Author Archives: Danzig

Grand Island football team in quarantine; one staffer tests positive for coronavirus – Omaha World-Herald

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GRAND ISLAND, Neb. Grand Island's football team is in quarantine through Aug. 19 and cannot begin workouts until Aug. 24, Superintendent Tawana Grover announced Sunday in a letter to families in the school district.

Two members of the GISH football staff are quarantined due to COVID-19, she said. One has been confirmed COVID-19 positive and another is quarantined at this time following CDHD and GIPS protocols. The quarantine process is being practiced as a precaution to the health, safety and well-being of our student-athletes and coaches.

The letter also said that school is still scheduled to start onsite as planned, while football players can return to school Aug. 20.

Grand Island is looking to reschedule its postponed Aug. 28 season opener against rival Kearney in what would have been the first game played in Memorial Stadium after the completion of its $17 million renovation.

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Grand Island football team in quarantine; one staffer tests positive for coronavirus - Omaha World-Herald

Mysterious evolution of wonky whale skulls – EarthSky

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The skulls of whales with teeth such as sperm whales (pictured above) evolved to be lopsided, with the bones on one side in different positions from the same bones on the other side. Image via Day Donaldson/ Flickr/ Science News for Students.

By Ellen Coombs, UCL

Some whales are wonky. You might not know it to look at them, but their skulls are actually incredibly asymmetrical. This mysterious feature helps with echolocation, the way that whales work out where things are by making sounds and sensing how they are reflected back.

But this wonkiness isnt present in all whales. My colleagues and I recently conducted research to find out why and when wonky whales started to evolve in a different way from their symmetrical cousins. We now know wonky whale skulls first appeared around 30 million years ago, and that they continued to become even more asymmetrical as the creatures evolved into the modern species we know today.

Sperm whale skull. Image via JvL/ Flickr.

In order to understand how wonky whales got this way, we needed to look at how they lived and adapted in the past. Fortunately for us, the whale fossil record is so remarkably represented that scientists have even called the whale a posterchild of evolution. Complete skulls and skeletons stretch right back to the earliest whales of 50 million years ago, and more fossils are dotted throughout whale history, right up to the living animals we know today.

Asymmetrical narwhal skull the red arrows highlight the skewed bones. Image via The Conversation.

With this record, were able to see that whales nostrils have moved from the tip of their snout to the top of their head, an evolutionary tactic to make for easy breathing at the surface of the water. And the skulls of whales with teeth (which technically includes dolphins, as well as species such as sperm whales) have become more lopsided, with the bones on one side in different positions from the same bones on the other side.

This is because of a mass of fatty tissue called a melon that toothed whales use for echolocation. The melon and the soft tissue needed for echolocation are positioned leftwards above the skull on toothed whales, giving them a bulbous forehead and also causing the bones in the skull underneath to grow skewed to the left. As toothed whales evolved, their skulls got wonkier.

But why dont all whales have this wonkiness? The first whales were called archaeocetes (which literally means ancient whales). They evolved from walking on land to being fully aquatic in a relatively short 8 million years or so.

We know that archaeocete fossils have wonky rostrums (or snouts). This might be a distortion of the fossils or a feature that helped archaeocetes work out which direction sounds were coming from underwater.

Ambulocetus natans, an early whale ancestor. Image via Ghedoghedo.

Then, around 39 million years ago, whales diverged into two groups: those with teeth in their mouths, known as the odontocetes, and those with baleen (rows of bristles that allow whales to filter food from the water), known as the mysticetes.

At some point, the toothed whales evolved wonky skulls and echolocation. However, the mysticetes, which include the big baleen whales (such as blue whales), diverged down a completely different evolutionary path. They evolved baleen and filter feeding and skulls that are more symmetrical than both the archaeocetes and the toothed whales.

We wanted to understand why, and exactly when, this happened. So to track asymmetry in the evolution of the whale skull, we produced 3D scans of 162 skulls, 78 of which were fossils. By mapping this wonky shape change in the skull across the whale family tree, we could track precisely when in evolutionary history it first appeared and in which families it evolved.

Asymmetry appears

Based on analyses of these skulls, naso-facial asymmetry (wonkiness) appears to have first evolved around 30 million years ago. This was after the transition from archaeocetes to modern whales, and after the split between the odontocetes and the mysticetes. Around the same time this wonkiness was appearing, these early toothed whales were evolving high-frequency hearing and complex echolocation.

We also confirmed that early ancestors of living whales had little cranial asymmetry in the naso-facial area and likely were not able to echolocate. As such, its likely that baleen whales have never been able to echolocate.

Most surprisingly, this asymmetry has reached its highest levels in some specific animals such a sperm whales and narwhals and other species that live in deep or extreme environments.

This suggests that animals living in these complex environments, including belugas that live in icy, cluttered waters and river dolphins that live in shallow, murky rivers, have evolved a different echolocation ability such as a more diverse or discrete sound repertoire to help them navigate and hunt, and with it the bones around the nasal and face have become more asymmetrical.

This evolutionary path of toothed whales becoming ever more asymmetrical suggests that their skulls and the overlying soft tissues may continue to get wonkier as their echolocation techniques become more specialized.

These findings remind us not only of the complex evolutionary pathways that cetaceans have undergone to become the superbly adapted iconic ocean inhabitants that we know today, but also that despite living alongside some of the largest animals that have ever existed, there is still a lot for us to learn about them.

Ellen Coombs, Ph.D. Candidate in Biosciences, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Why and when some whales evolved asymmetrical skulls.

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Mysterious evolution of wonky whale skulls - EarthSky

Evolution turned this fish into a ‘penis with a heart.’ Here’s how. – Live Science

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When it comes to dating in the abyssal depths of the ocean, appearance doesn't matter much. That's fortunate for anglerfish, which resemble nightmarish fanged potatoes with a little reading lamp on top. And those are just the females.

If you've never seen a male anglerfish before, you're not missing much. Measuring just a few centimeters long on average, male anglers are a mere fraction of their partners' size, and contribute a fraction of the work to their relationships. For many anglerfish species, the male's sole responsibility is to permanently latch onto an obliging mate, fuse his circulatory system with hers, then slowly allow his eyes, fins and most of his internal organs to degenerate until he becomes what biologist Stephen Jay Gould called "a penis with a heart." The male gets constant nourishment; the female gets sperm on demand. The anglerfish circle of life spins on.

It's beautiful, we know. But this unique mating ritual which biologists call "sexual parasitism" has long stumped researchers. How could the female angler's immune system even allow such a permanent, parasitic union to occur? Humans have a hard-enough time accepting organ transplants that don't precisely match their own tissues, so how does a female anglerfish's body accept a male's (or, in some cases, up to eight simultaneous males) so willingly? A genetic study published July 30 in the journal Science finally offers an answer: Anglerfish mating is only possible because the fish have somehow evolved away some of their most crucial immune defenses.

"For humans, the combined loss of important immune facilities observed in anglerfishes would result in fatal immunodeficiency," study co-author Thomas Boehm, director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Germany, said in a statement. "We assume that as yet unknown evolutionary forces first drive changes in the immune system, which are then exploited for the evolution of sexual parasitism."

Related: Photos: The world's freakiest-looking fish

In the new study, Boehm and his colleagues analyzed the genomes of 10 different species of anglerfish, including species that fuse permanently during reproduction and species that fuse only temporarily. In both groups, the team found a clear absence of genes crucial to the fish's antibody response that is, how effectively the fish's immune system is able to find and identify foreign invaders.

For anglerfish that fuse permanently during mating, even more immunological hardware was missing. In addition to lacking even more genes related to antibodies, the perma-fusers also lacked genes responsible for encoding killer T cells, which normally attack infected cells or foreign tissues, the researchers said. Overall, it seemed that evolution had totally deleted the adaptive immune system the part of the immune response that identifies and attacks specific foreign invaders from these sexually parasitic fishes.

Strangely, anglerfish seem to have had no problem adapting to the deep sea an ecosystem with no shortage of parasitic microbes despite their missing immune machinery. It's likely, the researchers wrote in the study, that anglerfish compensate for their lack of adaptive immunity with a beefed-up innate immune system. In other words, they must have some pre-existing, nonspecific defenses that protect them from a wide variety of pathogens without interrupting their invasive mating process.

It's still unclear what those inborn defenses might be but, whatever they are, they only make anglerfish an even more unique outlier among the world's vertebrates. It may be hard to believe, but it looks like anglerfish are even weirder than we thought.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Evolution turned this fish into a 'penis with a heart.' Here's how. - Live Science

Cooperative Evolution: Food coops like Seward and the Wedge have adapted quickly during troubled times – The Growler

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Access to food is about as elemental as it gets. But in troubled times with lives on the line, not every grocery store has responded to the pandemic with equal skill and speed.

Well into April and May, we visited grocery stores in Minneapolis where masking, even by employees, was sporadic, social distancing was irregular, and store capacity was unannounced and unenforced.

And in the wake of the death of George Floyd, reaction from companies has varied from nothing to brief, almost neutral statements expressing a hope for racial equality, to deep community engagement. Many grocery stores have ended up toward the nothing side of the spectrum.

But in the food retail sector, one store format has adapted to the challenges of 2020 with surprising speed: food cooperatives, which are by many counts more prominent in Minnesota than in any other state in the union. Co-ops, which are member-owned and governed, straddle a line between for-profit and non-profit businesses, as they endeavor to sell goods to sustain themselves and grow while serving the needs of their community.

The roots of food co-ops stem from a desire on the part of farmers to eliminate middlemen, share risk, and bring crops to market, says Craig B. Upright. Upright is the author of the new book Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota, which traces the movement from its roots in the 19th century through the so-called Co-op Wars of the 1970s up through the modern organizations that dot the current day retail landscape. From that initial wellspring of the movement up until the current day, co-ops have adapted to their times while retaining their essential member-driven character.

That characterand the size of co-ops relative to big grocery chainshelps these stores adapt to challenging times. If Cub [Foods] wants to change their policy, they have a huge corporate structure to go through to implement it, even on a local level, says Upright. The co-ops, because they are run by their members, because they exist as independent stores within this larger federation of coops, theyre much more nimble, and theyre much more able to change their policies faster than the larger big box stores.

That ability to shift policy in response to a crisis was tested this spring with the emergence of COVID-19.

Josh Resnik, CEO of the Twin Cities Co-op Partnerswhich runs Wedge Community Co-op and Linden Hills Co-opwas poised in March to spend four days at a natural foods conference in Anaheim, California. But vendors began dropping outby the dozen and then by the hundredsand the conference was canceled as the severity of COVID-19s impact became clear.

Instead of networking with industry peers, Resnik stayed in Minnesota. I spent those four days working with my team and saying, What is our plan if were going to operate in this environment?' he says. His teams biggest movethe one that guided every response that followedwas establishing four baseline principles for pandemic response.

The first was safety, he says. The second was food access. Third was employment, and fourth was long-term business sustainability. Everything got looked at through that lens and it all had to start with safety. What would create a safe environment for our shoppers and employees? We were one of the first to install plexiglass [screens]. We put marks on the floor to create social distancing, we put caps on the total number of shoppers.

Even as Resnik and his team worked to create distance and barriers to infection, they also strove to provide access to food, something their community relied upon. The idea of shutting down or going to down to only five shoppers at a timewe wanted to make sure, especially in March when there was this panic-buyingwe wanted to make sure there was a really good supply of food and people knew they could trust us as a place they could come and get the food they needed, he says.

Keeping food available and keeping employees and customers safe, says Resnik, meant that jobs could be preserved, as well. Keeping jobs and keeping people employed was paramount, he says. Knowing there was a lot of employee uncertainty, we created policies around our leave options. We had different leave options where people who wanted to come in and felt comfortable, they had a place to come and continue to get that paycheck, but for other people with personal or family health concerns, we had different programs in place to make sure they were covered.

