Category: Silicon Valley

NEW YORK — California and several environmental groups sued ExxonMobil on Monday and accused the oil giant of engaging in a decades-long campaign that helped fuel global plastic waste pollution. 

Speaking at an event during Climate Week in New York City, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state sued Exxon after concluding a nearly two-year investigation that he said showed Exxon was deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling. 

“Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception,” Bonta said in a statement. 

The investigation mirrors California’s previous probes into the oil industry’s alleged efforts to mislead the public about climate change, which the state is also suing over, and continues a long-standing adversarial relationship between the state and Big Oil. 

Once a major crude supplier, California’s oil production has been on a steady decline for almost four decades, with companies saying the regulatory environment there makes it a difficult place to invest. 

Exxon rival Chevron Corp., meanwhile, a strong critic of California’s policies, said this year it plans to move its headquarters from the state where it was born to oil-friendly Texas.  

A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club appeared to join California’s legal battle, filing a related lawsuit in the same state court in San Francisco, raising similar allegations against Exxon. 

Bonta, a Democrat, said his office specifically had sought information on Exxon’s promotion of its “advanced recycling” technology, which uses a process called pyrolysis to turn hard-to-recycle plastic into fuel.  

He had said the technology’s slow progress was a sign of Exxon’s ongoing deception. He said he wants to secure an abatement fund and civil penalties for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution on California. 

Exxon pushed back at the attorney general, arguing that solutions like advanced recycling work. 

“Suing people makes headlines but doesn’t solve the plastic waste problem. Advanced recycling is a real solution,” said a spokesperson for ExxonMobil, adding that California has done “nothing to ‘advance’ recycling.” 

Notre Dame Law School Professor Bruce Huber, who specializes in environmental law, said California may face an “uphill battle” with its lawsuit. 

“The state’s primary claim relies on public nuisance, a notoriously murky area of law. It could be difficult for a court to grant California relief here without opening a Pandora’s box of other, similar claims,” he said. 

Exxon is the world’s largest producer of resins used for single-use plastics, according to a report published last year by the Minderoo Foundation, with consultancies Wood Mackenzie and the Carbon Trust. 

Reuters has reported on the enormous obstacles facing advanced recycling that the plastics industry touts as an environmental savior. 

California’s lawsuit comes ahead of a final round of global plastic treaty negotiations set to take place in Busan, South Korea, at the end of the year. 

In those talks, countries are split over whether the treaty should call for caps on plastic production, a position opposed by Exxon and the global petrochemical industry. 

The United States last month said it supports a treaty designed around global plastic production cuts. 

Environmental groups praised the lawsuit.  

Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said California’s lawsuit will “hold industry accountable and debunk the plastics recycling narrative that holds us back from real solutions.”
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New York — The U.S. Commerce Department said Monday it’s seeking a ban on the sale of connected and autonomous vehicles in the U.S. that are equipped with Chinese and Russian software and hardware with the stated goal of protecting national security and U.S. drivers.

While there is minimal Chinese and Russian software deployed in the U.S, the issue is more complicated for hardware. That’s why Commerce officials said the prohibitions on the software would take effect for the 2027 model year and the prohibitions on hardware would take effect for the model year of 2030, or Jan. 1, 2029, for units without a model year.

The measure announced Monday is proactive but critical, the agency said, given that all the bells and whistles in cars like microphones, cameras, GPS tracking and Bluetooth technology could make Americans more vulnerable to bad actors and potentially expose personal information, from the home address of drivers, to where their children go to school.

In extreme situations, a foreign adversary could shut down or take simultaneous control of multiple vehicles operating in the United States, causing crashes and blocking roads, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters on a call Sunday.

“This is not about trade or economic advantage,” Raimondo said. “This is a strictly national security action. The good news is right now, we don’t have many Chinese or Russian cars on our road.”

But Raimondo said Europe and other regions in the world where Chinese vehicles have become commonplace very quickly should serve as “a cautionary tale” for the U.S.

Security concerns around the extensive software-driven functions in Chinese vehicles have arisen in Europe, where Chinese electric cars have rapidly gained market share.

“Who controls these data flows and software updates is a far from trivial question, the answers to which encroach on matters of national security, cybersecurity, and individual privacy,” Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the council’s website.

Vehicles are now “mobility platforms” that monitor driver and passenger behavior and track their surroundings.

A senior administration official said that it is clear from terms of service contracts included with the technology that data from vehicles ends up in China.

Raimondo said that the U.S. won’t wait until its roads are populated with Chinese or Russian cars.

“We’re issuing a proposed rule to address these new national security threats before suppliers, automakers and car components linked to China or Russia become commonplace and widespread in the U.S. automotive sector,” Raimondo said.

It is difficult to know when China could reach that level of saturation, a senior administration official said, but the Commerce Department says China hopes to enter the U.S. market and several Chinese companies have already announced plans to enter the automotive software space.

The Commerce Department added Russia to the regulations since the country is trying to “breathe new life into its auto industry,” senior administration officials said on the call.

The proposed rule would prohibit the import and sale of vehicles with Russia and China-manufactured software and hardware that would allow the vehicle to communicate externally through Bluetooth, cellular, satellite or Wi-Fi modules. It would also prohibit the sale or import of software components made in Russia or the People’s Republic of China that collectively allow a highly autonomous vehicle to operate without a driver behind the wheel. The ban would include vehicles made in the U.S. using Chinese and Russian technology.

