Category: Silicon Valley

KIGALI — Rwanda said Sunday it had begun administering vaccine doses against the Marburg virus to try to combat an outbreak of the Ebola-like disease in the east African country, where it has so far killed 12 people. 

“The vaccination is starting today immediately,” Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said at a news conference in the capital Kigali. 

He said the vaccinations would focus on those “most at risk, most exposed health care workers working in treatment centers, in the hospitals, in ICU, in emergency, but also [in] the close contacts of the confirmed cases.” 

The country has already received shipments of the vaccines including from the Sabin Vaccine Institute. 

Rwanda’s first outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever was detected in late September, with 46 cases and 12 deaths reported since then. Marburg has a fatality rate as high as 88%. 

Marburg symptoms include high fever, severe headaches and malaise within seven days of infection and later severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. 

It is transmitted to humans by fruit bats and then spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. Neighboring Uganda has suffered several outbreaks in the past. 

“We believe that with vaccines, we have a powerful tool to stop the spread of this virus,” the minister said. 
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GOMA, Congo — Congolese authorities on Saturday began vaccinations against mpox, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.

The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the United States were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.

Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases.

Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and frontline workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.

“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.

At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.

Mostly undetected for years

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.

However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused in gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.

More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

But access to vaccines remains a challenge.

The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.

Province at risk of outbreak

At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr. Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises caused by armed violence unfolds there.

The news of the vaccination program brought relief among many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak.

“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.

Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings. 
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wellington, new zealand — A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck near New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington, government seismic monitor GeoNet said on Sunday, but initial reports indicated there were no injuries or significant damage. 

The quake hit at 5:08 a.m. on Sunday (1608 GMT on Saturday) striking 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) west of Wellington at a focal depth of 30 km (19 miles). 

GeoNet said more than 37,000 people had reported feeling the shake, some as far north as Auckland in the North Island. 

GeoNet said there was no tsunami warning as a result of the quake. 

A spokesperson for Fire and Emergency New Zealand said the service had not received any calls for assistance. 

Government-owned Radio New Zealand said there were no reports of significant damage or reports of injury. 
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KAMITUGA, Congo — It’s been four months since Sifa Kunguja recovered from mpox, but as a sex worker, she said, she’s still struggling to regain clients, with fear and stigma driving away people who’ve heard she had the virus. 

“It’s risky work,” Kunguja, 40, said from her small home in eastern Congo. “But if I don’t work, I won’t have money for my children.”

Sex workers are among those hardest-hit by the mpox outbreak in Kamituga, where some 40,000 of them are estimated to reside — many single mothers driven by poverty to this mineral-rich commercial hub where gold miners comprise the majority of the clientele. Doctors estimate 80% of cases here have been contracted sexually, though the virus also spreads through other kinds of skin-to-skin contact.

Sex workers say the situation threatens their health and livelihoods. Health officials warn that more must be done to stem the spread — with a focus on sex workers — or mpox will creep deeper through eastern Congo and the region.

Mpox causes mostly mild symptoms such as fever and body aches, but serious cases can mean prominent, painful blisters on the face, hands, chest and genitals.

Kunguja and other sex workers insist that despite risks of reinfection or spreading the virus, they have no choice but to keep working. Sex work isn’t illegal in Congo, though related activities such as solicitation are. Rights groups say possible legal consequences and fear of retribution — sex workers are subject to high rates of violence including rape and abuse — prevent women from seeking medical care. That can be especially detrimental during a public health emergency, according to experts.

Health officials in Kamituga are advocating for the government to shutter nightclubs and mines and compensate sex workers for lost business.

Not everyone agrees. Local officials say they don’t have resources to do more than care for those who are sick, and insist it’s sex workers’ responsibility to protect themselves.

Kamituga Mayor Alexandre Bundya M’pila told The Associated Press that the government is creating awareness campaigns but lacks money to reach everyone. He also said sex workers should look for other jobs, without providing examples of what might be available.

Sex work a big part of economy

Miners stream into Kamituga by the tens of thousands. The economy is centered on the mines: Buyers line streets, traders travel to sell gold, small businesses and individuals provide food and lodging, and the sex industry flourishes.

Nearly a dozen sex workers spoke to AP. They said well over half their clients are miners.

The industry is well organized, according to the Kenyan-based African Sex Workers Alliance, composed of sex worker-led groups. The alliance estimates that 13% of Kamituga’s 300,000 residents are sex workers.

The town has 18 sex-worker committees, the alliance said, with a leadership that tries to work with government officials, protect and support colleagues, and advocate for their rights.

But sex work in Congo is dangerous. Women face systematic violence that’s tolerated by society, according to a report by UMANDE, a local sex-worker rights group.

Many women are forced into the industry because of poverty or because, like Kunguja, they’re single parents and must support their families.