For Sean Doyle, the general manager of Seward Community Co-op, the pandemic presented an even more urgent threat when one of the stores employees at the Franklin Avenue location was diagnosed with the disease in March. Seward was transparent about the diagnosis and their response to it, which touched off considerable media coverage.

We closed our Franklin store, recalls Doyle. We had no real clarity about even what the protocols for cleaning was. At the same time, Doyle says, the whole Seward infrastructure was buckling under demand from consumers.

What was happening prior to that closure was that same period about six to seven days where our sales were almost twice the normal volume, he says. We were in this incredibly manic place just doing what we could just to keep the shelves stockedI was working stocking groceries which I havent done much in a long time, because the scale of the co-op is we have three businesses and 260-plus employees, its just not the best use of my time. Every hand was on deck, youd open up a box of pasta, and before you could get it to the shelf literally people were taking it from you. Or youd put it on the shelf and turn around and itd already be gone.

Under the pressure of TV cameras reporting on the COVID-19 diagnosis at the store, Doyle and his team adapted with furious speed. The Franklin store really drove our Friendship store to make immediate changes and we tried to find everything we possibly could out there about what protocols could be in place to protect our employees and our customers, he says. Within a day or two we had plexiglass up at the point of sale, [and] we started to regulate the number of people who could come in the storeat first it was 50now its 30. Its been a state of constant refinement.

Community and employee involvement has been key, says Doyle, to driving new policy to keep Seward Community Co-op community members healthy. That community includes our shoppers, our employees, our members, and the broader geographic community around our location, says Doyle. We dont operate in a bubble. We might have an ideological bubble, but we dont live in a physical bubble. That is what drove us to adopt, early on, a lot of our social distancing protocols. Our whole model was lets try something and if that doesnt work, lets revise, lets revise, and lets revise.

Constant, fearless iteration marks the effort at the Wedge as well. If you visit the Wedges website, you can read a log, tracked by date, detailing all the changes the store has made in response to COVID-19. Its an unusual amount of transparency, and it reflects co-ops dedication to collective decision-making.

All of this dovetails with the essential DNA of co-ops. One of their core ideals, says author Craig B. Upright, is the concept of community. The idea of whats best for our community? is really driving what theyre doing, he says. Rather than trying to extract resources from their membership and their customers, theyre thinking about how do we re-funnel these resources into our store and our community. That willingness to do whats right for their community is part of whats guiding this.

The historic protests that touched off in Minneapolis in May 2020 presented another challenge for co-ops. It was very trying, especially for me being a Black male, says Ray Williams, who is the operations manager for Seward Community Co-op, recalling the events that began with the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

I often operate within a level of fear as a Black male, and that didnt necessarily change but there was a very high level of frustrationOh my god, were living through this again, seeing another person killed at the hands of the police, Williams says.

The co-ops mission, says Williams, helped to guide its response to the killing and the community outcry that followed. What happened with George Floyd was very unfortunate and as a co-op we stand on the side of being vocal and we stand in solidarity when it comes to injustices in our community and in society as a whole, says Williams. We didnt have to sit down and make a decision as to whether we were going to respond to George Floydwe knew we were going to respond. It was just what response we were going to give.

Seward Co-op was unique in that not only were its values as a co-op put to the test by the killing and the community response to the killing, but its stores were physically proximate to the unrest. The stores Friendship location is located just blocks from 38th and Chicago where Floyd was killed, and looters breached the stores Franklin location and attempted to break into its ATM. Ultimately, the community helped protect the store from further destruction.

When the stories circulated around about neighborhoods being under attack by what appeared to be white racists, and a number of different employees shared experiences on that fronta lot of them were active on block responses, recalls Seward general manager Sean Doyle. Neighbors at both locations made the co-op part of the area they were guarding, he says. The neighbors without our askingnor could we ask because of legal liabilitiesstood guard to protect the communitys assets. It was really moving in a lot of ways to see the community step up that way.

The co-ops, in turn, donated food and water to support the protests and their neighbors.

For all their adaptation, says Doyle, the path ahead remains one that requires constant questioning and searching.

If our primary purpose to sustain a healthy communityhow do you sustain a healthy community in a pandemic, in a period of incredible [wealth] disparity as well, that showed up before the pandemic, and before the murder of George Floydweve been asking ourselves that, he says.

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Cooperative Evolution: Food coops like Seward and the Wedge have adapted quickly during troubled times - The Growler

AR/VR is the next evolution in product try on, says House of Beauty CEO Ritika Sharma – The New Indian Express

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Express News Service

Themassive shift towards online businesses, driven by the pandemic, is noticable especially in the self-care and wellness segment. Cashing in on the scenario, House of Beauty launched its new e-commerce platform boddess.com with AR/VR technology; over 60 skincare, make up, hair care and fragrance brands onboard; and contactless delivery to your doorstep. In July, they launched an app to refine the consumer shopping experience. Excerpts from an interview with Founder and CEO Ritika Sharma:

What was the idea behind Boddess?

We aspire to change the way people discover beauty and grooming. Also, we wanted to create a holistic experience through a superior technology led e-Commerce platform that puts the customer at the forefront and provides value from every aspect. External beauty to internal wellness.

How is Boddess different from other beauty websites?

Our technology makes us stand out. Our in-house proprietary AR/VR skin diagnostic, make-up try-on tools and hand-picked artist talent in areas of hair, skin and make-up, are onboard full-time.

How many experts do you have on board?

We have multiple celebrity experts and influencers for hair care, makeup and skin care including Anu Kaushik, Rod Anker, Dr Geetika Mittal and Manjari Singh.

What tools does the app provide?

The Boddess Virtual Pro allows customers to accurately diagnose their skin condition, try on makeup virtually and get recommended product solutions. The Boddess Edit offers access to celebrity and in-house makeup, hair and skin experts to engage with, learn about new skincare recipes, tips. The Boddess Virtual Pro Skin Diagnostic tool assesses wrinkles, fine lines, blemishes and inflammation, pigmentation, sensitivity/ redness, pores, dark spots and circles.

The Virtual Makeup Tool allows customers to choose options from colour cosmetic brands for lip, eye, foundation, and blush in real time. Boddess Virtual Pro will soon launch the Eyebrow Virtual Pro soon. How will AR/VR technology cash in on more customers? The Boddess Virtual Pro was designed to solve one of the biggest pain points customers unable to try on products at an e-commerce platform. Led by MIT leadership, we developed this technologically futuristic, yet implementable solution to create value for our customers.

Will this technology help in skin treatments and consultations?

Our team spent the past few months building our Machine Learning database of skin types in partnership with leading dermatologists in India. We take thousands of high-resolution images of men and women and tag their skin condition with our proprietary collection of skin metrics (things like hydration, wrinkles, dark spots, skin age etc.). We make sure to train our algorithms on a diverse array of skin colours, ages, and ethnicities, and then train our algorithms on this data set and build supervised machine learning models to improve this algorithm every week. More images we collect, the better it gets.

Is AR/VR technology the future of the beauty industry?

With COVID limiting physical interactions in stores, AR/VR is the next evolution in product try on. From virtual try on, digital catalogues for social selling to 3D printed makeup tools, customised cosmetic and skincare product requests in one click to 3D face masks and voice-based technology are all in the pipeline across startups and big organisations. For example; finding the perfect foundation shade, out of 9,000 shades, now takes less than a minute.

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AR/VR is the next evolution in product try on, says House of Beauty CEO Ritika Sharma - The New Indian Express

New Insights Into How Ovarian Cancer Grows and Evolves – Technology Networks

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In a paper published in the journalCancer Research, Associate ProfessorLevi Waldron, post-doctoral fellow Ludwig Geistlinger, and colleagues at theInstitute for Implementation Science in Population Health(ISPH) at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) provide new insights into how ovarian cancer grows and evolves within a person.The paper, Multi-omic analysis of subtype evolution and heterogeneity in high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma [1] is of basic scientific interest for its methodology and insights into the decades-long process of tumorigenesis, and of practical interest for the implications these insights have on the viability of subtype-targeted therapies. More than 20,000 women receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer each year in the United States, and approximately 14,000 die each year.

Understanding how a heterogeneous tumor evolves prior to diagnosis is difficult because we cant directly observe that evolution, says Professor Waldron. But by observing tumors identified at different stages of that evolution, and through detailed investigation of tumor genomics and heterogeneity, we can still learn something about it. The key thing we wanted to know was whether a tumor starts as a certain subtype and stays that way, or evolves, changes, and even multiplies subtypes over time. If subtypes can evolve and multiply within one tumor, then subtype-specific therapies are unlikely to help.

To answer these questions, the team developed a new method of inferring the existence of heterogeneous subtypes from complementary types of genomic data, published separately in theJournal of Clinical Oncology Clinical Cancer Informatics[2], and teamed up with researchers from the University of Minnesota who leveraged new technology to sequence the RNA of single cells.

We used complementary but completely different approaches to approach the same question one using more traditional approach using DNA and RNA sequencing of hundreds of bulk tumors, and the other using new single-cell sequencing methods for a few tumors, Waldron elaborates, Seeing a consistent picture from both approaches really strengthened confidence in results coming from two novel approaches.

A surprising outcome of the research is a dismissal of the idea of discrete transcriptome subtypes for this cancer, and replacement by a model of continuous tumor development that includes mixtures of subclones, accumulation of mutations, infiltration of immune and stromal cells in proportions correlated with tumor stage and tissue of origin, and evolution between properties previously associated with discrete subtypes.

Unfortunately, previous ideas of discrete subtypes were overly simplistic and unlikely to progress our understanding, prevention, or treatment of this disease, says Waldron. Fortunately, with the clearer picture emerging of tumor heterogeneity, and the rapid development of technologies to help understand it, we are well-positioned to make progress.

The project involved a primary collaboration with the University of Minnesota where single-cell RNA sequencing was performed, and with the Dana-Farber Cancer Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. CUNY SPH post-doc Sehyun Oh, and MPH alumni Marcel Ramos and Lucas Schiffer were also involved in the research.

References

[1] Geistlinger L, et al. (2020).Multi-omic analysis of subtype evolution and heterogeneity in high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma.Cancer Res.DOI:https://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2020/08/01/0008-5472.CAN-20-0521

[2] Oh S, Geistlinger L, et al. (2020).Reliable Analysis of Clinical Tumor-Only Whole-Exome Sequencing Data.JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics. DOI:10.1200/CCI.19.00130

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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New Insights Into How Ovarian Cancer Grows and Evolves - Technology Networks

‘An American Pickle’ Is the Next Step In the Evolution of Seth Rogen – Decider

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Seth Rogen doesnt smoke weed in An American Pickle.He doesnt trip on ecstasy. He doesnt even enjoy a drink, unless you count a particularly precious glass of seltzer water. Thats pretty unusual for a comedy produced by Rogen and his longtime partner Evan Goldberg. In fact, An American Picklewhich began streaming on HBO Max todayis their first non-R-rated movie since The Guilt Trip in 2012.

The film may surprise his longtime fans for that reason; but also, maybe not. Because theres been a change in the way people talk about Seth Rogen in the last few years. Have you noticed it? Its less lol, Seth Rogen, and more wow, Seth Rogen! It started about three years ago, around the time The Disaster Artista Rogen-Goldberg produced comedy starring James Franco as the real-life filmmaker of the famously bad The Roomwas getting Oscar buzz. It continued on through Long Shot, a romantic comedy that set out to make Rogen a worthy romantic interest for Charlize Theron, and, surprisingly, succeeded. (What can I say? He cleaned up in that tuxedo!) Now its taken the next logical step with An American Pickle, which may be the best showcase for Rogens acting skills yet.

Directed by Brandon Trosta cinematographer and frequent Rogen collaborator, making his solo directorial debutAn American Pickle is essentially 88 minutes of Rogen doing a two-man show with himself. Its based on a short story by Simon Rich (who also wrote the script), and comes with a wacky concept: A Polish-Jewish immigrant falls into a vat of pickle brine in Brooklyn in the year 1919, wakes up 100 years later, and meets his great-grandson. Both the immigrant, Herschel, and the great-grandson, Ben, are played by Rogen. Its a shtick often used in the silliest of comedies and sounds like a perfect set-up for some classic Rogen shenanigans.

