
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Drinking more than 67 ounces of sugary or artificially sweetened beverages a week may increase the risk of developing atrial fibrillation—an irregular heartbeat—but organic fruit juices without added sugar may decrease this risk, according to a new study.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Participants who drank more than 67 ounces of artificially sweetened drinks a week—equivalent to about one 12-ounce diet soda a day—had an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation by about 20%, and those who drank the same amount of sugar-sweetened beverages had an increased risk of 10%, according to an American Heart Association&nbsp;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP.123.012145" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>&nbsp;published Tuesday.</p>



<p>Atrial fibrillation (or AFib) is the most common form of an irregular heartbeat, which causes the lower and upper chambers of the heart to become unsynced and reduced blood flow,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/atrial_fibrillation.htm" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>



<p>The study researchers followed almost 202,000 participants—with an age range between 37 and 73 years old—over the course of around 10 years and did genetic blood tests, and they found atrial fibrillation risk was high in people who drank more than 67 ounces of sugar-sweetened drinks regardless of genetic susceptibility.</p>



<p>On the other hand, participants who drank about 34 ounces or less of pure fruit juice each week had an 8% lower risk of atrial fibrillation, the study also found.</p>



<p>Smoking may also increase atrial fibrillation risks, as those who drank more than 67 ounces of sugar-sweetened beverages a week and smoked had a 31% higher risk of atrial fibrillation, compared to no significant increase in former smokers or participants who never smoked before.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“Our study&#8217;s findings cannot definitively conclude that one beverage poses more health risk than another due to the complexity of our diets and because some people may drink more than one type of beverage,” lead author and researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China Ningjian Wong said in a statement. “However, based on these findings, we recommend that people reduce or even avoid artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages whenever possible.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>3 to 6 million. That’s how many people have atrial fibrillation in the United States, according to a separate AHA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.120.316340" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>. That number is expected to rise to between 6 and 16 million people by 2050.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Though there isn’t much research into the link between sugary drinks and atrial fibrillation, around 16% of participants who consumed the artificial sweetener&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/07/14/what-to-know-about-aspartame-the-sugar-substitute-in-diet-coke-declared-as-a-possible-cancer-risk-by-who/?sh=6afbc7f47569">aspartame</a>—often sold under the brand name Equal—experience heartbeat changes, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.internationaljournalofcardiology.com/article/S0167-5273(09)00082-5/abstract" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>&nbsp;published in the International Journal of Cardiology. There are several&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/atrial_fibrillation.htm" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">risk factors</a>&nbsp;for atrial fibrillation, including obesity, diabetes, heart failure, moderate to heavy alcoholism, hyperthyroidism, chronic kidney disease and ischemic heart disease. However, the biggest factors are high blood pressure—which makes up around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000659" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">one in five cases</a>—and advancing age. Although people of African descent are more susceptible to these risk factors, people of European background are more likely to have atrial fibrillation than any other group, though scientists aren’t sure why, according to a JAMA Network Open&nbsp;<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2529722" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/atrial-fibrillation/what-are-the-symptoms-of-atrial-fibrillation-afib-or-af" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Symptoms</a>&nbsp;of atrial fibrillation include fatigue, dizziness, confusion, a fluttering or thumping sensation in the chest, a fast or irregular heartbeat, weakness, anxiety, shortness of breath and fatigue during exercise. Chest pain or pressure are also symptoms, but considered a medical emergency, according to the AHA.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>There have been conflicting studies conducted on the link between caffeine consumption and atrial fibrillation. The high amounts of caffeine in energy drinks, along with other ingredients like a type of amino acid called taurine that enhances caffeine&#8217;s effects, increase atrial fibrillation risk, according to an American Society of Addiction&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newswise.com/articles/cardiac-complications-from-energy-drinks-case-report-adds-new-evidence" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">case study</a>. However, a 2019 AHA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.118.011346" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>&nbsp;found drinking between one and three cups of coffee a day had a slightly lower risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to drinking four or more, or never drinking coffee. A separate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8290332/#:~:text=Findings,variants%20that%20affect%20caffeine%20metabolism." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>&nbsp;found that each cup of coffee drank a day reduced the risk of developing arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat) by 3%. The American College of Cardiology believes daily consumption of up to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2018/04/16/16/27/Is-Caffeine-Safe-Protective-For-Patients-With-AFib-Arrhythmias" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">300 milligrams</a>&nbsp;of caffeine should be safe for those with atrial fibrillation.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/07/14/what-to-know-about-aspartame-the-sugar-substitute-in-diet-coke-declared-as-a-possible-cancer-risk-by-who/?sh=6afbc7f47569">What To Know About Aspartame: The Sugar Substitute In Diet Coke Declared As A Possible Cancer Risk By WHO</a> (Forbes)</p>


Prebiotic sodas have special plant fibers that feed the trillio

Sweet Drinks May Increase Risk Of Irregular Heartbeat, Study Suggests—But Organic Juices Could Decrease It

Pangenome

TikTokers Are Stealing Doctors And Nurses’ Photos To Peddle Pills And Powders


<p>Elon Musk’s lack of transparency in updates about his brain implant company Neuralink flouts scientific and ethical norms, raises questions about patient safety and risks setting back the entire field of neurotechnology, experts told Forbes, after the billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/20/elon-musk-says-neuralinks-first-brain-chip-patient-can-control-computer-mouse-by-thought/?sh=e072a8d298e2">touted early success&nbsp;</a>in the company’s first human patient last week.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>“What truly puzzles me about this is not the technology itself but the way of communicating scientific news,” said Marcello Ienca, a professor of ethics of AI and neuroscience at Technical University of Munich, who stressed information about Neuralink and its work is being disseminated “through casual social media updates” rather than traditional outlets for science like peer reviewed publications, public repositories or even simple pre-prints.</p>



<p>It “seems to sidestep the established protocols that underpin scientific integrity,” Ienca said, preventing experts from evaluating or understanding “the full scope and impact” of any claimed advances.</p>



<p>“A tweet is not exactly a peer-reviewed scientific report,” said L. Syd M Johnson, an ethicist at SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities, adding that Musk’s brief update gave few details on the patient’s recovery, what degree of control they have over the mouse or whether “mouse” actually meant the onscreen cursor.</p>



<p>Most clinical trials are also registered in the public database ClinicalTrials.gov for the sake of transparency, accountability and the benefit of science, said Laura Cabrera, a neuroethicist at Pennsylvania State University’s Rock Ethics Institute, who called for the creation of “more rigorous ways” to hold companies operating in the space accountable, transparent and to make them follow similar reporting standards to federally funded trials.</p>



<p>While it isn’t illegal for Neuralink to not have registered its clinical trial, Ienca said not doing so “violates fundamental ethical guidelines for biomedical research”—notably the Declaration of Helsinki, a cornerstone statement of ethical principles for medical research involving humans—adding that Neuralink hasn’t communicated setting up any internal ethics board or establishing its own code of ethics and has not engaged in any major activities from policy organizations working in the space like the OECD.</p>



