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Hackers Target Real estate websites with skimmer in latest supply chain attack

4 years 8 months ago


Threat actors used a cloud-based video hosting service to perform a supply chain attack on more than 100 real estate websites operated by Sotheby's Realty that involved the injection of malicious skimmers to steal sensitive personal information . 

“Others import videos, even their websites are embedded with skimmer codes,” researchers from Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks said in a report released this week.

The skimmer attacks, also called formjacking, relates to a type of cyber attack wherein bad actors insert malicious JavaScript code into the target website, most often to checkout or payment pages on shopping and e-commerce portals, to harvest valuable information such as credit card details entered by users.


In the latest incarnation of the Magecart attacks, the operators behind the campaign hacked Sotheby's Brightcove account  and deployed malicious code in the cloud video platform player by forging a script that can be loaded to add JavaScript customizations to the video player. 

"The attacker modified the static script in his hosted location by attaching the skimmer code. On the next player update, the video platform reingested the compromised file and served it  with the affected player." the researchers said, adding that he had worked with the video service and the real estate company to help remove the malware.

The campaign is said to have begun as early as January 2021, according to MalwareBytes, with the harvested information — names, emails, phone numbers, credit card data — exfiltrated to a remote server "cdn-imgcloud[.]com" that also functioned as a collection domain for a Magecart Attack  targeting Amazon CloudFront CDN in June 2019.

To detect and prevent the injection of malicious code into online sites, it is recommended that you perform periodic web content integrity checks, remembering to protect accounts from takeover attempts and pay attention to potential social engineering schemes. 

“The skimmer itself is highly polymorphic, elusive and ever-changing,” the researchers said. “When combined with cloud distribution platforms, the impact of such a skimmer  could be very significant.

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Squid Game’s Hwang Dong-hyuk & Kim Ji-yeon Lawyer Up; Yorn, Levine, Barnes To Rep In All Areas

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: Agostini/Invision/AP


A competitive chase by representatives to sign the architects of the global streaming hit Squid Game is ending with a surprise. Deadline hears that the law firm of Yorn Levine Barnes Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner Endlich & Gellman has signed and will rep in all areas Squid Game creator, writer-director and EP Hwang Dong-hyuk and EP Kim Ji-yeon and their production company Siren Pictures Inc.

Partners Kevin Yorn, Gregg Gellman and Jared Levine will lead that rep team.T

he phenomenal success of Netflix’s Squid Game came seemingly out of nowhere, catapulting Hwang and the cast to global stardom and making them the hottest commodity in Hollywood. That created a stampede among the major agencies late last yearto sign Hwang and the actors, the vast majority of whom have no Hollywood representation. The courtship got underway when cast and creators came to Hollywood for a big press junket Netflix held. Several of the cast signed with agencies. It looks right now that the Squid Game EP duo will have the attorneys be their sole Hollywood reps, sources said.

Hwang hinted recently at a third season for the show, even before the second season gets the official green light. Season 1 was made on a modest budget, reportedly $2.4 million per episode ($21.4 million in total), while projected to generate $900 million value for the streamer, according to data cited by Bloomberg.

The cast and Hwang had no-frills contracts typical for local-language Netflix productions. Clearly the new reps will be out to change all that and help set up new series and films. “I’m not that rich,” Hwang told The Guardian last year. “But I do have enough. I have enough to put food on the table. And it’s not like Netflix is paying me a bonus. Netflix paid me according to the original contract.”

Source: Yahoo News

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Emma Watson pro-Palestinian post sparks antisemitism row

4 years 8 months ago
Watson's Instagram post had nearly one million likes and more than 89,000 comments by Tuesday [File: Henry Nicholls/Reuters]

British actress Emma Watson's official Instagram account  expressed solidarity with the Palestinians in a new post, eliciting widespread support from pro-Palestinian users but also drawing sharp criticism from Israeli officials.

The account of the movie star, known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, on Monday shared a photo of a pro-Palestinian rally with the phrase "Solidarity is a verb."
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson)

The picture was originally released by the Bad Activism Collective in May last year after Israel launched a deadly 11-day offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, in which several celebrities interfered with the conflict with figures such as Bella Hadid and Susan Sarandon posting messages of support for the Palestinians.
In the caption, there is a quote from British-Australian activist Sara Ahmed, saying: “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future.
Solidarity involves commitment and work, as well as recognition that even though we don't have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we  live on common ground. Watson's Instagram bio  says her account "has been taken over by an anonymous feminist collective."
The post, which by Tuesday had nearly one million likes and more than 89,000 comments, was hailed by pro-Palestine social media users. Many thanked Watson for her support, while some added the hashtags #FreePalestine and #PalestineWillBeFree to their comments.

On the other hand, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, criticized the publication:
"Fiction may work in Harry Potter, but in reality it doesn't work," he wrote on Twitter. The wizarding world could eradicate the evils of Hamas (which oppresses women and seeks to destroy Israel) and the Palestinian Authority (which supports terrorism). I would be for it! " he said.

His comments followed those of former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon.


“10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite,” Danon tweeted.


Several social media users slammed Danon for his comments.


Leah Greenberg, the coexectual director of the indivisible project, a non-profit organization, which was founded in 2016 in response to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, released the allegations of Danons and said that they were "a perfect demonstration of liberation absolutely cynical and bad-faith weaponisation of antisemitism to shut down basic expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian journalist and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who played a crucial role in raising international awareness about the forced eviction of Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, responded saying that Watson’s “simple statement” had left “Zionists everywhere … in a frenzy”.