Getting mpox can put sex workers out of business

The sex workers who spoke to AP described mpox as an added burden. Many are terrified of getting the virus — it means time away from work, lost income and perhaps losing business altogether.

Those who recover are stigmatized, they said. Kamituga is a small place, where most everyone knows one another. Neighbors whisper and tell clients when someone is sick — people talk and point.

Since contracting mpox in May, Kunguja said she’s gone from about 20 clients daily to five. She’s been supporting her 11 children through sex work for nearly a decade but said she now can’t afford to send them to school. To compensate, she’s selling alcohol by day, but it’s not enough.

Experts say information and awareness are key

Disease experts say a lack of vaccines and information makes stemming the spread difficult.

Some 250,000 vaccines have arrived in Congo, but it’s unclear when any will get to Kamituga. Sex workers and miners are among those slated to receive them first.

Community leaders and aid groups are trying to teach sex workers about protecting themselves and their clients via awareness sessions where they discuss signs and symptoms. They also press condom use, which they say isn’t widespread enough in the industry.

Sex workers told AP that they insist on using condoms when they have them, but that they simply don’t have enough.

Kamituga’s general hospital gives them boxes of about 140 condoms every few months. Some sex workers see up to 60 clients a day — for less than $1 a person. Condoms run out, and workers say they can’t afford more.

Dr. Guy Mukari, an epidemiologist working with the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Congo, noted that the variant running rampant in Kamituga seems more susceptible to transmission via sex, making for a double whammy with the sex industry.
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ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene brought devastation to western North Carolina, a shiny stainless steel tanker truck in downtown Asheville attracted residents carrying 19-liter containers, milk jugs and buckets to fill with what has become a desperately scare resource — drinking water.

Flooding tore through the city’s water system, destroying so much infrastructure that officials said repairs could take weeks. To make do, Anna Ramsey arrived Wednesday with her two children, who each left carrying plastic bags filled with 7.6 liters of water.

“We have no water. We have no power. But I think it’s also been humbling,” Ramsey said.

Helene’s path through the Southeast left a trail of power outages so large the darkness was visible from space. Tens of trillions of liters of rain fell and more than 200 people were killed, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, and search crews must trudge through knee-deep debris to learn whether residents are safe.

It also damaged water utilities so severely and over such a wide inland area that one federal official said the toll “could be considered unprecedented.” As of Thursday, about 136,000 people in the Southeast were served by a nonoperational water provider and more than 1.8 million were living under a boil water advisory, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Western North Carolina was especially hard hit. Officials are facing a difficult rebuilding task made harder by the steep, narrow valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains that during a more typical October would attract throngs of fall tourists.

“The challenges of the geography are just fewer roads, fewer access points, fewer areas of flat ground to stage resources” said Brian Smith, acting deputy division director for the EPA’s water division in the Southeast.

After days without water, people long for more than just a sponge bath.

“I would love a shower,” said Sue Riles in Asheville. “Running water would be incredible.”

The raging floodwaters of Helene destroyed crucial parts of Asheville’s water system, scouring out the pipes that convey water from a reservoir in the mountains above town that is the largest of three water supplies for the system. To reach a second reservoir that was knocked offline, a road had to be rebuilt.

Boosted output from the third source restored water flow in some southern Asheville neighborhoods Friday, but without full repairs schools may not be able to resume in-person classes, hospitals may not restore normal operations, and the city’s hotels and restaurants may not fully reopen.

Even water that’s unfit to drink is scarce. Drew Reisinger, the elected Buncombe County register of deeds, worries about people in apartments who can’t easily haul a bucket of water from a creek to flush their toilet. Officials are advising people to collect nondrinkable water for household needs from a local swimming pool.

“One thing no one is talking about is the amount of poop that exists in every toilet in Asheville,” he said. “We’re dealing with a public health emergency.”

It’s a situation that becomes more dangerous the longer it lasts. Even in communities fortunate enough to have running water, hundreds of providers have issued boil water notices indicating the water could be contaminated. But boiling water for cooking and drinking is time consuming and small mistakes can cause stomach illness, according to Natalie Exum, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“Every day that goes by, you could be exposed to a pathogen,” Exum said. “These basic services that we take for granted in our everyday lives actually do do a lot to prevent illness.”

Travis Edwards’ faucet worked immediately after the storm. He filled as many containers as he could for himself and his child, but it didn’t take long for the flow to weaken, then stop. They rationed water, switching to hand sanitizer and barely putting any on toothbrushes.

“(We) didn’t realize how dehydrated we were getting,” he said.

Federal officials have shipped millions of liters of water to areas where people also might not be able to make phone calls or switch on the lights.

Power has been restored to about 62% of homes and businesses and 8,000 crews are out working to restore power in the hardest hit parts of North Carolina, federal officials said Thursday. In 10 counties, about half of the cell sites are still down.

