Daily Archives: June 3, 2021


Twitter Announces New Premium Services 

Twitter announced a new premium service for users in Canada and Australia that allows paying users to adjust tweets, among other features.Called Twitter Blue, the service allows users to preview and modify a tweet up to 30 seconds before publishing it. Users can also bookmark and organize tweets, making them easier to find.Twitter Blue will also format threads, or series of tweets, into a more readable format.”We’ve heard from the people that use Twitter a lot, and we mean a lot, that we don’t always build power features that meet …


White House Urges US Companies to Protect Themselves Against Ransomware

The White House on Thursday urged American businesses to take new precautions to combat disruptive ransomware attacks that have increasingly hobbled companies throughout Western economies.Jen Psaki, President Joe Biden’s press secretary, urged private industry to harden access to their computer systems, saying the government “can’t do it alone.”Anne Neuberger, a White House cybersecurity official, said in a statement that the “most important takeaway” from the recent attacks, including those affecting a key gasoline pipeline and a meat production company in the U.S., is that “companies that view ransomware as a …


US Announces Plan to Share 80 Million Excess Vaccine Doses

The Biden administration on Thursday announced it will share 80 million excess doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of June, with FILE – A health worker talks to colleagues as they prepare to receive a coronavirus vaccine at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, March 5, 2021.Approximately 7 million doses will head to Asia, including to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Five million vaccine doses will be shared with …


Sponsors Hail Naomi Osaka’s ‘Courage’ on Mental Health

A few years ago, a star athlete dropping out of a major tennis tournament over mental health issues might have been seen as a sign of weakness.Today, at least for Naomi Osaka’s corporate sponsors, it is being hailed as refreshingly honest.That would explain why so many of them have stuck by Osaka after the four-time Grand Slam champion announced Monday that she was withdrawing from the French Open because she didn’t want to appear for the prerequisite news conferences that caused her “huge waves of anxiety.”Osaka, who also acknowledged suffering …


EU Introduces ‘Digital Wallet’ to Store Official Documents

The European Union (EU) Thursday unveiled its plans for a digital ID wallet that would hold all official documents residents would need to allow them access to the information at home or anywhere across the 27-nation bloc.   At a news briefing on the proposal in Brussels, European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said the European Digital Identity Wallet would be a smartphone app that would let users store electronic forms of identification and other official documents, such as driver’s licenses, prescriptions and school diplomas.   Vestager said the plan …


Bahrain Offers Pfizer-BioNTech Boosters to Those Previously Vaccinated with Chinese Shot

Just six months after receiving two shots of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, some people in Bahrain are being offered booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.The decision to mix vaccines comes as the Gulf state is experiencing a wave of virus infections despite having a very high per capita vaccination rate. The booster is being recommended for people who are over 50, obese or have weakened immune systems.Waleed Khalifa Al Manea, Bahrain’s undersecretary of health, told The Wall Street Journal that Sinopharm accounted for 60% of vaccinations in the country and that …


‘Good feeling’: Ai Weiwei Picks Portugal for New Show, Home 

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is putting on the biggest show of his career, and he is doing it in a place he’s fallen in love with: Portugal. The world-renowned visual artist’s new exhibition, “Rapture,” opens in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Friday. Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015. “I have a great feeling” about Portugal, the artist said Thursday. “This is a place I’m staying.” Ai’s show in São …


WHO Secures $2.4 Billion for Global COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing

The World Health Organization’s program to secure and distribute billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world’s poorest countries has received a major financial boost.   The COVAX initiative received nearly $2.4 billion in pledges Wednesday during a virtual summit hosted by Japan, which made the largest pledge with $800 million. The program also received significant financial pledges from Canada, France, Spain and Sweden.  COVAX has raised $9.6 billion since its creation.      Several nations also pledged to donate millions of doses from its domestic stockpiles to COVAX, with …


Video Art Pioneer Predicted Screen-Filled World

Decades before YouTube, there was Nam June Paik, a Korean American artist who believed all people should have their own TV channel. Matt Dibble explores a retrospective of this visionary video artist. Producer: Matt Dibble …


G-7 Health Ministers to Meet on Vaccine Sharing 

Britain is hosting a two-day summit of health ministers from the Group of Seven nations, with a focus on sharing vaccines and better identifying threats to global health security. The talks in Oxford on Thursday and Friday come ahead of a summit of G-7 leaders next week in Cornwall. Countries that have carried out large-scale vaccination efforts against COVID-19 are facing pressure to do more to help other parts of the world where vaccine supply has been short. World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “we need doses to be shared right …


Science Chief Wants Next Pandemic Vaccine Ready in 100 Days

The new White House science adviser hopes that for the next pandemic, a vaccine will be ready in 100 days. Eric Lander tells The Associated Press in his first interview since he was sworn in that he’s pushing for better preparedness for the next pandemic. He says that includes the type of vaccine where researchers can plug in genetic material from the new viral threat and be ready to fight that disease. He also hopes that approach can make a dent in cancer. Lander paints a rosy future where science better fights disease, …


Biden Aims to Vaccinate 70% of US Adults by July 4

President Joe Biden is launching a monthlong nationwide push to get 70% of American adults vaccinated by Independence Day on July 4. But the administration has not yet outlined its vaccine-sharing strategy with the rest of the world. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report. …


NASA Picks Venus as Hot Spot for Two New Robotic Missions

NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest yet perhaps most overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds.The space agency’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system’s hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday.”These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said.One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyze the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly …