(ROSE ISLAND, Bahamas) — An American woman was killed in a shark attack while snorkeling with her family in the Bahamas on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
A family of five, from the Lake Erie area of Pennsylvania, were on a snorkeling tour in the waters northwest of Rose Island when one of them — a 58-year-old woman — was attacked by a bull shark shortly before 3 p.m. local time, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Tour operators along with family members attempted to rescue the woman but were unsuccessful, police said. The victim suffered serious injuries to the left side of her body and was transported by the tour boat to nearby Fort Montagu on the eastern shore of New Providence island, where she was pronounced dead by emergency medical responders, according to police.
The victim was identified by her employer as Caroline DiPlacido, project coordinator for the Office of Community and Government Relations at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“Caroline was a powerful presence of kindness and friendship to colleagues, students, and the wider community and cherished many family ties to Gannon,” the university said in a statement. “The news is devastating, and she will be missed.”
DiPlacido, a 1986 graduate of the university, is survived by her husband and three children, according to the school statement.
The victim and her family had arrived in the Bahamas on Tuesday morning via Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship Harmony of the Seas, police said.
Royal Caribbean confirmed in a statement that the woman was a guest on the seven-night cruise, which sailed from Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday.
She was on an “independent shore excursion” in Nassau when attacked by a shark and succumbed to her injuries at a local hospital, according to the Miami-based cruise line.
“Royal Caribbean is providing support and assistance to the guest’s loved ones during this difficult time,” the company said in the statement Tuesday.
In June 2019, an American tourist snorkeling off Rose Island was killed in a shark attack. The victim, 21-year-old Loyola-Marymount University student Jordan Lindsey, died after a school of sharks attacked her.
(WASHINGTON) — Immediately after the Supreme Court released a ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, in June, a slew of major U.S. companies, like Meta and JPMorgan Chase, announced that they would cover travel costs for employees who seek legal abortions outside their home state.
Google went a step further. Having already expanded its abortion coverage to include such travel, the company told employees it would allow them to apply to relocate without their providing a reason why.
More recently, after receiving questions from federal lawmakers, the company last month began rolling out a product update that will set default results on Google Maps and local locations for the search query “abortion clinics near me” to only include institutions that perform abortions.
The change will exclude from default results institutions that do not provide the operation, such as pregnancy centers that often attempt to dissuade a woman from seeking an abortion.
Users who choose to manually expand the results beyond those displayed, however, will be able to see institutions that do not provide abortions, a Google spokesperson said.
In addition, Google Maps and local search results will include labels showing whether an institution does or might not provide an abortion, a Google spokesperson said.
Still, outspoken employees at Google say the company hasn’t gone far enough in its response to the overturning of Roe — both on product performance and employee treatment.
The Alphabet Workers Union, or AWU, an advocacy group made up of more than 1,000 employees, has called on Google to strengthen its approach to abortion-related issues or risk an escalation in employee pressure. The AWU functions as a “minority union,” which means it pressures the company through worker organizing but does not formally represent workers in collective bargaining.
The confrontation between workers and management at one of the world’s largest tech companies sits at the convergence of several hot button issues: abortion access, content moderation online and the growing militancy of employees amid a surge of labor organizing nationwide.
“With this new labor movement, workers feel that it’s their due to have a say in what’s going on,” Nelson Lichtenstein, the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News.
“Workers can come together and make demands on their company on any issue — it doesn’t have to be a wage question or bread and butter,” he added.
Google should extend abortion-related health benefits to contract workers, whom AWU estimates make up roughly half of company staff, the group says.
Moreover, AWU has called on Google to remove pregnancy centers entirely from search results that appear after a query such as “abortion clinic near me,” rather than merely setting the default search results in Google Maps and local locations to exclude such groups. Under the current policy, the app and site display pregnancy centers in an expanded set of search returns.