But thats not what the film delivers. An American Pickle deliberately strives for something more serious. Herschel and Ben swap jokes about David Bowie, and Rogen has a lot of fun with his accent, but much of the film is spent exploring heritage, religion, and what it truly means to grieve for lost loved ones. Bens parents died in a car crash, you see. Right away, Herschel notices that his great-grandson doesnt have any pictures of his family hung in his home. (He does, however, have a David Bowie poster.) Ben insists hes grieved in his own way. Herschel insists they visit his parents graveand the grave of Herschels long-dead wife, played by Sarah Snookto grieve in the traditional way. Ben checks his phone while Herschel prays. Later, when Ben finally does pray in a synagogue in the old country, he breaks down crying.

All of these dramatic scenes fall on the shoulders of Rogen, and Rogen alone. The comedian filmed all of Herschels scenes first, shaved his beard, and then filmed all of Bens scenes with an earpiece of his previous performance in his ear. Its hardly the first time an actor has pulled that off, but its certainly a first for Rogen, whose movies used to come with a cohort of his Hollywood buddies. In the early years, he was a staple of Judd Apatows crew, having been discovered by the producer for the short-lived Freaks and Geeks TV show when Rogen was 16. Eventually, he and fellow Freaks and Geeks star James Franco formed their own crewalong with Goldberg and other familiar facescollaborating on successful stoner comedies like Pineapple Express (2008), This Is The End(2013), and the infamous controversial parody, The Interview (2014).

Recently, while its still Rogen and Goldberg as the dynamic duo behind the scenes, on camera Rogens been branching out on his own. Long Shot found him acting with a whole host of people he hadnt worked with before, including Theron, with whom, it turned out, he had great chemistry. In An American Pickle, he barely acts with anyone else at all, save for a few scenes with Snook. Without the constant presence of his pals, Rogens given himself more control over his own narrative as an actor.

These days, its harder to know what to expect from a Seth Rogen movie. Its not a total reinvention; its more like an upgrade. Youre still getting comedy, to be sure. Its hard to imagine Rogen doing a total 180 to drama, la Jonah Hill in Moneyball. But who knows? Long Shot felt like a turn for Rogen as an actor; An American Pickle feels like an even bigger one. That said, the American Pickle mid-credits scene does feature Rogen and Rogen lusting after Barbara Streisand in Yentl, so maybe some things never change.

Watch An American Pickle on HBO Max

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'An American Pickle' Is the Next Step In the Evolution of Seth Rogen - Decider

How U.S. And Russian Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles Evolved [Infographic] – Forbes

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75 years on from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, there are still approximately 13,400 nuclear warheads across the world. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the first of two attacks on Japan towards the end of World War II involving devices with a yield of 15 kilotons and 22 kilotons respectively. Today's nuclear warheads are far more powerful with the U.S. Trident SLBM yielding 455 kilotons while the Russian SS ICBM has an 800-kiloton yield. Both of those countries possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear warheads and they have a stockpile of just over 8,000 between them according to The Federation of American Scientists. That total includes active and inactive warheads in military custody but excludes strategic warheads currently deployed on intercontinental missiles and at heavy bomber bases.

The following infographic illustrates the evolution of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals since the early 1950s, as well as the impact of treaties that sought to curtail the arms race. Stockpiles fell significantly in the wake of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which was signed when both states possessed more than 61,000 warheads. The trend of disarmament accelerated after the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the USSR but more recent developments are cause for concern. Despite the noticeable decline in nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War, states have moved to modernize their stockpiles, adding new types, changing their roles and committing to possessing them long-term.

Developments in Washington haven't eased growing levels of uncertainty either. Last year, the Trump administration left the above-mentioned 1987 treaty and there are mounting fears the president will also withdraw from New START which limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear missiles each. Trump has insisted that China has to be part of future limits on nuclear arms, a move Beijing has categorically ruled out. The treaty expires in February, a relatively short time after the presidential inauguration. Trump has already abandoned the Iran nuclear accord and most recently, he took the U.S. out of the Open Skies Treaty, citing a lack of Russian compliance.

*Click below to enlarge (charted byStatista)

Estimated stockpiled nuclear warhead count by year.

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How U.S. And Russian Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles Evolved [Infographic] - Forbes

Lukashenkos Biggest Election Opponent: the Internet – Voice of America

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In the closing days of the Belarus presidential election campaign, opposition candidates are holding mass rallies and incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko is visiting businesses, giving speeches to the Security Council and government and lashing out at the news media.

During a meeting with campaign staff, Lukashenko railed at local and international media, saying the Belarussian edition of Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda will soon turn into a tabloid and accusing foreign outlets, including the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, of being biased and calling for riots.

Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, asked the Foreign Ministry to intervene.

There is no need whatsoever to wait until the end of the election campaign. Get them out of here if they do not comply with our laws and call people to Maidans, he said on July 23, referring to mass protests in Ukraine in 2013 over the countrys move away from the European Union.

In the months leading up to the August 9 vote, journalists and bloggers in Belarus have been arrested, harassed and even deported as Lukashenko faces an unexpectedly tough election amid discontent with the economy and his poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The president, who says he tested positive for the virus, kept the country open and early on recommended fighting the virus with saunas and vodka.

Opposition presidential candidates were also forced out of the race, with two detained and a third Valery Tsepkalo, a former ambassador to the United States forced to flee to Russia, fearing arrest.

Media in Belarus already work under repressive conditions, with strict accreditation rules and access to independent news websites blocked. The country ranks 153rd out of 180 countries, where 1 is the most free, according to the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

In Belarus, the situation with freedom of speech is traditionally bad, Alexander Klaskovsky, head of analytical projects of the BelaPAN news agency, told VOA. During election campaigns this situation becomes aggravated.

Klaskovsky said journalists were bearing the brunt of a difficult presidential campaign for Lukashenko.

On August 5, police arrested a freelancer for the German agency Deutsche Welle twice in one day. And after a July 31 rally for opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in the city of Maladzechna, police detained a crew for the independent Belarusian-language station Belsat TV.

Tikhanovskaya stepped in as a candidate after the arrest of her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, a popular video blogger who runs the YouTube channel Country to Live In, and who was registered to run.

Earlier in the campaign, Sergei Tikhanovsky was the main irritant for authorities, said Klaskovsky.

He traveled all over the country," Klaskovsky said. "In small towns, he would give the microphone to disadvantaged people blasting the authorities. And the authorities felt that it was dangerous, because their biggest fear is the street, since the election commissions are staffed with loyal people and the counting of votes is completely under state control.

On May 6, authorities charged Sergei Tikhanovsky and seven others with organizing and preparing actions that grossly violate public order.

Boris Goretsky, deputy chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said arrests and oppression of journalists have increased, with over 60 incidents recorded during the campaign.

The authorities are afraid of freely disseminated information, as evidenced by the recent arrests of journalists after rallies, Goretsky told VOA. Authorities try to detain the maximum number of journalists so no one is there to provide video coverage and distribute it on the internet.

After all, information is what motivates people to act, he said.

In addition to the arrests, authorities are beating journalists at rallies and obstructing live broadcasts, said Natalya Radina, editor-in-chief of the news website Charter97.

Klaskovsky, of BelaPAN, added that bloggers and administrators of public and Telegram channels working under the Country to Live In brand have been hit hard, but the pressure is also felt by independent news websites, news agencies and publications whose editorial offices are abroad.

These journalists are often not invited to press conferences or other official events, where the priority is given to state-owned press. And those covering mass gatherings risk being arbitrarily detained, having equipment broken or confiscated and, if they lack accreditation, being fined for illegal fabrication of mass media products.

The rest of the press finds itself in an information vacuum, Klaskovsky said.

The Belarus Embassy in Washington told VOA on Friday to send questions via email. The embassy did not respond to VOAs emailed questions.

Under supervision

Independent media in Belarus are still tightly controlled. Journalists need accreditation to access official events, and the State Security Committee still known as the KGB, its Soviet-era name regularly monitors the press, with officials calling reporters to discuss their work.

Because of these officials described by some journalists as supervisors it is very difficult to determine the degree of independence of a local outlet, said Irina Khalip, a Belarus correspondent for Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russia paper known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs.

All foreign journalists need to be accredited with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And this accreditation comes with lines you cannot cross, Khalip said. One step over and your accreditation is revoked."

In May, the Foreign Ministry stripped a Channel One correspondent of his accreditation and deported him to Russia. The ministry did not state the reason, but Channel One, a Russian state broadcaster, said it came one day after a segment on Belarus coronavirus cases.

Khalip works without accreditation, but says it comes at a cost.

I cannot attend any press conference of a government official because no one will let me in there. But in this case, the editorial board decided, Well, to hell with those officials! Khalip said. There are streams, there are news agencies, if you need to quote somebody. Better to have a free correspondent.

Internet freedom

With a stifled media, Telegram channels and video blogs are increasingly popular and coming to Lukashenkos attention.

Lukashenko at all his meetings says that it is they who are to blame for everything, Khalip said, adding that authorities at first did not know how to address it. You can revoke the accreditation of a journalist, but what do you do with a YouTube channel?

Authorities have stepped up the arrests and harassment of bloggers. But Khalip believes its a losing battle.

It is possible to oppress a certain number of journalists located in Belarus, but it is impossible to fight the internet. Therefore, in my opinion, they have already lost this war.

The journalist was convicted of rioting after the 2010 election and authorities jailed her husband, Andrew Sannikov, who ran as an opposition presidential candidate.

News websites based outside Belarus are a key source of information. Despite attempts by authorities to block the sites, readers are finding ways to access them online.

The Charter'97 website has been blocked for over two years, editor-in-chief Radina said. But people have learned to bypass the blocking via virtual private networks [and] anonymizers, and still read us because they need accurate information.

It is impossible to completely cut off information, because these days not only journalists but everyone can record videos on their mobile phones and post them on the internet. Information on what happens in Belarus on August 9 and 10 will appear anyway, Radina said.

Goretsky, deputy chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said the internet, along with social media and Telegram channels, makes it faster and easier to share or access objective information.

People no longer watch TV day and night; they watch YouTube channels. This gave birth to the phenomenon of Sergei Tikhanovsky, who created his own channel, which was popular with the older generation as well, he said.

While the government has been fighting all these years for print runs and compulsory subscriptions, independent publications have de facto taken over the internet," Goretsky said. And although many of them do not have accreditation and cannot attend official events, they have several advantages, including the internet.

This article originated in VOAs Russian service.

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Lukashenkos Biggest Election Opponent: the Internet - Voice of America

International Leaders And Human Rights Ngos Call On South Korea To Stop Oppression On Minor Religion For Covid – The Nigerian Voice

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387 international leaders including human rights authorities, NGOs and religious communities are calling on South Korea to stop suppression on a minor religions group named Shincheonji Church of Jesus for COVID-19.

After the outbreak, a district court is investigating under suspicion of intentional spread of the COVID-19 arresting 6 church authorities including President Lee Man-hee of Shincheonji church. And the Seoul city government canceled a permit for a foundation of the HWPL, an international peace organization which Mr. Lee established.

In United Kingdom, Chairman of International Human Rights Committee, Iftikhar Ayaz said The brutal persecution of the members of the Shincheonji church in Korea and the inhumane denial of unregistering their corporation is a horrible negligence of State Responsibility which must treat all citizens equally without any discrimination whatsoever.

He added The Government must honor in practice the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which emphasizes the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.

Franklin Hoet Linares from Venezuela, Former President and Honorary Life President of the World Jurist Association, stated If the comments that are being broadly spread are true, I would not hesitate to describe it as national and human shame, in addition to turning such nefarious attacks into discrimination against the freedom of religion. We do not understand why, in a country where freedom of religion is enshrined, the Government can allow the Korean Constitution to be violated, whereas it clearly states in Article 20, Clauses 1 and 2 All citizens will enjoy freedom of religion and religion and state will be separated.

