Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Apple reveals details of iOS 14.5 battery recalibration on iPhone 11 | AppleInsider

The iOS 14.5 update will add a battery recalibration system for the iPhone 11 series to fix drifting data.

Source: Apple reveals details of iOS 14.5 battery recalibration on iPhone 11 | AppleInsider

Coronavirus: French President Emmanuel Macron extends lockdown nationwide | News | DW | 31.03.2021 (Me: Stay the course…)

Paris and other northern regions of France had already seen restrictions on movement and non-essential shops closed. But now President Macron says they should apply to the whole country as he shutters school as well. Source: Coronavirus: French President Emmanuel Macron extends lockdown nationwide | News | DW | 31.03.2021

Facebook and Instagram ′could act tomorrow′ against online hate speech | Sports| German football and major international sports news | DW | 31.03.2021

“Social media companies could tackle hate speech tomorrow if they wanted to,” Troy Townsend, head of development at Kick It Out, told DW. “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that anyone that looks like me should be affected by someone’s freedom to talk about me in the way that they do.

“I cannot believe that in 2021 we’re still talking about how we do it — how do we make sure that everyone that uses their platforms can do so free from fear?” added Townsend, who has been campaigning with Kick It Out for almost a decade. “The social media companies are the ones who could make a difference tomorrow. That’s how quick it can happen. Tomorrow!”

Source: Facebook and Instagram ′could act tomorrow′ against online hate speech | Sports| German football and major international sports news | DW | 31.03.2021

Vaccine passports and digital vaccination records, explained – Vox

A growing number of companies, health care providers, and state governments are launching their own efforts. New York released the first state-backed vaccine passport, called the Excelsior Pass, just last week. This digital health certificate, which IBM built using blockchain technology, allows people in the state who have been vaccinated or recently tested negative for Covid-19 to download their health records onto a smartphone app that displays a QR code, which can be scanned by participating venues to verify their status. That New York has spent months developing the Excelsior Pass shows some states didn’t expect the federal government to take the lead on key aspects of the country’s pandemic response. Source: Vaccine passports and digital vaccination records, explained – Vox

Opinion | The Kremlin may be slowly killing Alexei Navalny in prison. The world must not let it happen. – The Washington Post

Alarm bells went off last week when authorities prevented Navalny’s lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev from seeing him in the Pokrov colony. When they finally gained access to their client, they saw a man hardly able to walk, struggling to get off his bed, unable to feel his right leg, and suffering sharp and constant back pain. “Navalny forbade us from making this public, but … we decided to come out into the open,” wrote Kobzev. “They are deliberately turning him into a cripple,” Mikhailova added.

It is difficult to find another description. The prison authorities are not only denying civilian doctors access to Navalny. They are also refusing to accept medicines for back pain — or even a handwritten doctor’s note with exercises. Since he is not being seen by doctors, the diagnosis is unknown — but likely causes include a pinched nerve from being held in cramped paddy wagons and prison cells and the lasting effects of last year’s poisoning. In addition, Navalny’s jailers have labeled him a “flight risk” (this for a man who voluntarily returned to Russia even though he was facing arrest). That means that he is woken up every hour at night by prison guards, in what amounts to torture by sleep deprivation.

Source: Opinion | The Kremlin may be slowly killing Alexei Navalny in prison. The world must not let it happen. – The Washington Post

Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny goes on hunger strike in prison — Meduza

Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has announced a hunger strike to protest the conditions of his imprisonment in Penal Colony No. 2 (located in the city of Pokrov, in the Vladimir region).

In an Instagram post uploaded on Wednesday, March 31, Navalny said that he’s resorting to a hunger strike because he’s being denied necessary medicines and being “tortured by sleep deprivation.” In his words, prison inmates “have no other methods of fighting.”

“I have the right to call a doctor and receive medicine. But they don’t give me either one. The back pain has spread to my leg. Areas of my right [leg] and now my left leg have lost feeling. All jokes aside, this is really a strain.”

Source: Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny goes on hunger strike in prison — Meduza