From VOA Mandarin: Trump 2.0 and the future of the CHIPS Act

The Biden administration is shoring up its CHIPS Act funding agreements before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. Trump has previously disparaged the CHIPS Act and called for higher tariffs instead of subsidies to incentivize companies to build semiconductor factories. What would be the future of TSMC under the Trump administration?

See the full story here.

TikTok asks federal appeals court to bar enforcement of potential ban until Supreme Court review 

TikTok asked a federal appeals court on Monday to bar the Biden administration from enforcing a law that could lead to a ban on the popular platform until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge to the statue. 

The legal filing was made after a panel of three judges on the same court sided with the government last week and ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban as soon as next month, was constitutional. 

If the law is not overturned, both TikTok and its parent ByteDance, which is also a plaintiff in the case, have claimed that the popular app will shut down by Jan. 19, 2025. TikTok has more than 170 million American users. 

“Before that happens, the Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this exceptionally important case,” attorneys for the two companies wrote in the legal filing on Monday. 

It’s not clear if the Supreme Court will take up the case. 

President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok the last time he was in the White House, has said he is now against such action. 

In their legal filing, the two companies pointed to the political realities, saying that an injunction would provide a “modest delay” that would give “the incoming Administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.” 

China launches anti-monopoly probe into Nvidia 

BEIJING — China on Monday said it has launched an investigation into U.S. chip maker Nvidia over suspected violations of the country’s anti-monopoly law, in a move that will likely be seen as a retaliatory move against Washington’s recent chip curbs.  

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said Nvidia is also suspected of violating commitments it made during its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd, according to terms outlined in the regulator’s 2020 conditional approval of that deal. 

It did not elaborate on how Nvidia might have violated China’s anti-monopoly laws.  

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company’s shares fell 2.2% in premarket trading after the Chinese regulator’s announcement.  

The investigation comes after the U.S. last week launched its third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor industry, which saw Washington curb exports to 140 companies, including chip equipment makers. 

Nvidia has enjoyed booming demand from China, though this has been dented over the past year by U.S. efforts to stop China from acquiring the world’s most advanced chips. 

Before the U.S. curbs, Nvidia dominated China’s AI chip market with more than 90 per cent share. However, it currently faces increasing competition from domestic rivals, chief among them being Huawei. 

When the U.S. firm made a $6.9 billion bid to acquire Israeli chip designer Mellanox Technologies in 2019 there were concerns that China could block the deal due to U.S.-China trade frictions.  

Beijing however later approved the deal in 2020 with multiple conditions for Nvidia and the merged entity’s China operations, including prohibitions on forced product bundling, unreasonable trading terms, purchase restrictions, and discriminatory treatment of customers who buy products separately. 

India not pursuing shared BRICS currency, analysts say

NEW DELHI — India is not pursuing the creation of a shared BRICS currency, an idea that has met with a strong verbal pushback from incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, but the South Asian giant is making efforts to promote trade in its local currency, according to analysts in New Delhi.

Trump has threatened a 100% tariff on products from BRICS nations if they develop their own currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

The BRICS bloc, which began with China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa, expanded this year to include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar,” Trump said in a post on the Truth Social media platform.

Talk of a BRICS currency gained some momentum following U.S.-led sanctions on Russia in 2022 and since, in recent years, economic and political tensions have grown between the West and China. Russia and China have publicly expressed a desire to explore diversification of international trade away from the dollar.

Ajai Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, though, said New Delhi does not plan to move away from the American currency.

“Trump’s post is like a forewarning to tread carefully down this road. But at the moment, this is just an idea, and a common BRICS currency is simply not on India’s agenda,” Sahai said.

The creation of such a currency is unlikely to gain traction due to mistrust and internal differences within major countries in the alliance such as India and China, according to analysts working in the Indian capital.

“India is not supportive of this particular initiative. Any common currency is not going to help anyone; only the dominant countries like China ultimately will dictate. So, it is very difficult to develop a consensus to have a common currency,” according to Chintamani Mahapatra, founder of the Kalinga Institute of Indo Pacific Studies.

The emerging countries group is also too diverse to make it economically viable to forge a competing currency, according to Mahapatra.

“Unlike the European Union, we [BRICS countries] don’t have a common market. We don’t have a common trade policy. We have nothing in common,” Mahapatra said.

At the same time, several BRICS members have accelerated efforts to explore ways to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar, which has been the world’s dominant currency since the end of World War II. BRICS countries account for about 40% of the world’s population and an estimated one-third of global gross domestic product.

At a summit held in the Russian city of Kazan in October, BRICS nations agreed to boost efforts to trade in local currencies rather than in U.S. dollars and said they would strengthen banking networks within the group to facilitate settlements in their currencies.

“Trade in local currencies and smooth cross-border payments will strengthen our economic cooperation,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

India, which adopted a new foreign trade policy last year to support using the rupee more frequently for trade, has identified 17 countries with which it wants to use rupees or the other country’s currency, according to Biswajit Dhar, a senior professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi.

Those countries include Russia. New Delhi, which did not join U.S. sanctions against Russia, is paying for its crude oil imports from Moscow in rupees. As trade with Russia increases exponentially, though, that also presents problems.

“India runs a huge trade deficit vis-a-vis Russia, which means that when India is buying a lot of oil and is paying in rupees, Russia does not know what to do with the stock of rupees it is holding now,” Dhar said.