Willy Fautre, Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF), said that the recent attack on Shincheonji can be viewed as an attempt by the fundamentalist Protestant groups in South Korea to weaken and destroy the competitor in the religious market.

Last month, 11 NGOs including European Coordination of Associations and Individuals for Freedom of Conscience (CAP-LC) submitted a report for annual report for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the UN Secretary General at the 44th session in the UN Assembly Human Rights Council. The report is titled scapegoating members of Shincheonji for COVID-19 in the Republic of Korea.

The report stated, The virus cannot be an excuse to violate human rights and religious liberty of hundreds of thousands of believers. Intolerance, violence, and discrimination against Shincheonji should be put to an end.

Up to date, 512 members of the Shinchonji Daegu Church donated their blood plasma for development a new treatment for COVID 19. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to produce corona-related drugs with plasma donated by members of the Shinchonji Daegu Church and conduct clinical tests from this September.

The church official said. The members recovered from COVID-19 donate their blood plasma as reward for treatment offered by government. We want to support the development of a vaccine."

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International Leaders And Human Rights Ngos Call On South Korea To Stop Oppression On Minor Religion For Covid - The Nigerian Voice

‘History on trial’: Why Japan’s wartime labor dispute is more than another tit-for-tat with South Korea – The Japan Times

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Japan has once again found itself entangled in a recurring skirmish with South Korea over wartime labor a seemingly intractable row with no end in sight.

On Tuesday, a South Korean district court completed the process of serving the Japanese side with documents ordering the seizure of Nippon Steel Corp. assets, including around 81,000 shares it had acquired through its joint venture with the Korean firm Posco.

The action pushes the liquidation of the assets closer to reality, following through on a 2018 decision by South Koreas Supreme Court ordering the Japanese firm to provide about 40 million in compensation to four Koreans who said they were forced to work against their will for the steel-makers predecessor during Japans colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Although the two neighbors have squabbled over history for years, compensating for wartime labor by liquidating Japanese assets, at least for Tokyo, is more than merely an instance of Seoul rehashing the past. In the Japanese governments view, South Korea is attempting to sabotage a 1965 economic pact that not only settled the wartime labor issue but also constitutes the cornerstone of the two countries 55-year postwar relationship.

On the other hand, Seoul, and in particular President Moon Jae-in, driven by a sense of justice and a desire to gain public approval, has placed the will of the victims and their families above the landmark bilateral agreement that normalized ties.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, driven by a sense of justice and a desire to gain public approval, has placed the will of victims of wartime labor and their families above a landmark bilateral agreement that normalized ties. | BLOOMBERG

With growing mutual distrust between the two countries and their leaders constrained by publics that have grown increasingly skeptical of each other, there is little prospect of ending the deadlock any time soon. A feud of this type could further erode mutual trust, jeopardizing future economic and national security cooperation.

The issue of wartime labor hasnt been able to be solved in a bilateral discussion or through politics or diplomacy so as the legal framework of Japanese-South Korean relations is challenged, the relationship is put on trial, said Yuki Asaba, a professor of Korean studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Right now, history is being put on a trial. In other words, historical issues are points of contention in (an actual) court.

Even 75 years since Japan surrendered, ending World War II, Tokyos 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and its deeds during that period remain sore subjects and a key source of anti-Japan sentiment among many Koreans to this day.

Japan systematically brought in heavy numbers of male workers from the Korean Peninsula between 1939 and 1945 to relieve labor shortages during the Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

After the conflicts ended and Korea was liberated, Seoul demanded compensation for its laborers, alleging they had been forced to work in Japan under harsh conditions. Through 14 years of negotiations, Japan and the newly formed South Korea agreed to settle all post-colonial compensation issues by concluding an economic cooperation fund that was used to turn around the frail Korean economy and pay wartime compensation to individual laborers.

Nearly six decades later, however, the South Korean Supreme Court determined in 2018 that four wartime laborers were entitled to receive compensation, concluding the pact did not deny the individual right of laborers to ask for consolation money for their suffering under Japans colonial rule.

Until this ruling, all South Korean leaders had agreed that the wartime labor issue had been legally settled as explicitly stated in the pact.

However, Moon, who leads the left-leaning Democratic Party and is a former human rights lawyer, refused to intervene after the ruling.

Instead, he insisted on a victim-centered approach to the individual claims in the lawsuits, with his administration taking the view that the court decisions should reflect the desires of the victims and their families, something his government argued is an internationally recognized legal principle.

The Moon administration took over after a disaster by Parks government and emphasized justice and morals, Junya Nishino, a political science professor who studies Japan-South Korea relations at Keio University, said in reference to the conservative former President Park Geun-Hye, who was impeached in 2017 over political scandals.

Many of those who serve in the Moon administration have a strong opinion that the start (of bilateral relations) in 1965 was a mistake and there should be a redo, Nishino said.

South Koreans chant slogans during an anti-Japan rally near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in August last year. The banners read Condemn Abe regime. Make an official apology to victims of wartime forced labor. | REUTERS

In the years since the first democratically government came to power in 1988, South Korea has been undergoing a self-examination of its past and uncovering political oppression and human rights abuses by authoritarian leaders, including around the time when the pact with Japan was established in 1965.

Hypersensitive to public sentiment, Moon has opted to side with the ex-laborers to gain public approval and cement his political base. In a major shift away from the conservatives, who long held power after the war, Nishino said liberals now have more control across a broader swath of mainstream Korean society.

Still, Moons emphasis on justice and morals is facing growing scrutiny amid a litany of scandals.

Former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, a longtime advocate of womens rights who was widely believed to be a potential successor to Moon, committed suicide last month after being accused of sexual harassment by his secretary. And on Friday, six of Moons aides, including his chief of staff, offered to resign following revelations that senior officials were found to own more than one home even as the administration attempts to halt surging home prices.

Fearful of further antagonizing the public, Moon is expected to maintain his tough stance on wartime labor, Nishino said.

The mutual skepticism is reaching a critical level.

In a joint opinion poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Chosun Ilbo newspapers in early June, 84 percent of respondents in Japan and 91 percent in South Korea described relations with the other as bad. The ratio of Koreans who view Japan negatively also marked a record high.

The South Korean Supreme Courts 2018 ruling and subsequent stalemate have prompted ties between the countries to unravel further, including in trade and security.

In July last year, the Japanese trade ministry tightened rules on chemical exports to South Korea and subsequently ended its exemption on a plethora of trade regulations. Although Japanese officials adamantly denied having a political motive, the South Korean government viewed the move as retaliation for the 2018 ruling.

Just over a month later, South Korea struck back, this time on the national security front, unilaterally declaring it would not renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a bilateral pact governing exchanges of sensitive information primarily on missile threats from North Korea. Seoul reversed the decision at the eleventh hour after intense pressure from the United States, but has said the door still remains open to scrapping the deal at any time.

Nippon Steel Corp. on Friday filed an appeal against the seizure of its assets in South Korea that were earmarked for liquidation to compensate wartime laborers, in a move sure to put the two nations on a diplomatic collision course yet again. | REUTERS

Following Tuesdays ruling in the compensation case, Nippon Steel filed an appeal. Now, the South Korean court must decide whether to accept it, a process that could take months, buying the company time, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified legal sources. But even if the appeal is rejected there, the company could take it to a higher court.

Due to the complexity of the process, the actual liquidation of the assets is expected to be months away.

In the meantime, observers say there remains little incentive for Moon or Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to back down.

Its impossible to compromise unless both leaders take a different stance than theyve taken and shown to their citizens which would be a tremendous blow to them, said Asaba. They are in a situation where they know theyll collide head-on if nothing is done, but no one can take the wheel and avoid the looming damage.

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'History on trial': Why Japan's wartime labor dispute is more than another tit-for-tat with South Korea - The Japan Times

The unbearable weight of being Kurdish – Ahval

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Ava Homas powerful debut novelDaughters of Smoke and Firetells the story of Leila Saman, growing up in Mariwan, Iran, a mainly Kurdish city of 90,000 people about 15 km from the Iraqi border.

The book opens on the day five-year-old Leilas brother Chia is born, which happens to be March 16, 1988 - the day Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched a chemical attack on Halabja, killing thousands of people, mostly Kurds, and injuring thousands more with nerve agents and mustard gas in the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war.

Halabja happens to be the hometown of Leilas father, who ends up weeping on the day his only son is born. Immediately the reader gets the sense that few moments of joy in this world will go unsullied by darkness.

One of the things you learn as a Kurd is that even when you have a little bit of joyful time, happy time, some freedom, it is going to crash, Homa told Ahval in a podcast.

Since its publication in May, Homas novel has received mostly rave reviews. The Independent described it as blisteringly powerful and named it one of the best books of May, while former U.S. ambassador Peter Galbraith called it one of the best books to come out of the Near East in a long time.

Grief and suffering are as regular as the sunrise in Homas Kurdistan. Leilas grandfather watches Iraqi authorities wipe out his family. Then Leilas father sees friends and relatives hung in prison, before finally Leila herself sees the person shes closest to executed.

Homa, who fled Iran at age 24, has written thatgrowing up Kurdish in Iran she learned at a young age that being alive was an act of subversion, that her life meant next to nothing to the state or the police - the very people whose responsibility it was to protect her.

Its a question that you deal with from the moment you learn your name, you know that you belong to this group that has been targeted for annihilation, she said. You are wondering, Why? How can I make meaning out of it? Why am I so hated? How can I be strong?

Homas novel examines how the four members of the Saman family - Leila, her brother Chia, her father Alan and her mother Hana - grapple with being a Kurd in Kurdistan in different ways, and how their reactions to their world ripple out to affect others.

Daughters of Smoke and Fire is one of the first novels written in English by a Kurdish woman, and as the book opens five-year-old Leila recalls her father explaining to her that women are worth half as much as men under Iranian law. Years later, after a desperate teenage Leila throws herself in front of a speeding car, her mothers main concern when she visits her in the hospital is not her daughters physical and mental well-being - both of which are seriously compromised - but whether her virginity is intact.

The generation of Kurdish women born in the 1950s and 1960s sometimes accidentally served as agents of the patriarchy, believing they were protecting their daughters even as they kept them from living. When not writing, Homa helps organise and run suicide prevention workshops for Iranian women, and shes found they are often driven by their parents to seriously consider the most drastic measure possible.

The people who are supposed to shelter and protect you become in a way agents of the state by bringing that oppression inside the home, said Homa. You cannot be a hypocrite. If you want justice and freedom, then you want to bring justice and freedom to your own house first.

Shiler, one of the novels most compelling characters, finds her own sort of freedom. Born in prison, she rebels all through childhood and ends up going to the Qandil mountains to join the Peshmerga. She represents the sort of 21st century Kurdish woman who might lead a battalion of militants into battle against the Islamic State or oversee Turkeys main pro-Kurdish party, the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP). Yet even these women face issues of identity and empowerment.

On the one hand, yes you are fighting side by side with your man to protect Kurdistan, she said. On the other hand you are fighting something within yourself - the voice that told you from the moment you are born there is a ceiling to how much you can achieve.

This type of Kurdish woman wascrucial to the creation of Rojava, the autonomous region of northeast Syria founded in late 2013 amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, which Homa sees as a sort of beacon.

Everything we dreamed for and fought for was finally possible, she said, pointing to the regions famed gender equality and bottom-up power structure, its prohibition on under-age marriage, forced marriage and polygamy. It wasnt perfect, wasnt beyond criticism, but it was really the best thing to happen to Kurds.

The existence of Rojava has brought Kurds closer together, underscoring the potential of their struggle and the fact that Kurdish solidarity stretches beyond borders.

The happiness and achievement of Rojava was for all of us, the same way the Dersim massacre or Halabja massacre was everyones pain, regardless of borders, said Homa.