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A record 4.5 Mi)ion Americans quit their Jobs in November,

4 years 8 months ago

 


A record 4.5 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This pushed the layoff rate to 3%, equivalent to the peak in September. Workers were more likely to quit their jobs in the hospitality sector, which had by far the highest exit rate at 6.1% in November, as were those in the health care sector.
Figures in transportation, warehouses and utilities also increased.

Workers have continued to quit work at a historic rate. Low-wage industries directly affected by the pandemic continued to be the source of much of the increase in quits, ”said Nick Bunker, research director  at  Indeed Hiring Lab, in comments by e -mail.
The big question for 2022 is whether this momentum will persist. The high quits rate Data for November  released on Tuesday does not yet take into account the arrival of the Omicron variant on US shores, which has pushed infections on the rise. and put many workers at risk of contracting the virus in the workplace.

Case in point, the UCLA Labor Center said in a report also released on Tuesday that nearly a quarter of fast food workers in the Los Angeles area have contracted Covid in the past 18 months. Less than half of them had been informed by their employers that they had been potentially exposed to the virus.
Including layoffs and discharges, the total number of terminations was 6.3 million in November.
Hotels and restaurants saw the biggest increase in departures, while also seeing the biggest drop in open jobs, the data showed. America had 10.6 million jobs to fill in November, down slightly from just over 11 million jobs opened in October. Available jobs in the United States peaked at 11.1 million last July.

Positions in finance and insurance, as well as in the federal government, increased in November.


Hires were little changed at 6.7 million and that paints a positive picture of the labor market:


"People who quit are taking other jobs, not leaving the workforce," said Heidi Shierholz, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute in a tweet Tuesday. "On net, the labor market is gaining a ton of jobs every month."


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Beware of fake Telegram Messenger App Hacking PCs with Purple Fox Malware

4 years 8 months ago

The Telegram messaging app Trojan installers are  used to deploy the Windows-based Purple Fox backdoor to compromised systems. That's according to new research published by Minerva Labs, which describes the attack as different from intruders that typically exploit legitimate software to release malicious payloads. 

"This threat actor was able to keep most  of the attack under the radar by breaking the attack down into several small files, most of which had very low detection rates by the [antivirus] engines,  the last step leading  Purple Fox rootkit infection, said researcher Natalie Zargarov.

First discovered in 2018, Purple Fox comes with rootkit capabilities that allow the malware to be planted beyond the reach of security solutions and evade detection. A March 2021 report from Guardicore  detailed its worm-like propagation feature, enabling the backdoor to spread more rapidly.

Then, in October 2021, Trend Micro researchers discovered a .NET implant dubbed FoxSocket distributed in partnership with Purple Fox that uses WebSockets to contact its command and control (C2) servers for a more secure way to establish communications.

"The capabilities of the Purple Fox rootkit make it more capable of achieving its goals in a more stealthy manner," the researchers noted. “They allow Purple Fox to persist on affected systems and deliver additional payloads to affected systems.

Last but not least, in December 2021, Trend Micro also  shed light on the later stages of the Purple Fox infection chain, targeting SQL databases by inserting a malicious SQL common language runtime (CLR) module to achieve a persistent and stealthier execution and ultimately abuse the SQL servers for illicit cryptocurrency mining.


The new  chain of attacks observed by Minerva begins with a Telegram installer file, an AutoIt script that publishes a legitimate installer for the chat app, and a malicious downloader called "TextInputh.exe", the latter being executed to retrieve the next malware from the C2 server.

 Then the downloaded files  block the processes associated with the different antivirus engines, before moving on to the final step of downloading and running the Purple Fox rootkit from a  remote server which is now down. installers providing the same version of the Purple Fox rootkit  using the same attack chain, ”Zargarov said.

“ Some appear to have been delivered by email, while others, we assume, were downloaded from websites phishing. The beauty of this attack is that each step is separate for a different file, which is unnecessary without all of the files.

Source: The Hacker News


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Mars looks like a delicious dessert in stunning spacecraft image

4 years 8 months ago

 

The red planet looks good enough to eat in this Trace Gas Orbiter image of a crater. 

ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a breathtaking new photo of a two-and-a-half-mile-wide ice-covered crater on Mars affectionately nicknamed "Red Velvet."
Spotted by Digitaltrends, the image was captured by the Trace Gas Orbiter taking photos of the surface of the red planet, examining gases in the atmosphere, and serving as a communication link between landers and other devices on the surface and on planet Earth.
The orbiter is officially a collaboration between  ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos and the photo, originally taken on July 5, 2021, shows a nearly four-kilometer-wide perspective of the surface and the covered crater ice near the north polar region of Vastitas Borealis on Mars.
Like a splash of icing sugar on a rich red velvet cake, this scene from ESA / Roscosmos Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter Captures The contrasting colors of brilliant white water against rusty red martian soil, "the ESA describes .

The ESA says the crater is partially filled with water ice more prevalent on the north-facing slopes since that region receives fewer hours of sunlight throughout the year with the dark sections on the crater edges likely containing volcanic materials like basalt, giving it a sort of scorched looking appearance.
The presence of water on the planet is a big deal for space exploration, since bringing the precious liquid would be too heavy to carry all the way to the planet on a potential future  manned mission. The presence of the ice means the liquid could be melted down and used for drinking water or fuel. The problem, according to the ESA, is that most of these deposits that have been found exist near the polar regions of the planet, and most missions want to land near the equatorial regions. Naturally, the next step is to seek out ice below the surface of the planet with missions like the upcoming  Marce Ice Caper, or the last option is to take the hydrated minerals from the soil and bake them to release any water they might contain.