Alejandra Beatty, a technical program manager who has worked at Alphabet for six years and serves as the Southwest chapter lead with the AWU, applauded the steps that the company has taken on abortion-related issues since the Dobbs decision but said the company still could do more to protect users and employees.
“We’re excited to see some progress,” she told ABC News. “But we recognize that there is still so much more to do.”
A Google spokesperson said that the recent update prioritizing and labeling abortion clinics on Google Maps and in local search results is part of a wider effort to improve search results when a user is seeking a specific service, such as a particular COVID vaccine brand or electric vehicle charging facility.
“We’re now rolling out an update that makes it easier for people to find places that offer the services they’ve searched for, or broaden their results to see more options,” a company spokesperson said.
“We get confirmation that places provide a particular service in a number of ways, including regularly calling businesses directly and working with authoritative data sources. We followed our standard testing and evaluation process to confirm that these updates are more helpful for people,” the spokesperson added.
Google did not respond to a request for comment on the demand from AWU that it extend abortion-related health coverage to contract workers.
Beatty, the Alphabet employee and member of the ALU, said that the group’s call for the removal of pregnancy centers from search results seeking abortion clinics is a matter of keeping harmful disinformation off of the platform.
“We think it is important search results do not mislead users, so while the additional tagging with services is certainly more useful, it’s still letting the fake clinic be in the list,” she said.
“A good analogy would be how much disinformation spread during the outbreak of Covid-19,” she added. “If websites had started to spring up offering counseling to those seeking vaccinations, they would’ve been immediately removed.”
Google retains a duty to provide accurate search results for the high-stakes pursuit of an abortion, said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
“Google has become the go-to place for information related to life and death issues, and as a result Google has more than just a responsibility but a duty to ensure that people are getting the right information about abortion services every time across all Google products,” she told ABC News.
Donovan’s prescription for the company appeared to align with Google’s shift toward default results that prioritize institutions that provide abortions.
“It’s very important that if someone is searching for an abortion, the top results should be about obtaining those services first and foremost,” she said.
Beatty, the Google employee, said the AWU will escalate its pressure on Google if the company does not provide contract workers with abortion-related health benefits and remove pregnancy centers from search results; though the group does not yet have specific plans.
“As more and more states pass incredibly restrictive laws, like Tennessee and Texas have done, we know we must take action,” she said.
The AWU sent a petition in mid-August signed by hundreds of employees calling on Google to extend abortion-related health care benefits, including reimbursement for travel costs, to contract employees.
As of late last month, the company hadn’t responded, Beatty said. “It’s not that unusual,” she added. “There’s a fair number of petitions happening these days.”
The AWU will continue to advocate on issues related not only to working conditions but to the performance of Google products, she said.
“As stewards of being able to share information in an equitable and democratic way, it is our job to make sure that continues,” she said.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — In an exclusive interview with ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said officials weren’t certain about the scale of a potential Russian invasion before Moscow launched its war on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, when pressed by Muir if he had had “any regret that you didn’t tell the Ukrainian people earlier about what could be coming,” said that the world was “disunited” over whether Russia would actually launch at attack.
“The European leaders were saying, ‘Putin gave us his word that he’s not going to invade.’ Nobody knew for sure, for sure, 100% what scale of invasion was there to be expected,” Zelenskyy told Muir.
“No one knew that those Russian troops will kill, maim, rape people and just erase our cities from the ground, to the ground,” he said. “I asked all the intelligence, ‘Show us what concrete directions, ‘Give us more weapons.’ But then, they said, ‘If they begin invasion, we give you more weapons.'”
Zelenskyy’s remarks come as Russia’s invasion, launched in February, morphs into a grinding exchange of artillery fire, largely in southern and eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has launched a counteroffensive in both regions, and officials claim to have made modest gains.
Ukraine was able to repel Russia’s initial attempt to capture Kyiv, but evidence later surfaced of alleged civilian killings, rapes and what officials said were other possible war crimes during the Russian military’s retreat from the areas around the capital — including the horror in the city of Bucha, where authorities have found more than 400 bodies, many buried in mass graves.
