new features that allow users to carry out conversations with an AI program, a project code-named “Magi,” The Wall Street Journal added, citing people familiar with the matter.

Generative AI has become a buzzword this year, with applications capturing the public’s fancy and sparking a rush among companies to launch similar products they believe will change the nature of work.

Google, part of Alphabet Inc., did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
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Billionaire Warren Buffett said artificial intelligence may change the world in all sorts of ways, but new technology won’t take away opportunities for investors, and he’s confident America will continue to prosper over time.

Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger are spending all day Saturday answering questions at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting inside a packed Omaha arena.

“New things coming along doesn’t take away the opportunities. What gives you the opportunities is other people doing dumb things,” said Buffett, who had a chance to try out ChatGPT when his friend Bill Gates showed it to him a few months back.

Buffett reiterated his long-term optimism about the prospects for America even with the bitter political divisions today.

“The problem now is that partisanship has moved more towards tribalism, and in tribalism you don’t even hear the other side,” he said.

Both Buffett and Munger said the United States will benefit from having an open trading relationship with China, so both countries should be careful not to exacerbate the tensions between them because the stakes are too high for the world.

“Everything that increases the tension between these two countries is stupid, stupid, stupid,” Munger said. And whenever either country does something stupid, he said the other country should respond with incredible kindness.

The chance to listen to the two men answer all sorts of questions about business and life attracts people from all over the world to Omaha, Nebraska. Some of the shareholders feel a particular urgency to attend now because Buffett and Munger are both in their 90s.

“Charlie Munger is 99. I just wanted to see him in person. It’s on my bucket list,” said 40-year-old Sheraton Wu from Vancouver. “I have to attend while I can.”

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Chloe Lin, who traveled from Singapore to attend the meeting for the first time and learn from the two legendary investors.

One of the few concessions Buffett makes to his age is that he no longer tours the exhibit hall before the meeting. In years past, he would be mobbed by shareholders trying to snap a picture with him while a team of security officers worked to manage the crowd. Munger has used a wheelchair for several years, but both men are still sharp mentally.

But in a nod to the concerns about their age, Berkshire showed a series of clips of questions about succession from past meetings dating back to the first one they filmed in 1994. Two years ago, Buffett finally said that Greg Abel will eventually replace him as CEO although he has no plans to retire. Abel already oversees all of Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses.

Buffett assured shareholders that he has total confidence in Abel to lead Berkshire in the future, and he doesn’t have a second choice for the job because Abel is remarkable in his own right. But he said much of what Abel will have to do is just maintain Berkshire’s culture and keep making similar decisions.

“Greg understands capital allocation as well as I do. He will make these decisions on the same framework that I use,” Buffett said.

Abel followed that up by assuring the crowd that he knows how Buffett and Munger have handled things for nearly six decades and “I don’t really see that framework changing.”

Although not everyone at the meeting is a fan. Outside the arena, pilots from Berkshire’s NetJets protested over the lack of a new contract and pro-life groups carried signs declaring “Buffett’s billions kill millions” to object to his many charitable donations to abortion rights groups.

Berkshire Hathaway said Saturday morning that it made $35.5 billion, or $24,377 per Class A share, in the first quarter. That’s more than 6 times last year’s $5.58 billion, or $3,784 per share.

But Buffett has long cautioned that those bottom line figures can be misleading for Berkshire because the wide swings in the value of its investments — most of which it rarely sells — distort the profits. In this quarter, Berkshire sold only $1.7 billion of stocks while recording a $27.4 billion paper investment gain. Part of this year’s investment gains included a $2.4 billion boost related to Berkshire’s planned acquisition of the majority of the Pilot Travel Centers truck stop company’s shares in January.

Buffett says Berkshire’s operating earnings that exclude investments are a better measure of the company’s performance. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating earnings grew nearly 13% to $8.065 billion, up from $7.16 billion a year ago.

The three analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Berkshire to report operating earnings of $5,370.91 per Class A share.

