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As it crossed the Niger Delta in 2021, a satellite imaged acres of bare land. The site outside the city of Port Harcourt was on a United Nations Environment Programme cleanup list, supposed to be restored to green farmland as the Delta was before thousands of oil spills turned it into a byword for pollution. Instead it was left a sandy “moonscape” unusable for farming, according to U.N. documents. It wasn’t the only botched cleanup, a cache of previously unreported investigations, emails, letters to Nigerian ministers and meeting minutes show. Senior U.N. officials considered the Nigerian cleanup agency a “total failure.” The agency, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, or Hyprep, selected cleanup contractors without relevant experience, a U.N. review found. It sent soil samples to laboratories lacking the equipment for tests they had claimed to perform. Auditors were physically blocked from checking that work had been completed. Most cleanup companies are owned by politicians, a former Nigerian environment minister told the AP, and correspondence shows similar views were shared by U.N. officials. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. There have been thousands of oil spills since Niger Delta production began in the 1950s. Reports and studies document that people often wash, drink, fish and cook in contaminated water. Spills still occur frequently. In November, the Ogboinbiri community in Bayelsa state suffered its fourth spill in three months, harming fields, streams and fishing. “We have not harvested anything," said farmer Timipre Bridget, there is now “no way to survive.” After a major U.N. pollution survey in 2011, oil companies agreed to a $1 billion cleanup fund for the worst-affected area, Ogoniland. Shell, the largest private oil and gas company in the country, contributed $300 million. The U.N. was relegated to an advisory role. The Nigerian government would handle the funds. But a confidential investigation by U.N. scientists last year found the site outside Port Harcourt was left with a “complete absence of topsoil,” with almost seven times more petroleum remaining than Nigerian health limits allow. The company responsible had its contract revoked, Nenibarini Zabbey, the current director of Hyprep, told the AP by email. The head of operations when the contract was awarded, Philip Shekwolo, called allegations in the U.N. documents “baseless" and "cheap blackmail.” Shekwolo, who used to head up oil spill remediation for Shell, insists the cleanup was successful. But the documents show U.N. officials raising the alarm since 2021, when Shekwolo was acting chief. A January 2022 U.N. review found 21 of the 41 contractors okayed to clean up spill sites had no relevant experience. These included construction companies and general merchants. They were effectively handed a “blank check,” U.N. Senior Project Advisor Iyenemi Kakulu is recorded saying in the minutes of a meeting with Hyprep and Shell. Incompetent companies were to blame for bad cleanups, Hyprep’s own communications chief, Joseph Kpobari is in the minutes as having said. Despite this, they were rewarded contracts for more polluted sites, the U.N. delegation warned. Zabbey denied Kpobari’s admission. He said 16 out of 20 sites in the project’s first stage are certified as clean by Nigerian regulators and many have been returned to communities. Hyprep always issued contracts correctly, he said. Two sources close to the cleanup efforts, speaking anonymously for fear of loss of business or employment, said when officials visited laboratories used by Hyprep, they lacked equipment needed to perform the tests they reported. In a letter to customers, one U.K. laboratory frequently used by Hyprep acknowledged its tests for most of 2022 were flawed and unreliable and the U.K. laboratory accreditation service confirmed the lab was twice suspended. Zabbey says now Hyprep monitors contractors more closely, labs adhere to Nigerian and U.N. recommendations and are frequently checked. The U.N. also warned the Nigerian government in a 2021 assessment that Hyprep’s spending was not being tracked. Internal auditors were considered “the enemy” and “demonized for doing their job.” Shekwolo’s predecessor as Hyprep chief blocked financial controls and “physically prevented” auditors from checking that work had been completed, it found. Zabbey responded that the audit team is valued now, and accounts are audited annually, although he provided only one audit cover letter. In it, the accountants “identified weaknesses.” One Nigerian politician tried to change things: Sharon Ikeazor spent decades as a lawyer before becoming environment minister in 2019. “The companies had no competence whatsoever,” she said in a phone interview. In February 2022, she received a letter from senior U.N. official Muralee Thummarukudy, warning of “significant opportunities for malpractice" over contract awards, unusually strong language in U.N. diplomacy. She removed Shekwolo as acting Hyprep chief the next month, explaining that she believed he was too close to the politicians. Most cleanup companies were owned by politicians, she said. The few competent companies “wouldn’t get the big jobs.” Shekwolo assessed who was competent for contract awards, Ikeazor said. Shekwolo’s former employer Shell and the U.N. both warned her about him, she said, something Shekwolo says he was unaware of. Ikeazor asked Shekwolo’s successor to review every suspect contract and investigate the cleanup companies. “That sent shockwaves around the political class,” she said. She was quickly replaced as environment minister, with Shekwolo rehired, after just two months out of office. Shekwolo denied being too close to politicians. He insists no reason was given for his removal and suggested Ikeazor simply didn’t like him. Last year, the U.N. Environment Programme ended its official involvement in the Nigerian oil spill cleanup, explaining its five-year consultancy was over. Ikeazor said the real reason was U.N. frustration over corruption, and the two sources close to the project concurred. Zabbey said he believes the U.N. merely changed its goals and moved on. Associated Press reporters Taiwo Adebayo and Dan Ikpoyi contributed from Abuja and Bayelsa, Nigeria. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .HONG KONG , Dec. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- China Telecom's Open Gateway API serves as a ubiquitous connection and a full-scenario solution, which is widely applied in scenarios such as online games, online education, and autonomous driving. It significantly improves user experience through dynamic traffic optimization and device collaboration. Common challenges in these scenarios include traffic surges, network fluctuations, critical data transmission, which requires intelligent management, highly available guarantees, priority support for data transmission and unified network quality management of cross-regional devices. To address these issues, leveraging a diverse range of sensing modalities including service perception, network perception, and location perception, we are able to offer dynamic policy control at the service flow tier. By integrating time gating techniques, we can attain meticulous service quality management and optimized distribution of network resources. Based on this, an integrated network optimization solution is constructed to comprehensively improve the network quality in ubiquitous connection scenarios and form a closed-loop mechanism from user access, accurate identification to network optimization, ensuring that in ubiquitous connection scenarios such as online games, online education and autonomous driving, stable and efficient network services can be enjoyed. In 2024, China Telecom's QoD API completed the interface transformation in accordance with the standards of the GSMA Open Gateway, it was released as the world's first Open Gateway case study in June 2024 . As of 2024, the cumulative number of calls to China Telecom's QoD API has exceeded 5 billion times. The monthly average number of calls to the number verification API has reached 45 billion times, with a peak capacity call rate exceeding 52,000 times per second. There are 200 million monthly active users, covering nearly 40 million telecom users and serving mainstream domestic and foreign manufacturers such as Bosch, Honor, Huawei Cloud , and Tencent . The cumulative revenue has reached 500 million US dollars , promoting the comprehensive implementation of ubiquitous connections. In the 5G era, we are witnessing a revolutionary transformation in mobile work and entertainment, driven by high-quality, high-speed network services. To meet the demands of this new era, HONOR has partnered with China Telecom based on principles of open collaboration and mutual benefit to introduce an innovative service for the new AI-powered flagship, the Magic7 Series—"HONOR Fast Pass". Through End-cloud Collaboration Technology, "HONOR Fast Pass" automatically activates VIP channels and works with China Telecom's Open Gateway API for seamless connectivity, dynamically adjusting network parameters to optimize the performance of the operator's air interface QoS channels. Bosch is researching future vehicle functions, such as autonomous driving and intelligent transportation, which will rely on cloud computing technology supported by 5G or 6G networks. To achieve this vision, Bosch focuses on developing reliable distributed systems. A key driver of this effort is the Open Gateway APIs provided by China Telecom (e.g., QoD services), which ensure predictable and timely data exchange and function calls. Bosch will work together with China Telecom to advance these technologies and shape a smarter, safer future for mobility. In the 5G era, with the surging demand for network quality in ubiquitous connection scenarios, China Telecom will focus on key areas such as the Internet of Vehicles, the low-altitude economy, and intelligent manufacturing to promote the diversified development of GSMA OpenGateway API capabilities, ushering in a new situation of prosperity. This will not only drive innovation and breakthroughs in the Chinese market but also help the global application of ubiquitous connection scenarios. It achieves seamless connections across regions and devices, enhancing the competitiveness and cooperation depth of the global ubiquitous connection market. SOURCE China Telecom
AP 12:47 JST, December 30, 2024 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas. That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory. The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018. Kansas provides a cautionary tale about how pursuing an election concern that in fact is extremely rare risks disenfranchising a far greater number of people who are legally entitled to vote. The state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, championed the idea as a legislator and now says states and the federal government shouldn’t touch it. “Kansas did that 10 years ago,” said Schwab, a Republican. “It didn’t work out so well.” Steven Fish, a 45-year-old warehouse worker in eastern Kansas, said he understands the motivation behind the law. In his thinking, the state was like a store owner who fears getting robbed and installs locks. But in 2014, after the birth of his now 11-year-old son inspired him to be “a little more responsible” and follow politics, he didn’t have an acceptable copy of his birth certificate to get registered to vote in Kansas. “The locks didn’t work,” said Fish, one of nine Kansas residents who sued the state over the law. “You caught a bunch of people who didn’t do anything wrong.” Kansas’ experience appeared to receive little if any attention outside the state as Republicans elsewhere pursued proof-of-citizenship requirements this year. Arizona enacted a requirement this year, applying it to voting for state and local elections but not for Congress or president. The Republican-led U.S. House passed a proof-of-citizenship requirement in the summer and plans to bring back similar legislation after the GOP won control of the Senate in November. In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state revised the form that poll workers use for voter eligibility challenges to require those not born in the U.S. to show naturalization papers to cast a regular ballot. A federal judge declined