The proposed rule would apply to all vehicles, but would exclude those not used on public roads, such as agricultural or mining vehicles.

U.S. automakers said they share the government’s national security goal, but at present there is little connected vehicle hardware or software coming to the U.S. supply chain from China.

Yet the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a large industry group, said the new rules will make some automakers scramble for new parts suppliers. “You can’t just flip a switch and change the world’s most complex supply chain overnight,” John Bozzella, the alliance’s CEO, said in a statement.

The lead time in the new rules will be long enough for some automakers to make the changes, “but may be too short for others,” Bozzella said.

Commerce officials met with all the major auto companies around the world while it drafted the proposed rule to better understand supply chain networks, according to senior administration officials, and also met with a variety of industry associations.

The Commerce Department is inviting public comments, which are due 30 days after publication of a rule before it’s finalized. That should happen by the end of the Biden Administration.

The new rule follows steps taken earlier this month by the Biden administration to crack down on cheap products sold out of China, including electric vehicles, expanding a push to reduce U.S. dependence on Beijing and bolster homegrown industry.
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Moscow — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Monday in Kazakhstan, ending a record-breaking stay for the Russian pair.

The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe about 3 1/2 hours after undocking from the ISS in an apparently trouble-free descent. In the last stage of the landing, it descended under a red-and-white parachute at about 7.2 meters per second (16 mph), with small rockets fired in the final seconds to cushion the touchdown.

The astronauts were extracted from the capsule and placed in nearby chairs to help them adjust to gravity, then given medical examinations in a nearby tent.

Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub returned after 374 days aboard the space station; on Friday they broke the record for the longest continuous stay there. Also in the capsule was American Tracy Dyson, who was in the space station for six months.

Eight astronauts remain in the space station, including Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have remained long past their scheduled return to Earth.

They arrived in June as the first crew of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule. But their trip was marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks, and the U.S. space agency NASA decided it was too risky to return them on Starliner.

The two astronauts are to ride home with SpaceX next year.
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Cairo — Cholera is spreading in war-torn Sudan, killing at least 388 people and sickening about 13,000 others over the past two months, health authorities said, as more than 17 months of fighting between the military and a notorious paramilitary group shows no sign of abating.  

The disease is spreading in areas devastated by recent heavy rainfall and floods especially in eastern Sudan where millions of war displaced people sheltered.  

The casualties from cholera included six dead and about 400 sickened over the weekend, according to Sunday’s report by the Health Ministry. The disease was detected in 10 of the country’s 18 provinces with the eastern Kassala and al-Qadarif provinces the most hit, the ministry said.  

Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to the World Health Organization. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.   

The disease is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.  

Sudan was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open warfare across the country.  

The fighting, which wrecked the capital, Khartoum, and other urban areas has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.  

It has killed at least 20,000 people and wounded tens of thousands others, according to the U.N. However, rights groups and activists say the toll was much higher.  

The war also has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. They include over 2.3 million who fled to neighboring countries.  

Devastating seasonal floods and cholera have compounded the Sudanese misery. At least 225 people have been killed and about 900 others were injured in the floods, the Health Ministry said. Critical infrastructure has been washed away, and more than 76,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged, it said.  

Famine was also confirmed in July in the Zamzam camp for displaced people, which is located about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from North Darfur’s embattled capital of al-Fasher, according to global experts from the Famine Review Committee. About 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger this year, they warned.  

Fighting, meanwhile, rages in al-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur that is still held by the military. The RSF has been attempting to retake it since the start of the year.  

Last week, the paramilitary force and its allied Arab militias launched a new attack on the city. The military said its forces, aided by rebel groups, managed to repel the attack and kill hundreds of RSF fighters, including two senior commanders. 
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Washington — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected on Monday to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns, two sources told Reuters.

The Biden administration has raised serious concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on U.S. drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the internet and navigation systems.

The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the decision had not been publicly disclosed.

The move is a significant escalation in the United States’ ongoing restrictions on Chinese vehicles, software and components. Last week, the Biden administration locked in steep tariff hikes on Chinese imports, including a 100% duty on electric vehicles as well as new hikes on EV batteries and key minerals.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May the risks of Chinese software or hardware in connected U.S. vehicles were significant.

“You can imagine the most catastrophic outcome theoretically if you had a couple million cars on the road and the software were disabled,” she said.

President Joe Biden in February ordered an investigation into whether Chinese vehicle imports pose national security risks over connected-car technology — and if that software and hardware should be banned in all vehicles on U.S. roads.

“China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security,” Biden said earlier. “I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.”

The Commerce Department plans to give the public 30 days to comment before any finalization of the rules, the sources said. Nearly all newer vehicles on U.S. roads are considered “connected.” Such vehicles have onboard network hardware that allows internet access, allowing them to share data with devices both inside and outside the vehicle.

The department also plans to propose making the prohibitions on software effective in the 2027 model year and the ban on hardware would take effect in January 2029 or the 2030 model year. The prohibitions in question would include vehicles with certain Bluetooth, satellite and wireless features as well as highly autonomous vehicles that could operate without a driver behind the wheel.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers in November raised alarm about Chinese auto and tech companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States.

The prohibitions would extend to other foreign U.S. adversaries, including Russia, the sources said.

A trade group representing major automakers including General Motors, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai and others had warned that changing hardware and software would take time.