“Indian businesses are wary of selling to Russia because of the sanctions.” he said.

Aside from Russia, other countries such as Malaysia, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh also have agreed to facilitate trade in rupees. Such efforts however are modest, and India’s international trade is still dominated by the dollar.

Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar Subramanian has said that moving away from the U.S. currency is not part of New Delhi’s economic policy.

“We have never actively targeted the dollar. That’s not part of either our economic policy or our political or strategic policy,” he said responding to a question on dedollarization at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington in October.

But in an indirect reference to Russia, he said that India had to look for “workarounds” when trade in dollars with some partners became difficult.

“It was the U.S. actions targeting Russia that made countries search for mechanisms and options to the dollar. It was not to dislodge the dollar’s position,” according to Ajay Srivastava, of the Global Trade Research Initiative.

However, he said Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on products coming from countries adopting a BRICS currency makes the idea of such a potential new currency “unrealistic and more symbolic than practical.”

India not pursuing shared BRICS currency

India is not supporting the creation of a shared currency among the nine-nation BRICS grouping but it is trying to promote trade in its local currency, according to analysts in New Delhi. Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump recently warned BRICS nations against efforts to replace the dollar with an alternative currency. Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi.

$45M stegosaurus on display in NY. Here’s what scientists hope to learn about it

NEW YORK — The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever discovered will be on view in New York starting this weekend, American Museum of Natural History officials announced Wednesday.

The giant stegosaurus fossil, dubbed “Apex,” is 3.3 meters tall and 8.2 meters nose to tail. The display will start in a giant atrium at the museum’s entrance before being moved to the museum’s existing fossil halls next year.

The museum also confirmed the identity of the philanthropist who purchased Apex. Billionaire hedge fund manager and longtime museum donor Ken Griffin bought it at an auction in July for $45 million, the most ever paid for dinosaur remains. Sean Decatur, president of the American Museum of Natural History, said that Griffin approved a long-term loan of Apex, as well as allowing scientists to take samples from the fossil for analysis.

“This partnership allows Apex to have pride of place at a museum world-renowned for its dinosaur collection and for its longstanding leadership in paleontology and, even more exciting, enables us to pursue specialized stegosaurus research centered around this extraordinary and scientifically important specimen,” Decatur said in a statement Wednesday.

Of the more than 80 stegosauri made available to scientific institutions, very few are substantially complete, the statement said. Apex is the most complete specimen ever found, Decatur said. With about 80% of its 320 bones preserved, it is miraculous for creature that has been dead for 150 million years. The specimen is also prized by scientists because it is estimated to have died at a relatively old age, and it could reveal insights into stegosaurus metabolism and bone growth.

Scientists will make CT scans of the internal structures of the dinosaur’s skull and analyze a small sample extracted from one of its giant thigh bones, the statement said.

“As exciting as is it is to have this dinosaur on display, it is even more exciting to have the opportunity to study it and make important scientific data available for research,” said Roger Benson, who curates the American Museum of Natural History’s fossil amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants.

The museum’s paleontologists have a long record of breaking ground in dinosaur research, including identifying the first dinosaur eggs and early evidence of dinosaur feathers, the statement said.

Commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper discovered in Apex on his land near Dinosaur, Colorado, on the Utah border near Dinosaur National Monument.

Griffin’s successful $44.6 million bid for Apex over the summer set a record for dinosaur remains, beating out the $31.8 million paid for “Stan,” the remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex sold in 2020. Like Apex, the Stan fossils were purchased by a private individual with plans to make it available to the public. The T. rex has been slated to be on display in Abu Dhabi, in United Arab Emirates, at a museum that opens in late 2025.

As data centers proliferate, conflict with local communities follows

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — Richard Andre Newman thought he would live the rest of his life in his quiet, leafy neighborhood in suburban Virginia. He was born and raised in Bren Mar Park, where children ride their bikes and neighbors wave hello.

But now, as he’s approaching 60, he’s considering selling his Fairfax County home and moving away. That’s because he’s getting a new neighbor: Plaza 500, a 466,000-square-foot data center and an adjacent electrical substation to be built a few hundred feet from townhomes, playgrounds and a community center.

Newman feels helpless to stop it.

“I planned on staying here until I died,” he said, “until this came up.”

The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.

Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies. But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.

Tyler Ray, a vocal critic of data centers and leader in the fight against the Virginia project, said the incentives offered are not enough to counteract the consequences of building a facility so close to homes.

“All that we are asking for is, as the county is trying to bring in this data center income, that they are doing it in a way that doesn’t run residents away from their homes,” he said.

Dotting the hills in Northern Virginia

In Northern Virginia, more than 300 data centers dot the rolling hills of the area’s westernmost counties. Cyclists who ride the popular Washington & Old Dominion trail are at times flanked by data centers, and the thousands of commuters who head into the nation’s capital each day can see them in the distance from the Metro.

Plaza 500, one of the latest proposals in the area, is encroaching on neighborhoods like never before, said Newman, who heads a homeowners association in the community.

The pitch from Starwood Capital Group, the private investment firm founded by billionaire Barry Sternlicht, to Fairfax County officials promised a significant property tax boost and, in addition to permanent positions in the data center itself, hundreds of temporary construction and electrical jobs to build the facility.