Buffett came close to giving a formal outlook Saturday when he told shareholders that he expects Berkshire’s operating profits to grow this year even though the economy is slowing down and many of its businesses will sell less in 2023. He said Berkshire will profit from rising interest rates on its holdings, and the insurance market looks good this year.

This year’s first quarter was relatively quiet compared to a year ago when Buffett revealed that he had gone on a $51 billion spending spree at the start of last year, snapping up stocks like Occidental Petroleum, Chevron and HP. Buffett’s buying slowed through the rest of last year with the exception of a number of additional Occidental purchases.

At the end of this year’s first quarter, Berkshire held $130.6 billion cash, up from about $128.59 billion at the end of last year. But Berkshire did spend $4.4 billion during the quarter to repurchase its own shares.

Berkshire’s insurance unit, which includes Geico and a number of large reinsurers, recorded a $911 million operating profit, up from $167 million last year, driven by a rebound in Geico’s results. Geico benefitted from charging higher premiums and a reduction in advertising spending and claims.

But Berkshire’s BNSF railroad and its large utility unit did report lower profits. BNSF earned $1.25 billion, down from $1.37 billion, as the number of shipments it handled dropped 10% after it lost a big customer and imports slowed at the West Coast ports. The utility division added $416 million, down from last year’s $775 million.

Besides those major businesses, Berkshire owns an eclectic assortment of dozens of other businesses, including a number of retail and manufacturing firms such as See’s Candy and Precision Castparts.

Berkshire again faces pressure from activist investors urging the company to do more to catalog its climate change risks in a companywide report. Shareholders were expected to brush that measure and all the other shareholder proposals aside Saturday afternoon because Buffett and the board oppose them, and Buffett controls more than 30% of the vote.

But even as they resist detailing climate risks, a number of Berkshire’s subsidiaries are working to reduce their carbon emissions, including its railroad and utilities. The company’s Clayton Homes unit is showing off a new home design this year that will meet strict energy efficiency standards from the Department of Energy and come pre-equipped for solar power to be added later.
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The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.

The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an international crisis, offers a coda to a pandemic that stirred fear and suspicion, hand-wringing and finger-pointing across the globe.

The U.N. health agency’s officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t ended, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

WHO says thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week, and millions of others are suffering from debilitating, long-term effects.

“It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” he said, adding he wouldn’t hesitate to reconvene experts to assess the situation should a new variant “put our world in peril.”

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19.

He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the pandemic had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions, led to the spread of misinformation and plunged millions into poverty.

The political fallout in some countries was swift and unforgiving. Some pundits say missteps by President Donald Trump in his administration’s response to the pandemic had a role in his losing reelection bid in 2020. The United States saw the deadliest outbreak of any country in the world — where more than 1 million people died.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said it was incumbent on heads of states and other leaders to negotiate a wide-ranging pandemic treaty to decide how future health threats should be faced.

Ryan said that some of the scenes witnessed during COVID-19, when people resorted to “bartering for oxygen canisters,” fought to get into emergency rooms and died in parking lots because they couldn’t get treated, must never be repeated.

When the U.N. health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on Jan. 30, 2020, it hadn’t yet been named COVID-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.

More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

In the U.S., the public health emergency declaration made regarding COVID-19 is set to expire on May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped most of their provisions against the pandemic last year.

When Tedros declared COVID-19 to be an emergency in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the virus’ potential to spread in countries with weak health systems.

In fact, some of the countries that suffered the worst COVID-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a pandemic, including the U.S. and Britain. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa account for just 3% of the global total.

WHO doesn’t “declare” pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a pandemic was already underway.

WHO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the world’s response to acute health threats, but the organization faltered repeatedly as the coronavirus unfolded.

In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press showed top officials were frustrated at the country’s lack of cooperation.

WHO also recommended against mask-wearing for the public for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.

Numerous scientists also slammed WHO’s reluctance to acknowledge that COVID-19 was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticizing the agency’s lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.

Tedros was a vociferous critic of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, warning that the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” by failing to share shots with poor countries.