Zelenskyy said early uncertainty over Russia’s invasion hindered delivery of military aid even as Ukraine was pressing for assistance from the U.S. and elsewhere.
“We cannot only put any blame on the United States, that United States should have provided us with everything; the whole world wasn’t 100% sure that they will start this invasion,” he said.
“If you have any additional information, why don’t you provide us with this information, or why don’t you give us more potent arms and weapons?” he added. “You don’t need these weapons yourselves, but we need it here now. Now — now, they are saying, ‘Yes, we warned you,’ but we, we wanted not extra words and warnings; we wanted extra weapons.”
(WASHINGTON) — A vote on marriage equality will happen on the Senate floor “in coming weeks,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday.
Democrats are concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade may pave the way for same-sex marriage, contraception and other privacy rights to be dismantled.
“Let’s remember why a vote on the Respect for Marriage [Act] is necessary,” Schumer said. “Millions upon millions of American women had their right taken away by the extremist MAGA Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision. And in a concurring opinion Justice Thomas opened the door for the Supreme Court going even further.”
“When some Republicans say the vote is unnecessary, it won’t happen — they said the same thing about Roe,” Schumer continued.
Democrats want to pass the bill quickly, Schumer said, and would prefer to do so in a stand-alone vote. But they would need at least 10 Republicans to back the bill in order for it to overcome the filibuster and pass.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, are working with Republicans to shore up enough votes. The two recently penned an op-ed in The Washington Post telling their colleagues it’s time to “get the job done.”
“But let me be clear, a vote will happen,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. “A vote on marriage equality will happen on the Senate floor in the coming weeks and I hope there will be 10 Republicans to support it.”
Democrats were considering a riskier option to codify same-sex and interracial marriage by attaching the bill to a must-pass continuing resolution to keep the government open past Sept. 30, an aide familiar with the matter told ABC News on Tuesday. But Schumer and other Democrats appeared to change course on Wednesday.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told ABC News, “Not gonna happen” when asked if the marriage bill would be added to the temporary government funding bill.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday that the government funding bill should be as “clean as possible” in order to move forward without controversy.
Baldwin and Collins also said they prefer the stand-alone bill route, and are currently working on an amendment to appease Republican concerns about the legislation.
“We’re looking at an amendment that would strengthen the language in the bill to make crystal clear that it does not in any way infringe upon religious liberties, and it also would correct a drafting error in one part of the bill that makes very clear that marriage is between two individuals,” said Collins, adding that some Republicans have expressed concern that the bill might lead to “polygamous marriage” though that is not allowed in any state in the country.
Asked if she were confident she had the support of 10 Republicans, Collins said, “I’m never confident until the role is called, but we’re making good progress. There’s a lot of sincere interest, but obviously people want to see the amendment and have input into the amendment.”
The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House in a bipartisan vote of 267 to 157 in July. Forty-seven Republicans joined Democrats to support the bill.
The legislation repeals the Defense of Marriage Act and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, “marriage” as between a man and a woman. It also provides additional legal protection for same-sex or interracial couples.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the time called the bill’s passage “another step to defend freedom for the American people.”
(CUPERTINO, Calif.) — Apple is expected to release a new line of iPhone models and other updated products at a launch event on Wednesday.
The event, which starts at 1 p.m. ET, will take place at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to present the newest products for the occasion, which Apple has promoted with the teaser tagline “far out.”
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 07, 2:42 PM EDT
Apple’s new iPhone 14 Pro will cost either $999 or $1,099
The iPhone 14 Pro will cost $999, and larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max will cost $1,099, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.
The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will be available for preorder on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 16, the company said.