In Dersim, or Turkeys Tunceli province, Turkish authorities killed tens of thousands of Kurdish people in 1937-38, an event that made it crystal clear Kurds were unlikely to ever feel comfortable in any of the four states Western powers placed them in the wake of the First World War, setting them on the path to violent rebellion.

That it happened in Turkey may help explain why Turkish Kurds have in many ways led the fight against Kurds oppressors. The fact that Turkey is home to the worlds largest Kurdish population - an estimated 17 million Kurds, compared to some 10 million in Iran, 7 million in Iraq, and 3 million in Syria - likely also played a role.

Homas novel at one point mentions the Kurds in "Bakur, the north in Kurdish, whose villages were burned and whose women were raped by the Turkish army. This is a clear reference to the states response to the insurgency launched by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the early 1980s, and which continues today. Earlier, Leilas father describes Kurds in Turkey as hopeless.

We look up to them, said Homa. We are amazed by how much they have been able to accomplish not only by standing up to state oppression but also by changing their society.

She pointed to the women co-leaders of the HDP, the influence of jailed former HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirta and the way Kurdish leaders in Turkey stand up not just for Kurdish rights, but for human rights, for diversity and democratic plurality.

Their ability to move beyond nationalism, their ability to organise themselves, even in the diaspora there is a sense of deep admiration and respect for Kurds from Bakur, she said. There is a real sense of aspiring to them, not just today but even in history, they have always been more advanced in womens rights and they have been braver in standing up for their own rights.

Thanks to their brutally painful and difficult history, Homa believes Kurds have become masters of rising from the ashes - a sentiment that nicely sums up Leilas story. Despite the Turkish incursion launched last year, Rojava still exists today.

Despite Turkeys recent military offensive, the Peshmerga and the PKK remain headquartered in the Qandil mountains.

And despite the vast and continuing crackdown by the Turkish government, the HDP continues to fight for the rights of Kurds and all oppressed people in Turkey.

The lesson might be that Kurdish oppressors tend to use similar methods and tend to fail in silencing their foes.

When you look at Machiavellis instructions, they are the same things the Iranian government or the Turkish government are applying today, said Homa. In this sense they are not original. We are capable of rising above these things if we believe we dont deserve the way we are treated.

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The unbearable weight of being Kurdish - Ahval

One last look at NEOWISE – On the 101

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By Rob and Georgina May

Passionate about Mercury, Rob May is known to always be on the hunt for Comets, cars that is. NEOWISE, an astronomical type of Comet, joined Mercury (the planet) in our solar system during the month of July 2020. Georgina Garcia May Photography provides us a glimpse of the lonely shy Comet that will not return for another 6,766 years following its orbital ellipse.Photographers made several stops On the 101 for a chance to see this rare galactic event.

Halleys Comet (last seen in 1986) is one of the most famous and well known comets. Its relative short-term repeat cycle and brightness highlight its popularity. In 1997, the Hale-Bopp Comet made its appearance. It too was luminescent; however, with an over 2500 year cycle, its return is for another era.NEOWISE is the brightest comet in the northern hemisphere since HaleBopp. An acronym with an acronym, Near-Earth Object (NEO) combining with Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) forms the name NEOWISE.

Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in December 2009, a Delta II rocket successfully placed the WISE telescope into orbit. It no longer will be in the shadow of its bigger brother Hubble. In addition to comet NEOWISE, numerous other less visible comets, asteroids, stars, and planets were discovered by the WISE telescope.

Back on Earth, multiple challenges hampered our NEOWISE sightings. Weather, from overcast skies to fog, are the obvious roadblocks in the skyways. Smoke from fires and general smog haze also hindered the comets performance on the astral stage.Ironically, clear nights with a bright moon are not optimal either due to its light outshining the comets appearance.In the same dilemma, popular places are not the best especially with headlights from others shining in camera lens.Remote locations were the most productive.

Speaking of location, simply locating the comet among the stars, planets, satellites, and streaking meteors was not so simple. The Big Dipper was the main reference point after dark. Each night, the comets location and brightness varied.The best time for viewing with the naked eye, binoculars, cameras, telescopes, and more was an hour after sunset. (Initial sightings were possible just before sunrise too). Information providing guides on the expected comets path included online websites and phone apps, quality varied.

Canon is the camera of choice for this writing and photography team. Sturdy tripods are mandatory. On some nights, no extras were needed to see the comet, although binoculars were best for the initial capture to verify ones eyes. Thirty-second long exposure is key to capturing the photo. Settings had to be adjusted to compensate for the dark and limited light (while at the same time not oversaturating). Color and black/white pictures allow for varying details and effects. Georgina Garcia May perfected her night photography on multiple scenes on the 101 and West Coast from Lompoc to Morro Bay and inland to the Carrizo Plains. From our backyard in Lompoc, Surf Beach, Buellton, and Los Alamos, all were locations for photographing the NEOWISE Comet.

Looking for the perfect backdrop for your night shots? The Milky Way (not the candy bar) is great for regular and panoramic views.While not always compatible with comet pictures, the Moon is a fantastic model on its own accord. Planets aligning into a Great Conjunction is a site to behold as well. Also not to be missed, is any solar eclipse from partial to totality. Of course, night rocket launches remain photogenic too.

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One last look at NEOWISE - On the 101

Accolades: Fundraising Efforts, Comet Sports Teams Garner Recognition – University of Texas at Dallas

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Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of The University of Texas at Dallas faculty and students. To submit items for consideration, contact your schools communication manager.

Fundraising Program Earns CASE Award

UT Dallas has been honored with a 2020 Educational Fundraising Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

The Universitys fundraising has helped transform the campus, including the addition of the Engineering and Computer Science West building.

The University earned this distinction in the category of Overall Improvement among public research/doctoral institutions with endowments over $215 million. The award recognizes significant achievement by university fundraising efforts over the past three years by measuring growth in total university support, alumni-giving participation and impact on key areas such as endowment, current operations and capital projects.

Our talented and dedicated staff works hard every day to create a culture of philanthropy in our community, said Kyle Edgington PhD13, vice president for development and alumni relations. This award is a testament to their accomplishments. I am grateful that University leadership continues to invest in our efforts. Of course, everything we do is made possible by the generosity of our loyal alumni, donors and friends.

Since 2017 UTDallas has added nearly 200 funds to its endowment, increasing its market value from $483 million to a high of $574 million. During this time, the University has continued to set record numbers for alumni participation and total gifts raised each year, realizing a 78% increase in annual donations from 2017 to 2019.

This fundraising success has made a transformative impact around campus. Highlights include theacquisition of world-renowned collections of art, the construction of new buildings such as theEngineering and Computer Science West, new awards to promote the research ofearly career faculty,record-setting scholarship endowments and a recent effort toaid students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talented students, staff and faculty are the face of every great university, said UTDallas President Richard C. Benson, the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership. The work they do inspires alumni and partners to support the aspirations of our students, groundbreaking research, life-changing clinical care and creative expression.

Womens Golf Team Wins Academic National Title

Boasting a team GPA of 3.86 over the 2019-20 academic year, the womens golf team has for the first time been crowned the Academic National Champion of NCAA Division III by the Womens Golf Coaches Association (WGCA).

From left: Comet golfers Karen Alvarez, Marissa Langer, Lindy Patterson and Michelle Edgar.

Seniors Michelle Edgar, Marissa Langer and Lindy Patterson and sophomore Karen Alvarez also were honored as All-American Scholars by the WGCA. The womens golf team was not the only UT Dallas sports program that collected major academic accolades over the summer.

The mens golf team received the Presidents Special Recognition Honor for the fifth consecutive year from the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA). Only teams with a GPA at 3.5 and higher collected the honor. Three Comets Harrison Hicks BS20, graduate student Jacob Rockefeller and junior Joseph Park also were recognized as All-America Scholars by the GCAA. Hicks also was named Academic All-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America after closing his career with a perfect 4.0 GPA.

The volleyball team earned the Team Academic Award from the United States Marine Corps/American Volleyball Coaches Association, and five members of the mens basketball program were named to the Honors Court by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. For the 2019-20 academic year, UT Dallas placed 112 student-athletes on the American Southwest Conference (ASC) Academic All-Conference Teams with six Comets named the ASCs Distinguished Scholar-Athlete for their respective sport.

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Accolades: Fundraising Efforts, Comet Sports Teams Garner Recognition - University of Texas at Dallas

Perseid Meteor Shower will peak over UK on August 11 and 12 – Newbury Weekly News Group

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THE Perseid meteor shower is an annual even which starts in mid-July, but reaches its peak on the night of August 11 and morning of the 12, when it should put on quite a show.

If you look anywhere in the lower part of the sky towards the north after it gets dark you might be able to see meteors every few minutes - weather permitting!At peak there could be on average 100 meteors per hour, with up to 75 meteors an hour or more visible from a dark site.

The best time to start looking for meteors is later in the evening until dawn. Perseid rates will increase leading up to peak night when there will be a sudden increase in the rate of showers. The spectacular shower show will continue for a couple of nights before gradually receding.

Tony Hersh, from Newbury Astronomical Society explains: "As comets heat up near the Sun, ice inside them turns to gas and bubbles off the surface, taking dust and rubble with it.The particles of dust and rubble stay drifting in space, but if the Earth travels through them on our path round the Sun they heat up in our atmosphere, glowing white hot as they disintegrate and they appear as streaks of light across the sky.

"The comet that causes the Perseid meteors is dust and rubble left behind as the Swift-Tuttle comet approached the Sun in 1862."

How to spot a meteor:

Wrap up warm and lie back in a reclining chair or on the ground, try and keep clear of trees, lights and buildings. Get your eyes accustomed to the night sky and then just watch. Meteors can come from any direction and blink and you might miss them, but if you spot one it will be a bright streak flashing across the sky, either on its own or a group of them.

Good luck - and if you manage to capture the Perseid meteor shower on camera, email your images to geraldine.gardner@newburynews.co.uk

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Perseid Meteor Shower will peak over UK on August 11 and 12 - Newbury Weekly News Group

The Transhuman Revolution: What it is and How to Prepare …

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What would it be like to live through our own species evolution? The biological process of natural selection that gave rise to every species on Earth takes hundreds of generations to turn one species into another, but what if that process could be skipped entirely?

What would it be like to significantly upgrade humanity in a matter of decades, or even a few years? Welcome to Transhumanism, the movement determined to use breakthrough technologies to make humanity into something more.

The idea of altering or augmenting the human body through technology is as old as humanity itself. From the moment humans first fashioned tools and learned to harness fire, humanity stepped beyond its biological constraints.

Where evolution gave wolves a fierce set of teeth and the cheetahs unmatched speeds, evolution gave humanity the most sophisticated intelligence of any animal on the planet and humans have been using that intelligence to overcome their biological deficits.

SEE ALSO: NEURALINK: HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WILL DOWNLOAD DIRECTLY FROM A COMPUTER

Transhumanism talks about taking this dynamic and using it to not just impact the world around us, but to augment or even replace our biology with technology. Whereas humanity has fixed poor eyesight with corrective lens, straightened a persons teeth with braces, or countless other examples of humans altering out bodies or senses through technology, the transhumanist wants to replace the eye entirely or hijack existing senses in our bodies to detect any number of things that our bodies arent built to sense.

A transhuman then is someone who has taken this step and upgraded their body in a way that doesnt just fix a deficient part to behave as commonly expected but replaces something that works perfectly fine in order to do something more than is biologically possible.

Transhumanism is possible because of something known as neuroplasticity, the capacity for the neurons in our brain to make new connections and reconfigure its network in response to new stimuli, information, trauma, or dysfunction.

Examples include learning new skills, remembering information, people, or events, making complex movements with our bodies without consciously thinking about it, and taking the cacophony of stimuli around us and making sense of it all. Its how we go through life with part of our vision being obstructed by our nose though we simply dont notice it.