The carmakers noted their systems “undergo extensive pre-production engineering, testing, and validation processes and, in general, cannot be easily swapped with systems or components from a different supplier.”

The Commerce Department declined to comment on Saturday. Reuters first reported, in early August, details of a plan that would have the effect of barring the testing of autonomous vehicles by Chinese automakers on U.S. roads. There are relatively few Chinese-made light-duty vehicles imported into the United States.

The White House on Thursday signed off on the final proposal, according to a government website. The rule is aimed at ensuring the security of the supply chain for U.S. connected vehicles. It will apply to all vehicles on U.S. roads, but not for agriculture or mining vehicles, the sources said.

Biden noted that most cars are connected like smartphones on wheels, linked to phones, navigation systems, critical infrastructure and to the companies that made them.
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United Nations, United States — The United Nations on Sunday adopted a “Pact for the Future” aimed at addressing sprawling 21st-century challenges ranging from conflict to climate change and human rights, despite last-minute objections from a group of countries led by Russia.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who organized the “Summit of the Future,” had billed it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to reshape human history by rekindling international cooperation.

As an opening act for the annual high-level week of the U.N. General Assembly, which begins Tuesday, dozens of heads of state and government gathered for the signing of the text.

In the adopted version, leaders pledged to bolster the multilateral system to “keep pace with a changing world” and to “protect the needs and interests of current and future generations” facing “persistent crisis.”

“We believe there is a path to a brighter future for all of humanity,” the document says.

The pact outlines 56 “actions,” including commitments to multilateralism, upholding the U.N. Charter and peacekeeping.

It also calls for reforms to international financial institutions and the U.N. Security Council, along with renewed efforts to combat climate change, promote disarmament, and guide the development of artificial intelligence.

The adoption of the text faced a brief delay when Russia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Vershinin, introduced an amendment emphasizing the “principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states” and urging the U.N. to avoid duplicating efforts.

Russia’s objections were backed by allies Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua and Syria, but its amendment was overwhelmingly dismissed in a motion to take no action.

During the negotiations phase, Guterres had urged nations to show “vision” and “courage,” calling for “maximum ambition” to strengthen international institutions that struggle to respond effectively to today’s threats.

But while there are some “good ideas,” the text “is not the sort of revolutionary document reforming the whole of multilateralism that Antonio Guterres had originally called for,” Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group told AFP.

That sentiment was widely shared among diplomats, many of whom expressed frustration when discussing the ambition and impact of the text, describing it as “lukewarm,” “the lowest common denominator,” and “disappointing.”

“Ideally, you would hope for new ideas, fresh ideas,” said one diplomat.

The fight against global warming was one of the sticking points in the negotiations, with references to the “transition” away from fossil fuels having disappeared from the draft text weeks ago, before being re-inserted.

Despite the criticism, it is still “an opportunity to affirm our collective commitment to multilateralism, even in the difficult current geopolitical context,” one Western diplomat said, emphasizing the need to rebuild trust between the Global North and South.

Developing countries have been particularly vocal in demanding concrete commitments on the reform of international financial institutions, aiming to secure easier access to preferential financing, especially considering the impacts of climate change.

The text does indeed include “important commitments on economic justice and reforming the international financial architecture,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) commented, while also praising “the centrality of human rights.”

However, world leaders “still need to demonstrate that they are willing to act to uphold human rights,” said Louis Charbonneau, HRW’s U.N. director.

Regardless of its content, the pact and its annexes — a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations — are non-binding, raising concerns about implementation, especially as some principles — such as the protection of civilians in conflict — are violated daily.

“Our next task is to breathe life into them, to turn words into action,” Guterres urged on Saturday.
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TEFE, Brazil — The carcass of a baby dolphin lay on the sand bank left exposed by the receding waters in an Amazon lake that has been drying up during the worst drought on record. 

Researchers recovered the dead animal on Wednesday and measured water temperatures that have been rising as the lake’s level drops. In last year’s drought, more than 200 of the endangered freshwater dolphins died in Lake Tefe from excessive water temperatures. 

“We’ve found several dead animals. Last week, we found one a day on average,” said Miriam Marmontel, head of the dolphin project at the Mamiraua Institute for Sustainable Development.  

“We’re not yet associating the deaths with changes in water temperatures, but with the exacerbation of the proximity between human populations, mainly fishermen, and the animals,” she said. 

With branches of major rivers in the Amazon basin drying up in this year’s critical drought, the lake connected to the Solimoes River has shrunk, leaving less room for the dolphins in their favorite habitat. 

The lake’s main channel is 2 meters deep and roughly 100 meters wide, and it is used by all the boat traffic, from canoes to heavy ferries, Marmontel said. Two dolphins were killed recently when boats ran into them in the shallow water. 

“Nobody thought this drought would come so quickly or imagine that it would surpass last year’s drought,” fisherman Clodomar Lima said. 

While the dolphin deaths are nowhere close to last year’s toll, the dry season has more than a month to go and water levels will continue to decline, the researcher said. 

And it is not just the rare dolphin species that are suffering. Riverine communities across the Amazon are stranded by the lack of transport on waters too shallow for boats, and their floating houses are now on solid ground. 

Even houses built on stilts over water are now high and dry a distance from the river shore. 

Lake Tefe resident Francisco Alvaro Santos said it was the first time ever that his floating house was out of the water. 

