NASA sees success on a pair of launches from the Southern Hemisphere. Plus, prospective lunar rovers run the gauntlet on Earth, and an Independence Day anniversary for the American space program. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Twitter said Thursday it removes more than 1 million spam and bot accounts every day.
The removals come as Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is in the process of acquiring the company, continues to pressure Twitter to reduce spam accounts.
He has threatened to cancel the $44 billion deal if Twitter cannot prove spam and bot accounts account for less than 5% of Twitter users.
Musk has vowed to “defeat the spam bots or die trying.”
Twitter has maintained that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of the user base since at least 2013. Musk has argued that Twitter underestimates the amount of spam accounts.
Twitter says humans conduct manual reviews of thousands of accounts each quarter to determine if they are bots.
Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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American actor James Caan, known best for his role as the hot-headed Sonny Corleone in the classic 1972 film, “The Godfather,” has died at the age of 82.
A message posted to the actor’s Twitter account on Thursday read “It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time. End of tweet.”
“End of tweet” became a signature phrase for the actor as he became more active on the social media platform in recent years.
The Associated Press reports Caan’s manager, Matt DelPiano, confirmed that Caan died at his home in Los Angeles late Wednesday. No cause was given.
Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in “The Godfather,” playing the oldest sibling in the Corleone crime family.
He told an interviewer earlier this year — the 50th anniversary of the film’s release — that he knew the film would be something special when he made it, largely because of the rapport he had with fellow cast members.
Caan was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx in 1940 and was raised in the New York City area.
According to his biography on the IMDB website, Caan studied economics and played football at Michigan State University. That experience would serve him well in one of his first big roles, the 1971 television movie “Brian’s Song,” a drama about professional football player Brian Piccolo who had died of cancer the year before at age 26.
After “Brian’s Song” and “The Godfather,” Caan became one Hollywood’s busiest actors, appearing in “Hide in Plain Sight” (which he also directed), “Funny Lady” (opposite Barbra Streisand), “The Killer Elite” and Neil Simon’s “Chapter Two,” among others. He also made a brief appearance in a flashback sequence in “The Godfather, Part II.”
In later years, he starred in the Stephen King thriller “Misery” and the Christmas holiday comedy “Elf.”
Caan was married and divorced four times and has a daughter, Tara, and sons Scott, Alexander, James and Jacob.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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African and European researchers are meeting in France to give fresh impetus to Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall project, intended to fight climate change and support communities across the Sahel region. Much of the area is plagued by conflict and hunger, but scientists are looking at new ways to move ahead.
It’s been slow-going building Africa’s so-called Great Green Wall of trees and bushes intended to stretch nearly 8,000 kilometers from Mauritania in the west to tiny Djibouti in the east. Fifteen years into the project set to be complete in 2030, only a fraction of the reforestation has been realized. Eight of the 11 countries involved are grappling with unrest. Funding hasn’t matched the development challenge.
Still, environment professor Aliou Guissé points to tangible successes. In the Sahel area of his native Senegal, reforested areas are gaining ground. He said they’re home to larger and more diverse populations of animals, birds and insects than areas where trees haven’t been planted. Scientists are finding health and other benefits of local plants like desert date palms, which are valued by communities, might be commercialized and generate revenue.
Guissé is co-director of the Tessekere Observatory in northern Senegal, which seeks a holistic approach to Green Wall development spanning areas like health, agriculture, the economy — and of course, the environment.
He and other experts meeting this week in the western French city of Poitiers want to widen their collaboration, currently happening in Burkina Faso and Senegal, to include researchers from other Sahel countries like Niger, Chad and possibly Mali. Despite unrest in those countries, they say progress — like building baseline data — can happen.
The Tessekere Observatory’s other co-director, French anthropologist Gilles Boëtsch, said another goal is building partnerships between researchers and government agencies managing Green Wall development. The group is diving into new areas, like exploring the impact of animal-to-human-transmitted diseases, such as Ebola and COVID-19.
Boetsch says their research doesn’t just benefit Africa’s Sahel, but also countries like France — already facing the fallout of a warming and changing climate.
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An American basketball player held in Russia since February for possession of cannabis oil pleaded guilty in a Russian court Thursday.
“I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Brittney Griner, 31, said, speaking English, which was then translated into Russian for the court.
“I’d like to give my testimony later. I need time to prepare,” she added.
The WNBA star, who also played in Russia, could face 10 years in prison.
She is due back in court on July 14.
The trial began Friday, July 1, and resumed Thursday.
On Monday, Griner sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to “do all you can” for her and other Americans detained or held hostage in Russia.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden has read the letter.
Griner’s representatives shared parts of the letter Monday.
“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote.
The White House said Wednesday that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with the detained basketball player’s wife, Cherelle Griner, to stress that the administration is working to secure her release from Russia as soon as possible.
Russian officials have maintained a hard line toward Griner.
“This is a serious offense, confirmed by indisputable evidence. … Attempts to present the case as if the American was detained illegally do not hold up,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexei Zaitsev said Wednesday.
In a tweet, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said officials with the U.S Embassy in Moscow attended Brittney Griner’s trial “and delivered to her a letter from President Biden.”
“We will not relent until Brittney, Paul Whelan, and all other wrongfully detained Americans are reunited with their loved ones,” he added.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The World Health Organization warns new variants of COVID-19 are spreading and people must remain vigilant and employ public health measures to protect themselves from contracting and transmitting the deadly disease.