According to the late Paul Bach-y-Rita, we see with our brains, not our eyes. A neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the co-founder of Wicaba company that develops technology based on his researchBach-y-Rita has shown that in many ways, our senses are interchangeable. His pioneering research into blindness has even led to the development of a device that can allow someone to see with their tongue.

The key is understanding what sightor hearing, or touching, or smelling, or any other senseactually is: converting external stimuli to electrical signals that the brain then processes into our sensory perception of the world around us. Since the electrical signals traveling through our nervous system are no different from one anotherthey differ only in how the brain processes themthis leaves the door wide open for our existing sensors to be repurposed through technology.

If the visible light that enters our eye and turns on the rods and cones of our retina are essentially turned into a 0 or a 1 being tapped out onto our optical nerve, what is stopping us from creating an artificial eye that allows us to see a wider spectrum that includes infrared and ultraviolet light?

If the eye is essentially a video camera for our brain, why not swap out the camera? Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain may not know what to make of the different signals initially, but it will find a way to interpret them.

It will figure out how to see this new wavelength of light as if it were any other light. Its not hard to think of many other examples of this type of sensor swapping, which gives you an idea of why Transhumanist are such evangelists for the movement.

The idea of cyborgs running around is the stuff of science fiction films from the 1980s, but it is going to become a reality sooner than most people think. Transhumanists are a remarkably diverse group, with DIY biohackers and the US Department of Defense being two of the most prominent examples.

Piercings and tattoos are as old as civilization, but a Biohacker is willing to put their body in service of the movementand not necessarily with medical approval or even assistance. Biohacking can range from something as simple as implanting yourself with an RF tag that you can use to open electronic locks when you come to work to more extreme augments like inserting a tiny magnet under the skin of your finger to detect magnetic fields.

Likewise, its no surprise that armies around the world are eager to lead the way into the new frontier of transhumanism, generals and war leaders have always sought any means to give their army the upper hand over an opponent.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has come right out and said that humans [were] the weakest link in defense systems. Some examples of DARPAs research into transhumanist technologies include allowing humans to convert plant matter to glucose, threat detection through optical implants, and even a way for humans to cling to the surface of a flat wall the way lizards do.

As computer technologies advance alongside biotechnologies, there is a growing convergence between the two in the form of neural interfaces that in the future can open the door to linking your mind directly to an AI in order to facilitate greater learning, overcome neurological conditions, or just to use the internet.

In the coming decades, as more advanced computer technologies continue to shrink in size, its not out of the question that brain implants, linked to an AI, might be possible. In fact, DARPA has already started research along these lines.

Without question, these examples of transhumanism point to one of the essential questions every student or teacher of philosophy has grappled with: what does it mean to be human?

Evolution gave us the brain which has given us technologies such as flint tools, the wheel, and clothing that enabled us to extend ourselves past our biological limitations. Is an artificial eye any different? Are we any less human for using an arrow to kill a deer rather than our bare hands? Who gets to decide?

Some critics argue that the two positions transhumanists propose, rejecting human enhancement through augmentation and implants entirely or wholeheartedly embracing everything the transhumanist movement represents is a false dichotomy.

Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New York-Lehman College, believes that there is a necessary discussion society must have before we introduceor even think of developingsuch technologies: it is perfectly acceptable indeed necessary for individuals and society to have a thorough discussion about what limits are or are not acceptable when it comes to the ethical issues raised by the use of technologies.

Whats more, observers and economists note the movement towards a transhumanist society will exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. Transhumanist technologies are expensive and will be for the foreseeable future, which inevitably means that the elites might pull even further ahead of the rest of the world, much of which is too poor for even basic healthcare.

The most essential thing that our society must do as these technologies advance is to have an open conversation about where we want humanity to go as a species. These technologies are being rapidly developed with no signs of slowing down, so it is up to us to decide how far down this road we want transhumanism to go. Unless we do, the transhuman future we will get may not necessarily be the one that we want.

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The Transhuman Revolution: What it is and How to Prepare ...

Mesothelioma Victims and Asbestos Companies Watching EPA on Asbestos Decision – Mesothelioma.net Blog

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Published on August 03, 2020

Exposure to asbestos continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people around the world, causing malignant mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis and other serious and fatal diseases. In the face of pressure from victims and asbestos companies alike, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering more than 75 comments regarding their Risk Evaluation for Asbestos. While health advocates are lobbying for an outright ban of the toxic substance, the chemical industry worries that the agency will shift its established threshold of danger, effectively eliminating their ability to defend against personal injury lawsuits.

While mesothelioma victims rightly want asbestos and asbestos-containing products entirely eliminated from the American landscape, those on the other side of the argument worry that the draft Risk Evaluation issued in March of 2020 would create new legal obligations for manufacturers and suppliers. These companies would have to report information about the hazards posed by their products.

Of even greater concern is the EPAs proposed lowering of the Inhalation Unit Risk (IUR) for chrysotile asbestos, a number which is often referenced by expert witnesses during mesothelioma litigation.Asbestos companies worry that a lowering would shift the perceived risk of different types of asbestos in the eyes of mesothelioma juries, making it more likely that victims will win their lawsuits.

The IUR is an estimate of cancer risk, i.e. the risk of being diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, for someone who has a lifetime of exposure to asbestos. Asbestos manufacturers worry that the proposed IUR for chrysotile asbestos is contrary to their preferred position that chrysotile is less dangerous than amphibole asbestos. This would jeopardize their use of the chrysotile defense that says that it does not cause mesothelioma or that calculates the risk in a way that is contrary to asbestos victims claims of negligence.

Though the EPA has more than 75 comments to consider before releasing their final decision on asbestos, they have pledged to make their final decision by the end of 2020.

The EPAs decision is likely to have a significant impact on the risk of malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases, as well as on legal issues involving asbestos. For more information, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net at 1-800-692-8608.

Learn more about and contact Terri

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Mesothelioma Victims and Asbestos Companies Watching EPA on Asbestos Decision - Mesothelioma.net Blog

Watch Tech Giants Testify at House Antitrust Hearing …

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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos the world's richest man, making his long-awaited first-ever appearance before a congressional hearing faced no questions at all for nearly two hours, before offering an inconclusive answer on whether the company uses data to undermine its third-party merchants. Amazon is still facing allegations that one of its executives misled Congress about that same issue last year.

The virtual testimony comes at a time of rising legal jeopardy for the major tech companies, who are the subject of antitrust and consumer-protection probes in Washington, multiple U.S. states and Europe.

Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) set the tone early, with an opening statement vowing to check the power of the "emperors of the online economy." But so did Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the full Judiciary panel, who laid out a long series of alleged slights against conservatives by top social media companies and later got into a shouting match after a Democrat accused him of promoting fringe conspiracy theories.

See live highlights from the hearing below.

Amazon is making more money from sellers fees because more third-party sellers are using its services, CEO Jeff Bezos told lawmakers, countering the idea that his company is unfairly profiting from the merchants.

But the Amazon CEO acknowledged that the marketplace algorithm may indirectly favor those who pay the company to fulfill orders.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) cited a new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that found Amazon brought in nearly $60 billion from seller fees last year 21 percent of Amazons total revenue and that the e-commerce giant keeps about 30 percent of each sale. That amount is up from 19 percent of each sale five years ago.

Bezos said the increased amount is because sellers are spending more money with Amazon by using additional services such as Fulfillment by Amazon, where the company stores and ships products on behalf of third-party sellers.

When you see these fees going up, sellers are choosing to use more of our services we make available, he said. Previously they were shipping their own products from their own fulfillment centers so they would have had costs doing that. Now they are doing that through Fulfilment by Amazon.

Bezos also acknowledged that the Buy Box which preselects the seller for when a user clicks on a product indirectly favors sellers who use the Fulfilled by Amazon services.

Indirectly, I think the Buy Box does favor products that can be shipped with Prime, he said. The Buy Box is trying to pick the offer that we predict the customer would most like. That includes price, that includes delivery speed, and if youre a Prime member, it includes whether the item is eligible for Prime."

In response to questions from Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ill.) about stolen and counterfeit goods, Bezos said he believes that Amazon requires sellers to provide a real name and address, but wasnt sure whether a phone number is required. He also said he didnt know how many resources Amazon devotes to seller verification.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took a rare swipe against a core feature of his Silicon Valley competitors late in todays hearing, singling out social media as destructive for free expression.

What I find a little discouraging is that it appears to me that social media is a nuance destruction machine, Bezos said. And I dont think thats helpful for a democracy.

Bezos offered his critique while testifying by videoconference, alongside the head of social media giant Facebook.

He was responding to House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who was invoking the idea of cancel culture and the notion of online mobs that shout down unfashionable opinions. The lawmaker was assessing whether lawmakers were concerned about the polarizing idea, which some question as overblown.

I am concerned in general about that, Bezos told Jordan.

Other tech CEOs also appeared sympathetic to Jordans cancel culture worries.

Apple CEO Tim Cook noted he wasnt all the way up to speed on the idea but expressed concern: If youre about where somebody with a different point of view talks, and theyre canceled, I dont think thats good. I think its good for people to hear from different points of view and decide for themselves.

Im very worried about some of the forces of illiberalism that I see in this country that are pushing against free expression, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Jordan, without identifying specifics.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai simply noted the interest in building platforms to allow freedom of expression. John Hendel

The Chinese government steals U.S. technologies, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said making him the only one of the four tech CEOs willing to say that plainly in response to a question from Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.).

I think its well-documented that the Chinese government steals technology from American companies, Zuckerberg said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said he had no personal knowledge about Chinese technology theft.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai initially followed Cooks line, but later corrected the record to confirm that in 2009 China stole Google information in a well-publicized cyberattack.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who answered last, acknowledged that he had read many reports about technology theft by Beijing, but had no first-hand experience beyond knock-off products sold on Amazon.

All four CEOs passed on the opportunity to suggest how Congress could better help defend U.S. companies abroad, against either technology theft or excessive regulation. Leah Nylen and Ryan Heath

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who heads the Houses probe into tech giants, accused Facebook of tolerating a fountain of misinformation that benefits the companys engagement-driven business model even on topics as deadly as the coronavirus.

Theres no competition forcing you to police your own platform, the House antitrust subcommittee chairman told CEO Mark Zuckerberg. During the greatest public health crisis of our lifetime, dont you agree that these articles viewed by millions on your platform will cost lives?

The lawmaker cited articles that drew millions of views on sites like Facebook while making claims about Covid-19, including those describing President Donald Trumps musings about placing disinfectants inside the body or allegations that coronavirus hype is a political hoax.

Cicilline said Facebook allows such content to reap advertising dollars. But Zuckerberg countered that this kind of noxious material is not helpful for our business.

It is not what people want to see, and we rank what we show in Feed based on what is going to be most meaningful to people and what is going to create long-term satisfaction, Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg defended Facebooks policy of taking down bogus information that could cause imminent harm and its attempt to highlight authoritative guidance. But Cicilline brought up a Monday video from the conservative website Breitbart, which dismissed the necessity of masks and called hydroxychloroquine a Covid-19 cure and which experienced soaring Facebook traffic over several hours before Facebook removed it.

A lot of people shared that, Zuckerberg said. And we did take it down because it violates our policies.

After 20 million people saw it after a period of five hours? Cicilline countered. Doesnt that suggest, Mr. Zuckerberg, that your platform is so big that even with the right policies in place, you cant contain deadly content? John Hendel

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks via video conference during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law hearing. | Graeme Jennings/Getty Images

Apple didnt consider the impact on its own parental control app when it removed some of the most popular apps that limit screentime from its App Store, CEO Tim Cook told lawmakers.

Apple introduced its own Screen Time app, which allows parents to limit how much time kids spend on their phones, in September 2018. After that, the company removed a number of competing apps. Qustodio and Kidslox, two of the leading parental control apps, have filed a complaint with the European Commission about their removal.

Cook said Apple removed the apps because of privacy concerns.