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World's richest man gets $32BILLION richer: Elon Musk's worth climbs to $304billion as Tesla stock soars after car maker rolled out nearly a million vehicles in 2021

4 years 8 months ago

Elon Musk and his son X Æ A-Xii at a Time Person of the Year event on 13 December 2021 in New York City(Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME)

The  richest man in the world started the richest new year  with Tesla founder Elon Mask adding $ 32.6 billion to his net worth, bringing his fortune to $ 304.2 billion. first person to  do it. 

According to Forbes, the controversial social media billionaire who is also the founder of commercial space company SpaceX remained at the top of the world's richest list for the new year. In second place and $ 103.6 billion behind Musk is Bernard Arnault,  CEO of the French fashion empire LVMH. Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos is in third place, Forbes said.

The surge in the Tesla share price has again been attributed to South Africa's growing wealth.
The electric car maker said it  delivered more than 936,000 cars in 2021, beating analysts' forecasts, but also said the company had recalled 475,000 of its cars built between 2014 and 2021. Forbes said

 Shares of Tesla had risen more than 13% when the market closed, with the company's market cap once again surpassing the $ 1 trillion mark after falling below that level last month. As Tesla's CEO, Musk, named  Person of the Year 2021 by Time Magazine, owns around 15.6% of the company's shares.He has Continued to sell shares, ending the year after offloading 3 million shares on the open market  to face taxes on the approximately 5.7 million stock options  he exercised at the same time.

If true, this would place him among the biggest ever individual tax payers in the history of the US, although this only represents roughly 0.0036 percent of his worth.

He reportedly sold 15.7 million Tesla shares over the course of 2021 - worth more than $16 billion before tax.

Musk's fortune jumped more than $200 billion over 2020 and 2021. In 2021 alone, he added $116 billion to his net worth.

This, Forbes said, is the biggest one-year gain by any billionaire since the news outlet began tracking the wealth of high net-worth individuals.

Musk is set to earn another windfall later this month when Tesla reports its fourth quarter earnings. If the company meets certain operational and valuation goals, the world's richest man is set to become even richer.

2021 was an eventful year for Musk, marked by a hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live, a break-up with girlfriend Grimes, and his self-coronation as 'Technoking' of Tesla.

Musk made huge waves last month as he sold off many billions worth of his Tesla stock in a move purportedly dictated by a poll he posted on Twitter.

Tesla's soaring stock price has again been credited for Musk's growing wealth. Tesla delivered more than 936,000 vehicles last year, a record figure that represents an 87 percent increase from its 2020 delivery count. Pictured: A Tesla factory in China (file photo)

In reality, at least some of the stock sales were driven by mandatory taxes as he exercised stock options that will expire in August.

He has sold $16.4 billion worth of shares since early November when he said he would sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock if Twitter users agreed, which they did.

But Musk in September had set up a prearranged plan for stock sales related to options expiring next year, and Tesla in a filing on Tuesday said the program was complete.

Musk said last week that he would be done selling shares after his programmed sales ended, meaning that the selloff is now complete.

The final trades, reported on Tuesday, included exercising an option on 1.6 million shares and selling 934,090 of those shares to pay for taxes.

In total, Musk has sold 15.7 million shares in Tesla late in this year, approximately the 10 percent stake the billionaire had pledged to sell.

He exercised options granted in 2012 to buy nearly 23 million shares at $6.24 each, a fraction of Tesla's share price, which stood at $1069.33 in late trading on Thursday, the final trading session of the year.

Tesla delivers a record 936,172 electric cars in 2021 despite supply chain issues

Tesla delivered more than 936,000 vehicles last year, a record figure that represents an 87 percent increase from its 2020 delivery count despite a number of hurdles the electric carmaker faced during the past year.

The Austin, Texas-based company announced its fourth-quarter production and delivery results Sunday - just days after it recalled nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars to address issues that increase the risk of crashing.

And last February, Tesla told workers it would temporarily halt some production at its car assembly plant in California as it faced a semiconductor shortage.

Workers on a Model 3 sedan production line in Fremont were told their line would be down from February 22 until March 7, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.

Despite the challenges Elon Musk's electric car empire faced during the past year - including chip shortages and whistleblower scandals - demand for the sleek, futuristic cars has only grown.

The amount of cars delivered last year dwarfs company figures from yearend 2020, when 499,550 vehicles were shipped to customers.

Of the sales made last year, Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y rides accounted for 911,208 - or 97 percent - of the 936,172 vehicles delivered. Its most budget-friendly Model 3 sedan retails for $46,490 and up, while the Model Y midsized SUV starts around $61,000.

It delivered 24,964 of its pricier Model S and Model X vehicles; its only full-sized SUV, the Model X is tagged about $110,000 while the flagship Model S starts about $100,000.

Tesla in 2020 delivered 57,039 of its Model S and X vehicles in 2020, and 442,511 Model 3 and Model Y cars.

It delivered 112,000 vehicles in 2019.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said the latest numbers are 'jaw-dropping' given the ongoing global chip shortage affecting the automotive industry.

Ives said the production increase was likely boosted by growing demand from car buyers in China, as well as broader enthusiasm for electric vehicles.

Musk also chimed in on the accomplishment, tweeting: 'Great work by Tesla team worldwide!'

Tesla's brand image took some hits last year, most recently last week when it recalled 356,309 Model 3 vehicles made between 2017 and 2020 due to problems with the rearview camera and 119,009 Model S vehicles due to front trunk problems.