The latest WHO figures show reported cases of COVID-19 have increased nearly 30 percent globally over the past two weeks. Current figures stand at nearly 558 million, including more than 6.3 million deaths.
Data show BA.4 and BA.5 variants are driving new waves of the disease in Europe and the United States, while a different variant has been found in countries like India.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said testing for COVID-19 has gone down dramatically, obscuring the true extent of the current disease surge. That, he warned, means too many people are not getting the treatments needed to prevent serious illness or death.
“As the virus evolves, vaccine’s protection, while it still is really effective at preventing serious diseases and death, does wane. Decreasing immunity underscores the importance of boosters, especially for the most at risk,” Tedros said.
Tedros said the dangers posed by the new variants are high in developed countries, but are even greater in poorer countries, where people do not have access to new treatments and oral antivirals.
The WHO executive director for health emergencies, Mike Ryan, said every country has gaps in its national readiness, preparedness, and surveillance plans. He said countries can and must do more to boost their pandemic response in tackling the new surge in COVID-19 cases.
“We will see differential impacts in countries. So, depending on how strong that wall of immunity is in your community, depending on how well you deal with the vulnerabilities that people have, and depending on how well you are prepared to deal with that, I think we are going to see further waves of disease. And I think we will see them have a very differential impact between countries,” Ryan said.
The World Health Organization urges people to implement tried and tested public health measures, such as testing, masking and vaccinating to protect themselves.
Additionally, the WHO says it is crucial to accelerate research and development into next generation vaccines, tests and treatments to keep pace with the evolution of the coronavirus.
0Mississippi’s only abortion clinic has been buzzing with activity in the chaotic days since the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion rights nationwide — a case that originated in this conservative Deep South state — with this bright-pink medical facility closing its doors Wednesday.
Physicians at Jackson Women’s Health Organization have been trying to see as many patients as possible before Thursday, when, barring an unlikely intervention by the state’s conservative Supreme Court, Mississippi will enact a law to ban most abortions.
Amid stifling summer heat and humidity, clashes intensified Wednesday between anti-abortion protesters and volunteers escorting patients into the clinic, best known as the Pink House.
When Dr. Cheryl Hamlin, who has traveled from Boston for five years to perform abortions, walked outside the Pink House, an abortion opponent used a bullhorn to yell at her.
“Repent! Repent!” Doug Lane shouted at her.
His words were drowned out by abortion rights supporter Beau Black, who repeatedly screamed at Lane: “Hypocrites and Pharisees! Hypocrites and Pharisees!”
Abortion access has become increasingly limited across wide swaths of the U.S. as conservative states enact restrictions or bans that took effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
The court, reshaped by three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, issued the ruling June 24. But the Mississippi clinic has been inundated with patients since September, when Texas enacted a ban on abortion early in pregnancy.
Cars with license plates from Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas have been driving through Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood to bring women and girls — some of whom appeared to be teenagers — to the Pink House. Drivers parked on side streets near the clinic in the shade of pink and purple crepe myrtles, their car air-conditioners blasting as they waited.
Diane Derzis, who has owned the Mississippi clinic since 2010, drove to Jackson to speak at the Pink House hours after the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
“It’s been such an honor and a privilege to be in Mississippi. I’ve come to love this state and the people in it,” Derzis told those gathered in the sweltering heat.
The Supreme Court ruling was in a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the clinic’s challenge of a 2018 Mississippi law to ban most abortions after 15 weeks. The Pink House had been doing abortions through 16 weeks, but under previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, abortion was allowed to the point of fetal viability, about 24 weeks.
Mississippi’s top public health official, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, was named in the lawsuit, but has not taken a public position on the case. The state’s Republican attorney general urged justices to use the case to overturn Roe v. Wade and give states more power to regulate or ban abortion.
Derzis told The Associated Press after the ruling that she didn’t regret filing the lawsuit that eventually undercut nearly five decades of abortion case law.
“We didn’t have a choice. And if it hadn’t been this lawsuit, it would have been another one,” said Derzis, who also owns abortion clinics in Georgia and Virginia, and lives in Alabama.
The Mississippi clinic uses out-of-state physicians like Dr. Hamlin because no in-state doctors will work there.
As the Pink House prepared to close, Dr. Hamlin said she worries about women living in deep poverty in parts of the state with little access to health care.
“People say, ‘Oh, what am I supposed to do?'” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Vote.'”
Shannon Brewer, the Pink House director, agrees low-income women will be most affected because they will be unable to get abortions in-state.
Some staffers were expected to be in the Pink House on Thursday for paperwork ahead of its closure, but no procedures.
Derzis and Brewer will soon open an abortion clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, about an hour’s drive from El Paso, Texas, — calling it Pink House West. Hamlin said she is getting licensed in New Mexico so she can work there.
Mississippi and New Mexico are two of the poorest states in the U.S. but have vastly different positions on abortion politics and access.
Home to a Democratic-led legislature and governor, New Mexico recently took an extra step to protect providers and patients from out-of-state prosecutions. It’s likely to continue to see a steady influx of people seeking abortions from neighboring states with more restrictive abortion laws.
One of the largest abortion providers in Texas, Whole Woman’s Health, announced Wednesday that it is also planning to reopen in New Mexico in a city near the state line, to provide first- and second-trimester abortions. It began winding down operations in Texas after a ruling Friday by the state Supreme Court that forced an end to abortions at its four clinics.
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