Tyler Ray and his husband moved to the Bren Pointe community in 2022, hoping to balance proximity to Washington with a desire for green space.

But shortly after the couple moved in, Starwood Capital began scoping out a commercial property near their new home as a possible location for the Plaza 500 project.

When Ray and his neighbors learned of the proposal, they held protests, attended regular county meetings and drew media attention to their concerns to try and stop the development. But their efforts were largely unsuccessful: the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in September said all newly proposed data centers must adhere to stricter zoning rules, but the Plaza 500 project would be grandfathered in under the old rules.

Ray worries that more data centers in the area could compromise the already stressed power grid: Over 25% of all power produced in Virginia in 2023 went to data centers, a figure that could rise as high as 46% by 2030 if data center growth continues at its current pace. Some estimates also show a mid-sized data center commands the same water usage every day as 1,000 households, prompting concerns over the cost of water. Ray also frets over air quality, as the massive diesel generators that help power the data centers’ hardware send plumes of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.

A spokesperson for the firm declined to respond to questions for this story.

“I don’t know how a general resident, even someone who has been engaging intently on an issue,” Ray said, “has any chance to go up against the data center industry.”

Local leaders say data centers a financial boon

For local governments, attracting data centers to their municipalities means a financial boon: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in 2024 that Virginia’s existing data centers brought in $1 billion in tax revenue, more than the $750 million in tax breaks given to the tech companies that own them in 2023.

For average-sized facilities, data centers offer a small number of direct jobs — often fewer than 100 positions. Google announced recently that its two data centers in Loudoun County, which has about 440,000 residents, created only around 150 direct jobs. But data center advocates argue that the number of indirect jobs like construction, technology support and electrical work make the projects worthwhile. In that same announcement, Google said their investment spurred 2,730 indirect jobs.

Kathy Smith, the vice chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, voted in favor of the Plaza 500 proposal because, in her estimation, data center growth is inevitable in the region, and Fairfax County should reap the benefits.

“I have a responsibility to step back from what we do and look at the big picture,” Smith said. “Data centers are not going away.”

Amazon data centers welcomed by some in Oregon 

On the other side of the country, in Morrow County, Oregon, Amazon Web Services has built at least five data centers surrounding the 4,200-person town of Boardman, nestled among vast stretches of farmland flecked with mint patches and wind turbines, next to the Columbia river.

Last year, AWS, which is owned by Amazon, paid roughly $34 million in property taxes and fees stipulated in the agreements after receiving a $66 million tax break. The company also paid out $10 million total in two, one-time payments to a community development fund and spent another $1.7 million in charitable donations in the community in 2023.

That money has been instrumental in updating infrastructure and bolstering services for the roughly 12,000-person county, going toward a new ladder fire engine, a school resource officer, police body cameras, and $5,000 grants for homebuyers among other things.

Still, some residents are skeptical of the scale of tax break deals. Suspicions started years ago, when three formerly elected officials allegedly helped approve data center deals while owning a stake in a company that contracted with AWS to provide fiber optic cables for the data centers. In June, they each paid $2,000 to settle an ethics complaint against them.

Those officials are no longer in office. But some remain wary of the relationships between the company and local officials, and raised eyebrows at one of the latest data center deals which gives AWS an estimated $1 billion in tax breaks spread over the 15 years to build five new data centers.

Former county commissioner Jim Doherty described a meeting with AWS officials soon after he was elected to office at an upscale restaurant in Boardman, where large windows opened onto the Columbia River.

The AWS representatives asked what Doherty wanted to accomplish as a commissioner. “They said, ‘Tell us what your dreams are. Tell us what you need. Tell us what we can do for you,'” Doherty recalled. Other former officials have described similar interactions. Doherty said AWS didn’t ask for anything in return, but the exchange left him uneasy.

“We engage with stakeholders in every community where we operate around the world, and part of that outreach is to better understand a community’s goals,” said Kevin Miller, AWS’ Vice President of global data centers. “This helps AWS be a catalyst for communities to achieve those goals, and reflects our ongoing commitment to being good neighbors.”

Doherty and another former county commissioner Melissa Lindsay said they pushed unsuccessfully in 2022 for AWS to pay more in taxes in new data center negotiations. They also lobbied to hire outside counsel to negotiate on their behalf, feeling outgunned by the phalanx of AWS-suited lawyers.

“We didn’t want to blow it up. We didn’t want to run them off,” said Lindsay. “But there were better deals to be made.”

Boardman Mayor Paul Keefer and Police Chief Rick Stokoe say their direct line to AWS allows them to get the most out of the company.

“This road right here? Wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for AWS,” said Keefer, riding in the passenger seat of Stokoe’s cruiser, pointing out the window at construction workers shifting dirt and laying pavement. Both Keefer and Stokoe have been in positions to vote on whether to authorize tax breaks for AWS.

“These companies would not be here if they weren’t getting some kind of incentive,” Stokoe said. “There wouldn’t be any money to talk about.”

US House to vote to provide $3 billion to remove Chinese telecoms equipment

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote next week on an annual defense bill that includes just over $3 billion for U.S. telecom companies to remove equipment made by Chinese telecoms firms Huawei and ZTE 000063.SZ from American wireless networks to address security risks.

The 1,800-page text was released late Saturday and includes other provisions aimed at China, including requiring a report on Chinese efforts to evade U.S. national security regulations and an intelligence assessment of the current status of China’s biotechnology capabilities.