“Water is everything to us. It is part of our daily lives, the means of transportation for everyone who live here,” said Santos. “Without water we are nobody!”
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LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — On his first day of school at Newcomer Academy, Maikel Tejeda was whisked to the school library. The 7th grader didn’t know why.

He soon got the point: He was being given make-up vaccinations. Five of them.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” said the 12-year-old, who moved from Cuba early this year.

Across the library, a group of city, state and federal officials gathered to celebrate the school clinic, and the city. With U.S. childhood vaccination rates below their goals, Louisville and the state were being praised as success stories: Kentucky’s vaccination rate for kindergarteners rose 2 percentage points in the 2022-23 school year compared with the year before. The rate for Jefferson County — which is Louisville — was up 4 percentage points.

“Progress is success,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that progress didn’t last. Kentucky’s school entry vaccination rate slipped last year. Jefferson County’s rate slid, too. And the rates for both the county and state remain well below the target thresholds.

It raises the question: If this is what success looks like, what does it say about the nation’s ability to stop imported infections from turning into community outbreaks?

Local officials believe they can get to herd immunity thresholds, but they acknowledge challenges that includes tight funding, misinformation and well-intended bureaucratic rules that can discourage doctors from giving kids shots.

“We’re closing the gap,” said Eva Stone, who has managed the county school system’s health services since 2018. “We’re not closing the gap very quickly.”

Falling vaccination rates

Public health experts focus on vaccination rates for kindergartners because schools can be cauldrons for germs and the launching pad for community outbreaks.

For years, those rates were high, thanks largely to mandates that required key vaccinations as a condition of school attendance.

But they have slid in recent years. When COVID-19 started hitting the U.S. hard in 2020, schools were closed, visits to pediatricians declined and vaccination record-keeping fell off. Meanwhile, more parents questioned routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect that experts attribute to misinformation and the political schism that emerged around COVID-19 vaccines.

A Gallup survey released last month found that 40% of Americans said it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% in 2019. Meanwhile, a recent University of Pennsylvania survey of 1,500 people found that about 1 in 4 U.S. adults think the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism — despite no medical evidence for it.

All that has led more parents to seek exemptions to school entry vaccinations. The CDC has not yet reported national data for the 2023-24 school year, but the proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school vaccination requirements the year before hit a record 3%.

Overall, 93% of kindergartners got their required shots for the 2022-23 school year. The rate was 95% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials worry slipping vaccination rates will lead to disease outbreaks.

The roughly 250 U.S. measles cases reported so far this year are the most since 2019, and Oregon is seeing its largest outbreak in more than 30 years.

Kentucky has been experiencing its worst outbreak of whooping cough — another vaccine-preventable disease — since 2017. Nationally, nearly 14,000 cases have been reported this year, the most since 2019.

Persuading parents

The whooping cough surge is a warning sign but also an opportunity, said Kim Tolley, a California-based historian who wrote a book last year on the vaccination of American schoolchildren. She called for a public relations campaign to “get everybody behind” improving immunizations.

Much of the discussion about raising vaccination rates centers on campaigns designed to educate parents about the importance of vaccinating children — especially those on the fence about getting shots for their kids.

But experts are still hashing out what kind of messaging work best: Is it better, for example, to say “vaccinate” or “immunize”?

A lot of the messaging is influenced by feedback from small focus groups. One takeaway is some people have less trust in health officials and even their own doctors than they once did. Another is that they strongly trust their own feelings about vaccines and what they’ve seen in Internet searches or heard from other sources.

“Their overconfidence is hard to shake. It’s hard to poke holes in it,” said Mike Perry, who ran focus groups on behalf of a group called the Public Health Communications Collaborative.

But many people seem more trusting of older vaccines. And they do seem to be at least curious about information they didn’t know, including the history of research behind vaccines and the dangers of the diseases they were created to fight, he said.

Improving access

Dolores Albarracin has studied vaccination improvement strategies in 17 countries, and repeatedly found that the most effective strategy is to make it easier for kids to get vaccinated.

“In practice, most people are not vaccinating simply because they don’t have money to take the bus” or have other troubles getting to appointments, said Albarracin, director of the communication science division within Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

That’s a problem in Louisville, where officials say few doctors were providing vaccinations to children enrolled in Medicaid and fewer still were providing shots to kids without any health insurance. An analysis a few years ago indicated 1 in 5 children — about 20,000 kids — were not current on their vaccinations, and most of them were poor, said Stone, the county school health manager.

A 30-year-old federal program called Vaccines for Children pays for vaccinations for children who Medicaid-eligible or lack the insurance to cover it.

But in a meeting with the CDC director last month, Louisville health officials lamented that most local doctors don’t participate in the program because of paperwork and other administrative headaches. And it can be tough for patients to get the time and transportation to get to those few dozen Louisville providers who do take part.

The school system has tried to fill the gap. In 2019, it applied to become a VFC provider, and gradually established vaccine clinics.

Last year, it held clinics at nearly all 160 schools, and it’s doing the same thing this year. The first was at Newcomer Academy, where many immigrant students behind on their vaccinations are started in the school system.

It’s been challenging, Stone said. Funding is very limited. There are bureaucratic obstacles, and a growing influx of children from other countries who need shots. It takes multiple trips to a doctor or clinic to complete some vaccine series. And then there’s the opposition — vaccination clinic announcements tend to draw hateful social media comments. 
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SACRAMENTO, California — California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Governor Gavin Newsom signed Friday. 