The first step for some utilities is simply figuring out how bad the damage is, a job that might require EPA expertise in extreme cases. Ruptured water pipes are a huge problem. They often run beneath roads, many of which were crumpled and twisted by floodwaters.

“Pretty much anytime you see a major road damaged, there’s a very good chance that there’s a pipe in there that’s also gotten damaged,” said Mark White, drinking water global practice leader at the engineering firm CDM Smith.

Generally, repairs start at the treatment plant and move outward, with fixes in nearby big pipes done first, according to the EPA.

“Over time, you’ll gradually get water to more and more people,” White said.

Many people are still missing, and water repair employees don’t typically work around search and rescue operations. It takes a toll, according to Kevin Morley, manager of federal relations with the American Water Works Association.

“There’s emotional support that is really important for all the people involved. You’re seeing people’s lives just wiped out,” he said.

Even private well owners aren’t immune. Pumps on private wells may have lost power and overtopping floodwaters can contaminate them.

There’s often a “blind faith” assumption that drinking water won’t fail. In this case, the technology was insufficient, according to Craig Colten. Before retiring to Asheville, he was a professor in Louisiana focused on resilience to extreme weather. He hopes Helene will prompt politicians to spend more to ensure infrastructure withstands destructive storms.

And climate change will only make the problem more severe, said Erik Olson, a health and food expert at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

“I think states and the federal government really need to step back and start looking at how we’re going to prepare for these extreme weather events that are going to be occurring and recurring every single year,” he said.

Edwards has developed a system to save water. He’ll soap dirty dishes and rinse them with a trickle of water with bleach, which is caught and transferred to a bucket — useable for the toilet.

Power and some cell service have returned for him. And water distribution sites have guaranteed some measure of normalcy: Edwards feels like he can start going out to see friends again.

“To not feel guilty about using more than a cup of water to, like, wash yourself … I’m really, really grateful,” he said. 
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washington — Spamouflage networks with connections to China are posting antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media, casting doubt on Washington’s independence from alleged Jewish influence and the integrity of the two U.S. presidential candidates, a joint investigation by VOA Mandarin and Taiwan’s Doublethink Lab, a social media analytics firm, has found.

The investigation has so far uncovered more than 30 such X posts, many of which claim or suggest that core American political institutions, including the White House and Congress, have pledged loyalty to or are controlled by Jewish elites and the Israeli government.

One post shows a graphic of 18 U.S. officials of Jewish descent, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and the head of the Homeland Security Department, Alejandro Mayorkas, and asks: “Jews only make up 2% of the U.S. population, so why do they have so many representatives in important government departments?!”

Another post shows a cartoon depicting Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, and her opponent, Donald Trump, having their tongues tangled together and wrapped around an Israeli flagpole. The post proclaims that “no matter who of them comes to power, they will not change their stance on Judaism.”

Most of the 32 posts analyzed by VOA Mandarin and Doublethink Lab were posted during July and August. The posts came from three spamouflage accounts, two of which were previously reported by VOA.

Each of the three accounts leads its own spamouflage network. The three networks consist of 140 accounts, which amplify content from the three main accounts, or seeders.

A spamouflage network is a state-sponsored operation disguised as the work of authentic social media users to spread pro-government narratives and disinformation while discrediting criticism from adversaries.

Jasper Hewitt, a digital intelligence analyst at Doublethink Lab, told VOA Mandarin that the impact of these antisemitic posts has been limited, as most of them failed to reach real users, despite having garnered over 160,000 views.

U.S. officials have cast China as one of the major threats looking to disrupt this year’s election. Beijing, however, has repeatedly denied these allegations and urged Washington to “not make an issue of China in the election.”

Tuvia Gering, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, has closely followed antisemitic disinformation coming from China. He told VOA Mandarin that Beijing isn’t necessarily hostile toward Jews, but anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have historically been a handy tool to be used against Western countries.

“You can trace its origins back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories all over the world just to instigate in Western societies,” Gering said, “because it divides them from within and it casts the West in a bad light in a strategic competition. [It’s] the same thing you see here [with China].”

Anti-Semitic speech floods Chinese internet

Similar antisemitic narratives about U.S. politics posted by the spamouflage accounts have long been flourishing on the Chinese internet.

An article that received thousands of likes and reposts on Chinese social media app WeChat claims that “Jewish capital” has completed its control of the American political sphere “through infiltration, marriages, campaign funds and lobbying.”

The article also brings up the Jewish heritage of many current and former U.S. officials and their families as evidence of the alleged Jewish takeover of America.

“The wife of the U.S. president is Jewish, the son-in-law of the former U.S. president is Jewish, the mother of the previous former U.S. president was Jewish, the U.S. Secretary of State is Jewish, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury is Jewish, the Deputy Secretary of State, the Attorney General … are all Jewish,” it wrote.

In fact, first lady Jill Biden is Roman Catholic, and the mother of former President Barack Obama was raised as a Christian. The others named are Jewish.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation abounded on the Chinese internet after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would empower the Department of Education to adopt a new set of standards when investigating antisemitism in educational programs.

Articles and videos assert that the bill marks the death of America because it “definitively solidifies the superior and unquestionable position of the Jews in America,” claiming falsely that anyone who’s labeled an antisemite will be arrested.

One video with more than 1 million views claimed that the New Testament of the Bible would be deemed illegal under the bill. And since all U.S. presidents took their inaugural oath with the Bible, the bill allegedly invalidates the legitimacy of the commander in chief. None of that is true.

The Chinese public hasn’t historically been hostile toward Jews. A 2014 survey published by the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group against antisemitism, found that only 20% of the participants from China harbored an antisemitic attitude.

But when the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out a year ago, the otherwise heavily censored Chinese social media was flooded with antisemitic comments and praise for Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler.

The Chinese government has dismissed criticism of antisemitism on its internet. When asked about it at a news conference last year, Wang Wenbin, then the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said that “China’s laws unequivocally prohibit disseminating information on extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination and violence via the internet.”

But online hate speech against Jews has hardly disappeared. Eric Liu, a former censor for Chinese social media Weibo who now monitors online censorship, told VOA Mandarin that whenever Israel is in the news, there would be a surge in online antisemitism.

Just last month, after dozens of members of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah were killed by explosions of their pagers, Chinese online commentators acidly condemned Israel and Jews.

The attack “proves that Jews are the most terrifying and cowardly people,” one Weibo user wrote. “They are self-centered and believe themselves to be superior, when in fact they are considered the most indecent and shameless. When the time comes, it’s going to be blood for blood.”
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HANOI, Vietnam — More than a dozen tigers were incinerated after the animals died after contracted bird flu at a zoo in southern Vietnam, officials said.

State media VNExpress cited a caretaker at Vuon Xoai zoo in Bien Hoa city saying the animals were fed raw chicken bought from nearby farms. The panther and 20 tigers, including several cubs, weighed between 10 and 120 kilograms when they died. The bodies were incinerated and buried on the premises.

“The tigers died so fast. They looked weak, refused to eat and died after two days of falling sick,” said zoo manager Nguyen Ba Phuc.

Samples taken from the tigers tested positive for H5N1, the virus that causes bird flu.

The virus was first identified in 1959 and grew into a widespread and highly lethal menace to migratory birds and domesticated poultry. It has since evolved, and in recent years H5N1 was detected in a growing number of animals ranging from dogs and cats to sea lions and polar bears.

In cats, scientists have found the virus attacking the brain, damaging and clotting blood vessels and causing seizures and death.

More than 20 other tigers were isolated for monitoring. The zoo houses some 3,000 other animals including lions, bears, rhinos, hippos and giraffes.

The 30 staff members who were taking care of the tigers tested negative for bird flu and were in normal health condition, VNExpress reported. Another outbreak also occurred at a zoo in nearby Long An province, where 27 tigers and three lions died within a week in September, the newspaper said.

Unusual flu strains that come from animals are occasionally found in people. Health officials in the United States said Thursday that two dairy workers in California were infected — making 16 total cases detected in the country in 2024.

“The deaths of 47 tigers, three lions, and a panther at My Quynh Safari and Vuon Xoai Zoo amid Vietnam’s bird flu outbreak are tragic and highlight the risks of keeping wild animals in captivity,” PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

“The exploitation of wild animals also puts global human health at risk by increasing the likelihood of another pandemic,” Baker said.

Bird flu has caused hundreds of deaths around the world, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected birds.
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chicago — California is investigating a possible case of bird flu in a dairy worker who had contact with infected cattle, the state’s public health department said Thursday. 

The virus’ jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of 13 dairy and poultry farmworkers this year have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread. 

The worker had a “presumptive positive” result to a test for bird flu, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will do further testing to confirm the finding, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement. 

The person, who was not identified, suffered only conjunctivitis, or pink eye, the department said in a statement. The person is being treated with antiviral medication and staying home, it added. 

The person works at a Central Valley dairy facility suffering an outbreak in cattle, according to the statement. 

Cows at dairy farms in California, the top U.S. milk-producing state, began testing positive for bird flu in late August. 

“The risk to the general public remains low, although people who interact with infected animals are at higher risk of getting bird flu,” the department said. 

Missouri last month confirmed bird flu in a person with underlying medical conditions who had no immediate known animal exposure. Six health care workers who cared for the Missouri patient developed respiratory symptoms, but the virus was not confirmed in any of them. 

Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would begin testing raw cow’s milk intended for pasteurization at dairy plants to better understand the prevalence of the bird flu virus in milk. 

Participation in the study, set to begin October 28, is voluntary, and pasteurized dairy products remain safe to consume, the agency said. 