<p>Neuralink did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>Ienca accused Neuralink of endangering the entire field of neurotechnology over its opacity and failure to outline its position on important ethical and social issues related to its work while charging ahead with human research. “If you decide to play with fire in a house, you increase the risk threshold not only of yourself but of the whole house,” he said. “My fear is that Neuralink&#8217;s disregard for the ethical aspects of their technology may cause a backfire effect for the entire neurotechnology community.” Ienca warned the potential backlash could slow down the development of a technological innovation that could help millions of people with neuropsychiatric disorders and mental illness, many of whom cannot be cured or even treated effectively with current technology. Given the stakes, “we cannot afford a “Cambridge Analytica” scandal involving the human brain,” Ienca said.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>Neuralink secured&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/09/19/elon-musks-neuralink-wants-volunteers-for-first-human-trial-of-its-brain-implant-chip/">permission</a>&nbsp;in September to recruit patients to test its implantable brain device’s ability to help people with paralysis regain lost functions by controlling computers with their thoughts. Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/01/30/elon-musk-teases-first-neuralink-products-after-company-implants-first-brain-chip-in-human/?sh=f3489562ac39">announced</a>&nbsp;the first patient had received the implant in January and last week&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/20/elon-musk-says-neuralinks-first-brain-chip-patient-can-control-computer-mouse-by-thought/?sh=e072a8d298e2">said</a>&nbsp;they appeared to have made a full recovery and could move a mouse around a screen “just by thinking.” The Tesla billionaire delivered both updates through informal posts on X, the social media platform Musk controversially acquired as Twitter in 2022. Musk has teased that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/01/30/elon-musk-teases-first-neuralink-products-after-company-implants-first-brain-chip-in-human/">Neuralink’s first products</a>&nbsp;will include “Telepathy,” which would allow users to control a phone or computer “just by thinking,” as well as features that could restore sight to blind people. Musk has also been open on his long term aims for Neuralink and hopes the technology will be used more widely to enhance memory and elevate intelligence and ultimately acting as a foil to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/09/21/elon-musk-says-neuralink-could-slash-risk-from-ai-as-firm-prepares-for-first-human-trials/?sh=300741eb2956">risks of artificial intelligence</a>. The company has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-neuralink-faces-federal-probe-employee-backlash-over-animal-tests-2022-12-05/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">criticized</a>&nbsp;over its use of animals in experiments and questions have been raised over the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neuralink-elon-musk-animal-testing-conflict-of-interest-researcher-says-2023-5?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">independence</a>&nbsp;of a regulatory board governing its animal research. The company has denied any wrongdoing and&nbsp;<a href="https://neuralink.com/blog/neuralink-s-commitment-to-animal-welfare/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stressed</a>&nbsp;it is “committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-contra">CONTRA</h2>



<p>In line with other experts Forbes spoke to, Columbia&nbsp;<a href="https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/need-protect-data-our-brains" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">neurobiologist</a>&nbsp;Rafael Yuste said the announcement of Neuralink’s progress is “not news.” It is only reported as such because “a company associated with Elon Musk” is doing it,” he said, pointing to decades of research and numerous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/06/05/elon-musks-neuralink-wants-to-put-chips-in-our-brains---how-it-works-and-who-else-is-doing-it/?sh=d573533babb9">other companies operating&nbsp;</a>in the neurotech field. Yuste said he had “zero concerns” over Neuralink’s latest experiment. It involves a medical device that “has to be approved by the FDA” and “the data collected are protected with HIPAA,” he explained, referring to the series of federal laws governing protected health information. “I welcome anyone who wants to develop medical devices to help patients,” he said. Cabrera expressed a similar sentiment and said it’s unlikely we will need new rights to govern the medical uses of neurotechnology as these should already be well covered by existing regulation.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>While medical uses of neurotechnology may be well covered by existing regulation, Yuste warned “commercial neurotechnology is completely unregulated.” The growing sector—which includes non-implantable tech like external sensors—raises a host of social, legal and ethical&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24078512/brain-tech-privacy-rights-neurorights-colorado-yuste" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">questions</a>&nbsp;surrounding privacy, access and freedom of thought, demands a framework of rights to govern neurotechnology and protect human rights from potential abuse or misuse from it (Yuste and others call this framework “<a href="https://neurorightsfoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">neurorights</a>”). The use, and potential exploitation, of the vast amounts of brain data generated from implants and sensors is of particular concern, experts warned. Neuralink stands out as a neurotech company that such considerations could apply to, although this would still be a long way in the future. “Neuralink is the only neurotechnology company, to my knowledge, that has publicly confessed that their long-term goal is the development of implantable neurotechnology for human enhancement,” Ienca said. In principle, Ienca said there’s nothing wrong with enhancement—tools that augment or add brain functions like memory or vision for healthy individuals and go beyond natural capabilities—but warned there’s a real risk of creating a “stratified society divided not just by wealth or opportunity, but by cognitive and sensory capabilities.” Johnson, on the other hand, said enhancement “would not change anything.” The wealthy would “have the same advantages and power” as they do now.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



<p>Experts told Forbes it is unclear what will happen to Neuralink’s human subjects once the clinical trial for the brain implant is over. “When the clinical trial is over, are they on their own?,” Johnson asked, pointing to the many risks involved with the kind of surgery to place an implant, the possibility the device or performance could degrade over time and the fact that some may simply lose access to their implant once the trial is over.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



<p>“Musk’s talk about helping disabled people – giving full body functionality to tetraplegics – is disingenuous and harmful,” Johnson said, asking whether disabled people even want brain implants or to control smartphones with their thoughts. “It fundamentally says that disabled persons are broken and need to be fixed with invasive brain implants,” Johnson said, noting that there is “so much that societies could be doing right now, but are not doing, to improve mobility, and access to jobs and education and decent places to live for disabled persons.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=1f50a08f7999">estimate</a> Musk to be worth $207 billion. Musk’s fortune makes him the world’s second richest person, behind French luxury goods giant <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/">Bernard Arnault</a> and ahead of Amazon founder <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=4587e17d1b23">Jeff Bezos</a>, worth $229.6 billion and $195.7 billion, respectively.</p>


Tesla Officially Opens Gruenheide Gigafactory

Experts Criticize Elon Musk’s Neuralink Over Transparency After Billionaire Says First Brain Implant Works


<p><strong>Internal privacy experts worried that not having a corporate records retention policy could violate U.S. and EU laws. Years later, the company still doesn’t have one.</strong></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p><strong><abbr>T</abbr>ikTok’s parent company ByteDance</strong>&nbsp;may have broken laws in the U.S. and EU because it has no internal corporate records retention policy, according to seven current and former ByteDance employees and hundreds of internal documents and chat logs reviewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<p>The internal materials show TikTok’s legal and policy experts clearly warning senior leaders, including Global Chief Security Officer Kim Albarella, that ByteDance’s lack of a policy for managing internal records could threaten its ability to operate in the U.S. and EU. One, from spring 2023, shows an internal privacy policy expert expressing relief that regulators had not yet noticed that the company was out of compliance.</p>



<p>Employees expressed concerns that the company could be out of compliance with the United States FTC Act and Europe’s privacy regulation GDPR. Rules around corporate record retention and deletion, while seemingly mundane, are critical because they prevent companies from scrubbing their records of evidence of wrongdoing and protect the privacy of people whose information is stored in corporate records.</p>



<p>The seven sources told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;that ByteDance lacked such a policy for years, an oversight with potentially dire consequences for a company already under investigation by the U.S. government and that has faced global scrutiny for its data privacy practices. Some worried it could also jeopardize the company’s fast-growing ecommerce business, centered on TikTok Shop, which launched in the U.S. last September and is targeting revenue of $17.5 billion this year.</p>



<p>In communications viewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>, employees explained that not having a records retention policy put the company out of compliance with the International Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, which — if discovered — could have halted its ability to process credit card transactions entirely. A document from late 2022 stated that TikTok Live had been “launched without consideration of PCI compliance.”</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>Preservation of corporate records —&nbsp;and the accessibility of those records by U.S. Government officials&nbsp;— has high stakes for TikTok.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>The internal materials reviewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>, many of which are attorney-client privileged, reveal a scramble to create and launch a stopgap policy for credit card-specific documents in early 2023 to ensure the company was compliant with the requirements. But in March 2023, Albarella told employees they were not going to fast-track a cardholder data-specific policy, and instead, would proceed with building and launching a comprehensive policy, the materials show. The problem: her staff said that process would take 1-2 years to operationalize, and in the meantime, the company was still not compliant, the materials show.</p>