We were worried about the safety of kids, Cook said in response to questions by Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.).

Demings asked Cook why the company removed many of the most popular screentime apps but not Absher, an app created by the Saudi Arabian government that uses the same technology.

It sounds like you applied different rules to the same apps, Demings said.

Cook said he wasnt familiar with Absher, but said the App Store has about 30 parental control apps after it changed its policy last year. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), who returned to the issue later in the hearing, noted that Apple eventually allowed the apps back into the App Store after six months without requiring major changes.

We apply the rules to all developers equally, Cook said. I see Screen Time as just an alternative. Theres vibrant competition for parental controls out there. Leah Nylen

Facebook has certainly adapted features from competing services, CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged Wednesday, but he denied it has threatened to copy start-ups if they wouldnt sell to his company.

But Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) expressed skepticism about his answer, reading from text messages between Zuckerberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and messages between Systrom and a venture capitalist. She asked Zuckerberg whether he threatened Systrom and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel by saying he would clone their products if they didnt sell to Facebook. The company bought Instagram in 2012, but Snap rebuffed offers to sell to the social network.

The House subcommittee also posted those documents to its website Wednesday.

Im not sure what you would mean by threaten, Zuckerberg said, referring to the companys effort to build an app called Facebook Camera. It was public we were building a camera app at the time. That was a well-documented thing.

It was clear this was a space we were going to compete in one way or another, he said. I dont think those are a threat in any way.

Jayapal reminded Zuckerberg he was under oath while testifying.

In closing her questioning, Jayapal said she didnt believe threats should be a normal business practice.

Facebook is a case study in monopoly power, in my opinion, because your company harvests and monetizes our data and then your company uses that data to spy on your competitors and copy, acquire and kill rivals, she said. Youve used Facebooks power to threaten smaller competitors and ensure you always get your way. These tactics reinforce Facebooks dominance. Leah Nylen

House Judiciary Democrats lost a big potential GOP ally if they had any hopes of bipartisan recommendations to update antitrust law as part of their probe into tech giants.

I have reached the conclusion that we do not need to change our antitrust laws, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the antitrust subcommittee, said hours into the hearing on alleged bad behavior by Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Theyve been working just fine. The question here is the question of enforcement of those antitrust laws.

The subcommittees probe has been led by Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who has been preparing a report to conclude the long investigation. GOP buy-in would strongly bolster its conclusions, including potential recommendations for updates to antitrust law.

Notably, Sensenbrenner seemed to support the probe itself and said hes been working with the chairman for over a year on this bipartisan investigation. His support runs counter to some Republicans who have disparaged Democratic handling of the probe.

But Congress shouldnt toss out a century of precedent, added the retiring House Republican. He said lawmakers should instead pressure antitrust regulators like the Federal Trade Commission, an agency that has faced accusations of going lightly on companies like Facebook and Google. John Hendel

Tempers flared more than two hours into the hearing after Rep. Mary Scanlon (D-Pa.) began her questioning with a dismissal of what she called fringe conspiracy theories of House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

That prompted an outburst from Jordan, who had just pressed Google on whether its biased toward Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and said he had internal evidence of the search giants interest in encouraging Latino voters in 2016.

The only problem: It was no longer Jordans time to speak, as Democrats immediately reminded him as they shouted him down.

Mr. Jordan, you do not have the time! antitrust subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) declared amid gavel slamming.

When someone told him to wear a mask, Jordan sought to bring up the unmasking in the surveillance sense of former Trump White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

When someone comes after my motives for asking questions, I get a chance to respond, Jordan said before letting the hearing proceed.

For the record, Google CEO Sundar Pichai maintained that his company is apolitical. John Hendel

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company is still investigating whether employees may have used data it acquires from its third-party sellers to launch competing products an issue that has prompted allegations that the company misled House lawmakers a year ago.

We have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business. I cant guarantee you that that policy has never been violated, Bezos said in response to questions from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose district includes Amazon headquarters. If we found someone violated the policy, we would take action against them.

The Wall Street Journal reported this year that Amazon employees frequently looked at seller data to help determine what products the company should offer, contrary to what an Amazon executive told the House a year ago. Jayapal also quoted a former Amazon employee as telling the panel that seller data is a candy shop. Everyone can have access to anything they want.

Bezos also acknowledged that while company policy might prevent employees from looking at a specific sellers information, they could look at aggregate data. Jayapal and The Wall Street Journal story noted that Amazon workers took advantage of that by pairing a successful seller with one who had little business to gain insights into particular products.

You have access to data that other sellers do not have, Jayapal said. The whole goal of this committees work is to make sure that there are more Amazons, that there are more Apples, that there are more companies that get to innovate and small businesses get to thrive. ...That is why we need to regulate these marketplaces so that no company has a platform so dominant that it is essentially a monopoly. Leah Nylen

The first batch of questions saw the CEOs collectively struggle to directly answer lawmakers, who came armed with well-researched questions and strong opinions a shift in gear from previous congressional tech hearings.

The one exception was Jeff Bezos, who escaped all questions for the first hour.

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his companys management of Instagram, citing the Federal Trade Commissions original decision not to challenge the companys 2012 merger with Instagram, hearing chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) dismissed Zuckerberg, saying the failures of the FTC in 2012 do not alleviate Facebooks current antitrust challenges.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai tried to fend off questions by citing examples of individual vendors using Google to grow their business, before Cicilline cut him off for not answering the question.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) reeled off a list of possible links and alignment between Google and the Chinese Communist Party, leaving Pichai to say only that Google had only a very limited presence in China. He repeated that answer to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who repeated charges by tech investor Peter Thiel that Googles China links are treason, and concerns from Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in 2018 that Googles artificial intelligence work in China puts the U.S. military at a competitive disadvantage. Ryan Heath

Apple CEO Tim Cook rejected allegations that the companys App Store rules for developers are enforced arbitrarily and argued that the company must compete with rivals to interest developers in building apps for its iPhone and iPad.

We treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules, Cook said under questioning from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.). Those rules apply evenly to everyone.

Cook said the majority of apps sold through the App Store, 84 percent, pay no fees. The remainder pay either a 30 percent or 15 percent commission, he said.

Johnson noted that Amazon has an agreement with Apple to allow users to bypass the iPhones in-app payment service, and its 30 percent fee, and instead use the credit card on file in their Amazon account for the Amazon Prime Video app. Cook said that would be available to anyone meeting the conditions, though he didnt outline what those conditions are.

The Apple CEO also argued that the company must compete to attract developers, who could offer apps for Googles Android, Microsofts Windows or XBox or Nintendos Playstation.

Theres a competition for developers just like theres a competition for customers, Cook said. Its so competitive I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business. Leah Nylen

Were starting to see some fruits of the subcommittees year-plus investigation, and its got Zuckerberg on the defensive.

The Facebook CEO and New York Democrat Jerry Nadler went back and forth over internal company emails in which, Nadler said, Zuckerberg told a colleague back in 2012 that it was buying the photo-sharing Instagram because it could meaningfully hurt us without becoming a huge business.

Zuckerbergs thinking at the time could become a critical piece of evidence if it bolsters the idea that Facebook was abusing its dominance and deep coffers to eliminate budding rivals. Facebooks buying up of Instagram has become a key focus for critics of the company, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and others saying the deal should be unwound. Thats a threat for Facebook: Instagram has become wildly popular in its own right, and is central to Zuckerbergs plan to keep a toe hold with younger generations who are otherwise flocking to sites like TikTok.

Did you mean that consumers might switch from Facebook to Instagram? Nadler asked.

Congressman, started Zuckerberg, attempting to make the case that no one at the time saw Instagram has a general social network app, rather than a really good photo-sharing app. Nadler pressed on: Yes or no: Did you mean that?

Then Nadler went for the kill, asking what Zuckerberg meant when he wrote that what were really buying is time, adding, Mr. Zuckerberg: Mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws.

Zuckerberg tried again, insisting that the Federal Trade Commission knew how Facebook was thinking about Instagram back when it signed off on the merger almost a decade ago. Thats when antitrust subcommittee David Cicilline (D-R.I.) jumped in: I would remind the witness that the failures of the FTC in 2012 of course do not alleviate the antitrust challenges that the chairman described.

Translation: Dont think this is over just because that agency down the road said it was.Nancy Scola

A top House Republican used his questioning to press Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over a recent content moderation squabble involving Donald Trump Jr., the presidents son, with Twitter.

It was reported that Donald Trump Jr. got taken down for a period of time because he put something up on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. Although Sensenbrenner said he wouldnt take the medication, the lawmaker said, I think this is a legitimate matter of discussion.

Why has that happened? Sensenbrenner asked Zuckerberg.

Congressman, first, to be clear, I think what you might be referring to happened on Twitter, so its hard for me to speak to that, the Facebook CEO said. But I can talk to our policies about this.

Zuckerberg said Facebook would take down any claim a proven cure for Covid-19 exists when there is none, given the potential imminent risk for harm, although he said the social platform would allow free discussion about drug trials and what people may think more generally about a treatments prospects.

Our goal is to offer a platform for all ideas, Zuckerberg told Sensebrenner. Frankly I think weve distinguished ourselves as one of the companies that defends free expression the most. John Hendel

Google CEO Sundar Pichai denied that the search giant steals content from other websites and rejected reports alleging that the company steers users to its own products and sites rather than sources elsewhere on the web.

We have always focused on providing users the most relevant information, Pichai said in response to pointed questions from House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee chair David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who said the panel had seen evidence about Google taking content from other websites and placing more ads on its search results. The vast majority of queries on Google, we dont show ads at all.

Cicilline cited an investigation by The Markup that showed Google has devoted more space on the first page of search results to its own products -- which earn the company more revenue that if users go to other webpages. Pichai said that Google only shows ads when consumers are seeking to buy products and argued that they compete with other e-commerce platforms, like Amazon, where consumers often go directly to try to find products.

When I run the company Im really focused on giving users what they want, Pichai said. We see vigorous competition, whether it be travel or real estate, and we are working hard to innovate.

The Federal Trade Commissions investigation into Google in the early 2010s found Google scraped content from other websites, including Yelp and TripAdvisor. The company agreed to allow other companies to opt out of having their content scraped through 2017. Leah Nylen

One surprise so far in the hearing: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who generally likes to stick fairly religiously to a script in his public appearances, went far afield from his written testimony including strongly arguing that his 2-billion-member social network is an underdog when you look at the behemoths hes testifying alongside.

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Watch Tech Giants Testify at House Antitrust Hearing ...

Impacts and Recommendations After Big Tech Congressional Testimony – Government Technology

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On Wednesday, July 29, 2020, the CEOs of some of the biggest tech giants in the world testified (virtually) before Congress. Some characterized the bipartisan questioning as a brutal beating, but others reported that not much new was accomplished.

These hearings are the current ones in a series of actions at the federal and local governments and have involved other big tech such as Microsoft as other industry service providers

What can we learn? What were the impacts? How do these regulatory issues affect state and local governments? Most important, what can and should be done next by public and private sector leaders and their partners?

These are a few of the items I explore in this blog, with the help of long-time state government policy expert Andris Ozols who worked for many years with me in Michigan government before his retirement a few years ago. Andris was also a significant contributor to my recent blog efforts on elections security.

Background on the Congressional Hearings

First, the media coverage of the testimony was widespread before, during and after the virtual event. Here are a few headlines and relevant excerpts:

Washington Post: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google grilled on Capitol Hill over their market power

Excerpt: The leaders of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google took a brutal political lashing Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans confronted the executives for wielding their market power to crush competitors and amass data, customers and sky-high profits.

The rare interrogation played out over the course of a nearly six-hour hearing, with lawmakers on the Houses top antitrust subcommittee coming armed with millions of documents, hundreds of hours of interviews and in some cases the once-private messages of Silicon Valleys elite chiefs. They said it showed some in the tech sector had become too big and powerful, threatening rivals, consumers and, in some cases, even democracy itself.