Prior FDA testing of retail dairy samples came back negative, and more such testing is underway.
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GENEVA  — The World Health Organization launched a global plan Thursday to address the growing threat of dengue and other deadly arboviruses, which have affected millions of people around the world and put billions more at risk.  

“The rapid spread of dengue and other arboviral diseases in recent years is an alarming trend that demands a coordinated response across sectors and across borders,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. 

An arbovirus is a virus that is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, ticks, or other arthropods, such as crustaceans, insects and arachnids.   

Dengue has emerged as the most problematic arbovirus disease. The WHO notes the number of cases has nearly doubled each year since 2021, with over 12.3 million cases at the end of August of this year, including more than 6,000 deaths. 

The WHO aims to “turn the tide” against dengue and arboviral diseases, Tedros said, noting that the measures in the proposal could “protect vulnerable populations and pave the way for a healthier future.” 

The WHO chief said everyone has a role to play in the fight against dengue, “from maintaining clean environments to supporting vector control and seeking and providing timely medical care.” 

“Factors such as unplanned urbanization and poor water, sanitation and hygiene practices, climate change and international travel, are facilitating the rapid geographical spread of dengue,” Dr. Raman Velayudhan, WHO unit head, global program on control of neglected tropical diseases, told journalists in Geneva Tuesday, in advance of the plan’s launch. 

“The disease is now endemic in more than 130 countries,” he said. “Similar trends are also observed for other arboviral diseases, such as Zika, chikungunya, and more recently, the Oropouche virus disease, especially in the Americas.” 

Dengue is endemic in tropical and subtropical climates, particularly in Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific and the Americas. The WHO says the majority of dengue cases, as well as several other arboviruses, have been reported from the American region this year.  

WHO officials say the situation is also of concern in Africa, “where countries are battling multiple diseases amid conflict and natural disasters,” placing additional strain on already fragile health systems. 

The Africa CDC reports more than 15,000 cases of dengue have been recorded in 13 African countries this year. 

“This global escalation underscores the urgent need for a robust strategy to mitigate risks and safeguard populations taking into account that urban centers are at greater risk,” Velayudhan said. 

Dengue is a viral infection that spreads from mosquitoes to people. Most people who get dengue get better in one to two weeks. However, some people who develop severe cases can die. 

According to the WHO, prevention is the best protection from dengue. It recommends people avoid mosquito bites, especially during the day, “by covering up.” 

Chikungunya, a virus spread by Aedes mosquitoes, has been reported in 118 countries, with the highest circulation found in Brazil.   

Dr. Diana Rojas Alvarez, team lead on arboviruses, epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO, notes newborns, elderly and people with pre-existing conditions “have been identified as a risk factor for poor disease outcome.” 

Besides chikungunya, she said Zika and Oropouche, which are spreading widely in the Americas, have symptoms similar to dengue and “can be easily misdiagnosed in areas with co-circulation of multiple arboviruses.”   

To avoid misidentifying those diseases, she said it is critical for countries to strengthen their detection, surveillance, and testing activities and “to make sure populations know which measures to take to protect themselves and their communities.” 

The World Health Organization says the global escalation of arboviral diseases underscores the urgent need for “a robust strategy to mitigate risks and safeguard populations.” 

It urges governments to implement five components of its strategic global plan:  Emergency coordination activities, collaborative detection and surveillance, community protection and prevention measures, safe and scalable care to prevent illness and death, and access to countermeasures, such as the promotion of research for improved treatments and vaccines. 

The WHO estimates $55 million will be required to put the plan into action over the next year.  
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MELBOURNE, Australia — A code of conduct will be enforced on the online dating industry to better protect Australian users after research found that three-in-four people suffer some form of sexual violence through the platforms, Australia’s government said on Tuesday.

Bumble, Grindr and Match Group Inc., a Texas-based company that owns platforms including Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish, have agreed to the code that took effect on Tuesday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.

The platforms, which account for 75% of the industry in Australia, have until April 1 to implement the changes before they are strictly enforced, Rowland said.

The code requires the platforms’ systems to detect potential incidents of online-enabled harm and demands that the accounts of some offenders are terminated.

Complaint and reporting mechanisms are to be made prominent and transparent. A new rating system will show users how well platforms are meeting their obligations under the code.

The government called for a code of conduct last year after the Australian Institute of Criminology research found that three-in-four users of dating apps or websites had experienced some form of sexual violence through these platforms in the five years through 2021.

“There needs to be a complaint-handling process. This is a pretty basic feature that Australians would have expected in the first place,” Rowland said on Tuesday.

“If there are grounds to ban a particular individual from utilizing one of those platforms, if they’re banned on one platform, they’re blocked on all platforms,” she added.

Match Group said it had already introduced new safety features on Tinder, including photo and identification verification to prevent bad actors from accessing the platform while giving users more confidence in the authenticity of their connections.