The Federal Communications Commission has said removing the insecure equipment is estimated to cost $4.98 billion but Congress previously only approved $1.9 billion for the “rip and replace” program.

Washington has aggressively urged U.S. allies to purge Huawei and other Chinese gear from their wireless networks.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel last week again called on the U.S. Congress to provide urgent additional funding, saying the program to replace equipment in the networks of 126 carriers faces a $3.08 billion shortfall “putting both our national security and the connectivity of rural consumers who depend on these networks at risk.”

She has warned the lack of funding could result in some rural networks shutting down, which “could eliminate the only provider in some regions” and could threaten 911 service.

Competitive Carriers Association CEO Tim Donovan on Saturday praised the announcement, saying “funding is desperately needed to fulfill the mandate to remove and replace covered equipment and services while maintaining connectivity for tens of millions of Americans.”

In 2019, Congress told the FCC to require U.S. telecoms carriers that receive federal subsidies to purge their networks of Chinese telecoms equipment. The White House in 2023 asked for $3.1 billion for the program.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said funding for the program and up to $500 million for regional tech hubs will be covered by funds generated from a one-time spectrum auction by the FCC for advanced wireless spectrum in the band known as AWS-3 to help meet rising spectrum demands of wireless consumers. 

North Macedonian political party calls for ban on social media content that incites ‘self-destructive behavior’

SKOPJE, North Macedonia — A political party in North Macedonia on Saturday demanded authorities ban social networks whose content incites violence and self-destructive behavior after several young people were seriously injured in connection with the popular “Superman challenge” on TikTok. 

Health authorities said at least 17 students, ages 10 to 17, were brought to hospitals in the capital Skopje and other towns over the past week with broken bones, contusions and bruises. The children were injured after being thrown into the air by their friends to fly like superheroes and get applause on the internet. 

The Liberal-Democratic Party, which was part of the left-led coalition that ruled the country from 2016 to earlier in 2024, issued a press statement Saturday strongly condemning “the irresponsible spread of dangerous content on social media, such as the latest TikTok ‘challenge’ known as ‘Superman,’ which has injured six children across (the country) in the past 24 hours.” 

“The lack of adequate control over the content of social media allows such ‘games’ to reach the most vulnerable users,” the party statement said. It demanded the “immediate introduction of measures to ban content that incites violence and self-destructive behavior, increase surveillance, and sanction platforms that enable dangerous trends.” 

North Macedonia’s education minister Vesna Janevska said students should focus on education, not TikTok challenges. 

“The ban on mobile phones in schools will not have an effect. Phones will be available to children in their homes, neighborhoods and other environments,” she said. 

Psychologists have warned that the desire to be “in” with the trends on social networks, combined with excessive use of mobile phones, is the main reason for the rise in risky behaviors among children. They urged parents and schools to talk with students. 

Decriminalization dominates Australian drug summit

SYDNEY — Australian authorities are being criticized for ruling out drug decriminalization at an international summit in Sydney this week, ignoring a call by many experts and health groups for a health care response to drug use and addiction rather than criminal penalties.

Several hundred politicians, policy experts, police officers and health professionals gathered this week for a summit on drug reform in Sydney.

The New South Wales government is examining ways to redraft the state’s drug laws and policies.

Calls for the decriminalization of drug use and possession were the focus of the meeting.

Campaigners say not treating drug use as a crime would encourage people to seek help without fear of legal consequences.

New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park told local media Friday, though, there is not enough local support for such reform.

“The summit is not just about decriminalization, and for a government to move to decriminalize in the drugs … would be a seismic shift to the way in which we handle drugs in New South Wales,” Park said. “In relation to decriminalization, we think that is too significant to put on the table now without a clear mandate.”

The Sydney summit heard from the mayor of Portland, in the U.S. state of Oregon, Ted Wheeler. He told delegates that earlier this year, state lawmakers repealed laws that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs in the state. He said that the health system has been overwhelmed, and that drug-related crime has risen sharply because of the legislation.

International debate is passionate and divided.

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, formed in 2011 to campaign for drug reform, called for a total reexamination of the approach to illicit substances.

Louise Arbour, a former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, was involved in the report and told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that a new approach is needed.

“Globally, it is very clear that this so-called war on drugs has created a gigantic international illegal drug trade,” Arbour said. “The worst aspect of that war is that it has essentially been a war on people — been a war on people who use drugs and not a war on people who actually prey on them.”

The annual number of drug overdose deaths in Australia has almost doubled over the past 20 years, according to the Penington Institute, a nonprofit organization in Victoria state.

Some 100,000 people are estimated to die each year from drug overdoses in the United States, but the number of fatalities has decreased, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Maternal mortality review panels are in the spotlight. Here’s what they do

Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death.

The panels — called maternal mortality review committees — usually do their work quietly and out of the public eye. But that’s not been the case recently in three states with strict abortion laws.

Georgia dismissed all members of its committee in November after information about deaths being reviewed leaked to the news organization ProPublica. Days later, The Washington Post reported that Texas’ committee won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions. In Idaho, the state let its panel disband in 2023 only to reinstate it earlier this year.

“They’ve become more of a lightning rod than they were before,” said epidemiologist Michael Kramer, director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities at Mercer University in Georgia.

Here’s what maternal mortality review committees across the nation do and what might happen next:

What are they?