<p>In response to a detailed list of questions about the internal materials, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek sent the following statement: &#8220;We believe these assertions are based on outdated documents, which were predominantly prepared by employees who are no longer with the company, who did not have visibility into all our work in this area, and who are now attempting to advance an agenda without regard for the facts.&#8221; Haurek said the 1-2 year timeline “was pulled from a document prepared by a single former employee and was not validated.”</p>



<p>Responding to the internal document about TikTok Live’s PCI compliance, Haurek wrote: &#8220;This unauthorized statement does not accurately reflect the PCI compliance status of these products. It was entered into the report &#8211; after final review &#8211; by an employee who has since left the company.” ByteDance spokesperson Mike Hughes added: &#8220;We follow industry standards on apps subject to PCI standards.&#8221; When asked directly whether ByteDance is in compliance with the FTC Act and GDPR today, Hughes wrote: “We continuously strive to meet our legal obligations related to data governance.”</p>



<p>Neither spokesperson responded to questions about which country or countries their corporate records were stored in.</p>



<p>Hillary Sale, a professor of leadership and corporate governance at Georgetown Law School, told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;that any company of TikTok’s size should have a retention policy, and that these are systems that every startup should implement as they grow. Companies should have “an understanding of how and when to retain documents, and ensur[e] that people across the company understand that importance,” she told&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>in an interview.</p>



<p>Preservation of corporate records — and the accessibility of those records by U.S. Government officials — has high stakes for TikTok, as it is in the midst of multi-year&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/08/21/draft-tiktok-cfius-agreement/">negotiations</a>&nbsp;with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The Biden Administration last year threatened that it would force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban of the app in the U.S. (<em>Disclosure: In a previous life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify.)</em></p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>It remains unclear whether even a TikTok-specific retention policy is now in place.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>TikTok is also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/03/16/fbi-doj-investigating-bytedance-tiktok-surveillance-journalists/?sh=ed4fd8a6fc2a">under criminal investigation</a>&nbsp;by the U.S. Department of Justice for surveilling journalists,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/?sh=c5f64247da57">including this reporter</a>, and was served a subpoena for documents related to that investigation late last year. Previously,&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;reported that ByteDance&#8217;s own anti-fraud experts&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/11/28/tiktok-inaccurate-government-inquiries-internal-bytedance-risk-assessment/?sh=276e46223fed">warned</a>&nbsp;the company that it was incapable of ensuring that their responses to law enforcement requests, like subpoenas, were accurate, in part because of the company’s irregular data preservation practices. At the time, the company said: “This document was created within one department nearly two years ago, never presented internally beyond that, and is largely inaccurate, with outdated details which are made irrelevant by regular updates to our practices in the years since.”</p>



<p>In fall 2022, a lawyer for TikTok told colleagues that he was working with one product team on an electronic discovery feature that would enable the company to better respond to requests for company records, but warned colleagues that it would be a lengthy process, according to documents reviewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>. At the time, the task of developing a policy had been given to TikTok’s Data Defense and Access Assurance team, but that team deprioritized it in favor of more pressing work. The project was then given to data compliance experts within the company’s Global Security Organization (GSO).</p>



<p>Also in 2022, ByteDance hired Redgrave LLP, a firm specializing in corporate information governance, to help it create a document retention policy. One of the first questions the outside attorneys raised was whether the policy should be written to cover just TikTok, or all of ByteDance. In a conversation from mid-2022, TikTok’s former global lead for security compliance told Albarella, the company’s acting Chief Security Officer, that the policy would need to be ByteDance-wide, because “ByteDance’s internal system cannot be separated between products.”</p>



<p>Policy drafts from early 2023 authored by Redgrave counsel show that while the attorneys originally intended the draft policy to cover all internal ByteDance documents, they subsequently narrowed it to cover only documents owned by TikTok. (Redgrave did not respond to a comment request.)</p>



<p>Still, it remains unclear whether even a TikTok-specific retention policy is now in place.&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;asked both TikTok and ByteDance whether they today have comprehensive, enforced data retention policies.</p>



<p>&#8220;Like any company, we retain records to meet legal obligations,” Hughes replied. Haurek added: “We have policies and procedures in place that govern the retention of TikTok user personal information.”</p>



<p>Neither answered a follow-up question asking to clarify whether TikTok and ByteDance have corporate records retention policies today.</p>


In this photo illustration the TikTok logo seen displayed on

TikTok’s Lawyers Repeatedly Warned Executives It Could Be Breaking Data Laws


<p><strong>Handshake is creating a social media-style feed for its popular jobs platform for college students, adding video tools for employers to match less buzzy companies with young job seekers—and connect with a generation that lives by the medium.</strong></p>



<p>On TikTok, there are more than 2.6 million posts with the hashtag #WorkLife—videos providing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8vyL8w2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“PTO hack” advice</a>&nbsp;for taking time off, outtakes discussing career buzzwords like “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8vyYPeq/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bare Minimum Mondays</a>” and short clips describing a “day in the life” at companies like Google or Deloitte. Most recently, young workers have even been filming themselves getting laid off, posting wildly viral videos of the once-private moments and creating&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-05/executives-fear-tiktok-backlash-in-era-of-sweeping-job-cuts?srnd=work-shift" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">new headaches for employers</a>. For Gen Z, online video is as much a part of their work lives as it is their personal experiences.</p>



<p>And yet, the job search platform perhaps most associated with college students—Handshake,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinstoller/2022/12/01/how-to-get-a-first-job-if-you-arent-linkedin/?sh=60bc63044b1f">which counts some 15 million of them as users of its platform</a>—has been designed more like a job board without video than a social media tool filled with it. Until now. On Tuesday, the popular platform is&nbsp;<a href="https://joinhandshake.com/blog/our-team/our-next-chapter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launching</a>&nbsp;a “feed”-like interface and new video features it hopes will give companies a more direct line to communicating with Gen Z candidates in the style they prefer—and job seekers a more centralized place for discovering opportunities they might not otherwise find.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinstoller/2022/12/01/how-to-get-a-first-job-if-you-arent-linkedin/?sh=60bc63044b1f">Garrett Lord</a>, Handshake’s cofounder and CEO, hopes it will “level the information playing field,” he told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;in an interview. “It feels a bit disconnected on Reddit or TikTok,” he says of employers’ videos about their companies. Handshake aims to be “the place where all the jobs, career fairs and conversations come together.”</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmylucas/2023/04/07/bosses-are-training-employees-to-be-influencers-after-long-discouraging-social-media-posts-about-work/?sh=1b742a9c6d8e">Employers have already hopped on the social media trend</a>, creating their own “day in the life” videos and promotional clips that cater to young job seekers. But in a digital world of content overload and an endless choice of platforms like Glassdoor and TikTok to find employee reviews and interview insights, it can be hard for candidates to find those videos unless they’re actively seeking out a specific employer’s career site or TikTok handle.</p>



<p>Rolling out the new design amid a tumultuous job market and continued layoffs—particularly in the tech and media sectors—is a feature, not a bug, Lord says. While full-time job posts on Handshake, like many job boards, were down 24% in 2023 thanks in part to the tech sector’s slowdown, and revenues were just above $120 million—up 10% from 2022—Lord says he’s continuing to see “an incredible amount of demand” for college students. The new features could also help less buzzy employers find tech workers concerned about job security in that industry.</p>