Tesla warned that for the specific Model 3 vehicles, opening and closing the trunk could damage the cable harness attaching the rearview camera, causing the camera to suddenly fail.

And the Model S issue could stop the front trunk from latching, allowing it to swing up while the vehicle is in motion.

According to Tesla, only about one percent of the Model 3 cars have the flaw, compared with 14 percent of the Model S vehicles.

Tesla shares have fallen from their record highs, reached two days prior to Musk's infamous Twitter poll, but are still on pace to end the year up 54 percent from January 1.

The company has this week come under fire after it announced that it has opened a showroom in Xinjiang.

The move has attracted criticism from U.S. rights and trade groups, making it the latest foreign firm caught up in tensions related to the far-western Chinese region.

Xinjiang has become a significant point of conflict between Western governments and China in recent years, as U.N. experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in camps there.

China has rejected accusations of forced labour or any other abuses there, saying that the camps provide vocational training and that companies should respect its policies there.

The U.S. electric car maker announced the showroom's opening in Xinjiang's regional capital, Urumqi, on its official Weibo account last Friday. 'On the last day of 2021 we meet in Xinjiang,' it said in the post.

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy organization, criticised the move, saying that Tesla was 'supporting genocide'.

The United States has labelled Chinaâs treatment of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang as genocide. The United States and a few other countries plan a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February over the issue.

'Elon Musk must close Teslaâs Xinjiang showroom,' Council on American-Islamic Relations said on its official Twitter account referring to Tesla's founder.

Similar criticism came from a U.S. trade group, the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The carmaker operates a factory in Shanghai and is ramping up production there amid surging sales in China.

A slew of foreign firms in recent months have been tripped up by tensions between the West and China over Xinjiang, as they try to balance Western pressure with China's importance as a market and supply base.

In July, Swedish fashion retailer H&M reported a 23% drop in local currency sales in China for its March-May quarter after it was hit by a consumer boycott in March for stating publicly that it did not source products from Xinjiang.

Last month, U.S. chipmaker Intel faced similar calls after telling its suppliers not to source products or labour from Xinjiang, prompting it to apologise for 'the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners and the public'.

Although some have been trying to reduce their supply chain exposure to the region, especially as Washington bans imports such as Xinjiang cotton or blacklists Chinese companies that it says have aided Beijing's policy there, many foreign brands operate stores there.     


Tesla has also found itself under scrutiny from the NHTSA auto regulator, which is probing its autopilot system over safety concerns.


The automaker has also agreed to update its software to prevent drivers from playing video games on the car's system while the vehicle is in motion, following a government safety investigation.

Source: Daily Mail Online

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Google Photos removes ability to disable video backups over mobile data

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: Google

Google Photos has long offered an option to upload photos and videos via mobile data. However, to ensure that you do not spend your monthly data volume, there is the option of only backing up videos via WiFi. In India and some other countries where  WiFi is available, connections are not as frequent, this feature is absent and users have the option to set a daily limit for mobile data usage. Now it seems that Google mistakenly implemented the same settings for Android users all over the world.

As spotted by 9to5Google, if you head over to Google Photos > Photos settings > Backup & sync, you'll find the option to set a daily backup limit when on mobile data. The available allowances include No data, 5MB, 10MB, 30MB, and Unlimited. There's also another separate toggle for backing up your photos and videos while on roaming. However, the ability to specifically disable video backups while on mobile data has been removed.

The implementation could be a Google mistake, as the Photos support page still references the previous settings. The iOS version of Google Photos also continues to display the option to enable / disable video backups on mobile data. 

Additionally, the daily data limits are very low by US and EU standards and users cannot manually increase them, further indicating that this is a loophole on Google's part. Limits on daily mobile data usage are useful in countries like Brazil, Thailand, India, and Nigeria, where users have  relatively little data  and do not have access to a network. WiFi  on a regular basis. 

This is not a cause for concern in developed countries, and some users prefer  their photos to be saved to mobile data immediately. Since videos are considerably larger, it usually makes more sense to only save them  when over WiFi. 

Hopefully Google will bring this option back soon.

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Omicron Cases Are Hitting Highs, But New Data Put End in Sight

4 years 8 months ago

 Image Credit:CIPhotos via Getty Images

A number of new studies have confirmed the silver lining of the Omicron variant: Even if the number of cases climbs to a record level, the number of severe cases and hospital admissions is not the case.
The data, some scientists say, points to a new and less worrying chapter in the pandemic. . "Now we're in a completely different phase," said Monica Gandhi, an immunologist at the University of California at San Francisco.
“The virus will always  be with us, but I hope  this variant induces immunity enough that  the Omicron variant was discovered in South Africa a little over a month ago, and experts warn that it will be a long time before it Situation is changing, but last week's data  suggest that a combination of widespread immunity and numerous mutations  resulted in a virus that causes much less serious illness than previous iterations.

A study conducted in South Africa found that patients admitted  there during the  fourth wave, which was dominated by the virus's omichron, were 73% less likely to develop serious illness than those admitted during the delta-dominated third wave .
"The data is pretty strong now with hospitalizations and 'cases decoupled," said Wendy Burgers, an immunologist at the University of Cape Town.
Initially, much of the concern about Omicron was due to the  large number of mutations in the variant, many of which Spike protein, the part of protein found not only easily infects unvaccinated people, but also bypasses antibody responses from  previous infections and vaccines.
It worked its way past these first lines of defense. Several factors appear to make the Omicron variant less virulent or less virulent more severe than previous waves of Covid19. The ability of the virus to infect the lungs. Covid infections usually start in the nose and spread to the throat.
A mild infection doesn't go far beyond the upper respiratory tract, but when it does When the virus reaches the lungs, it is usually the hardest, and symptoms occur.