The platform used artificial intelligence to issue real-time warnings about potentially offensive language in an opening line and advising users to pause before sending.

“This is a pervasive issue, and we take our responsibility to help keep users safe on our platform very seriously,” Match Group said in a statement on Wednesday.

Match Group said it would continue to collaborate with the government and the industry to “help make dating safer for all Australians.”

Bumble said it shared the government’s hope of eliminating gender-based violence and was grateful for the opportunity to work with the government and industry on what the platform described as a “world-first dating code of practice.”

“We know that domestic and sexual violence is an enormous problem in Australia, and that women, members of LGBTQ+ communities, and First Nations are the most at risk,” a Bumble statement said.

“Bumble puts women’s experiences at the center of our mission to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, and safety has been central to our mission from day one,” Bumble added.

Grindr said in a statement it was “honored to participate in the development of the code and shares the Australian government’s commitment to online safety.”

All the platforms helped design the code.

Platforms that have not signed up include Happn, Coffee Meets Bagel and Feeld.

The government expects the code will enable Australians to make better informed choices about which dating apps are best equipped to provide a safe dating experience.

The government has also warned the online dating industry that it will legislate if the operators fail to keep Australians safe on their platforms.
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A new exhibit in Washington sheds some light on a little-known layer of the sea and the strange creatures that live there. Artechouse art center and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution collaborated on the spectacle, called Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean. Maxim Adams has the story.
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Abuja — Hundreds gathered in Abuja, Nigeria for the 2024 Childhood Cancer Awareness Walk, raising awareness and support for pediatric cancer. Despite progress in cancer care, Nigerian children face high costs and delayed diagnoses, which the walk aims to address.

Titilayo Adewumi joined the walk with her 13-year-old son Shittu, diagnosed with leukemia at age 5. With support from the Okapi Children Cancer Foundation, Shittu is now cancer-free.

Adewumi recounts the toll her son’s cancer diagnosis took on her family.

“I had to stop working for like 4 – 5 years so I could concentrate on him,” she said. “We went out of cash, we didn’t have money, that is when the Okapi visited us … I was so excited when the doctor told me that he was free of cancer, I felt like jumping into the roof and back I was so happy because it was not easy.”

Among the walkers was Izuyor Tobi. He brought his daughter Hope, who battled neuroblastoma. Treatment costs nearly drained the family’s finances until Okapi intervened. Today, Hope is healthy.

Tobi believes that spreading awareness about pediatric cancer will save lives.

“If not for Okapi Children Cancer Foundation, I don’t think my daughter will be alive today… What I do is to create more awareness by telling people what Okapi Children Cancer Foundation has done for my daughter,” he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80% of childhood cancers occur in low-income countries like Nigeria, where many cases go undiagnosed or are detected late.

Pediatric oncologist Ifeoma Ezeukwu from the Federal Medical Center explained barriers to care.

“Ignorance is also another barrier,” she said. “I have come across so many people who will tell you, I never knew children could have cancer. … Early detection is key to survival in childhood cancer unlike the adult cancers; children, the prognosis are better in them when they are seen early, once you capture cancer early, you know that cure is what is expected.”

Kemi Adekanye founded the Okapi Children Cancer Foundation in 2017 and has been mobilizing community awareness and support. Funded by friends and family, the foundation has helped over 200 children access treatment, despite costs starting at $180.

Adekanye says they’re focused on influencing government action for pediatric cancer.

“As of today, there’s currently no supports being provided to children battling cancer, so we expect the government to intervene in terms of subsidizing treatment costs for children battling cancer, as well as equipping our hospitals more so people don’t have to travel far and wide to access oncology centers,” she said.

Health policy analyst Ejike Oji called for systemic reforms across Nigeria to ease the burden on families.

“The government should establish dedicated pediatric oncology wards across the country to provide grounds for training health care professionals to ensure their skills are good in diagnosing and treating childhood cancer,” he said. “If you look at the cancer from diagnosis to treatment, it’s a lot of money. Radiotherapy is one of the most expensive; most families cannot afford.”

The large turnout at the 8th Childhood Cancer Awareness Walk — ‘Bridge The Gap’ —showed the power of community mobilization.

Nigerians are advocating for better health care, early diagnosis and family support, ensuring no child faces cancer alone.
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little rock, arkansas — Arkansas sued YouTube and parent company Alphabet on Monday, saying the video-sharing platform is made deliberately addictive and fueling a mental health crisis among youth in the state.

Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office filed the lawsuit in state court, accusing them of violating the state’s deceptive trade practices and public nuisance laws. The lawsuit claims the site is addictive and has resulted in the state spending millions on expanded mental health and other services for young people.

“YouTube amplifies harmful material, doses users with dopamine hits, and drives youth engagement and advertising revenue,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, youth mental health problems have advanced in lockstep with the growth of social media, and in particular, YouTube.”