Sep 07, 2:33 PM EDT
Apple releases new iPhone 14 Pro
Apple released on Wednesday a new iPhone 14 Pro with advanced camera and video settings, the company said at a launch event. The model will also be available in the larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max model.
The iPhone 14 Pro draws on the new A16 bionic chip, which enables an always-on display, high-resolution photo and video, and greater memory bandwidth, the company said.
The advanced photo and video capabilities owe to a new 48 megapixel camera with a quad pixel sensor.
The new model of the iPhone 14 includes a “dynamic island,” a set-aside section of the screen that offers alerts that can expand and change size without distracting from an app in use.
A new low-power mode will extend the duration that the phone can last on a single charge, the company said.
Sep 07, 2:17 PM EDT
New iPhone 14 will cost either $799 or $899
The new iPhone model will cost either $799 for a standard 6.1-inch size, or $899 for a larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.
The standard iPhone 14 will be available for preorder on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 16, while the iPhone 14 Plus will be available for purchase on Oct. 7.
The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will include a slew of new features, such as enhanced Emergency SOS via satellite, which will be available free for two years for iPhone 14 owners.
The new iPhone model is compatible with 5G cellular networks, which will allow for faster download times and better streaming, the company said.
Sep 07, 2:06 PM EDT
Apple releases new iPhone model
Apple released a new iPhone model on Wednesday that will be available in two sizes and feature an improved camera, among other updates, the company said at a launch event.
The iPhone 14 will be available in a standard 6.1-inch size as well as a larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus.
The new camera on the iPhone 14 will include a larger sensor and faster aperture, which will provide 49% improvement in low-light capture, the company said.
The new iPhone model will also feature an “action mode” for video recording that will stabilize shots as a user moves.
Sep 07, 1:56 PM EDT
New model of AirPods will cost $249
Apple will release a new model of AirPods that costs $249, the company said at its launch event on Wednesday.
The AirPods Pro will be available for order on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 23.
The new ear buds also include a customizable sound profile, enhanced noise cancellation and longer use on a single charge.
Using a photo taken of the user on their iPhone, the AirPods will provide a custom audio experience based on the unique shape of a given person’s head and ears, the company said.
The AirPods Pro will offer up to six hours of use on a single charge, a 33% increase from the previous model.
Sep 07, 1:42 PM EDT
Apple debuts new Apple Watch Ultra
Apple released a new smartwatch on Wednesday for active and outdoor users called Apple Watch Ultra that will cost $799, the company said.
The watch features precision GPS that operates in remote locations, as well as a redesigned compass app to further aid navigation.
In addition, the product carries a built-in 86 decibel siren that can alert people nearby in an emergency.
The Apple Watch Ultra includes a slew of other features, including a titanium case with edge protection, a second speaker, cellular built into all models, a customizable action button that gives access to other features and 36 hours of battery on a single charge.
A new battery optimization coming this fall will extend the battery life to 60 hours, the company said.
Sep 07, 1:31 PM EDT
New low-cost Apple Watch model will cost either $249 or $299
The new model Apple Watch SE will cost $249 for GPS features, and $299 for GPS plus cellular capability, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.
The model offers a low-cost alternative to the new Series 8 Apple Watch, which costs either $299 for GPS or $399 for GPS plus cellular, the company said.
The Apple Watch SE includes some of the features of the Series 8 announced by Apple on Wednesday, such as an always-on display screen that is “swim proof, dust proof, and crack resistant,” the company said.
Sep 07, 1:25 PM EDT
New Apple Watch will cost either $399 or $499, company says
The new model of the Apple Watch will cost $399 for GPS features, and $499 for GPS plus cellular capability, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.
The Apple Series 8 will also include car crash detection that alerts emergency services to a vehicle accident, as well as low-power mode that extends the product’s battery life, the company said.
The crash detection automatically alerts emergency responders with a user’s location, and alerts a user’s emergency contacts, the company said.
The low-power mode, meanwhile, will allow the Apple Watch to last 36 hours on a single charge, the company said.