But five separate studies from last week suggested that the variant doesn't infect the lungs as easily as previous variants. In a study preprinted online  by a large consortium of Japanese and American scientists, omicron infected hamsters and mice  experienced much serious illness with earlier iterations of the virus. took a small number of lung tissue samples from patients  during surgery and found that Omicron grew more slowly  than other variants in these samples.
Burgers said this change in virulence likely had to do with how the virus's anatomy changed. Pathways into the cells, and now it prefers one of those pathways because of all the changes in the spike protein, "she said.
It seems to prefers to infect the upper respiratory tract rather than the lungs. This, Burgers said, could mean less severe infection but also more transmissible as the virus replicates more often in the upper respiratory tract, from where it can spread more easily Second-line defense of previous vaccines and  infections: cells and cells.

T-cells are responsible for attacking a virus once it makes its way into the body’s cells if antibodies fail to prevent infection in the first place. In a recent study by Burgers and colleagues, scientists used white blood cells from Covid patients to show that about 70-80% of the T-cell response is preserved compared with previous strains of the virus. That means that for those who are either vaccinated or had a Covid infection in the past 6 months, it is likely their T-cells can recognize omicron and fight it off relatively quickly.

This latest research will need to be followed up with further study. If it holds up to additional scrutiny, it just might explain why current infections appear to be more mild than in previous waves of the virus.

“When you start to see different kinds of data all pointing in the same direction, you begin to feel more confident that it’s going to hold up,” said Jessica Justman, a Columbia University Medical Center epidemiologist.

However, as cases explode, the absolute number of hospitalizations and deaths with them will continue to rise, even if those numbers increase more slowly.
"If your denominator is huge because lots and lots of people become infected, you still end up with lots of people who go to the hospital and need care," Justman said.


Gandhi of the University of California at San Francisco said that while the number of cases could break records, hope that the combination of highly transmissible omicron and a mild infection could signal the onset of the disease in another study, held in Hong Kong last week  showed that vaccinated patients infected with Omicron also evoked strong immune responses to other versions of the virus.
This could explain why the number of cases in South Africa has quickly peaked.
"I hope this variant creates deep immunity in the population." Hopefully the pandemic will end. "

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Apple has become the world's first $3 trillion company

4 years 8 months ago
Apple CEO Tim Cook greets fans outside the Apple Store on Fifth Ave in the Manhattan borough of New York, New York, U.S., September 20, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Apple has taken another important step. The iPhone maker surpassed a market value of $ 3 trillion on Monday - the first publicly traded company  to be worth that much. 

Apple shares (AAPL)  briefly rose about 3% to a new all-time high of $ 182.88, surpassing the $ 182.85 per share it needed to be worth $ 3 trillion. The title then retired from that level.

 Apple's market value first crossed the $ 1 trillion mark in August 2018 and topped $ 2 trillion in August 2020.

Apple shares rose nearly 35% in 2021. The company  benefited from booming demand for its new iPhone 13 and other previous models, as well as subscription services such as Apple Music. , Apple TV +, iCloud and its popular App Store. 

Sales rose nearly 30% to over $ 83 billion in Apple's fall quarter, which ended in September. The company also has a whopping $ 191 billion in cash.

But before long, Apple may have some company in the $3 trillion club. Microsoft (MSFT) is now worth about $2.5 trillion and Google owner Alphabet's (GOOGL( market value is right around $2 trillion. Still giant but further behind are Amazon (AMZN), which has a market cap of $1.7 trillion, and Elon Musk  Tesla (TSLA), worth about $1.2 trillion.


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President Joe Biden asks student-loan borrowers to 'do their part' in preparing for payments to resume on May 1 as pressure for broad cancellation ramps up again

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Biden extended a student-loan-payment pause an additional three months through May 1.

He said borrowers should use this extra time to prepare for the resumption of payments.

But some lawmakers and advocates said this extra time should be used to cancel student debt.

Last month, President Joe Biden gave 43 million federal student loan borrowers an additional three-month Christmas present.
While the president said borrowers should use this extra time to prepare for resuming payments  on May 1, some lawmakers and advocates have said it should  be used to write off student debt instead.


On December 22, the Education Department announced it would move the target date for resuming student loan repayments from February 1 to May 1, citing the Omicron coronavirus variant as the main reason for the change. Without specifying whether this  would be the "final" extension, contrary to the August announcement, Biden urged federal borrowers in a statement to use the extra time to prepare for repayment in 90 days.

“As we take this step, I also call on all student loan borrowers to do their part: make full use of the resources of the Department of Education to help you prepare for the resumption of payments; examine options for reducing payments through income repayment plans; explore the public service loan remission; and make sure you're vaccinated and boosted when you're eligible, ”Biden said in December.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona echoed the sentiment, saying in a statement that the ministry "will continue to provide tools and support to borrowers so that they can participate in the repayment plan which is sensitive to their needs. financial situation, like a plan.The extension adds to the nearly $ 12 billion  student debt that Biden has written off for targeted groups of borrowers, such as those scammed by for-profit schools, since taking office.