“Maternal mortality review committees are important because they are the most comprehensive source of information about maternal mortality that we have,” said David Goodman, who leads the maternal mortality prevention team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The panels review deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after it ends, whether directly related to the pregnancy or not. Causes of death can range from hemorrhage during childbirth to drug overdoses to traffic accidents.

The goal, Kramer said, is to examine maternal deaths and help “decide what we can do about them.”

All states, a few cities and Puerto Rico have these committees. Their membership varies and may include OB-GYNs, maternal-fetal medicine doctors, nurses, midwives, mental and public health experts and members of patient advocacy groups. Most have representatives from several areas of expertise, which the CDC recommends.

How members are selected also varies; people may apply, submit letters of interest or be invited to serve.

The selection shouldn’t be politically motivated, Kramer said, because “if there’s a systematic exclusion of certain data or certain perspectives” it’s difficult to truly understand what’s happening.

How do they look at deaths?

First, the panels work with state vital statistics offices and epidemiologists to identify deaths associated with pregnancy by examining death certificates and looking for a pregnancy checkbox or a related cause of death. They may also search for links to birth and fetal death records, or delve into hospital discharge data, media reports and obituaries.

Once they identify cases, they collect as much information as possible, such as prenatal care records, hospital and social service records, autopsy reports and interviews with family members. Professional “abstractors” distill all this into case narratives, which committee members pore over. Most use a standardized review process developed by the CDC — and all panels can get help and guidance from the agency.

They consider questions such as: Was the death pregnancy-related? What was the underlying cause? Was it preventable? What factors contributed?

States generally have privacy rules that protect committee members and people who provide information on the deaths.

The groups then issue public reports that don’t name moms or hospitals but include overall findings, trends and recommendations. Some come out a couple of years or more after the deaths.

Across the nation in 2023, Goodman said, 151 recommendations from those reports were implemented by communities, hospitals, medical professionals and policymakers.

What about Georgia, Texas and Idaho?

Georgia will rebuild its committee through a new application process, the state public health commissioner said.

Texas’ committee has been reviewing 2021 deaths and will start on 2024 cases at its next meeting, Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson Lara Anton said in an email to The Associated Press.

“Reviewing cases is a lengthy process and legislators have asked for more recent data. Starting the next review cycle with 2024 cases will allow us to provide that in the next report,” Anton said, adding that maternal and child health epidemiologists will continue to analyze and publish data for 2022 and 2023.

In Idaho, the reconstituted review committee now falls under the state board of medicine, which licenses doctors, instead of the state’s health and welfare department. It will operate like it always has, said Bob McLaughlin, spokesperson for the medical board. Members met for the first time in November and plan to issue a report by Jan. 31. Because the legislature wanted the most up-to-date information, McLaughlin said the first report will cover only 2023 cases, and the group will review 2022 deaths next.

Goodman said he’s encouraged that every state has a review committee now — only 20 had them in 2015.

Appeals court upholds law that could ban TikTok in US

A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday upheld a law requiring the wildly popular social media app TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese owner or face closure in the United States by next month. The court cited “persuasive” and “compelling” arguments presented by the federal government that TikTok poses a risk to national security.

The ruling could leave the 170 million Americans who regularly use TikTok without access to a social media platform that has enjoyed explosive global growth in recent years. It could also mean that the millions of Americans who create content for TikTok — some of whom rely on monetizing that content for their livelihood — could be cut off from their audiences.

The government has argued that TikTok presents a unique danger to national security because it collects vast amounts of information about its users, and because the Chinese government ultimately exercises control over its parent company, ByteDance, and over the algorithm that determines what content TikTok users see.

Because ByteDance is in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it is subject to that country’s laws, including measures requiring private companies to cooperate with government intelligence agencies.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the government has a compelling interest in taking steps “to counter the PRC’s efforts to collect great quantities of data about tens of millions of Americans” and “to limit the PRC’s ability to manipulate content covertly on the TikTok platform.”

TikTok signals an appeal

TikTok immediately signaled that it would appeal the circuit court’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

In a statement posted to its website, the company said, “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.”

The company said that the law underlying the case “was conceived and pushed through based on inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” and warned that it “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the U.S. and around the world.”

The Supreme Court is not obligated to hear the company’s appeal, and it was not immediately clear that it would do so. If the high court accepts the case, it is possible that it would block the government from enforcing the law until the case is decided.

President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a TikTok ban before changing his mind during the recent presidential election, has suggested that he will act to save the app when he takes office. However, it is unclear what options he might have for doing that.

Lack of trust

In April, President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law. The measure gave TikTok 270 days to find a way to separate itself from ByteDance before a ban on the application would kick in on January 19, 2025.

The federal government made it clear that the only kind of divestiture that it would accept was a complete separation of TikTok from its Chinese parent. The company offered alternatives, and established TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (TTUSDS) as a subsidiary in Delaware, to wall off U.S. user data from ByteDance.

However, the government cited instances in which U.S. user data that the company claimed to have shielded from the PRC was, in fact, accessible to ByteDance employees in mainland China. It told the court that it lacked “the requisite trust” that “ByteDance and TTUSDS would comply in good faith” with any arrangement other than complete separation of TikTok and ByteDance.

In Friday’s ruling, the judges wrote, “The court can neither fault nor second-guess the government on these crucial points.”