Sep 07, 1:14 PM EDT
Apple announces new Series 8 model of Apple Watch
Apple announced a new model of Apple Watch at its product launch event on Wednesday.
The Apple Watch Series 8 features an always-on display, and is “swim proof, dust proof and crack resistant,” the company said.
The new model of the Apple Watch includes advanced features for women to track their menstrual cycles, including a temperature sensor that offers an estimate for the last time a woman wearing the watch has ovulated.
The Apple Watch Series 8 offers fitness aids, emergency call services and detailed health information like blood oxygen levels.
The Apple Watch “keeps you connected to the things you care about most, encourages you to stay active, and monitors your health and gets you help when you need it,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.
Sep 07, 12:51 PM EDT
Apple launch event follows mixed results in latest earnings
The Apple product launch event on Wednesday follows mixed results in the company’s latest earnings report, which came out in late July.
Third quarter earnings showed that Apple outpaced analyst expectations for profit and revenue, as the company brought in $83 billion.
Growth, however, slowed for the company. Sales jumped 2% year-over-year in the third quarter, a marked decline from 9% year-over-year growth in the prior quarter.
Over the quarter, Apple felt the crunch of supply chain constraints brought about by the COVID pandemic, though such limits affected the company “less than we anticipated at the beginning of the quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on an earnings call with investors in July.
Still, as Apple readies to launch a new iPhone model on Wednesday, the company recently passed a sales milestone for the product.
The iPhone surpassed Google’s Android to capture more than 50% of the U.S. smartphone market for the
Sep 07, 11:34 AM EDT
Apple stock flat on Wednesday ahead of launch event
Shares in Apple stood largely unchanged on Wednesday morning prior to the company’s product launch event.
As with many tech companies, Apple’s stock has taken a pummeling this year. The stock price has fallen more than 13% since the outset of 2022, and dropped nearly 7% over the past month.
Despite a difficult year, Apple stock has outperformed major indices like the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The S&P 500 has fallen more than 17% in 2022, and the Nasdaq has dropped more than 25% over that period.
Since the Apple launch event last year, on Sept. 14, the company’s stock is up about 3.5%, as of Wednesday morning.
Sep 07, 11:09 AM EDT
Apple event expected to feature new iPhone model
The event on Wednesday is the first of the company’s annual product launch events to take place in person since 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Apple is expected to release a set of four iPhone models that could be called the iPhone 14. The new line is widely expected to feature an improved camera, among other updates.
Besides the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 14, the company is expected to release a bigger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max.
In addition to the iPhone, the company could announce a new line of Apple Watches and AirPods.
The company is developing new health-related features that could alert a person to an increase in blood pressure as well as a change in body temperature related to fertility, The Wall Street Journal reported last September.
(CUPERTINO, Calif.) — Apple is expected to release a new line of iPhone models and other updated products at a launch event on Wednesday.
The event, which starts at 1 p.m. ET, will take place at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to present the newest products for the occasion, which Apple has promoted with the teaser tagline “far out.”
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 07, 11:34 AM EDT
Apple stock flat on Wednesday ahead of launch event
Shares in Apple stood largely unchanged on Wednesday morning prior to the company’s product launch event.
As with many tech companies, Apple’s stock has taken a pummeling this year. The stock price has fallen more than 13% since the outset of 2022, and dropped nearly 7% over the past month.
Despite a difficult year, Apple stock has outperformed major indices like the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The S&P 500 has fallen more than 17% in 2022, and the Nasdaq has dropped more than 25% over that period.
Since the Apple launch event last year, on Sept. 14, the company’s stock is up about 3.5%, as of Wednesday morning.
Sep 07, 11:09 AM EDT
Apple event expected to feature new iPhone model
The event on Wednesday is the first of the company’s annual product launch events to take place in person since 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Apple is expected to release a set of four iPhone models that could be called the iPhone 14. The new line is widely expected to feature an improved camera, among other updates.