Alphabet’s Google, which owns the video service and is also named as a defendant in the case, denied the lawsuit’s claims.

“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls,” Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement. “The allegations in this complaint are simply not true.”

YouTube requires users under 17 to get their parent’s permission before using the site, while accounts for users younger than 13 must be linked to a parental account. But it is possible to watch YouTube without an account, and kids can easily lie about their age.

The lawsuit is the latest in an ongoing push by state and federal lawmakers to highlight the impact that social media sites have on younger users. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in June called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms about their effects on young people’s lives, like those now mandatory on cigarette boxes.

Arkansas last year filed similar lawsuits against TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta, claiming the social media companies were misleading consumers about the safety of children on their platforms and protections of users’ private data. Those lawsuits are still pending in state court.

Arkansas also enacted a law requiring parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts, though that measure has been blocked by a federal judge.

Along with TikTok, YouTube is one of the most popular sites for children and teens. Both sites have been questioned in the past for hosting, and in some cases promoting, videos that encourage gun violence, eating disorders and self-harm.

YouTube in June changed its policies about firearm videos, prohibiting any videos demonstrating how to remove firearm safety devices. Under the new policies, videos showing homemade guns, automatic weapons and certain firearm accessories like silencers will be restricted to users 18 and older.

Arkansas’ lawsuit claims that YouTube’s algorithms steer youth to harmful adult content, and that it facilitates the spread of child sexual abuse material.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek specific damages, but asks that YouTube be ordered to fund prevention, education and treatment for “excessive and problematic use of social media.”
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Cape Canaveral, Florida — The two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station since June welcomed their new ride home with Sunday’s arrival of a SpaceX capsule.

SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in darkness high over Botswana as the two craft soared 420 kilometers above Earth.

NASA switched Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX following concerns over the safety of their Boeing Starliner capsule. It was the first Starliner test flight with a crew, and NASA decided the thruster failures and helium leaks that cropped up after liftoff were too serious and poorly understood to risk the test pilots’ return. So Starliner returned to Earth empty earlier this month.

The Dragon carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov will remain at the space station until February, turning what should have been a weeklong trip for Wilmore and Williams into a mission lasting more than eight months.

Two NASA astronauts were pulled from the mission to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.

NASA likes to replace its station crews every six months or so. SpaceX has provided the taxi service since the company’s first astronaut flight in 2020. NASA also hired Boeing for ferry flights after the space shuttles were retired, but flawed software and other Starliner issues led to years of delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.

Starliner inspections are underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with post-flight reviews of data set to begin this week.

“We’re a long way from saying, ‘Hey, we’re writing off Boeing,'” NASA’s associate administrator Jim Free said at a pre-launch briefing.

The arrival of two fresh astronauts means the four who have been up there since March can now return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule in just over a week. Their stay was extended a month because of the Starliner turmoil.

Although Saturday’s liftoff went well, SpaceX said the rocket’s spent upper stage ended up outside its targeted impact zone in the Pacific because of a bad engine firing. The company has halted all Falcon launches until it figures out what went wrong.
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Sacramento, California — California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday.

The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said.

Earlier in September, the Democratic governor told an audience at Dreamforce, an annual conference hosted by software giant Salesforce, that California must lead in regulating AI in the face of federal inaction but that the proposal “can have a chilling effect on the industry.”

The proposal, which drew fierce opposition from startups, tech giants and several Democratic House members, could have hurt the homegrown industry by establishing rigid requirements, Newsom said.

“While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data,” Newsom said in a statement. “Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”

Newsom on Sunday instead announced that the state will partner with several industry experts, including AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, to develop guardrails around powerful AI models. Li opposed the AI safety proposal.

The measure, aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI, would have required companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons. Experts say those scenarios could be possible in the future as the industry continues to rapidly advance. It also would have provided whistleblower protections to workers.

The legislation is among a host of bills passed by the legislature this year to regulate AI, fight deepfakes and protect workers. State lawmakers said California must take action this year, citing hard lessons they learned from failing to rein in social media companies when they might have had a chance.

Proponents of the measure, including Elon Musk and Anthropic, said the proposal could have injected some levels of transparency and accountability around large-scale AI models, as developers and experts say they still don’t have a full understanding of how AI models behave and why.

The bill targeted systems that require more than $100 million to build. No current AI models have hit that threshold, but some experts said that could change within the next year.

“This is because of the massive investment scale-up within the industry,” said Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who resigned in April over what he saw as the company’s disregard for AI risks. “This is a crazy amount of power to have any private company control unaccountably, and it’s also incredibly risky.”

The United States is already behind Europe in regulating AI to limit risks. The California proposal wasn’t as comprehensive as regulations in Europe, but it would have been a good first step to set guardrails around the rapidly growing technology that is raising concerns about job loss, misinformation, invasions of privacy and automation bias, supporters said.