Leading lawmakers on the massive student debt cancellation have applauded Biden's extended suspension of payments. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley said in a statement  the hiatus allowed borrowers to "make ends meet" and pay for basic necessities, but they still wants Biden to carry out his  loan forgiveness campaign.
"We continue to call on President Biden to take executive action to write off $ 50,000 in student debt, which will help close the racial wealth gap for borrowers and accelerate the recovery of our economy," said the legislators.

Yesterday President Biden announced he was extending the pause of student loan payments for 90 days.

Today would be a great day for a follow-up announcement that he's going to #CancelStudentDebt!

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) December 23, 2021 Supporters of student loan cancellation agree. Natalia Abrams, president of the Student Debt Crisis Center, said in a statement that the Omicron variant is "a chilling reminder that the pandemic is still a serious concern and that Americans cannot be crushed by student debt as they shoulder this health and economic crisis.


While Biden has pledged during his campaign to approve a $ 10,000 student loan forgiveness, he has yet to deliver on that promise, and some lawmakers have said it could cost  the majority over Democrats in the 2022 midterm election.
Alexandria OcasioCortez of New York  said last month that it was "really illusory" to think Democrats can be re-elected if they don't act on priorities  voters, such as student debt.

 
Vice President Kamala Harris addressed supporters' concerns in a “Face the Nation” interview late last month, he said. must continue to be "vigilant" on the issue, but has not provided for specific means to obtain relief for borrowers.
“Well, I think  we need to keep doing what we're doing and figure out how we can creatively relieve the pressure  students are feeling because of their student loan debt,” Harris said.

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Elizabeth Holmes jury deadlocked on 3 charges

4 years 8 months ago
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves federal court in San Jose, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Nic Coury) (AP Photo/Nic Coury / AP Newsroom)

The California jury on the criminal fraud case against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes says she is stuck on 3 of the 11 charges she faces. The panel, made up of eight men and four women, sent a notice to the judge on Monday stating that they could not reach a unanimous verdict on the seventh day of deliberations on Holmes' fate. The jury was still able to decide on the remaining eight points. This story is in progress and will be updated.

Holmes, 37, has been charged by federal prosecutors on nine  wire transfer fraud cases and two wire transfer conspiracy cases for misleading investors and patients with her company's failed blood testing technology. Any charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Holmes has pleaded not guilty on all charges and stood in defense during the trial, admitting he was sorry but denied cheating on anyone.

She also accused her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos Chief Operating Officer, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, of allegedly misleading her about the effectiveness of Theranos technology, and charged him with emotional and sexual abuse. 

Balwani faces his own trial next year over his alleged Holmes, who founded Theranos at the age of 19  after dropping out of Stanford University and baffling Silicon Valley and investors  with the promise that Theranos technology would work with just a few Drops of blood from a patient could diagnose a variety of diseases instead of the traditional  blood vessels drawn from the patient.

The young entrepreneur became a billionaire on paper after he rose more than $ 900 million in investors, but it began to solve 2015 after the Wall Street Journal exposed that Theranos using traditional machines for its testing rather than its own technology. 

Flaws in the health care startup's technology were also found, indicating that Theranos' own diagnostics were not accurate.


Holmes was indicted in 2018, the same year Theranos shut down.

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Eldest Trump children won't comply with subpoenas from New York attorney general

4 years 8 months ago
On Location: January 3, 2022Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images, FILE

Former President Trump's eldest son and daughter have refused to comply with  New York State Attorney General's subpoenas while conducting a civil investigation into the valuation of their assets by the family-owned real estate company.

 "A dispute has arisen between the public prosecutor's office and the individual parties to Trump over the subpoenas," said a document published on Monday.

The document, jointly filed  by New York attorney general Letitia James and a Trump Organization attorney, states that Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump are now  named as suspects in James' ongoing investigation, which parallels a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump will file motions to quash the subpoenas as soon as Monday, the filing indicated. 

The former president and his company have denied the wrongdoing and  attacked the investigation as a policy. 

The previous criminal investigations have led to indictments. Prosecutors said the company paid Weisselberg's rent, living expenses, private school fees and car leasing without properly filing its tax return.

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Whistleblower warns baffling illness affects growing number of young adults in Canadian province

4 years 8 months ago
Medical imaging service in a hospital in Savoie, France. A technician monitors a brain MRI scan session. BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A whistleblower spoke to The Guardian about a mysterious neurological disease in New Brunswick, Canada. 

They spoke of their concerns about the disease, saying that it was spreading rapidly and that the cases could be higher than previously thought. 

Symptoms include fatigue, hallucinations, muscle weakness, and an anonymous Canadian whistleblower from Vitalité Health Network, one of New Brunswick's two health authorities,  said that more people are developing symptoms of a mysterious degenerative neurological disease, according to The Guardian.

The Atlantic coast of Canada has been analyzed by researchers for more than two years, but the cause of the disease is not yet known.


Symptoms of the disease include memory problems, muscle cramps, inexplicable extreme  weight loss, pain in the extremities, and hallucinations. 

The disease was originally thought to be a human prion disease, in which proteins called prions cause normal proteins to bend abnormally, but tests have shown that it doesn't . 

So far, the Office of the New Brunswick  Medical Director of Health has publicly said that 48 people have  the disease, but sources told The Guardian that that number is believed to be much higher the disease, said the bureau.


Speaking to The Guardian about the severity of the disease, the whistleblower said he would go public to raise awareness of how quickly the enigmatic disease is spreading and affecting patients: 

"I'm really concerned about these cases because They appear to be evolving The disease affects women and men equally,  patients since 1885. 