California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but those have faced challenges in court. 

The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users’ personal information in ways that could harm children. 

It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impact of social media on the well-being of children. 

“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.” 

The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between midnight and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children’s accounts to private by default. 

Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their age. Some argue it would threaten online privacy by making platforms collect more information on users. 

The law defines an “addictive feed” as a website or app “in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user’s device,” with some exceptions. 

The subject garnered renewed attention in June when U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their impacts on young people. Attorneys general in 42 states endorsed the plan in a letter sent to Congress last week. 

State Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley who wrote the California law, said that “social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids.” 

“With the passage of SB 976, the California Legislature has sent a clear message: When social media companies won’t act, it’s our responsibility to protect our kids,” she said in a statement.
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PORTLAND, Maine — Fall is back, and bringing with it jack-o’-lanterns, football, pumpkin spice everything and — in some parts of the country — especially vibrant foliage.

Leaves around the northern United States are starting to turn orange, yellow and red, inspiring legions of leaf lovers to hop in their cars and travel to the countryside for the best look at fall’s fireworks. Leaf peeping — the act of traveling to witness nature’s annual kaleidoscope — contributes billions of dollars to the economy, especially in New England and New York.

But this year, some of the most colorful displays could be in the Midwest. AccuWeather, the commercial forecasting service, said in early September that it expects especially vibrant foliage in states such as Michigan and Illinois.

The service also said powerful, popping colors are expected in upstate New York and parts of Pennsylvania, while New England will follow a more typical color pattern. But that doesn’t mean New England travelers will miss out.

Maine, the most forested state in the country, had “an abundance of daily sunshine with just the right amount of rainfall to set the stage for a breathtaking foliage season,” said Gale Ross, the state’s fall foliage spokesperson. Color change and timing depend on the weather in the fall, but cooler nighttime temperatures and shorter days should enhance the colors, Ross said.

“The growing season of 2024 has been excellent for trees, supporting tree health and resilience that should lead to brilliant fall colors throughout Maine,” said Aaron Bergdahl, the state’s forest pathologist.

Fall colors peak at different times around the U.S., with the foliage season sometimes starting not long after Labor Day in the far northern reaches of the country and extending into November further to the south. In Maine alone, peak foliage can arrive in the northern part of the state in late September and not arrive in coastal areas until close to Halloween.

Leaf turn happens when summer yields to fall and temperatures drop and the amount of sunlight decreases. Chlorophyll in leaves then breaks down, and that allows their fall colors to shine through before leaf drop.

However, weather conditions associated with climate change have disrupted some recent leaf peeping seasons. A warming planet has brought drought that causes leaves to turn brown and wither before reaching peak colors.

Other enemies of leaf peeping include heat waves that cause leaves to fall before autumn arrives and extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves. A summer heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021 caused a condition called “foliage scorch” that prematurely browned leaves.

This year in Maine, leaf turn was still very sparse in most of the state as late September approached, but the state office of tourism was already gearing up for an influx of tourists. Northern Maine was already experiencing moderate color change. And neighboring New Hampshire was expecting about 3.7 million visitors — more than twice the state’s population.

“It’s no surprise people travel from all over the world to catch the incredible color,” said New Hampshire Travel and Tourism Director Lori Harnois.
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NEW YORK — Six years after a teenage Greta Thunberg walked out of school in a solitary climate protest outside of the Swedish parliament, people around a warming globe marched in youth-led protest, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently acted upon.

Emissions of heat-trapping gases and temperatures have been rising and oil and gas drilling has continued, even as the protests that kicked off major weeklong climate events in New York City have become annual events. This year, they come days before the United Nations convenes two special summits, one concentrating on sea level rise and the other on the future.

The young people who organized these marches with Fridays for Future said there is frustration with inaction but also hope. People marched in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi and elsewhere, but the focus often is in New York City because of Climate Week NYC. Diplomats, business leaders and activists are concentrating their discussions on the money end of fighting climate change — something not lost on protesters.

“We hope that the government and the financial sector make polluters pay for the damage that they have imposed on our environment,” said Uganda Fridays for Future founder Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, who was among a few hundred marching in New York Friday, a far cry from the tens of thousands that protested in a multigroup mega-rally in 2023.

The New York protest wants to take aim at “the pillars of fossil fuels” — companies that pollute, banks that fund them and leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at the city’s Stuyvesant High School.

“A lot of older people want to make sure the economy is intact, and that’s their main concern,” said Julia Demairo, a sophomore at Pace University. “I think worrying about the future and the environment is worrying about the economy.”

On a day that was at least 8 degrees warmer than average, protest signs included “This is not what we mean by Hot Girl Summer,” while others focused on the theme of fighting the coal, oil and gas industries: “Youth Didn’t Vote for Fossil Fuels,” “Don’t Be a Fossil Fool” and “Climate Crisis = Extermination By Capitalism.”

Nakabuye said she was in New York to represent Uganda “that is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”

“We feel like we are creating an impact in the community. However, we are not listened to enough; there is more that needs to be done, especially right now when the climate catastrophes are intensifying,” said Nakabuye. “We need to even raise our voices more to demand change and to demand that fuels should end.”

In the six years since Thunberg founded what became Fridays for Future, global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by about 2.15%, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who monitor carbon pollution.