First Amendment concerns

TikTok and its supporters have claimed that severing TikTok from ByteDance is both practically impossible for technological reasons and legally impossible because the Chinese government will block the sale of the company. Therefore, they claim, the law constitutes a de facto ban and a violation of the guarantee of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In a sign of how seriously the court took the First Amendment arguments, the panel of judges agreed that the law should be subject to “heightened scrutiny,” which the Supreme Court has applied to measures restricting fundamental rights.

In the end, the panel determined that the law satisfies even the most stringent form of “strict scrutiny,” which requires that the government “prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.”

Free speech advocates respond

The decision came under immediate criticism from free speech advocates.

“Although we’re still analyzing the decision, we find it deeply disappointing,” David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a statement emailed to VOA. “The court appropriately applied strict scrutiny as we have urged it to. But the strict-scrutiny analysis is lacking, relying heavily on speculation about possible future harms.

“Restricting the free flow of information, even from foreign adversaries, is fundamentally undemocratic,” Greene said. “Until now, the U.S. has championed the free flow of information and called out other nations when they have shut down internet access or banned online communications tools like social media apps.”

George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told VOA that the court accorded “a shocking amount of deference” to the government’s claims about the danger TikTok poses to national security.

“We should be really wary whenever we allow the government to use vague national security arguments as a justification to shut down speech,” Wang said. “That’s a tactic of authoritarian regimes, not democracies. It’s usually the job of courts to stand up to the government when it infringes on the constitutional rights of millions of Americans, and I think the D.C. Circuit really didn’t do that today.”

‘A victory for the American people’

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and one of the original sponsors of the law requiring TikTok’s divestiture or ban, released a statement Friday praising the court’s decision.

“With today’s opinion, all three branches of government have reached the same conclusion: ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance is a national security threat that cannot be mitigated through any other means than divestiture,” Krishnamoorthi said.

“Every day that TikTok remains under the Chinese Communist Party’s control is a day that our security is at risk,” Krishnamoorthi added.

Representative John Moolenaar, the committee’s Republican chairman, said in a statement that the ruling was “a victory for the American people and TikTok users, and a loss for the Chinese Communist Party, which will no longer be able to exploit ByteDance’s control over TikTok to undermine our sovereignty, surveil our citizens and threaten our national security.”

Moolenaar also held out hope to the app’s users that access to it may, in the end, be preserved under a Trump presidency.

“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” Moolenaar said.

Mexico study finds that heat kills young people more than elderly

A surprising study of temperature-related deaths in Mexico upends conventional thinking about what age group is hit hardest by heat. Researchers found at higher temperatures and humidity, the heat kills far more young people under 35 than those older than 50.

For decades, health and weather experts have warned that the elderly and the youngest children were most vulnerable in heat waves. But this study looking at all deaths in Mexico from 1998 to 2019 shows that when the combination of humidity and temperature reach uncomfortable levels, around 30 degrees Celsius and 50% relative humidity, there were nearly 32 temperature-related deaths of people 35 years old for every temperature-related death of someone 50 and older.

The study in Friday’s journal Science Advances shows an especially surprising spike of heat-related deaths in an age group thought to be young and robust: people between 18 and 35. That age group alone had nine times as many temperature-related deaths as those older than 50.

Study authors and outside experts are scrambling to figure out why. Demographics alone don’t explain why more young adult Mexicans are dying in high heat than their elders. Two theories: Outdoor workers who can’t escape the heat, and young people who don’t know their limits.

The trend is likely to widen as the world warms from human-caused climate change, according to computer simulations run by the study team.

“We found that younger people are especially vulnerable to humid heat,” study co-author Jeffrey Shrader, a climate economist at Columbia University, said. “As the climate warms, we’re really going to be shifting the burden of temperature-related mortality towards younger individuals and away from older individuals who tend to be more vulnerable to cold temperatures.”

Data from cold weather shows more than 300 deaths of Mexican residents 50 and older for every young person dying from cold temperatures, according to the study.

“People of all ages are increasingly at risk from the rising temperatures, and this study shows that those that we might have considered relatively safe from heat-related adverse health outcomes might not be so much so,” said Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown that monitors health effects of climate change. She was not part of the study team.

“Heat is a much more dangerous silent killer than most people acknowledge it to be, and that heat is increasingly putting our health and survival at risk,” Romanello said in an email.

Study authors decided to examine weather-related deaths in Mexico because that country not only has detailed mortality data, but it has a variety of different climates making it an ideal place to study in depth, Shrader said.

Researchers also want to figure out whether this is just a situation in Mexico or other warmer sections of the globe have similar spikes in young adult deaths in high heat and humidity.

Initially the team just wanted to look at deaths and what scientists call wet-bulb globe temperatures, but when they looked at age differences, they were surprised and looked in more detail, Shrader said. Wet-bulb temperature, which is intended to mirror how the body cools itself, is derived using a complicated measurement system that factors in humidity and solar radiation. A wet-bulb globe temperature of 35 degrees Celsius is thought to be the limit for human survivability. Most places don’t reach that level.

Researchers determined temperature-related mortality by complex statistical analysis that compares numerous factors in the number of deaths and removes everything they can except temperature fluctuations, said study co-author Andrew Wilson, a Columbia climate economics researcher.

Researchers also calculated the ideal temperature for when there are the fewest excess deaths at each age group. Younger adults’ sweet temperature spot is about 5 degrees Celsius cooler than it is for older people, Shrader and Wilson said.