An epidemiological study conducted by the New Brunswick Department of Health ruled out any food, behavioral, or environmental stresses that could cause the disease. 

Following that statement, a document was submitted to the Canadian Association of Neuropathologists claiming that  those who died from the disease died from misdiagnosis or missed diagnoses, such as Alzheimer's and cancer, and were not part of the group.

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Tesla delivered close to one million vehicles in 2021

4 years 8 months ago
Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Tesla Inc reported quarterly record shipments on Sunday  that far exceeded Wall Street estimates and exceeded a global chip shortage as China's production spiked.

It was the sixth straight quarter that the world's most valuable automaker posted record deliveries.
Musk delivered 308,600 vehicles in the fourth quarter, far more than analysts' forecast of 263,026 vehicles.
Tesla's  deliveries from October to December were around 70% above the previous year  and almost 30% above the record deliveries of the previous quarter. "Excellent work from the Tesla team around the world!" Musk wrote on Twitter.

His electric car company increased production in China despite increased competition  and regulatory pressure from consumer complaints about product safety. Tesla supplies models made in China to Europe and some Asian countries. On an annual basis, the automaker boosted its deliveries by 87% from a year earlier to 936,172 vehicles in 2021

Musk said in October last year that Tesla will be able to grow at an annual  rate of more than 50% for "an extended period of time.
NEW FACTORY ”.
Ventures. Said on Sunday. “The first is that the demand for their products is skyrocketing. Second, they are doing an excellent job  meeting that demand, ”he said.
Munster said he expected Tesla deliveries to climb to 1.3 million vehicles this year despite headwinds in production at its new factories, including vehicle technologies and new equipment.

Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said in October that it was difficult to predict how quickly the company will be able to boost production at new factories in Texas and Berlin, which will use new vehicle technologies and new teams.


Tesla said in October that it aimed to build its first production cars at both facilities by the end of 2021, but it is not known whether it met that target. Tesla did not respond to a question from Reuters about the plants. Its Berlin factory had initially been scheduled to begin production last summer.


Deutsche Bank said in a report on Friday that it expected Tesla to make nearly 1.5 million vehicle deliveries this year, although chip shortages remain a risk to production.


In 2020 automakers cut chip orders as the pandemic and lockdown measures hurt demand, but Tesla never lowered its production forecast with suppliers to support its rapid growth plan that helped it beat chip shortages, Musk said.

Unlike most automakers, the software has also been reprogrammed internally to use less scarce chips, according to Musk.Musk, who previously said "2021 was the year of super insane supply chain scarcity," said in October that he was optimistic that these issues would pass on supply chain costs.
Tesla hit more than $ 1 trillion in market cap in October after car rental  company Hertz announced it had ordered 100,000 of its vehicles.
The stock lost some ground after Musk wrote on Twitter in November that he was considering selling 10% of his stake in Tesla.

Overall, Tesla shares gained 50% last year.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Austin tests positive for COVID-19, symptoms mild

4 years 8 months ago

FILE PHOTO: NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels

Secretary of Defense  Lloyd Austin said on Sunday he had tested positive for COVID-19 and had mild symptoms during the home quarantine.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Austin said he plans to "virtually" attend key meetings and discussions over the next week "whenever possible." He said  Secretary of State Kathleen Hicks would represent him on relevant matters.

Austin said he last met with President Joe Biden on December 21, more than a week before he started experiencing symptoms, and  tested negative the morning of that day. “I also informed my management team about my positive test result as president, said Austin. My co-workers have started tracking and testing everyone I have come in contact with in the past week.

Austin, 68, said he was fully vaccinated and had a booster shot in October. He said he requested a test Sunday morning after seeing symptoms  at home while on vacation and, given the result, planned to stay in quarantine for five days, according to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Vaccines work and will continue to be a military medical requirement for our workforce. I continue to encourage anyone who qualifies to receive a booster vaccination. This is still a readiness issue, ”he said.

Another member of Biden's cabinet, Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas, tested positive for COVID-19 in October.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene's Personal Twitter Account Permanently Suspended

4 years 8 months ago

The personal twitter account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended for violating the social media site's COVID-19 misinformation policy, the company said Sunday.WIN MCNAMEE VIA GETTY IMAGES


Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account has been permanently banned after repeatedly violating the social media site's COVID19 disinformation policy, the company said on Sunday. 

The far-right Georgia Republican got the boot following what was her fifth suspension from the social media platform, resulting in her permanent deletion according to Twitter's COVID-19  guidelines.

"We have made it clear that as part of our strike system for this policy, we will permanently block accounts for repeated violations of the policy," a Twitter spokesman told HuffPost.Georgia’s 14th Congressional District remained active through Sunday. Greene replied on Twitter on Sunday calling him "an enemy of the United States".


Okay, I'm going to show America that we don't need them and that it is time to defeat our enemies. They cannot successfully complete a communist revolution when people tell the truth, She said in a statement. 

Greene's personal Twitter account was  last suspended for a week in August when she tweeted that COVID-19 vaccines are “failing” and that “the FDA shouldn't approve Covid vaccines.

Greene  posted on social media on Saturday a list of reasons America "is no longer free" due to the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesperson for Greene  told HuffPost that was the job she was penalized for. His list included, among other lies, that "unvaccinated healthy people are an underclass" and that wearing this mask makes children sick and "ruins their natural learning." Vaccination mandates are multiplying. This post remained visible on his Facebook account until Sunday morning.

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EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

After years of fighting between governments for truly climate-friendly investments, the European Union has drawn up plans to label some natural gas and nuclear power projects as "green" investments. 