<p>“Some companies are doubling down in this environment because Big Tech isn’t hiring as much,” Lord says. “That could mean there are more great software engineers for automotive or finance companies to hire.”</p>



<p>Handshake’s new features include a redesigned app—which only advertised job postings and recruiting events before—that now acts as a scrollable feed similar to other social media platforms. It allows students to swipe through job postings, events such as career fairs, alumni reviews and advice, as well as short-form videos created by employers, another new tool. “This is very much in the zeitgeist of what students want and expect,” Lord says.</p>



<p>The idea is to provide job seekers with a more engaging view of the companies they’re applying to and interviewing for—one that goes beyond bullet points on a job board or a slickly produced video of managers boasting about strong company culture. For Gen Z, video is king, says Adam Robinson, founder and CEO at recruiting software company Hireology. “More often than not, the first page a job seeker views after looking at the list of jobs are the case studies and videos,” he says.</p>



<p>Yet that also means it’s a high-stakes move for employers, one that can backfire if the videos come across as too promotional or lacking in credibility. Young job seekers, says Robinson, “can see through a scripted, choreographed and overly produced video” with surprising ease.</p>



<p>Arizona State University junior Mehul Kumar Srivastava says videos have been key when looking for internships. “Job descriptions don’t really tell you what’s actually happening at a company,” the computer science major says, adding that the “day in the life of an intern” videos show him what to expect. “That’s really motivating, because you want to be there.”</p>



<p>Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, says the “feed” and social media-style scroll features are designed to add a level of serendipity to college students’ job search process, giving those who may not know what type of career they want or what employer they want to work for a way to discover new roles and companies. “The old setup put a lot more onus on the student to know what they wanted to find and to have a clear idea of what they want to look for in a specific job,” she says.</p>



<p>Handshake’s new interface uses students’ profiles—their major, selected location, companies of interest and the college they attend—to curate the jobs and posts they see in their feeds, showing students employers they may not have considered before or connecting them with alumni for advice. For employers, the new interface is designed to connect employers with a wider range of candidates.</p>



<p>Companies including TikTok, Teach for America and L’Oréal have been testing out Handshake’s short-form video option, which is being released Tuesday as an early access program that all of its 900,000 employers on the platform can now request to join at no added cost.</p>



<p>At L’Oréal, group vice president of talent acquisition Emma Shuttleworth says the move is part of a larger effort at the company to attract young workers. She says the marketing team enlists a Gen Z taskforce to help inform young applicants and make videos they’ll actually watch. On Handshake, the beauty company shares videos about their hiring process and longer-form “masterclass” videos about specific skills such as how to run a new marketing campaign. Shuttleworth hopes “it allows us to be at the forefront of students’ minds,” she says, “and in front of students who maybe have never considered applying to L’Oréal before.”</p>


Young man on a video call in a cafe

This Gen Z Jobs Site Wants To Give Employers A TikTok Alternative


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Mediators attempting to broker a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas to pause the fighting during Ramadan and release some of the hostages taken by Hamas have made progress on an agreement, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-25-2024-f3e4ea708548689cf8d9d404c3ee94ee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">multiple</a> <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-paris-israel-and-mediators-agree-on-outline-for-hostage-deal-pending-hamas-okay/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">outlets</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-skirmish-throughout-gaza-talk-truce-resurfaces-2024-02-25/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> Sunday.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The agreement would mean a pause in fighting for six weeks during the holy month Ramadan, which begins March 10, and would mean the exchange of about 40 of the 130 Israeli hostages held by Hamas, a senior Egyptian official&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-25-2024-f3e4ea708548689cf8d9d404c3ee94ee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;the Associated Press, for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.</p>



<p>It also would mean hundreds of trucks filled with aid could reach Gaza, the official&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-25-2024-f3e4ea708548689cf8d9d404c3ee94ee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;The AP.</p>



<p>Intelligence chiefs briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet Saturday night after they returned from a meeting with U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Paris over the weekend.</p>



<p>During the meeting, the war cabinet voted to send a delegation to Qatar to continue discussing the potential agreement, the Times of Israel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-paris-israel-and-mediators-agree-on-outline-for-hostage-deal-pending-hamas-okay/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.</p>



<p>Hamas has yet to publicly comment on the reports of an updated agreement but senior Hamas leaders met with mediators in Egypt this week, NPR&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/02/23/1233356379/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-negotiations-paris-netanyahu-day-after" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>At some point this week Qatar is expected to host continued discussions between Israel and Hamas in the hopes of finalizing a truce, Egyptian security sources&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-skirmish-throughout-gaza-talk-truce-resurfaces-2024-02-25/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;Reuters.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>More than 29,000. That’s the death toll in Gaza since the fighting began more than five months ago,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-19-2024-81c2d362340b611a98e4b929b4b5d0a4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a>&nbsp;the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 1,200 people have died in Israel since the fighting, mostly from the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli officials say.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>If the negotiators come to an agreement, this would be the second pause in fighting since the start of the war on Oct. 7. The last pause in fighting ended December 1 after Hamas and Israel agreed to a multi-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages by Hamas. Since then, the fighting has continued, more people have died and the international calls for a cease-fire, both temporary and permanent, have grown. Recently, the Biden administration has publicly <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-on-algerian-proposed-draft-resolution-on-the-situation-in-the-middle-east/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">advocated</a> for a temporary cease-fire and the release of all hostages being held by Hamas. That came after the U.S. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2024/02/20/us-vetoes-un-resolution-calling-for-israel-hamas-cease-fire-and-offers-its-own-plan/?sh=58a029884b7f">vetoed</a> a United Nations resolution that called for an immediate cease-fire and hostage release deal between Hamas and Israel.</p>


TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZA

Ramadan Truce Between Israel And Hamas Gets Closer, Reports Say


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>A Norwegian Cruise Line is stuck off the coast of Mauritius after some passengers on a South African voyage were quarantined after experiencing a stomach illness aboard the ship, and local authorities decided to prevent any other passengers on the massive ship from disembarking until test results come back.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The Norwegian Cruise Line said “a small number” of guests aboard the ship began experiencing mild symptoms of a stomach-related illness earlier this week.</p>



<p>The Norwegian Dawn was scheduled to arrive in Port Louis on Feb. 25, but after the boat skipped its Reunion Island stop it arrived earlier at Port Louis, where authorities said the ship could not dock, the Mauritius Ports Authority&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mauport.com/communique" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;Sunday.</p>



<p>The Mauritius Ministry of Health took samples from about 15 passengers on board the Dawn—which was on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/Norwegian-Dawn-699?tab=itinerary" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">12-day cruise</a>&nbsp;from Cape Town to Port Louis—because of the ongoing health risk and isolated them aboard the boat, according to the authority&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mauport.com/communique" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>.</p>



<p>Until testing is complete, Mauritius would not let anyone leave or board the ship for the next cruise until Tuesday, Norwegian said in a statement.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>It will take about 48 hours for health officials to receive the test results from the 15 passengers they tested.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



<p>It’s unclear exactly how many passengers or crew members are sick. Officials only said they tested 15 individuals.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>2,184. That’s how many passengers are aboard the Norwegian Dawn, along with 1,026 crew members,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mauport.com/communique" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a>&nbsp;the Mauritius Ports Authority. About 2,000 passengers were scheduled to disembark the cruise Sunday but are still aboard the boat. Some 2,279 new passengers were scheduled to board the ship in Port Louis on Sunday but have not yet done so, the Mauritius Ports Authority said. U.S.-based Norwegian Cruise Line said it is providing guests complimentary hotel accommodations until “they are able to board.”</p>