Besides the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 14, the company is expected to release a bigger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max.
In addition to the iPhone, the company could announce a new line of Apple Watches and AirPods.
The company is developing new health-related features that could alert a person to an increase in blood pressure as well as a change in body temperature related to fertility, The Wall Street Journal reported last September.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are returning to the White House Wednesday, reuniting with now President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden to unveil their official portraits and introduce the artists behind them — a long-held secret in Washington after an unusually long wait for their reveal.
“President Biden and Dr. Biden are honored to have former president Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama back to the White House for the unveiling of their portraits, which will hang on the walls of the White House forever as reminders of the power of hope and change,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
The ceremony is returning to the White House after a 10-year hiatus. It was then-President Obama who last held such a ceremony, when he welcomed back former president George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush for an unveiling of their official portraits back in 2012.
The public unveiling of presidential portraits as we know it today started in 1978 during the Carter administration, according to White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin.
“The Carters were the first to invite the Fords back for the reveal of their portrait. Prior to that, they were just kind of hung up when they were done,” McLaurin said.
Since then, an unofficial tradition began of the current president hosting their most recent predecessor at the White House for the event with few exceptions — events that have often been bipartisan with some good-natured ribbing.
“George, I will always remember the gathering you hosted for all the living former presidents before I took office, your kind words of encouragement. Plus, you also left me a really good TV sports package. I use it,” Obama joked in 2012 of George W. Bush.
The tradition was notably broken during the Trump presidency, with the former president eschewing the event — a perhaps unsurprising decision, given Trump’s baseless claims that Obama spied on his 2016 presidential campaign, and was not born in the United States.
Despite the wait, McLaurin said the event at the White House on Wednesday will be “happy, positive” moment for the Obamas.
“There’s a sense of anticipation and excitement about it. And the President and First Lady who are depicted in those portraits have seen them of course, but the reality of having them unveiled in full scale size right there in the East Room of the White House. It’s just a moment — it’s almost like a Christmas morning,” he said.
The process for creating the portraits begins at the end of an outgoing president’s term, with the selection of an artist they’d like to complete their portrait. The White House Historical Association, a non-profit, non-partisan organization started in 1961 by first lady Jackie Kennedy, then contracts the artist to complete the historic image.
According to McLaurin, it typically takes three to four years for the portraits to be completed, but there is no hard and fast deadline for the process.
The Obama portraits have been completed for “a few years,” he said.
As for Trump’s official portrait, McLaurin said the artists have been identified and contracted for the former president and first lady’s portraits, but did not have more details about where in the process they are.
“Typically they would have conversations or they would talk about style and process and things in the background. Sometimes presidents or first ladies put things that have some meaning or purpose or tell a story behind them,” McLaurin said.
“I don’t know how much of that has happened with the Trump’s. I do know that their artists have been identified,” he added.
After its creation in 1961, the White House Historical Association undertook the task of acquiring portraits for every former president and first lady to complete the collection of iconic images of the nation’s leaders.
“You know, with the Founding Fathers and the early presidents, Americans did not know what their presidents looked like,” McLaurin said. “Americans depended on these images that were created and disseminated across the United States.”
“In contemporary modern presidents, we are supersaturated every day with what they look like. So, to me, the interesting take on these portraits is this is really how a president and a first lady see themselves and how they want to be remembered,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a new warning they anticipate ransomware attacks could increase as the new school year begins.
“The FBI, CISA, and the MS-ISAC anticipate attacks may increase as the 2022/2023 school year begins and criminal ransomware groups perceive opportunities for successful attacks,” the joint bulletin released Tuesday said.
CISA is the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
The warning is timely — one of the nation’s largest school districts, the Los Angeles Unified School Department, fell victim to a ransomware attack over the weekend.
Law enforcement warns that smaller school districts are the most vulnerable because they have the least amount of resources to prevent an attack.