The European Commission is expected to propose rules in January to decide whether nuclear and gas  projects are included in the EU's “sustainable finance taxonomy”. 

This is a list of the economic activities and  environmental criteria that must be met in order to be labeled as a green investment.

By restricting the “green” label to really climate-friendly projects, the system aims to make these investments more attractive for private equity and to  stop “greenwashing”, in which companies or investors exaggerate their eco-friendly credentials. 

Brussels has also taken steps to apply the system to some EU funds, which means the rules could decide which projects are eligible for specific public funding. 

A draft of the Commission's proposal, seen by Reuters, would label investments in nuclear power plants as green if the project has a plan, resources and location to  dispose of radioactive waste. 

In order to be considered green, new nuclear power plants must obtain a building permit before 2045.

Investments in natural gas power plants are also considered green if they emit less than 270 g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more environmentally harmful power plant with fossil fuels, receive a building permit by December 31, 2030 and it is planned to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035. 

Gas and nuclear  generation would be labeled green as they are "transitional activities" defined as those that are not fully sustainable but  have emissions below the industry average and do not contain environmentally harmful assets. .

"Taking into account current scientific advice and  technological progress, as well as the different transition challenges between Member States, the Commission believes that natural gas and nuclear energy play a role in facilitating the transition to a predominantly renewable future,"  the European Commission said in a statement.

To help states with different energy backgrounds make the transition, "under certain conditions, solutions that don't look 'green' at first glance can make sense," a commission source told Reuters, adding that the solutions are investments in gas and nuclear power would be subject to "strict regulations". 

EU countries and a panel of experts will analyze the draft proposal, which could change, before it is  published at the end of January. 

Once published, most EU countries or the European Parliament could vetoed it .

The policy has been mired in lobbying from governments for more than a year and EU countries disagree on which fuels are truly sustainable.

 Natural gas emits around half of coal's CO2 emissions  when burned in power plants, but gas infrastructure has also been linked to methane leaks, a potent EU adviser had recommended that gas-fired power plants shouldn't be labeled as green investments unless they hit a lower emission limit of 100g CO2e / kWh based on  deep  cuts in deep emissions scientists say are needed to avoid disastrous climate change.

Nuclear power produces very low CO2 emissions but the Commission sought expert advice this year on whether the fuel should be deemed green given the potential environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal.

Some environmental campaigners and Green EU lawmakers criticised the leaked proposal on gas and nuclear.

“By including them… the Commission risks jeopardising the credibility of the EU’s role as a leading marketplace for sustainable finance,” Greens president Philippe Lamberts said.

Austria opposes nuclear power, alongside countries including Germany and Luxembourg. EU states including the Czech Republic, Finland and France, which gets around 70% of its power from the fuel, see nuclear as crucial to phasing out CO2-emitting coal fuel power.

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China to cut new energy vehicle subsidies by 30% in 2022

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: REUTERS/Aly Song

China will cut subsidies for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) such as electric cars by 30% in 2022 and withdraw them all by the end of the year, the Treasury Department said on its website. 

The subsidies for NEVs would be reduced by 10%, 20% and 30% respectively from 2020 to 2022. For NEVs for public transport, subsidies are to be reduced by 10% in 2021 and  20% in 2022.

China, the world’s biggest auto market, has set a target for NEVs, including plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, to make up 20% of auto sales by 2025. 

Global automakers such as Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), General Motors Co (GM.N), Toyota Motor Corp (7203. T) and Tesla Inc (TSLA .O) increase production of electric vehicles in China.


NIO (NIO.N) said on Friday that buyers of its ES8, ES6 and EC6 vehicles having posted a deposit  before December 31, 2021 and  taking delivery of their purchases before March 31, 2022, can still benefit from subsidies under the the 2021 Plan. 

Any loopholes in the 2022 policy would be borne by the Shanghai-based company, he said. 

The ministry also said that China will strengthen supervision of  safety issues of NEVs to prevent accidents. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers previously estimated  in December that NEV's sales  in China would increase 47% to 5 million in 2021.

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GERMAN FINANCE MINISTER PLEDGES TAX RELIEF FROM 2023

4 years 8 months ago
Image Credit: REUTERS/Annegret Hilse

Germany's new  government will offer personal and business tax breaks worth at least 30 billion euros ($ 34.1 billion) during this legislative period, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Sunday.

 “We will relieve people and small and medium-sized businesses by significantly more than 30 billion euros,” Lindner told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Noting that the budget for 2022  was drawn up by the previous government under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Lindner said his  2023 plan will include reliefs such as contributions to pension insurance  and the end of an electricity price surcharge.

Meanwhile, Lindner, leader of the fiscally cautious Free Democrats (FDP), said he had asked his cabinet colleagues to review the spending projects of their ministries.

“We have to go back to sound public finances. We have a responsibility towards the younger generation,” he said.

Lindner stated one manner to make financial savings would be to scrap the development of a new authorities terminal at Berlin’s BER airport, set to cost 50 million euros. He recommended a temporary constructing may be used permanently.

The minister is likewise making plans a tax invoice to assist organizations deal with the continuing coronavirus pandemic, along with permitting them to offset losses in 2022 and 2023 in opposition to income from previous years.

Due to the pandemic, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling coalition agreed to use an emergency clause in the constitution for the third year in a row in 2022 to suspend debt limits and authorize new loans of $ 100 billion euros. 

From 2023, the coalition aims to revert to the debt brake rule in the constitution which limits new loans to a small fraction of economic output.

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