Cruise Ship In Lockdown At Sydney Harbour Over Coronavirus Fears

More Than 2,000 Stuck On Cruise Ship Because Of Mystery Illness


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Internet users in Pakistan are turning to virtual private networks to access the social media platform X after the site was blocked over the weekend following a contentious national election and admission of ballot fraud by a local government official.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>VPNs, which can mask the identity and location of users to help access websites and services that may be blocked in a certain region, have become increasingly popular in the days since access to X, formerly known as Twitter,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/02/18/users-report-x-down-in-pakistan-after-official-admits-election-rigging/?sh=509ed05f7e39">was cut off</a>&nbsp;for much of the country.</p>



<p>While social media platforms have been marred with issues in Pakistan for the last month, the issue came to a head at about noon ET on Saturday and, as of Friday morning, X has been restricted in the country for five days, according to watchdog monitoring service&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/netblocks" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Netblocks</a>.</p>



<p>Top10VPN, an independent VPN review website,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.top10vpn.com/research/vpn-demand-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>&nbsp;that demand for VPN services in Pakistan rose 131% Sunday, the first full day of the X outage, and continued into Monday, when the demand was 91% higher than average.</p>



<p>Nord Security, a VPN provider in Pakistan, told Forbes search interest in its products doubled on Sunday and reached four times its usual traffic for the week on Tuesday, while ExpressVPN said traffic to its website from Pakistan spiked 67% within the first 24 hours of the disruption, and has increased 80% in the four days since.</p>



<p>Surfshark, another provider in the country, said its new user acquisition rates in Pakistan climbed between 300% and 400% when compared to the previous month, “indicating a growing dependence on these services for internet access and privacy.”</p>



<p>The American media team for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the centrist party whose leader&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/12/18/imran-khan-pakistans-jailed-ex-leader-uses-ai-deepfake-to-address-online-election-rally/?sh=227df3aa5903">Imran Khan</a>&nbsp;was jailed ahead of the country&#8217;s election earlier this month, on Wednesday&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/PTIOfficialUSA/status/1760316797843067377" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">posted to X</a>&nbsp;that the Pakistani government has also begun to block popular VPN services.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“Pakistan’s latest clampdown on social media is a continuation of a broader trend of limiting internet access and undermining digital rights in the country,” Lauren Hendry Parsons, a privacy advocate for ExpressVPN, told Forbes in a statement. “It’s another example of a global decline in internet freedom as more countries have become more comfortable enforcing internet shutdowns.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/02/18/users-report-x-down-in-pakistan-after-official-admits-election-rigging/?sh=4d885cc97e39">recent restrictions</a>&nbsp;on social media in Pakistan began on Saturday, when a government official admitted he&#8217;d help to manipulate the results of a nationwide Feb. 8 election. Liaqat Ali Chattha, the commissioner of Rawalpindi,&nbsp;<a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/senior-official-says-helped-rig-104840000.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;he would hand himself over to police after he&#8217;d &#8220;personally supervised&#8221; the switching of 70,000 votes. The fraud admission came one week after an extremely contentious national election that saw Khan jailed ahead of the vote and charges dropped against the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, who is the preferred candidate of the Pakistan military. After Khan was sentenced, use of the PTI symbol to identify party candidates on national ballots was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-s-pti-barred-from-using-cricket-bat-electoral-symbol-/7439552.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">banned</a>—a move slammed as an access issue for the roughly 62% of the country who&nbsp;<a href="https://mofept.gov.pk/ProjectDetail/NjQ4ZTg2NjItOWM2NC00Y2IxLTkzMDgtMjU2OTFhMjA4NzNh#:~:text=The%20current%20literacy%20rate%20of,is%20illiterate%20in%20the%20country." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cannot read</a>—and all PTI candidates were forced to run as independents. PTI-backed candidates&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/6693631/imran-khan-allies-lead-pakistan-election-final-results/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">did gain more votes</a>&nbsp;than those of any other party, but because each candidate ran as an individual, PML-N was the largest single-party winner in parliament. Both groups have claimed victory, and Sharif said he plans to form a coalition government. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has demanded an inquiry into the claims of election rigging, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/amid-allegations-of-mass-vote-rigging-could-2024-pakistan-election-results-be-declared-null-and-void/articleshow/107796285.cms" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Times of India.</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>5. That&#8217;s how many times Pakistan has implemented internet restrictions so far this year, according to Surfshark. Of those, three took place in February and were directly related to the elections. The other two occurred in January&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/01/pakistan-experiences-internet-disruption-during-virtual-pti-rally/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">during virtual events</a>&nbsp;organized by PTI. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Wednesday&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-urges-pakistan-lift-internet-shutdowns-social-media-restrictions-2024-02-21/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">urged</a>&nbsp;the Pakistani government to &#8220;restore access to any social media that has been restricted, including Twitter.&#8221; Elon Musk, the owner of X and the world&#8217;s second-richest person, has not commented publicly on the outage.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Those who have been able to access X have lashed out at Umar Saif, Pakistan’s interim technology minister, after he posted several times on the platform after the outage began, which implies he used a VPN to skirt government wishes. Saif&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/umarsaif" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has posted</a>&nbsp;original content to X four times and retweeted one post since Feb. 18, including a post flaunting the growth of Pakistan&#8217;s IT industry. None of his posts referenced the outage. &#8220;Sir which vpn you&#8217;re using to tweet this?&#8221; one X user&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Thisharoon2/status/1760240974876340482" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">asked</a>. Anas Mallick, a reporter with WIONews,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AnasMallick/status/1760272060201263411" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">responded</a>&nbsp;to a post Wednesday with &#8220;please let us know what VPN are you using to tweet this for the benefit of general public.&#8221;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



<p>Pakistan isn’t the only country to have VPN use surge following a change in policy. Nord Security said traffic surges like the ones seen in Pakistan this week were also observed in 2022, when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-says-full-control-over-hong-kong-achieved-determined-taiwan-2022-10-16/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">news emerged</a> China was considering taking full control of Hong Kong, and in the United States in 2017, when the FCC repealed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">net neutrality rules</a>. Similar spikes also occurred in the United Kingdom in 2016 when the country passed the so-called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-charter-bill-becomes-law-extending-uk-state-surveillance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Snoopers&#8217; Charter&#8221; law</a>, which allows the government to collect online information on its citizens and have it stored by private companies.</p>


Supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan protest in Peshawer

X Outage In Pakistan Triggers Surge In VPN Use


<p>Last week, on Thursday, February 15, the Ethiopian Government&#8217;s investment arm, <a href="https://eih.et/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ethiopian Investment Holdings</a> (EIH), signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong-Kong-based West Data Group&#8217;s Center Service PLC to commence mining bitcoin.</p>



<p>The partnership is under a general agreement for a groundbreaking $250 million data mining project &#8220;that is dedicated to establishing cutting-edge infrastructure for data mining and artificial intelligence training operations in Ethiopia,&#8221; according to the EIH. Ethiopia is positioning itself as a leader in the data centre space in Africa, which is estimated to grow to $5.4 billion by 2027, according to Aritzon Advisory and Intelligence.</p>



<p>As noted by Kal Kassa, CEO for Ethiopia at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hashlabsmining.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hashlabs Mining</a>, “the development is part of the Ethiopian Government&#8217;s aim to drive economic growth by leveraging technology and energy sources to attract foreign investments.”</p>



<p>The EIH has yet to confirm the details of its bitcoin mining operations or respond to requests for comment by other publications. Nevertheless, as the project matures, we can expect to get more clarity from them on the particulars of the arrangement.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-bitcoin-mining-in-ethiopia">Bitcoin Mining In Ethiopia</h2>