“School districts with limited cybersecurity capabilities and constrained resources are often the most vulnerable; however, the opportunistic targeting often seen with cyber criminals can still put school districts with robust cybersecurity programs at risk. K-12 institutions may be seen as particularly lucrative targets due to the amount of sensitive student data accessible through school systems or their managed service providers,” the bulletin says.
Specifically, the FBI and CISA said they are seeing activity against schools from one particular group called the Vice Society “disproportionately targeting the education sector with ransomware attacks.”
The tradecraft of Vice Society actors, officials said, has been identified “through FBI investigations as recently as September 2022.”
The LAUSD superintendent said on Monday the group is associated with the LAUSD ransomware attack.
(NEW YORK) — With new COVID variant-specific booster shots set to roll out in the coming week, vaccine scientists argue that more research is needed to understand how a person’s early immune response — either through vaccination or infection itself — may impact future protection against a constantly evolving virus.
The body learns its best defensive moves during its first encounter with a virus, according to experts. However, once a virus evolves, the immune system is slower to respond.
That is a phenomenon called “original antigenic sin,” or “immune imprinting.”
Scientists say that despite nearly three years of living amid a pandemic there are unanswered questions. For example: What’s the best way to maximize protection through vaccination? What vaccine formula would deliver the broadest immune coverage? How often should people receive booster shots?
The answers would help public health authorities decide future vaccination strategies such as the vaccine’s formula and when doses are administered.
What is original antigenic sin or immunological imprinting?
“There’s a theory that our immunological response to the first exposure to a virus may sort of imprint your immune system,” said John Brownstein, an ABC News contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The human immune system’s best playbook is against an invader it already knows, experts say. But the COVID virus has continued to shape-shift, evolving into new variants that are still recognizable, but slightly different from predecessors.
“In other words, the first antigens that you’re exposed to [are] the ones your immune system is most trained to recognize and respond to more strongly the next time,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the center for virology and vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
What does this all mean in terms of COVID vaccines and boosters?
Some experts say they are concerned that frequent boosting with the original version of the vaccine may have inadvertently exacerbated immune imprinting. At this point in the pandemic, some adults have received four or more doses of the same vaccine.
Although still theoretical, some scientists worry about a potential backfire, with frequent boosting handcuffing the body’s natural immune system and leaving it exposed to radically different variants that might emerge in the future.
“Where this matters is if you keep giving booster doses with [original] strain, and continue to lock people into that original response. It makes it harder for them to respond then to essentially a completely different virus,” says Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia.
Other scientists disagree, arguing the immune system is adaptable and dynamic. Boosters, they argue, will not freeze the immune system in place.
Meanwhile, updated boosters are slated to roll out this week. These boosters are specifically designed against new omicron sub variants BA.4 and BA.5.
“When we have an omicron-specific booster, it doesn’t make sense not to use that,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, director, center for immunization research Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The omicron spike protein is very, very different from the spike protein in the current vaccine.”
But even when facing new variants, studies show the original booster continued to reduce the risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Those fully vaccinated with at least the primary series were five times less likely to die from COVID in the summer of 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I think the worry is that if the virus keeps mutating, maybe the [original] vaccine is not going to continue to do well against that, but I suspect that we’re still going to do very well against severe disease and hospitalization,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Infectious Diseases.
The timing of vaccines may also need to be taken into account, as the nation moves from original doses to updated boosters.
“It is true that the best boosts typically are the ones that are given infrequently, that immunologically, if you boost too much and too frequently, then you often have a lower immune response at the end,” said Barouch.
Does this affect the future of the pandemic?
“I don’t really think [immune imprinting] poses a threat,” said Durbin. “I don’t think it’s going to inhibit the ability of the immune system to recognize other variants or to induce immune responses to other variants, whether that’s through infection, or through vaccines.”