Most recently, WHO has struggled to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavour that has also become politically fraught.

After a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID-19 most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as “extremely unlikely.”

But the U.N. agency backtracked the following year, saying “key pieces of data” were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that COVID-19 might have ties to a lab.

Tedros lamented that the catastrophic toll of COVID-19 could have been avoided.

“We have the tools and the technologies to prepare for pandemics better, to detect them earlier, to respond to them faster,” Tedros said, without citing missteps by WHO specifically.

“Lives were lost that should not have been. We must promise ourselves and our children and grandchildren that we will never make those mistakes again.”
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The World Health Organization has declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be over as a global health emergency. 

“However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said Friday. ‘This virus is here to stay. It is killing, and it is still changing. The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths.” 

The first known outbreak of COVID-19 occurred in November 2019 in Wuhan, China. When the WHO declared COVID a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020, there were fewer than 100 reported cases, and no reported deaths outside China. 

In the three years since then, the number of global COVID deaths reported to WHO has risen to nearly 7 million, though the true death toll, according to Tedros, is several times higher, reaching at least 20 million. 

“COVID-19 has turned our world upside down,” he said, severely disrupting health systems, causing severe economic and social upheaval, and plunging millions into poverty.  

But for more than a year now, he said, “the pandemic has been on a downward trend, with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing, and the pressure on health systems easing.” 

He noted these were among the many reasons he decided to take the advice of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee to lower the level of alarm and declare an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern. 

Didier Houssin, chair of the IHR committee, said only two or three people on the 18-member committee displayed any hesitation about declaring an end to the pandemic as a global threat.

He acknowledged that many uncertainties remained, “particularly regarding the evolution of the virus,” which he said continued to circulate in every country as the pandemic continued. 

Houssin said the committee also expressed concern about the big gaps in surveillance, reporting and health care, “particularly in the most vulnerable countries.” 

“However, the situation has markedly improved, with less mortality and an increased immunity against the virus, an immunity which is vaccine-induced or naturally induced, and a better access to diagnosis, vaccines and treatment,” he said. 

Houssin emphasized that after more than three years, it was “time to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused so much suffering, with new tools and new ambitions,” underscoring the need to prepare for future pandemics.

‘The battle is not over’

Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said this virus would continue to persist and threaten, but at a much lower levels of impact, tragedy, hospitalization and death. 

“We have got control over the virus by applying the science, and by applying the hard-won lessons we have learned from this pandemic,” Ryan said.  

“We now need to move on to the next phase. The battle is not over. We still have weaknesses, and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus, and it needs to be fixed,” he said. 

While the public health emergency might be over, he observed that in most cases, “pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins,” which means that the world must prepare for what is to come. 

His colleague, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, picked up on this theme, warning that the virus was evolving. “While we are not in a crisis mode, we cannot let our guard down. Epidemiologically, this virus will continue to cause waves,” she said.   

“What we are hopeful of is that we have the tools in place to ensure that the future waves do not result in more severe disease, do not result in waves of death, and we can do that with the tools we have at hand,” she said. “We just have to make sure that we are tracking the virus, because it will continue to evolve.”  

WHO chief Tedros said, “The virus is here to stay and … it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing COVID-19 alongside other infectious diseases.” 

He said the world must prepare for the next pandemic that surely will come and “move forward with a shared commitment to meet shared threats with a shared response.”
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When Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, was recently extolling the capabilities of artificial intelligence, he turned to “Game of Thrones.”

Imagine, he said, if you could use AI to rewrite the ending of that not-so-popular finale. Maybe even put yourself into the show.

“That is what entertainment will look like,” said Brockman.

Not six months since the release of ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence is already prompting widespread unease throughout Hollywood. Concern over chatbots writing or rewriting scripts is one of the leading reasons TV and film screenwriters took to picket lines earlier this week.

Though the Writers Guild of America is striking for better pay in an industry where streaming has upended many of the old rules, AI looms as rising anxiety.

