Category Archives: News to use

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

Two-fifths of plants at risk of extinction, says report

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We are failing to harness the many benefits plants can provide, say scientists.

Biden Disinformation Is Ripping Across Facebook the Same Day It Brushed Him Off

Facebook – do your job!!!

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In advance of the first presidential debate, disinformation about Joe Biden is going massively viral on social media, just one day after the former vice president sent Facebook a letter laying out his campaign’s concerns about political disinformation being spread on its platform.

“Report: Joe Biden Has Been Given Tonight’s Debate Questions In Advance” reads a headline on arch-paranoiac Alex Jones’ site, Infowars, a notorious peddler of right-wing disinformation. The “report” Infowars cited was from former Fox host Todd Starnes, who was just citing Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist with a history of spreading outright lies. Corsi offered no proof that Biden had been given the questions, but Starnes’ story on the baseless allegation reached over 1 million followers on Facebook and another million on Twitter, according to CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool owned by Facebook.

Lots of disinfo ahead of tonight’s debate. One case: InfoWars says Biden got questions in advance, citing former Fox host Todd Starnes. Starnes himself just heard it on local radio. And the radio station got it from conspiracy theory king and ex InfoWars employee Jerome Corsi. pic.twitter.com/O9g8OgZde6

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) September 29, 2020

Infowars published its story around noon. By later that afternoon, more Biden disinformation was hurtling out of control on Facebook. A New York Post story with a single anonymous source from the Trump campaign claimed Biden had agreed to be inspected for an earpiece before the debate, which the Biden campaign denied. Regardless the story spread across Facebook, amplified by right-wing sites and posters.

NBC’s Ben Collins noticed that the claim predated the New York Post story; it had been floating around online for weeks before the online poster at the center of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a user claiming to be Q, posted the theory on 8kun, the successor website to the 8chan forum.

The Biden earpiece conspiracy theory (which originated in a tweet from a single anonymous source to a NYPost reporter, and was instantly denied by the campaign) is everywhere on Facebook. Absolutely everywhere. pic.twitter.com/AIdXoy4ZIi

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 29, 2020

Breitbart‘s story on the claim reached 5 million accounts on Facebook and 3 million on Twitter.

The massive spread of disinformation about Biden came just hours after Facebook essentially blew off Biden’s concerns about disinformation being spread about him.

On Monday, the Biden campaign sent a letter to Facebook calling it “the nation’s foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process,” and saying that “Rather than seeing progress, we have seen regression,” according to a copy of the letter published by Axios.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone responded vaguely, saying that the company has received criticism from both Republicans and Democrats and added that “we have rules in place to protect the integrity of the election and free expression, and we will continue to apply them impartially.”

Here’s what Facebook is saying back, “While many Republicans think we should take one course, many Democrats think we should do the exact opposite.”

Statement from @andymstone pic.twitter.com/i8StwVv29p

— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) September 29, 2020

UK records its highest daily number of COVID-19 cases since pandemic began

Boris Johnson apologises and corrects himself after giving out incorrect information on social distancing as the UK records over 7,000 cases of COVID-19 in the latest 24-hour recording period.

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Boris Johnson apologises and corrects himself after giving out incorrect information on social distancing as the UK records over 7,000 cases of COVID-19 in the latest 24-hour recording period.

Covid ‘Testing Hell’: Devices Given to Nursing Homes Bring New Problems – The New York Times – (Trump administration  mismanagement of Covid-19 continues)

the initial sense of relief has been overtaken by frustration as nursing homes have discovered that they must pay for test kits on their own, and that the machines are markedly less accurate than lab-based diagnostics.

Because the devices come with a modest starter-set of test supplies that only last a few weeks, facilities, many of them buffeted by financial losses from the pandemic, must pay roughly $32 for each additional test. In communities with high rates of infection, a typical nursing home can churn through hundreds of tests a week.

The machine his company received, made by the medical device manufacturer BD, came with 300 tests but the new rules require Westminster-Canterbury to conduct weekly tests on its 280 nursing employees and residents. BD has said it would be weeks before they could send out additional testing supplies.

The shortages have forced Mr. Unkle to rely on an outside lab that charges $100 a test, an expense that he estimates will add $875,000 to the $1 million in pandemic-related losses that the nonprofit provider expects this year. Rather than the 15-minute turnaround, the lab results take up to four days to arrive, complicating efforts at infection control.

 

UAE: Palestinian state at ’67 lines a must despite peace deal with Israel – The Jerusalem Post

The United Arab Emirates will insist on a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the pre-1967 lines in spite of the peace deal it signed with Israel earlier this month, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
“The call for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital in line with the relevant international resolutions and the Arab and international consensus will remain a firm demand,” he said.

Source: UAE: Palestinian state at ’67 lines a must despite peace deal with Israel – The Jerusalem Post