Some outside health and climate experts were initially puzzled at the higher youth mortality seen in the study. Co-author Patrick Kinney, a professor of urban health and sustainability at Boston University, said it was likely the study included a higher proportion of outdoor workers exposed to heat than prior studies did.

Study co-author Tereza Cavazos, a climate scientist at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Mexico, said she remembers her father’s generations taking siestas in the high heat of the day and that was healthy. That doesn’t happen so much now, she said.

“There is a lot of population that is vulnerable in the future. Not even in the future, right now,” Cavazos said. She mentioned three Mexican heat waves this year that hit in the middle of the country and kept the deadly heat going overnight so people had little relief. Usually cool nights allow a body to recover.

Younger people often have a sense of invulnerability to weather extremes and do things that increase their risk, such as play sports in high heat, Cavazos said.

“High humidity makes it a lot harder for the body to cool itself through sweating – which is how our body primarily stays cool,” said Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency medicine physician and climate change expert at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She was not part of the study team. “So someone young and healthy working outside in heat and high humidity can reach a point where the body can no longer cool itself safely – causing a deadly form of heat injury called heat stroke.” 

NASA delays next moon mission to April 2026

The U.S. space agency, NASA, is leading an effort to return astronauts to the surface of the moon and establish a routine presence on the lunar surface. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, NASA says it will push the next mission of its Artemis program from late 2025 to early 2026.

US rebounds, adds 227,000 jobs in November

WASHINGTON — America’s job market rebounded in November, adding 227,000 workers in a solid recovery from the previous month, when the effects of strikes and hurricanes sharply diminished employers’ payrolls.

Last month’s hiring growth was up considerably from a meager gain of 36,000 jobs in October. The government also revised up its estimate of job growth in September and October by a combined 56,000.

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% in October to a still-low 4.2%. Hourly wages rose 0.4% from October to November and 4% from a year earlier — both solid figures and slightly higher than forecasters had expected.

The November employment report provided the latest evidence that the U.S. job market remains durable even though it has lost significant momentum from the 2021-2023 hiring boom, when the economy was rebounding from the pandemic recession. The job market’s gradual slowdown is, in part, a result of the high interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered in its drive to tame inflation.

The Fed jacked up interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Defying predictions, the economy kept growing despite much higher borrowing rates for consumers and businesses. But since early this year, the job market has been slowing.

Thomas Simons, U.S. economist at Jefferies, wrote in a commentary that the recovery from October’s strikes and hurricanes likely increased last month’s payrolls by 60,000, suggesting that the job market is strong enough to absorb most jobseekers but not enough to raise worries about inflation.

Across industries last month, manufacturing companies added 22,000 jobs, reflecting the end of strikes at Boeing and elsewhere. Health care companies added 54,000 jobs, government agencies 33,000, and bars and restaurants 29,000. But retailers shed 28,000 jobs in November.

Americans have been enjoying unusual job security. This week, the government reported that layoffs fell to 1.6 million in October, below the lowest levels in the two decades that preceded the pandemic. At the same time, the number of job openings rebounded from a 3½-year low, a sign that businesses are still seeking workers even though hiring has cooled.

The overall economy has remained resilient. The much higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes had been expected to tip the economy into a recession. Instead, the economy kept growing as households continued to spend and employers continued to hire.

The economy grew at a 2.8% annual pace from July through September on healthy spending by consumers. Annual economic growth has topped a decent 2% in eight of the past nine quarters. And inflation has dropped from a 9.1% peak in June 2022 to 2.6% last month.

Big polluters fear UN court case will fuel compensation demands

LONDON — As a landmark climate change case reached its halfway mark Friday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, clear divisions have emerged over whether nation states can be held legally liable for global warming under international human rights laws.

The 15 judges at the United Nations’ top court have been asked to give an opinion on whether nation states are obliged under such laws to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and to address damage caused by climate change.

Existential threat

Small island and coastal states say their very existence is at stake due to rising sea levels. They argue that international human rights law must apply.

“Territories are disappearing. Livelihoods are being destroyed. Fundamental rights are being violated as we speak,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, the lead counsel for the Pacific Islands state of Vanuatu.

“The destruction of the Earth’s climate system and other parts of the environment constitutes grave breaches of international law. So, our hopeful expectation is that the court will recognize this and articulate the legal consequences of these violations,” she said.

“Legal consequences of violations of international law are always twofold. The wrongful conduct — the breaching conduct — must cease, it must be put to an end. And secondly, reparations must be made,” Wewerinke-Singh told reporters at The Hague at the opening of the hearing Monday.

Big polluters

However, the world’s biggest polluters — including the United States, China and India — argue that only global climate change agreements have any legal relevance. Human rights, they say, do not apply.

“In rendering its advisory opinion, the court may exercise due caution to avoid devising new or additional obligations beyond what is already agreed to under the existing climate change regime, which take into consideration historic emissions, climate justice and the principles of equity,” India’s representative, Luther Rangreji, told the court on Thursday.

Other major economies have made similar arguments during the first week of the hearing, according to analyst Elena Kosolapova of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

“For example, Canada has argued that human rights obligations do not encompass the obligation to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Germany said the goal of human rights treaties is to protect actual victims of concrete violations and not abstract persons from abstract risks,” Kosolapova told VOA.