The growth of emissions has slowed compared with previous decades and experts anticipate peaking soon, but that’s a far cry from the 43% reduction that a U.N. report said is needed to keep temperature increases to an agreed-upon limit.

Since 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from coal have increased by nearly 900 million metric tons, while natural gas emissions have increased slightly and oil pollution has dropped a tiny amount, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. That growth has been driven by China, India and developing nations.

But emissions from advanced or industrialized economies have been falling and in 2023 were the lowest in more than 50 years, according to the IEA. Coal emissions in rich countries are down to levels seen around the year 1900, and the United Kingdom next month is set to shutter its last coal plant.

In the past five years, clean energy sources have grown twice as fast as fossil fuels, with solar and wind individually growing faster than fossil fuel-based electricity, according to the IEA. Developing countries — where more than 80% of the world population lives — say that they need financial help to curb their increasing use of fossil fuels.

Since 2018, the globe has warmed more than 0.29 degrees Celsius, with last year setting a record for the hottest year and this year poised to break that mark, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European climate agency Copernicus.

“We’re making progress, even if it’s slow progress,” said 17-year-old Ashen Harper of Connecticut, a veteran protester turned organizer. “Our job right now is to accelerate that progress.”

In Berlin, hundreds of people took to the streets, although in fewer numbers than in previous years. Activists held up signs saying, “Save the Climate” and “Coal is Over!” as they watched a gig put on outside the German Chancellor’s Office. Protesters in London held up letters spelling out “Pay Up,” calling for the country to pay more to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels.
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KOLKATA, INDIA — Striking junior doctors in India’s West Bengal state agreed to resume essential services, in a partial resumption of medical facilities, but they will continue their strike over the rape and murder of a colleague over a month ago.

The rape and murder of the 31-year-old female doctor in West Bengal in August set off a wave of protests by doctors demanding greater workplace safety for women and justice for their slain colleague, prompting India’s Supreme Court to create a hospital safety task force.

The junior doctors will resume essential duties from Saturday, the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, which represents about 7,000 physicians in the state, said in a statement on Thursday.

“The movement for ‘justice’ will continue in each state-run hospital but we have decided to resume essential services in hospitals due to the flood situation in parts of the state,” said Aniket Mahato of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front.

Doctors are demanding better security, included additional CCTV coverage, deployment of female security personnel and adequate lighting, toilets and resting spaces.

A police volunteer has been arrested in connection with the doctor’s rape and death in the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. The former principal of the college has been arrested over accusations of evidence tampering and graft, and the Kolkata police chief has been replaced.

Although tougher laws were introduced after the 2012 gruesome gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in national capital New Delhi, activists say the Kolkata case shows how women in the country continue to suffer from sexual violence.
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KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard.

Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure.

Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO’s most recent count.

Has Congo seen cases of mpox before?

Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where mpox has been endemic for decades.

Mpox, once known as monkeypox, comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms such as fever. People with more serious cases can develop skin lesions. More than 720 people in Africa have died in the latest outbreaks, mostly in Congo.

Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can spread to humans from infected animals. In the global mpox outbreak of 2022, the virus spread between people primarily through sex and close physical contact.

What changed in Congo?

In September 2023, mpox spread to Congo’s eastern province of South Kivu; it had previously been seen in the center and far west. Scientists then identified a new form of mpox in South Kivu that may be more infectious.

The WHO said that from the outbreak in South Kivu, the virus spread among people elsewhere in the country, arriving in neighboring province North Kivu. Those two provinces — some 2,000 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa — face escalating violence, a humanitarian crisis and other issues.

What are the problems in eastern Congo?

More than 120 armed groups have been fighting each other and the Congolese army for years in the eastern part of the country over the control of minerals. That has forced millions of people fleeing violence into refugee camps or nearby towns.

That means mpox is hitting already-stretched health facilities. Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, medical director of the Kavumu hospital in eastern Congo, said it is “truly a challenge” — sometimes treating as many as four times the facility’s capacity for patients.

With more than 6 million displaced people in the east, authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to provide food and healthcare, while fighting other diseases such as cholera. Many people have no access to soap, clean water or other basics.

Some eastern Congo communities are out of reach of health clinics — roads are unreliable, and hourslong risky boat trips are sometimes the only means of transport, said Mercy Muthee Lake of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.

People can be more susceptible to severe mpox cases because of malnutrition and undiagnosed HIV, she said.

She also said health workers in eastern Congo have requested more mpox training as medications to treat fever and ease pain run out.

Health authorities “are up against it because it’s such a complex area,” said Chris Beyrer, of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

What about vaccines?

Africa has no capacity to produce mpox vaccines. Around 250,000 doses have arrived in Congo from the European Union and the United States, and more are expected. Congolese authorities say they need around 3 million vaccines. It will likely be weeks before any vaccines reach people in eastern Congo.

For now, the vaccine is approved only for adults. There’s limited evidence of how it works in children.

Vaccines are desperately needed, but they’re just “an additional tool,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the Congo representative for Doctors Without Borders. The key, Lampaert said, is still identifying cases, isolating patients, and executing grassroots health and education campaigns.

Local conditions make that trying — Lampaert noted it’s almost impossible to isolate cases among poor, displaced people.

“Families with six to eight children are living in a hut, which is maybe the space of the bed we are sleeping in,” he said. “So, this is the reality.”

Why are critics blasting the mpox response?