NPR.org: Heads Of Amazon, Apple, Facebook And Google Testify On Big Tech's Power

Excerpt: Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the subcommittee chairman, spent all of his first five-minute block of questions on Google the company at most immediate risk of antitrust action. The Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to sue the company over its advertising business, and could be joined by state attorneys general who have also been investigating Google.

Cicilline pressed CEO Pichai on whether Google's business model presents a conflict of interest, because it has an incentive to give search results that keep users on its own site rather than anywhere else on the Internet.

New York Times: Lawmakers, United in Their Ire, Lash Out at Big Techs Leaders

Excerpt: The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, four tech giants worth nearly $5 trillion combined, faced withering questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike on Wednesday for the tactics and market dominance that had made their enterprises successful.

For more than five hours, the 15 members of an antitrust panel in the House lobbed questions and repeatedly interrupted and talked over Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google.

Forbes: Why Big Tech Should Regulate Itself

Excerpt: Big Tech faces two main options. They can go on acting as if nothing is amiss and hope that government action will take a long time to become a reality. Or they can take proactive steps to recognize the legitimacy of the issues and regulate themselves with a commitment to reengage with acting honorably and doing no evil. The latter course of action will be the smarter and less painful one.

Fox News: Big Tech backlash: Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon CEOs grilled on Capitol Hill

Excerpt: House lawmakers on Wednesday grilled the heads of some of the world's largest tech companies - with Democrats questioning whether the companies violated U.S. antitrust laws and stole from competitors, while Republicans slammedthem over alleged censorship and bias against conservatives.

BBC News (UK spelling) - Big Tech: What comes next for the US giants?

Excerpt: It's highly unlikely though that anything much will happen before the US elections in November.

As well as the presidential vote, all the seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as well as about a third of the Senate.

And so we reach a fork in the road for Big Tech in America.

A Republican win would probably see the tech giants scrutinised further over how they police free speech. Section 230 - which gives social media companies immunity from prosecution for what is published on their platforms - would probably be looked at.

If the Democrats win, expect more regulation in an attempt to inject more competition into the tech industry.

Consequences to State and Local Governments and Potential Actions

There are both direct and indirect consequences on state and local governments, and in order for the states and locals to both maximize the benefits as well as ameliorate the effects of regulations, the state and local governments need to understand these effects and their causes and work collaboratively among themselves and with the technology partners.

Collaboration involves shared assessments, solution design, programs, education and training, advocacy and more. Selected examples include:

Understanding State and Local Direct Impacts of Regulatory Issues

Direct impact issues are issues that are part of the federal review, litigation and hearing agendas and state Attorney General related agendas. Contested IT related issues involve direct business practices, platforms, hardware, software, services at variance with state and local government public values and ethics, policies, strategies, standards and agreements including accuracy, operations, outputs or outcomes.

Emphasis is placed on: State legal requirements; state and gubernatorial priorities; action and decisions needed for this decision cycle; potential for maximum effects on outcomes; facilitating integration, collaboration among governments; options available for sustained innovation involving the greatest range of state and local government services and customers.

1 - Direct effects of federal regulatory issues. Key issues identified in federal big tech, and related hearings include: Limiting options in services, decrease in control or discretion in managing services, decreased trust in government protection of security and privacy, accuracy and truthfulness of information.

2 - State and local regulatory issues. Key issues addressed in state Attorney General initiatives also include: Limiting options in services, decrease in control or discretion in managing services, decreased trust in government protection of security and privacy, accuracy and truthfulness of information.

Collaborative state initiatives announced last week for New York and California are accelerating the process and provide new models for state and local initiatives. This article from The Guardian (UK) is entitled, New York unveils landmark antitrust bill that makes it easier to sue tech giants.

New YorkState is introducing a bill that would make it easier to sue big tech companies for alleged abuses of their monopoly powers. New York is Americas financial center and one of its most important tech hubs. If successfully passed, the law could serve as a model for future legislation across the country. It also comes as a federal committee is conducting ananti-trust investigationinto tech giants amid concerns that their unmatched market power is suppressing competition. Also, The New York Attorney General's office will join the California Attorney General's office and the Federal Trade Commission's investigation intoAmazon's online marketplace.

3 State, local and federal regulatory roles and balance. Balance in roles and authority in regulations is a policy and legal point of contention among levels of government and also determines how the regulatory issues are prioritized. This includes topic like what stakeholders need to be involvedand timing for action. One of the NGA chairs priority issues for 2020 2021 will be federalism issues and questions of balance of roles and authority.

4 - State and local stakeholders and collaboration. States have established public and private sector collaborative networks (cite examples), but the current issues call for reinforcing relationships and strengthening ones with NGA, fiscal officers (https://www.nasbo.org/home ), procurement National Association of State Procurement Officials - NASPO , auditors NASACT , legislators (National Conference of State Legislatures) and their associations. Also, the perspectives of federal Congressional and Executive assessment sources such as Partnership for Public Service, GAO, GSA, CBO and public policy administrators would be helpful, including ASPA. https://www.aspanet.org/ASPA/

Understanding Indirect Impacts: Information, Procurement, Smart, Digital Government and Public Sector Policy and Procedural Issues

Indirect issues are those resulting from direct IT services such as hardware, software, services, outputs serving as IT inputs that support or enable other functions, processes, programs or services. In addition to processes and services, these may also affect policies, standards, decision-making, customer values, perceptions, satisfaction and trust.

In particular, these issues and how they are resolved help define and pre-structure the options available for smart, digital communities and governments.

1 Information Control and Management. Information and information management is a foundational issue, the wizard behind the curtain. Ownership, control, accuracy, misinformation and information management plays a central role in a number of the support platforms for smart, digital government - such as internet of things, mobile and location aware services, cloud, integrated and autonomous AI.

2 Procurement. Procurement management is the gateway to public / private relationships, partnerships, standards, performance, accountability, policy and value alignment, etc. Includes RFIs, RFSs, RFPs and contracts. National Association of State Procurement Officials - NASPO is a crucial partner on this issue and NASCIO has a strong established relationship.

3 Smart, Digital Government. Smart, digital government and communities and cities are vital constructs describing the connection, integration of technologies to transform how governments, citizens and businesses interact. Some of the regulatory issues can impact on smart government priorities; timing and scheduling; platforms; information ownership; privacy; security; accuracy and reliability; processes; state and local government control; public trust and others.

While many roadmaps for smart governments and communities address the role of regulations, not all of them do, and the pandemic as well as the overlap of the flu and hurricane seasons will further accentuate the risks. In general state and local assessments, policies, standards, plans and roadmaps do not consistently address the role of regulations or the consequences of not complying. However, there are sufficient examples and models such as NGA work on on Smart Transportation and Smart Energy roadmap, with sections on regulations from the Smart Community and State Initiative that can serve as models.

4 - Key State and Local Service Sectors. There are differential regulatory effects on service sectors and realignment of priorities and solutions. For example, differential effect of selected platforms on IT supported health and education services, distance learning and work, election processes, security, disaster management and recovery.

5 Key 2020 2021 Events and Decision Points. The juxtaposition of the pandemic, hurricane season, pending flu season in context of elections, economic disruptions a revenue and budget short-falls are altering priorities, reducing funding allocation levels, stressing state and local service capabilities and calls for modifications in disaster and management and recovery approaches and the supporting platforms in which Big Tech is involved.

Recommendations for Collaborative Action

The public sector IT community needs to work together in both recognizing the benefits of Big Tech and integrator services as well as addressing and resolving adverse effects. This needs to involve both the public and private sector communities and build upon existing networks and public private partnership models.

The following recommendations address both the three-month cycle before the election, the three months after the election, and reference issues for potential future action.

The next five or six month period covers the front end of most state and local government assessment, design and development cycles and also includes a number of state and local association and support group working sessions and planned deliverables that could include a regulatory issue perspective. The following four groups share a collaborative history are illustrative of potential opportunities and next steps regarding non-profits supporting state and local governments:

National Governors Association (NGA) - https://www.nga.org/

Follow-up to federalism issue after the Summer 2020 virtual session can include both infrastructure and regulatory issues from an IT perspective.

The Smart Transportation and Smart Energy roadmap sections on regulations, from the Smart Community and State Initiative can be one of the inputs in developing shared templates.

National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) http://www.nascio.org

Center for Digital Government (CDG) https://www.govtech.com/cdg/about/

Public Technology Institute (PTI) / CompTIA https://www.pti.org/

Recommended Collaborative Actions

1 Advocacy on Federal Hearing Report. Coordinate state and local advocacy on the pending federal hearing report and recommendations as well as follow-up with the executive branch and Congress.

2 Potential IT Related Advocacy and Potential Participation State AG Initiatives. Develop a coordinated and collaborative state and local review of AG initiatives from an IT perspective and recommendations, including the New York and California proposed actions. The federal hearings and NY initiatives are fulcrums for state and local IT related actions and may serve as models for selected state actions.

3 Enhance Role of Regulations in State and Local IT Policies, Strategies, Operations, Roadmaps and Advocacy. Collectively develop templates for addressing regulations in state and local policy and procedural guidelines, including procurement, operational and performance management, audits and others.

4 Conduct an Assessment and Recommendations of IT and Regulatory Effect and Support Capabilities for Pandemic Effects and Election Processes. Conduct a collaborative assessment of the capabilities and opportunities of IT support for the pandemic and election process, other pending emergencies and potential interactions with the regulatory issues. Develop recommendations for state leadership, NGA, NCSL and federal government.

5 Develop a Forum for IT Stakeholder Collaboration on Regulatory Issues. Identify scope of potential stakeholders for supporting recommendations and further action, and develop a forum for organizing a state, local, federal and private sector collaborative. This forum can be a Web based forum, perhaps hosted as part of the NASCIO virtual fall session.

Final Thoughts

Back in 2018, Deloitte Consulting wrote this: Regulations or absence of regulations can also alter or limit both direct government operations as well as stakeholder, customer benefits, and limit development or innovation options. As new business models and services emerge, such as ride-sharing services and initial coin offerings, government agencies are challenged with creating or modifying regulations, enforcing them, and communicating them to the public at a previously undreamed-of pace. And they must do this while working within legacy frameworks and attempting to foster innovation.

Here is another excellent piece by Deloitte on regulation and cybersecurity: National security and technology regulation. I also think it worth reviewing these biggest takeaways from the Washington Post on the antitrust hearings.

CNBCs expert analysts believe these companies will never be broken-up due to the U.S. desire to compete with companies from China and elsewhere. Nevertheless, they also say there is likely more regulation coming.

One thing is clear: Well be back to cover this topic many times in the coming years. The issues are not going away.

Time to do your homework and get ready for more in 2021 and beyond - regardless of who wins the upcoming election.

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Impacts and Recommendations After Big Tech Congressional Testimony - Government Technology

UK regulator is needed to keep powers of tech giants in check – Telegraph.co.uk

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One solution would be the creation of a regulator that couldgive local authoritiesand organisations in the UKcommunal ownership of data in a way that protects privacy, the report claims.

The regulator would be part of a new Office for the Digital Common, and would have the power to protect valuable UK digital data, such as that derived from the NHS, from unfair international exploitation.

It also recommends steps to bring the value created by data under local and regional control, as is already being pioneered by innovative cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona.

"Local authorities, metro mayors and devolved administrations can do the same in the UK," said Mr Meadway.

For instance, they could compelcompanies to share data as a pre-condition of winning a service contract, and push for locally collected data to be made open to use by others.

"Competition policy alone, at least in the sense of simply trying to break up some of these digital giants, could both reduce the value to the public of operating at scale and, by creating smaller digital companies with similar business models, could simply reproduce some of the socially damaging behaviour we have seen," saidMr Meadway.

Big Tech faced a grilling from the US Congress last week over its swelling powers in an unprecedented hearing that saw the bosses of Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple all appear together by videolink for the first time.

Read more from the original source:

UK regulator is needed to keep powers of tech giants in check - Telegraph.co.uk