<p>Despite the ban on crypto trading in the country, 2022 saw the ratification of favorable data mining laws that permit &#8220;high-performance computing&#8221; and &#8220;data mining,&#8221; which is where bitcoin mining falls under. In the last two years, this has opened the floodgates to miners seeking its comparatively positive reception to bitcoin mining, coupled with its abundance of energy sources—chiefly hydro—to its optimal weather and cheap energy costs.</p>



<p>According to data from Bitcoin mining services company Luxor Technologies, in 2023, Ethiopia ranked fourth behind the USA, Hong Kong, and Asia as one of the top destinations for Bitcoin mining rigs. Russian bitcoin mining company Bitcluster has already built the first 120 MW bitcoin mining facility, and companies such as Hashlabs Mining have started building bitcoin mines in Ethiopia for their global clients.</p>



<p>In a few years, according to a forecast by a senior executive at Bitmain and reported by Bloomberg, Ethiopia&#8217;s energy potential could rival Texas&#8217;s generation capacity, which currently accounts for an astounding 28.5% of the US&#8217;s 40% global hash rate.</p>



<p>Nevertheless, bitcoin miners are cautious about the future of regulation in the country. As other regions have shown, bitcoin mining has no permanent regulatory cushion. It is also too early to predict whether Ethiopia will switch its stance on bitcoin mining as Iran and Kazakhstan did when it started competing with domestic energy demand.</p>



<p>Regardless, the government is keen on expanding its inflow of foreign currency to mitigate its economic challenges and views mining as a compelling investment opportunity to realise that goal.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-of-nation-state-mining-in-africa"><strong>The Future Of Nation State Mining In Africa</strong></h2>



<p>With the energy infrastructure yet to match demand on the ground for electricity in several African countries, using bitcoin mining has continued to become an attractive avenue to bring electricity to millions.</p>



<p>In Ethiopia, for example, over 40% of its population, roughly 120 million people, are without electricity. Yet, the country has an installed capacity generation of over 5,000 MW and anticipates a projected additional install capacity generation of ~5,150 MW following the completion of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD), the largest hydroelectric project in Africa.</p>



<p>Following the examples of mining projects elsewhere in Africa, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abubakarnurkhalil/2023/05/24/africans-are-pioneering-the-bright-yet-complicated-green-future-of-bitcoin-mining/?sh=6d70d31654ac">Gridless</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/11/20/nigerian-bitcoin-miner-trojan-mining-launch-500kw-hydro-mining-site/">Trojan Mining</a>, Ethiopia too can leverage its abundant excess green energy to provide electricity to its citizens via bitcoin mining. It can serve as a blueprint for other African countries with comparable energy sources to follow and navigate similar economic problems.</p>



<p>Further, the inclusion of bitcoin mining into the Ethiopian economy could contribute $2 &#8211; $4 billion to its GDP, according to data from&nbsp;<a href="https://projectmano.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Project Mano</a>, an open collective seeking to educate the government on the potential benefits of bitcoin to the country’s economy.</p>



<p>The economic benefits of Ethiopia strategically leveraging its abundant energy resources for Bitcoin mining are vast and far-reaching. It is only a matter of time before other African nations join the bandwagon.</p>



<p>Bitcoin mining will ultimately be a pivotal tool in addressing the economic challenges of various African countries.</p>


aaaxxxxx

Ethiopia To Become The First African Country To Start Bitcoin Mining


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Researchers have potentially linked an antiviral protein produced by the body during infection as the cause of long Covid, according to a new study, and they’re optimistic the next step is making medications to treat the disease.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Researchers followed patients with long Covid for 2.5 years to determine why some recovered from their symptoms and others didn’t, according to the study published Wednesday in Science Advances.</p>



<p>Long Covid (or post-Covid) symptoms include shortness of breath, loss of smell or taste, brain fog or chest pain following recovery from a Covid infection that can last for weeks—or in some cases, for years—<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>



<p>When infected with the coronavirus, people produce an inflammatory protein called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154595/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interferon gamma</a>&nbsp;(or IFN-y), which is part of the body’s natural response to fight off infection.</p>



<p>The production of the protein typically stops once infection goes away, but researchers discovered participants with ongoing Covid symptoms had high levels of IFN-y for up to 31 months after initial infection, which the researchers believe may be the cause of long Covid.</p>



<p>Over 60% of patients experienced relief from at least some of their symptoms during the study period, and participants who were vaccinated after infection saw significant decreases in their long Covid symptoms and IFN-y production, suggesting vaccination “improved” long Covid symptoms, according to the study.</p>



<p>Current long Covid treatment only targets symptom alleviation and not the underlying disease, but now that a potential cause has been identified, there’s “hope that this could help to pave the way” for creating medication to specifically target long Covid, and “give some patients a firm diagnosis,” Benjamin Krishna, the study’s co-author and an investigator at Cambridge University, said in a statement.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“The number of people with long Covid is gradually falling, and vaccination seems to be playing a significant role in that,” Krishna said. “But new cases are still cropping up, and then there is the big question of what happens when the next coronavirus pandemic comes along. Understanding what causes long Covid now could give us a crucial head start.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>65 million. That’s how many people worldwide suffer from long Covid, according to a 2023&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>. The CDC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7232a3.htm?s_cid=mm7232a3_w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated</a>&nbsp;around 6% of American adults in June 2023 experienced long Covid at some point in their lives.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>The study researchers believe because there are several symptoms of long Covid that can look very different from each other, more research is needed in order to create subgroups of the disease. It’s “unlikely” all symptoms are caused by the same thing since some patients are able to recover while others aren’t, so future studies into why should be conducted, according to the researchers.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Several risk factors play into who’s more susceptible to long Covid, <a href="https://covid19.nih.gov/covid-19-topics/long-covid" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to the National Institutes of Health: underlying health conditions like obesity and diabetes, going unvaccinated, experiencing severe Covid infection or hospitalization, older age and being a woman are all risk factors. Long Covid can affect several organs and body systems like the heart, lungs, kidney, reproductive system and brain and also trigger other health conditions like kidney disease, autoimmune disorders or diabetes. Other experts have attempted to identify the cause of long Covid. Some <a href="https://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12933-021-01359-7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">studies</a> have hypothesized tiny clots in the cells that persist for a long time may be the cause of some symptoms. The microclots may cause an inflammatory response, which causes exhaustion and fatigue, two of the most common long Covid symptoms. The Science Advances researchers believe their new findings suggest microclotting can’t be the only or most significant cause, though they don’t rule it out. The lowering of certain anti-inflammatory gut microbiomes during and after Covid—which causes an inflammatory response—may also trigger long Covid, according to a 2022 <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9088471/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>. Another theory is that the coronavirus itself—not the body’s response to it—causes long Covid by damaging or altering cells, leading to lasting symptoms, according to a separate Science Advances <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abc5801" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paper</a>.</p>


A Covid-19 Vaccination Site As Children Under 5-Years Old Become Eligible For Shot

Possible Long Covid Cause Identified: Suggests Protein Might Be Culprit—And Medication Might Cure It


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Covid vaccines from companies like Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca were linked to rare occurrences of heart, brain and blood disorders, a recent peer-reviewed study found, though experts say the risks of developing Covid-19 greatly outweigh the risks of getting vaccinated.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Researchers from the Global Vaccine Data Network—a research arm of the World Health Organization—looked at expected versus observed rates of 13 medical conditions that were considered “adverse events of special interest” in a study population of 99 million vaccinated people eight countries, making it the largest Covid vaccine study to date.</p>