“Spain was a notable exception in this camp because it argued that governments actually have human rights obligations in relation to the response to climate change,” she said.

Reparations

Many developed nations fear the financial consequences if human rights laws are invoked, Kospolova said.

“Under the law of state responsibility, any breach of an international obligation, known as an ‘international wrongful act,’ entails certain consequences,” she said. “And many vulnerable countries have highlighted this during the hearings. The responsible state is obligated to make reparations for the injury caused by the wrongful act.”

Those reparations could take the form of compensation.

“Compensation was explicitly excluded from the loss and damage talks under the [climate change] convention and from the Paris Agreement itself,” Kospolova said. “So, I think it would be very interesting to see what the court has to say about it.”

Crucial year

The judges will hear another week of evidence before delivering their legal opinion next year, which is expected to be a crucial year for climate legislation. Over the next few months, nation states are due to publish action plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, which outline how they plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The NDCs will form a central part of the COP30 climate summit in November, to be held in the Brazilian city of Belem on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

Cargo sailboat cruises to cleaner future with blend of old, new technology 

Using sailing ships to move cargo may be making a comeback. These days, eco-friendly watercraft are equipped with the latest technology. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Max Avloshenko 

US farmers, economists weigh in on impact of tariffs

Through social media posts, President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to imposed tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico – three of the top trading partners for the United States. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more about the potential economic impact if Trump follows through.

China fine tunes economic stimulus as it braces for new US administration 

BANGKOK — China is fine-tuning policies to rev up its economy as it braces for uncertain relations with the United States under President-elect Donald Trump, giving manufacturers a 20% made-in-China price advantage in sales to the Chinese government.

The moves come ahead of a top-level annual economic planning conference scheduled for next week that will help set China’s strategy for the coming year.

The Ministry of Finance announced it is seeking public comment on the made-in-China plan until Jan. 4. To qualify, products have to be made entirely in China, from the raw materials stage to the finished products, it said, although some components must just meet standards for a share of domestic-based production.

Farm, forestry, minerals and fisheries products are excluded, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Friday. Government procurement generally amounts to about 10% or more of business activity in major economies.

Under the program, companies will be given a 20% price advantage, with the government making up the difference, part of a series of moves to underpin stronger sales that also includes promoting insurance underwriting and easier access to financing for e-commerce and small- and mid-sized “little giants” and “hidden champions.”

Shares in China have surged this week on expectations that the planning meeting will yield more support for the slowing economy as a revival in exports helps to compensate for a sluggish property market and subdued consumer spending.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite index both gained more than 2% this week.

Before that closed-door meeting convenes in Beijing, Premier Li Qiang was due to hold a conference Monday with heads of 10 major international organizations including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, the Foreign Ministry said in a notice on its website.

The themes of the gathering focus on promoting “global common prosperity,” “upholding multilateralism” and making advances in China’s own reforms and modernization, it said.

Major changes may be unlikely as China’s leaders wait to see what Trump does.

“The policymakers would likely reserve policy room for the four-year period of the Trump administration,” economists at ANZ Research said in a report.

Key areas to focus on will be boosting consumer spending and more help for the property sector, it said. China’s leaders set a target for economic growth of “about 5%” for this year.

In the first three quarters, growth averaged 4.8%, and has gradually slowed. Over the past few months, regulators have rolled out a slew of policies meant to help reverse the downturn in the housing market and encourage more spending by Chinese households that have been tightening purse strings since the pandemic.

Setting the tone ahead of next week’s meetings, a commentary in the ruling Communist Party’s newspaper The People’s Daily downplayed the usual focus on meeting growth targets, noting that the industrial boom that has made China the world’s second-largest economy came at a “huge price in resources and the environment.”

“If we do not break with the worship of speed … even if we temporarily increase the speed, we will detract from future growth,” it said. “It is not that we cannot go faster, but that we do not want to.”

 

Iran launches heaviest space payload into orbit: media

Tehran, Iran — Iran successfully launched on Friday its heaviest space payload, which includes a satellite and a space tug, using a domestically developed satellite carrier, official media reported.

Weighing 300 kilograms, the payload consisted of the Fakhr-1 telecommunications satellite and the Saman-1 space tug, according to state television.

The Saman-1 is an “orbital transmission system” designed to transport satellites from lower orbits to higher ones, as described by the Iran Space Research Center when it was unveiled in 2017.

The launch marks an “operational step” toward transferring satellites into higher orbits, the TV report said.

The system was first introduced in February 2017 at a ceremony attended by Iran’s then-president, Hassan Rouhani, and was test-launched in 2022.

The payloads were launched using the homegrown Simorgh satellite carrier from the Imam Khomeini launch base in Semnan province.

Named after a mythical Iranian bird, the Simorgh is a two-stage, liquid-fueled satellite launch vehicle developed by Iran’s defense ministry.

In September, Iran said it successfully put the Chamran-1 research satellite into orbit using the Ghaem-100 carrier, which is produced by the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division.

Western governments, including the United States, have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, arguing technology used for satellites could be applied to ballistic missiles, potentially capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Iran denies it wants nuclear weapons. It has consistently stated that its satellite and rocket launches are focused on civil and defense applications.

Last month, Russia launched 55 satellites, including two built by Iran — Koswar and Hodhod — reflecting the deepening political, economic and military relations between the two nations.