“AI is terrifying,” said Danny Strong, the “Dopesick” and “Empire” creator. “Now, I’ve seen some of ChatGPT’s writing and as of now I’m not terrified because Chat is a terrible writer. But who knows? That could change.”

AI chatbots, screenwriters say, could potentially be used to spit out a rough first draft with a few simple prompts (“a heist movie set in Beijing”). Writers would then be hired, at a lower pay rate, to punch it up.

Screenplays could also be slyly generated in the style of known writers. What about a comedy in the voice of Nora Ephron? Or a gangster film that sounds like Mario Puzo? You won’t get anything close to “Casablanca” but the barest bones of a bad Liam Neeson thriller isn’t out of the question.

The WGA’s basic agreement defines a writer as a “person” and only a human’s work can be copyrighted. But even though no one’s about to see a “By AI” writers credit at the beginning a movie, there are myriad ways that regenerative AI could be used to craft outlines, fill in scenes and mockup drafts.

“We’re not totally against AI,” says Michael Winship, president of the WGA East and a news and documentary writer. “There are ways it can be useful. But too many people are using it against us and using it to create mediocrity. They’re also in violation of copyright. They’re also plagiarizing.”

The guild is seeking more safeguards on how AI can be applied to screenwriting. It says the studios are stonewalling on the issue. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on the behalf of production companies, has offered to annually meet with the guild to go over definitions around the fast-evolving technology.

“It’s something that requires a lot more discussion, which we’ve committed to doing,” the AMPTP said in an outline of its position released Thursday.

Experts say the struggle screenwriters are now facing with regenerative AI is just the beginning. The World Economic Forum this week released a report predicting that nearly a quarter of all jobs will be disrupted by AI over the next five years.

“It’s definitely a bellwether in the workers’ response to the potential impacts of artificial intelligence on their work,” says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the nonprofit AI Now Institute, which has lobbied the government to enact more regulation around AI. “It’s not lost on me that a lot of the most meaningful efforts in tech accountability have been a product of worker-led organizing.”

AI has already filtered into nearly every part of moviemaking. It’s been used to de-age actors, remove swear words from scenes in post-production, supply viewing recommendations on Netflix and posthumously bring back the voices of Anthony Bourdain and Andy Warhol.

The Screen Actors Guild, set to begin its own bargaining with the AMPTP this summer, has said it’s closely following the evolving legal landscape around AI.

“Human creators are the foundation of the creative industries, and we must ensure that they are respected and paid for their work,” the actors union said.

The implications for screenwriting are only just being explored. Actors Alan Alda and Mike Farrell recently reconvened to read through a new scene from “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H” written by ChatGPT. The results weren’t terrible, though they weren’t so funny, either.

“Why have a robot write a script and try to interpret human feelings when we already have studio executives who can do that?” deadpanned Alda.

Writers have long been among notoriously exploited talents in Hollywood. The films they write usually don’t get made. If they do, they’re often rewritten many times over. Raymond Chandler once wrote “the very nicest thing Hollywood can possibly think to say to a writer is that he is too good to be only a writer.”

Screenwriters are accustomed to being replaced. Now, they see a new, readily available and inexpensive competitor in AI — albeit one with a slightly less tenuous grasp of the human condition.

“Obviously, AI can’t do what writers and humans can do. But I don’t know that they believe that, necessarily,” says screenwriter Jonterri Gadson (“A Black Lady Sketchshow”). “There needs to be a human writer in charge and we’re not trying to be gig workers, just revising what AI does. We need to tell the stories.”

Dramatizing their plight as man vs. machine surely doesn’t hurt the WGA’s cause in public opinion. The writers are wrestling with the threat of AI just as concern widens over how hurriedly regenerative AI products have been thrust into society.

Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer, recently left Google in order to speak freely about its potential dangers. “It’s hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” Hinton told The New York Times.

“What’s especially scary about it is nobody, including a lot of the people who are involved with creating it, seem to be able to explain exactly what it’s capable of and how quickly it will be capable of more,” says actor-screenwriter Clark Gregg.