<p>Rare cases of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html#:~:text=Myocarditis%20is%20inflammation%20of%20the,Shortness%20of%20breath" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">myocarditis</a>—inflammation of the heart—were identified in the first, second and third doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines: The highest rate was seen after the second Moderna dose (6.1 times the expected rate of cases), according to the study published in the journal Vaccine.</p>



<p>Another heart condition called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pericarditis/symptoms-causes/syc-20352510#:~:text=Pericarditis%20is%20swelling%20and%20irritation,and%20goes%20away%20without%20treatment." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pericarditis</a>&nbsp;had a 6.9-fold increased risk in those who took a third dose of AstraZeneca’s viral-vector vaccine, while a first and fourth dose of Moderna’s vaccine had a 1.7-fold and 2.6-fold increased risk, respectively.</p>



<p>There was a 2.5-times greater risk of developing the rare autoimmune disorder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/guillain-barre-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20362793" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Guillain-Barre syndrome</a>&nbsp;among those who took AstraZeneca’s vaccine compared to the rate researchers expected, and a 3.2-times greater risk of getting blood clots among the same population.</p>



<p>There was a 3.8-times greater risk of developing the neurological disorder acute disseminated encephalomyelitis after the Moderna vaccine was administered, and a 2.2-fold increased risk after AstraZeneca’s vaccine, according to the study.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>13.5 billion. That’s how many Covid vaccines have been administered worldwide since the start of the Covid pandemic,&nbsp;<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to science research organization Our World in Data. Around 71% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“The odds of all of these adverse events is still much, much higher when infected with SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), so getting vaccinated is still by far the safer choice,” CEO of biotechnology company Centivax Jacob Glanville, who is not involved in the study, told Forbes.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Covid vaccines are meant to prevent severe infection, and studies have indicated&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recs/grade/covid-19-moderna-vaccine.html%5C" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Moderna</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recs/grade/covid-19-pfizer-biontech-vaccine.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pfizer-BioNTech</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=The%20AstraZeneca%20vaccine%20has%20an,about%204%20to%2012%20weeks." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AstraZeneca’s</a>&nbsp;vaccines are effective at preventing severe illnesses, hospitalizations and death. Meanwhile, the chances of having a neurological event after a Covid infection were up to 617-fold higher than following COVID vaccination, which suggests “the benefits of vaccination substantially outweigh the risks,” according to the Vaccine study researchers. The risk of developing myocarditis is higher post-Covid infection than after getting a Covid vaccine,&nbsp;<a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/akiko-iwasaki/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, professor of Immunobiology at Yale University. Myocarditis risk after the second dose of a Covid vaccine is 35.9 per 100,000 people, compared to a 64.9 per 100,000 risk after Covid infection. The risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome after Covid infection was six times greater, and the risk of developing it after vaccination was 0.41 times greater than the control group, according to a 2023&nbsp;<a href="https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000207900" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;published in Neurology. While most Americans have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot, uptake for booster shots that are updated to combat new coronavirus strains has remained slow.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>The rapidly spreading Covid variant JN.1 caused an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/12/20/jn1-covid-variant-of-interest-spreading-fast-in-us---heres-what-to-know/?sh=2fe82e10ccce">uptick in cases</a>&nbsp;during the fall and winter months, causing a resurgence of the tripledemic—when cases of Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus simultaneously increase. JN.1 made up&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions%5C" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">96.4</a><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">%</a>&nbsp;of all cases in the two week period ending in Feb. 17. However, Covid cases (down 0.6%) and deaths (down 6.9%) are&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variants-genomic-surveillance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">declining</a>—though hospitalizations are up 0.8%—signaling an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/caileygleeson/2024/01/19/tripledemic-surge-eases-as-covid-rsv-flu-figures-drop-for-second-week/?sh=5b629a4c64ac">end</a>&nbsp;to the tripledemic. The variant was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/18122023_jn.1_ire_clean.pdf?sfvrsn=6103754a_3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">classified</a>&nbsp;as a “variant of interest”—meaning it’s spreading in a way that may pose “an emerging risk to global public health”—by the World Health Organization in December. JN.1 is an offshoot of the highly mutated&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/11/28/what-to-know-about-rapidly-spreading-pirola-covid-variant-ba286-and-if-vaccines-offer-protection/?sh=27f10c0e1978">Pirola</a>&nbsp;(BA.2.86) virus that some experts worried wouldn’t be protected against the updated monovalent Covid boosters, which specifically target XBB variants. However, vaccine makers ensured their shots provided some protection.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/12/20/jn1-covid-variant-of-interest-spreading-fast-in-us---heres-what-to-know/?sh=2fe82e10ccce">JN.1 Covid ‘Variant Of Interest’ Spreading Fast In U.S. — Here’s What To Know</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/caileygleeson/2024/01/19/tripledemic-surge-eases-as-covid-rsv-flu-figures-drop-for-second-week/?sh=5b629a4c64ac">‘Tripledemic’ Surge Eases As Covid, RSV, Flu Figures Drop For Second Week</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/11/28/what-to-know-about-rapidly-spreading-pirola-covid-variant-ba286-and-if-vaccines-offer-protection/?sh=717483311978">What To Know About Rapidly Spreading ‘Pirola’ Covid Variant BA.2.86—And If Vaccines Offer Protection</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


Japan begins the third inoculation of COVID-19 vaccine

Covid Vaccines Linked To Small Increase In Heart And Brain Disorders, Study Finds—But Risk From Infection Is Far Higher


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>OpenAI inked a deal with venture capital firm Thrive Capital that boosted its valuation to $80 billion or more, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/openai-artificial-intelligence-deal-valuation.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York Times</a>&nbsp;reported, a nearly threefold increase in value from just nine months ago.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>OpenAI will engage in an existing share sale under the “so-called tender offer” led by Thrive, the Times reported, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the deal, noting the deal would allow employees to cash out their shares in the artificial intelligence company.</p>



<p>The deal comes nearly 10 months after OpenAI closed a $300 million share sale, marking it at a valuation of about&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/28/openai-funding-valuation-chatgpt/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$27 billion</a>.</p>



<p>An $80 billion valuation would rank the company as the No. 3 highest-valued tech startup in the world behind TikTok parent company ByteDance ($225 billion) and the Elon Musk-led SpaceX ($150 billion), according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CB Insights data</a>&nbsp;cited by the Times.</p>



<p>Talks surrounding a new deal were reported last year, when a share sale that would have reportedly valued OpenAI at up to $90 billion was being discussed, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-seeks-new-valuation-of-up-to-90-billion-in-sale-of-existing-shares-ed6229e0?mod=e2tw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wall Street Journal</a>.</p>



<p>OpenAI and Thrive Capital didn’t immediately respond to Forbes’ requests for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>OpenAI was founded in 2015 and received several large investments from multiple tech companies and investors in and by the end of 2023. Microsoft has invested a total of $13 billion in OpenAI, though the tech giant has said it doesn’t own any portion of OpenAI and is instead “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-08/microsoft-s-answer-to-openai-inquiry-it-doesn-t-own-a-stake" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">entitled to a share</a>&nbsp;of profit distributions.” Last April, Thrive, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and K2 Global agreed to acquire new shares in OpenAI, bringing its valuation to around $27 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who was ousted from the company last year and promptly brought back after<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/11/22/sam-altman-agrees-to-return-as-openai-ceo/?sh=7821de9c8a96">&nbsp;internal uproar</a>, has said the company has no intentions to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-has-no-ipo-plan-due-strange-company-structure-2023-06-06/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">go public</a>&nbsp;in the near future.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>OpenAI on Thursday unveiled&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/02/15/openai-reveals-sora-ai-video-model-capable-of-realistic-text-to-video-prompts/?sh=5206de69d361">its newest product, Sora</a>, which is able to generate videos from text prompts. The video service is not available to the public and it is unclear when it could be, as OpenAI said it is still going through “several important safety steps”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/openais-sora-has-rivals-in-the-works-including-from-google-and-meta/?sh=3f0911822843">to combat potential issues</a>&nbsp;related to misinformation and bias.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/openai-artificial-intelligence-deal-valuation.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">OpenAI Completes Deal That Values the Company at $80 Billion</a>&nbsp;(NYT)</p>