With the virus continuously evolving, experts note that continuous research is key to understanding how phenomena such as immune imprinting could affect the fight against COVID.
“I don’t see it as causing a problem but it’s an important line of research that needs to be investigated,” said Brownstein. “We don’t fully know whether this concept actually is harmful, or even a benefit for future, potential risks to infection.”
(NEW YORK) — Luxury car brand Porsche aims to go public in late September or early October in what could be one of the largest initial public offerings in Europe in decades, parent company Volkswagen announced late Monday.
The move arrives at a precarious economic moment in Europe, where a down year for markets owes to an energy shortage, sky-high inflation and growing concern over a possible recession.
If markets turn down even further, Volkswagen could nix the IPO plans. In its announcement, the Germany-based automaker acknowledged that the move is “subject to further capital market developments.”
But the move would help fund a massive electric vehicle, or EV, expansion underway at Volkswagen, auto analysts said. The Porsche IPO would generate a significant amount of capital for that transition, they added.
Here’s everything you need to know about the blockbuster IPO:
Why would Volkswagen take Porsche public?
The company has ambitious EV aspirations but they come at a price. Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has vowed to overtake Tesla as the global leader in EV sales by 2025, and make EV sales more than a quarter of its revenue by 2026.
To that end, the company announced in December plans to spend $88.4 billion on EV investment over the next five years, which will make up more than half of the company’s spending over that period.
Volkswagen, however, needs to fund that investment. An IPO for Porsche is an appealing option for the company in part due to the brand’s strong profitability and in turn the potential for a high valuation, said Sam Abuelsamid a principle research analyst at Guidehouse Insight. Over the first six months of this year, Porsche’s operating profit grew nearly 25% compared to the first six months of 2021.
“Porsche for a long time has been one of the most profitable automakers in the world,” Abuelsamid said. “This is an opportunity for Volkswagen to sell off some of that stock and raise some important capital that they are going to need in the coming years to fund their electrification strategy.”
How big would the Porsche IPO be?
Investors anticipate a valuation for Porsche as high as $85 billion, according to reports.
But Volkswagen will only take in a fraction of the valuation as cash for capital investment in initiatives such as EV development, said Charles Coldicott, an auto analyst at the London-based equity research firm Redburn.
The company is putting 25% of the shares up for sale on the public market, and nearly half of the cash generated will be redistributed to shareholders in the form of a dividend, he added. The company would retain the rest.
“That would be a sizable amount of money,” Coldicott said, though he pointed out that Volkswagen already has tens of billions in cash available for capital investment. “The company is awash in cash,” he said. “But it doesn’t hurt to throw more cash at this problem.”
Why do this now?
As mentioned, Volkswagen needs to fund its EV aspirations. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has placed even greater urgency on such plans, as Europe struggles with an energy crisis amid a sharp decline in the use of Russian oil and natural gas, said Abuelsamid.
“This would’ve happened regardless but I think there has been some acceleration of plans, especially in Europe,” Abuelsamid said.
However, Coldicott disagreed.
“I think it’s pretty unrelated,” he said, noting that Volkswagen announced a prospective Porsche IPO prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.
What happens next?
Over the coming weeks, Volkswagen will likely move forward with a typical IPO “roadshow,” in which company representatives pitch investment banks on the viability of their public offering, Abuelsamid said. In turn, some investment banks will go to commercial and retail investors in an effort to raise money for Porsche ahead of its public filing.
Could Volkswagen still call off the IPO altogether?
Yes, the company has left itself wiggle room to call off the IPO. But it’s “almost certainly going to happen,” Abuelsamid said. Coldicott concurred, calling the IPO “highly likely.”
A plunge in markets could force Volkswagen to postpone it, however, the analysts said.
“You can never be certain if something happens in the next few weeks and the market takes another 10%, 20% or 30% dive,” Abuelsamid said. “They would not be getting the value from the Porsche brand that they think it’s worth.”