Unlike the millions of dollars that poured into Congo for Ebola and COVID aid, the response to mpox has been sluggish, many critics say.

Health experts say the sharp contrast is due to a lack of both funds and international interest.

“Ebola is the most dangerous virus in the world, and COVID wiped out the world economy,” said professor Ali Bulabula, who works on infectious diseases in the medical department at Congo’s University of Kindu. “While mpox is a public health emergency of international concern, there is a lack of in-depth research and interest in the virus, as it’s still seen as a tropical disease, localized to Africa with no major impact on Western economies.” 
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Harare, Zimbabwe — A new report released by the main United Nations agency for action on AIDS and HIV says growing public debt is choking sub-Saharan African countries, leaving them with little fiscal room to finance critical HIV services.

In the report, launched ahead of the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, asks the international community for more funding to ensure Africa eliminates AIDS by 2030.

She said Africa, which accounts for the largest number of people living with HIV — some 26 million out of 40 million globally — is overwhelmed by public debt.

Robert Shivambu, UNAIDS communication officer, told VOA: “The region’s success in having reduced new HIV infections by 56% since 2010 will not be sustained if fiscal space is constrained.”

Shivambu said the U.N. believes that when debt payments hinder countries’ ability to effectively look after health care needs of their people, global health security is put at risk.

Zimbabwe is one of the countries fighting to reduce the rate of HIV infection while dealing with high debt.

On Friday, parliament Speaker Jacob Mudenda told colleagues that the country had made strides in fighting HIV/AIDS, starting in 1999 as a pioneer of the AIDS levy — a 3% income tax for individuals and 3% tax on profits of employers.

He said that the budget of $387 million for HIV programs — largely foreign sponsored — was no longer enough and that there was need to expand the tax base.

“Let’s create wealth, when that wealth is created from our wealth, including mineral resources, we are going to be able to expand the tax base,” he said.

“From that expanded tax base we will be able as parliament to come with a very stout budget. These donations are going to dwindle, slowly but surely. This current funding level still falls far short of the estimated $500 million needed annually to achieve [the] ambitious goal of the Zimbabwe national AIDS strategic plan, especially with over 1 million people living with HIV now on anti-retroviral therapy.”

Mudenda declined to say if servicing Zimbabwe’s debt — which stands at $17.5 billion, according to the African Development Bank — was one reason funding for HIV programs is falling short.

Zimbabwe is battling to service its debt so that it can resume receiving loans from multilateral development banks such as the IMF and World Bank.

Shivambu said, “Public debt needs to be urgently reduced and domestic resource mobilization strengthened to enable the fiscal space to fully fund the HIV response and end AIDS. World leaders cannot let a resource crunch derail global progress to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”

That’s the message UNAIDS officials will take to the high-level summit of the U.N. General Assembly beginning next week.
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GENEVA — The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, warned Friday that children in Burundi are bearing the brunt of the mpox outbreak, with cases of this deadly, infectious disease spreading at an alarming rate among a young population.

“Of the nearly 600 reported cases, two-thirds are in children under 19. The situation has escalated rapidly, with a more-than-40% increase in cases over the past three weeks,” Dr. Paul Ngwakum, UNICEF’s regional health adviser for Eastern and Southern Africa, told journalists in Geneva via video link Friday.

Ngwakum, who currently is on a visit to Burundi, said, “The fear expressed by the parents and the resilience of communities in the face of this public health crisis” and the rapid escalation of the disease “were striking.”

Speaking from the capital, Bujumbura, he said the rise of mpox among children under the age of 5 is of particular concern as they represent 30% of the reported cases. This, he said, underscores the urgent need for targeted interventions to protect children from becoming infected as schools have reopened this week.

“UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Education to implement health measures in schools, train staff to recognize early symptoms of mpox and reinforce hand hygiene. We aim to ensure that all children can safely return to school and minimize educational disruptions,” he said, noting that this was “a rapidly evolving situation.”

Even amid the grim situation, he observed that Burundi has had no deaths from mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. He said this provides “an opportunity to end this outbreak in a very short time period.”

“The geographical area is still limited, and with concerted effort from all partners, we can limit the spread, contain the virus, and potentially end the outbreak with no lives lost,” said Ngwakum.

He added that “it was difficult to make firm statements regarding when the outbreak could be brought under control,” both in Burundi and the wider African region, a sentiment echoed by the World Health Organization.

WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told journalists, “The response to the outbreak is made more difficult by the context, with insecurity in the affected areas, and concurrent outbreaks of other diseases including measles and chickenpox. WHO is on the ground, working to stop these outbreaks.”

So far this year, the WHO reports there have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths among suspected cases in Africa. The most heavily infected country is the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 21,835 suspected cases and 717 deaths, followed by Burundi with 1,489 suspected cases and no deaths and Nigeria with 935 suspected cases and no deaths.

“Vaccination is going to be a very useful tool, particularly for trying to break the chains of transmission,” Harris said. “But the virus primarily spreads through close personal contact within families. And when people are living in difficult conditions, if they do not have access to the materials, to the soap, to the clean bedding, to the clean clothing, it is very, very difficult for them to not transmit.

“Many of the children who we have seen who have sadly died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were severely malnourished, had suffered the effects of conflict, and perhaps also had other diseases at the same time. … It may indeed be that this population cannot respond immunologically to yet another threat,” she warned.