<p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/28/openai-funding-valuation-chatgpt/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">OpenAI closes $300M share sale at $27B-29B valuation </a>(TechCrunch)</p>


In this photo illustration a Open AI logo is displayed on a

OpenAI Reaches $80 Billion Valuation In Venture Firm Deal, Report Says

Most Attractive Youtube Thumbnail (2)

Billionaires List: Africa’s Richest People In 2024


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Medication abortions prescribed and delivered using video calls, text messages and pills delivered through the mail are just as safe and effective as a visit to the clinic, according to research published Thursday in Nature Medicine, as politicians across the country continue to fight over abortion access and the Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/12/13/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-abortion-pill-cases-determine-whether-pills-should-be-restricted/?sh=2e0147367e27">prepares</a>&nbsp;to consider a challenge that could upend access to a key abortion drug, mifepristone.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Medication abortion, which involves taking two pills—mifepristone followed by misoprostol—can be delivered safely and effectively using telehealth, according to new peer reviewed research from University of California, San Francisco.</p>



<p>In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/health/abortion-pills-fda.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">permanently lifted&nbsp;</a>restrictions that required mifepristone to be dispensed in a medical clinic, paving the way for the pill to be prescribed through a telemedicine appointment and shipped to the patient by mail.</p>



<p>Pregnant patients who obtained the abortion pills from virtual clinics and had two remote follow-up appointments after they’d taken them had no serious adverse events—such as needing major surgery and blood transfusion—99.8% of the time, the researchers said after analyzing data from more than 6,000 patients from virtual clinics operating in 20 states and Washington D.C. between April 2021 and January 2022.</p>



<p>Additionally, the researchers said around 98% of the abortions administered this way took place without needing any further medical care.</p>



<p>The figures are on par with outcomes for patients who receive medication and abortion care in-person, according to the researchers, who urged lawmakers to rethink policies that restrict access to this “essential healthcare service” over purported fears over safety.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion, anti-abortion activists and lawmakers have turned their attention to other ways of restricting access. Initially, this fight mainly focused on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/05/us-abortion-clinics-close-after-roe-overturned" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">physical abortion clinics</a>, and the effort later expanded to target abortion medications like mifepristone and misoprostol, which respectively end pregnancy and empty the uterus by causing cramping and bleeding. Both drugs have undergone rigorous safety testing as part of the approval process in the U.S. and abroad and strong safety records from data collected over decades. Anti-abortion advocates have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/us/supreme-court-abortion-pill.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">questioned</a>&nbsp;the approval process behind the drugs and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/02/26/the-big-american-post-roe-battle-over-abortion-pills" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claim</a>&nbsp;they are unsafe and harm women, urging officials and judges to take them off of shelves and ban them from being delivered through the post. Experts&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/04/11/mifepristone-ruling-here-are-the-unintended-health-consequences-of-attacks-on-abortion-pills/?sh=368c856e6405">warn</a>&nbsp;there could be unintended healthcare consequences from banning or curtailing access to the pills, as the drugs are also used for a variety of other medical conditions and to treat miscarriages.</p>



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<p>By signing up, you accept and agree to our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/terms-and-conditions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Terms of Service</a>&nbsp;(including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and you acknowledge our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/privacy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Privacy Statement</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Despite the Supreme Court returning the power to regulate abortion access back to states when it overturned Roe, the court is due to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/12/13/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-abortion-pill-cases-determine-whether-pills-should-be-restricted/?sh=2e0147367e27">consider</a>&nbsp;the issue of abortion access once again after a federal judge in Texas took the&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/unprecedented-texas-abortion-pill-ruling-sparks-debate-judge/story?id=98531203" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unprecedented</a>&nbsp;step of suspending the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone. The court is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2024/01/29/mifepristone-scotus-abortion-pill-case-march/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">slated</a>&nbsp;to hear arguments for the case restricting access to mifepristone in March. In a press release, UCSF said the study has “already been cited in the amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court supported by more than 300 leading reproductive health researchers. ”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, telemedicine has become the new frontier in health care, including for medication abortion,” said the study’s lead author Ushma Upadhyay, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at UCSF. “A ruling against this method and the FDA’s rigorous science review process would be a huge blow to the American public and make this essential health service harder to get.”</p>


Woman holding pills and glass of water while standing in kitchen at home

Abortion Pills: Telehealth Procedure Is As Safe As Clinic Visit, Research Finds


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>OpenAI is testing a new feature that gives ChatGPT a memory to store information from a user’s previous chats—including their voice, tone and personal preferences—in order to create a more intensely customized experience for future requests.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Users will be able to choose whether they want ChatGPT to store a conversation, allowing the chatbot to remember specific details about the user over time to create more personalized responses, OpenAI&nbsp;<a href="https://openai.com/blog/memory-and-new-controls-for-chatgpt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;in a blog post.</p>



<p>The user will be able to control what information ChatGPT can store about them, the company said, though the chatbot’s “memories” will “evolve with your interactions,” allowing it to determine over time what information should be stored based on a user’s preferences.</p>



<p>If a user asks ChatGPT to create a birthday card for a child the user previously said likes jellyfish, OpenAI used as an example, ChatGPT may create a card featuring a jellyfish wearing a party hat.</p>



<p>The feature will be applied to other GPTs, including ChatGPT Team and Enterprises, allowing the chatbot to “remember your tone, voice and format preferences” while responding to certain tasks, while Books GPT will recommend books based on a user’s preferences, like favorite genres or top books.</p>



<p>Organizations will be able to upload data to ChatGPT, which will then create charts based on that data along with “three takeaways each,” while programming firms will also be able to store information about their programming language and frameworks to remember those preferences for future tasks, OpenAI said.</p>



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<p>Joanne Jang, OpenAI’s product lead, told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/openai-gives-chatgpt-the-ability-to-remember-facts-from-your-chats" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;that while the new memory feature can store information about the user, it was also designed to not save sensitive personal information like passwords, passport numbers or details about the user’s health.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>The feature will be available for some free and paid ChatGPT users this week before it becomes more widely accessible, OpenAI said.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Memory for ChatGPT is the latest feature announced by OpenAI following the chatbot’s success over the last year. Last month, the company launched GPT Store, an online marketplace where users can share custom chatbots with others, after a two-month delay amid CEO Sam Altman’s ouster and subsequent return to the company. ChatGPT Team was also launched last month, a smaller version of ChatGPT Enterprise, which was released in August as an alternative for organizations to use the chatbot with “enterprise-grade security.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Altman, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15UZCAr3shU" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">spoke</a>&nbsp;over video during the Dubai-based World Governments Summit, reiterated his concerns about the possible dangers of artificial intelligence. Altman noted he was “not that interested in the killer robots walking on the street direction of things going wrong,” rather he was “much more interested” about the “very subtle societal misalignments” that could make the technology dangerous.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/01/10/openai-launches-gpt-store-where-creators-can-share-and-possibly-make-money-from-their-chatbots/?sh=4904127c7cae">OpenAI Launches GPT Store: Where Creators Can Share—And Possibly Make Money From—Their Chatbots</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>


Author: Forbes

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