The writers find themselves in the awkward position of negotiating on a newborn technology with the potential for radical effect. Meanwhile, AI-crafted songs by “Fake Drake” or “Fake Eminem” continue to circulate online.

“They’re afraid that if the use of AI to do all this becomes normalized, then it becomes very hard to stop the train,” says James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell University. “The guild is in the position of trying to imagine lots of different possible futures.”

In the meantime, chanting demonstrators are hoisting signs with messages aimed at a digital foe. Seen on the picket lines: “ChatGPT doesn’t have childhood trauma”; “I heard AI refuses to take notes”; and “Wrote ChatGPT this.”
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White House Mulls AI Oversight, Protections with Industry Leaders
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Good news for all the password-haters out there: Google has taken a big step toward making them an afterthought by adding “passkeys” as a more straightforward and secure way to log into its services. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

What are passkeys?  

Passkeys offer a safer alternative to passwords and texted confirmation codes. Users won’t ever see them directly; instead, an online service like Gmail will use them to communicate directly with a trusted device such as your phone or computer to log you in. 

All you’ll have to do is verify your identity on the device using a PIN unlock code, biometrics such as your fingerprint or a face scan or a more sophisticated physical security dongle. 

Google designed its passkeys to work with a variety of devices, so you can use them on iPhones, Macs and Windows computers, as well as Google’s own Android phones. 

Why are passkeys necessary?  

Thanks to clever hackers and human fallibility, passwords are just too easy to steal or defeat. And making them more complex just opens the door to users defeating themselves. 

For starters, many people choose passwords they can remember — and easy-to-recall passwords are also easy to hack. For years, analysis of hacked password caches found that the most common password in use was “password123.” A more recent study by the password manager NordPass found that it’s now just “password.” This isn’t fooling anyone. 

Passwords are also frequently compromised in security breaches. Stronger passwords are more secure, but only if you choose ones that are unique, complex and non-obvious. And once you’ve settled on “erVex411$%” as your password, good luck remembering it. 

In short, passwords put security and ease of use directly at odds. Software-based password managers, which can create and store complex passwords for you, are valuable tools that can improve security. But even password managers have a master password you need to protect, and that plunges you back into the swamp. 

In addition to sidestepping all those problems, passkeys have one additional advantage over passwords. They’re specific to particular websites, so scammer sites can’t steal a passkey from a dating site and use it to raid your bank account. 

How do I start using passkeys?  

The first step is to enable them for your Google account. On any trusted phone or computer, open the browser and sign into your Google account. Then visit the page g.co/passkeys and click the option to “start using passkeys.” Voila! The passkey feature is now activated for that account. 

If you’re on an Apple device, you’ll first be prompted to set up the Keychain app if you’re not already using it; it securely stores passwords and now passkeys, as well. 

The next step is to create the actual passkeys that will connect your trusted device. If you’re using an Android phone that’s already logged into your Google account, you’re most of the way there; Android phones are automatically ready to use passkeys, though you still have to enable the function first. 

On the same Google account page noted above, look for the “Create a passkey” button. Pressing it will open a window and let you create a passkey either on your current device or on another device. There’s no wrong choice; the system will simply notify you if that passkey already exists. 

If you’re on a PC that can’t create a passkey, it will open a QR code that you can scan with the ordinary cameras on iPhones and Android devices. You may have to move the phone closer until the message “Set up passkey” appears on the image. Tap that and you’re on your way. 

And then what?  

From that point on, signing into Google will only require you to enter your email address. If you’ve gotten passkeys set up properly, you’ll simply get a message on your phone or other device asking you to for your fingerprint, your face or a PIN.

Of course, your password is still there. But if passkeys take off, odds are good you won’t be needing it very much. You may even choose to delete it from your account someday. 
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Environmental groups sue the U.S. government over SpaceX’s launch license. Plus, a pair of spacewalks outside the International Space Station, and a glimpse at the destruction that scientists say awaits our home planet. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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