While affirming the importance of vaccines in the fight against mpox, UNICEF representative Ngwakum observed that “unfortunately,” the vaccines that are available now “cannot be used for children.”

“I do not want to bank all our interventions on vaccines,” he said. “Vaccines are only one tool that can be used to protect children and communities against mpox. And we are, in addition to vaccines, deploying other different tools” to keep children safe, he said.

UNICEF says it is possible to halt the rapid spread of mpox if agencies act swiftly and have the means in which to do it. The U.N. children’s agency is urgently appealing for $58.8 million to scale up its humanitarian response across six African countries, including Burundi.

“These funds are essential to stop the transmission of mpox, protect children and maintain critical services like education and health care,” said Ngwakum.
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Washington — Based on the posts of an X account that bears the name of Dutch cartoonist Bart van Leeuwen, a profile picture of his face and short professional bio, one would think the Amsterdam-based artist is a staunch supporter of China and fierce critic of the United States.

In one post, the account blasts what it calls Washington’s “fallacies against the Chinese economy,” accompanied by a cartoon from the Global Times — a Beijing-controlled media outlet — showing Uncle Sam aiming but failing to hit a target emblazoned with the words “China’s economy.”

In another, the account reposts a Chinese propaganda video about the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, writing “today’s China is closely connected with the world, blending with each other, and achieving mutual success.”

But Van Leeuwen didn’t make the posts. In fact, this account doesn’t even belong to him.

It belongs to a China-connected network on X of “spamouflage” accounts, which pretend to be the work of real people but are in reality controlled by robots sending out messages designed to shape public opinion.

China has repeatedly rejected reports that it seeks to influence U.S. presidential elections, describing such claims as “fabricated.”

VOA Mandarin and DoubleThink Lab (DTL), a Taiwanese social media analytics firm, uncovered the fake Van Leeuwen account during a joint investigation into a network of spamouflage accounts working on behalf of the Chinese government.

The network, consisting of at least nine accounts, propagated Beijing’s talking points on issues including human rights abuses in China’s western Xinjiang province, territorial disputes with countries in the South China Sea and U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Fake account contradicts real artist

Van Leeuwen confirmed in an interview with VOA Mandarin that he had nothing to do with and was not aware of the fake account.

“It’s ironic that my identity, being a political cartoonist, is being used for political propaganda,” he told VOA in a written statement.

The real Van Leeuwen is an award-winning cartoonist whose works have been published on news outlets around the world, such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Korea Times, Sing Tao Daily in Hong Kong and Gulf Today in the United Arab Emirates.

He specializes in editorial cartoons, whose main subjects include global politics, elections in the U.S. and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Several of his past illustrations made fun of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s economic policies and the opaqueness of Beijing’s inner political struggles.

After being contacted by VOA Mandarin, a spokesman from X said the fake account has been suspended.

Other than finding irony in being impersonated by a Chinese propaganda bot, Van Leeuwen said the incident also worries him.

“This example once again highlights the need for far-reaching measures regarding the restriction of social media,” Van Leeuwen wrote in his statement, “especially with irresponsible people like Elon Musk at the helm.”

After purchasing what was then called Twitter in 2022, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO vowed to reduce the prevalence of bots on the platform, but many users complain it has become even worse.

Musk, the world’s richest person, is a so-called “free speech absolutist,” opposing almost all censorship of people voicing their views. Critics say his policy allows racist and false information to flourish on X.

Former President Donald Trump has praised Musk’s business acumen and said he plans to have the man who may become the world’s first trillionaire head a commission on government efficiency if he is reelected in November.

Network of spamouflage accounts

Before its suspension, the X account that impersonated Van Leeuwen had close to 1,000 followers, more than Van Leeuwen’s real X account. It was registered in 2013, but its first post came only last year. The account’s early posts were mostly encouraging and inspiring words in Chinese. It also posted many dance videos.

Gradually, the account started to mix in more and more political narratives, criticizing the U.S. and defending China. It often reposted content from another spamouflage account called “Grey World.”

“Grey World” used a photo of an attractive Asian woman as its profile picture. Most of its posts were supportive of Beijing’s talking points. It regularly posted videos and cartoons from Chinese state media. It also posted several of Van Leeuwen’s cartoons about American politics.

VOA Mandarin and DTL’s investigation identified “Grey World” as the main spamouflage account in a network of nine such accounts. Other accounts in the network, including the fake Van Leeuwen account, amplified “Grey World” by reposting its content.

But posts from “Grey World” had limited reach on X, despite having tens of thousands of followers. For example, between August 18 and September 1, its most popular post, a diatribe against Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy, was viewed a little over 10,000 times but only had 35 reposts and 65 likes.

After the suspension of the fake Van Leeuwen account, X also shut down the “Grey World” account.

The spamouflage network is not the first linked to China.

In April, British researchers released a report saying Chinese nationalist trolls were posing as American supporters of Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election.

U.S. federal prosecutors in 2023 accused China’s Ministry of Public Security of having a covert social media propaganda campaign that also aimed to influence U.S. elections.

Researchers at Facebook’s parent company Meta said it was the largest known covert propaganda operation ever identified on that platform and Instagram, reported Rolling Stone magazine.

Network analysis firm Graphika called the pro-Chinese network “Spamouflage Dragon,” part of a campaign it identified in early 2020 that was at the time posting content that praised Beijing’s policies and attacked those of then-President Trump.
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