A number of leading AI companies last year voluntarily agreed to follow safeguards set by the White House, such as testing and sharing information about their models. The California bill would have mandated that AI developers follow requirements similar to those commitments, said the measure’s supporters.

But critics, including former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that the bill would “kill California tech” and stifle innovation. It would have discouraged AI developers from investing in large models or sharing open-source software, they said.

Newsom’s decision to veto the bill marks another win in California for big tech companies and AI developers, many of whom spent the past year lobbying alongside the California Chamber of Commerce to sway the governor and lawmakers from advancing AI regulations.

Two other sweeping AI proposals, which also faced mounting opposition from the tech industry and others, died ahead of a legislative deadline in August. The bills would have required AI developers to label AI-generated content and ban discrimination from AI tools used to make employment decisions.

The governor said earlier this summer he wanted to protect California’s status as a global leader in AI, noting that 32 of the world’s top 50 AI companies are located in the state.

He has promoted California as an early adopter as the state could soon deploy generative AI tools to address highway congestion, provide tax guidance and streamline homelessness programs. The state also announced last month a voluntary partnership with AI giant Nvidia to help train students, college faculty, developers and data scientists. California is also considering new rules against AI discrimination in hiring practices.

Earlier in September, Newsom signed some of the toughest laws in the country to crack down on election deepfakes and measures to protect Hollywood workers from unauthorized AI use.

But even with Newsom’s veto, the California safety proposal is inspiring lawmakers in other states to take up similar measures, said Tatiana Rice, deputy director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that works with lawmakers on technology and privacy proposals.

“They are going to potentially either copy it or do something similar next legislative session,” Rice said. “So it’s not going away.”
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WASHINGTON — The first rocky planet ever spotted orbiting a burned out star called a white dwarf offers a glimpse of what may be in store for Earth billions of years from now — showing it is possible our planet might survive the death of the sun, albeit as a cold and desolate outpost in space.

The planet, with a mass about 1.9 times that of Earth, is orbiting the white dwarf about 4,200 light-years away from our solar system near the bulge at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, according to a study using data from Hawaii-based telescopes. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, about 9.5 trillion kilometers.

The white dwarf began as an ordinary star one or two times the mass of the sun. Its current mass is about half the sun’s. Stars with a mass less than eight times the sun’s end their lives as a white dwarf, the most common type of stellar remnant.

Before its host star’s death, the planet orbited at a distance possibly placing it in the “habitable zone” — not too hot and not too cold, where liquid water could exist on the surface and perhaps support life. It originally orbited at about the same distance as Earth is to the sun. Following its star’s demise, it is at 2.1 times that distance.

“It’s currently a freezing world because the white dwarf, which is in fact smaller than the planet, is extremely faint compared to when it was a normal star,” said University of California, San Diego astronomer Keming Zhang, lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The sun, roughly 4-1/2 billion years old, is destined to become a white dwarf.

“At the end of our sun’s life, it will puff up to enormous size — astronomers call it a red giant — and gently blow off its outer layers in a wind,” University of California, Berkeley astronomer and study co-author Jessica Lu said. “As our sun loses mass, the planets’ orbits will expand to larger sizes. Eventually, the sun loses all of its outer layers and leaves behind a hot compact core. This is called a white dwarf.”

Earth won’t always be habitable

Astronomers have debated whether Earth — the third planet from the sun, with Venus the second and Mars the fourth — would be engulfed and destroyed when the sun expands during its red giant phase, estimated to occur 7 billion years from now. It will become a white dwarf a billion years after that.

“Theoretical models disagree as to whether Earth could survive. Venus will most certainly be engulfed whereas Mars will most certainly survive. Our modeling shows that this planet very likely had a similar orbit to Earth before its host star became a red giant. It implies that Earth’s chances for survival may be higher than currently thought,” Zhang said.

Until now, only gas-giant planets larger than Jupiter, our solar system’s biggest planet, had been spotted orbiting white dwarfs.

The white dwarf is orbited by two bodies — the Earth-like planet and, further out, a brown dwarf, an object bigger than a planet but smaller than a star.

The planet endured tough times during its star’s death throes.

“It may have been a lava planet when the star became a red giant, then eventually cooled down to its current freezing state,” Zhang said.

As the sun ages and heats up, our solar system’s habitable zone would move outward. Earth will remain habitable for less than about a billion more years from now, by which point its oceans likely will have evaporated, Zhang said.

Does this mean certain doom for humankind — or whatever life still resides on Earth?

“We must migrate out of Earth prior to the 1-billion-year time scale,” Zhang said.

By the time the sun becomes a red giant, certain large moons in the outer solar system like Jupiter’s Ganymede and Saturn’s Titan and Enceladus may offer a refuge, Zhang added.

“There’s hope,” Zhang said.
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