to block the practice days before the election. Also, sizable majorities of voters in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and the presidential swing states of North Carolina and Wisconsin were inspired to amend their state constitutions’ provisions on voting even though the changes were only symbolic. Provisions that previously declared that all U.S. citizens could vote now say that only U.S. citizens can vote — a meaningless distinction with no practical effect on who is eligible. To be clear, voters already must attest to being U.S. citizens when they register to vote and noncitizens can face fines, prison and deportation if they lie and are caught. “There is nothing unconstitutional about ensuring that only American citizens can vote in American elections,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, the leading sponsor of the congressional proposal, said in an email statement to The Associated Press. After Kansas residents challenged their state’s law, both a federal judge and federal appeals court concluded that it violated a law limiting states to collecting only the minimum information needed to determine whether someone is eligible to vote. That’s an issue Congress could resolve. The courts ruled that with “scant” evidence of an actual problem, Kansas couldn’t justify a law that kept hundreds of eligible citizens from registering for every noncitizen who was improperly registered. A federal judge concluded that the state’s evidence showed that only 39 noncitizens had registered to vote from 1999 through 2012 — an average of just three a year. In 2013, then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who had built a national reputation advocating tough immigration laws, described the possibility of voting by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as a serious threat. He was elected attorney general in 2022 and still strongly backs the idea, arguing that federal court rulings in the Kansas case “almost certainly got it wrong.” Kobach also said a key issue in the legal challenge — people being unable to fix problems with their registrations within a 90-day window — has probably been solved. “The technological challenge of how quickly can you verify someone’s citizenship is getting easier,” Kobach said. “As time goes on, it will get even easier.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Kansas case in 2020. But in August, it split 5-4 in allowing Arizona to continue enforcing its law for voting in state and local elections while a legal challenge goes forward. Seeing the possibility of a different Supreme Court decision in the future, U.S. Rep.-elect Derek Schmidt says states and Congress should pursue proof-of-citizenship requirements. Schmidt was the Kansas attorney general when his state’s law was challenged. “If the same matter arose now and was litigated, the facts would be different,” he said in an interview. But voting rights advocates dismiss the idea that a legal challenge would turn out differently. Mark Johnson, one of the attorneys who fought the Kansas law, said opponents now have a template for a successful court fight. “We know the people we can call,” Johnson said. “We know that we’ve got the expert witnesses. We know how to try things like this.” He predicted “a flurry — a landslide — of litigation against this.” Initially, the Kansas requirement’s impacts seemed to fall most heavily on politically unaffiliated and young voters. As of fall 2013, 57% of the voters blocked from registering were unaffiliated and 40% were under 30. But Fish was in his mid-30s, and six of the nine residents who sued over the Kansas law were 35 or older. Three even produced citizenship documents and still didn’t get registered, according to court documents. “There wasn’t a single one of us that was actually an illegal or had misinterpreted or misrepresented any information or had done anything wrong,” Fish said. He was supposed to produce his birth certificate when he sought to register in 2014 while renewing his Kansas driver’s license at an office in a strip mall in Lawrence. A clerk wouldn’t accept the copy Fish had of his birth certificate. He still doesn’t know where to find the original, having been born on an Air Force base in Illinois that closed in the 1990s. Several of the people joining Fish in the lawsuit were veterans, all born in the U.S., and Fish said he was stunned that they could be prevented from registering. Liz Azore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said millions of Americans haven’t traveled outside the U.S. and don’t have passports that might act as proof of citizenship, or don’t have ready access to their birth certificates. She and other voting rights advocates are skeptical that there are administrative fixes that will make a proof-of-citizenship law run more smoothly today than it did in Kansas a decade ago. “It’s going to cover a lot of people from all walks of life,” Avore said. “It’s going to be disenfranchising large swaths of the country.”Spain’s labour market paradox: Record vacancies amid high unemploymentWeymouth Town Council has given seven grants to community and voluntary organisations to help fund projects for the benefit of Weymouth residents. The total sum of these seven grants is £12,742.02. Cllr David Civil, Chair of the Finance and Governance Committee, said: "Genuinely, it's a pleasure to help local charities and organisations with grant funding to get their projects off the ground, and I look forward to more applications being submitted in the new year. The number of groups looking out for their neighbours really is inspiring. "As well as the larger grants over £500, groups can also apply for funding for projects up to £500 which can be awarded to support many worthy causes." The following grants were awarded at the latest Finance and Governance meeting in the run-up to Christmas. The Friendly Food Club was awarded £1,200 to support the delivery of cookery sessions for local residents. The sessions focus on introducing cooking skills and how to prepare nutritious meals, whilst increasing confidence and sense of wellbeing. Artwey CIC received £1,729.52 to support the running of the ‘Open for Art’ project, which will be part of the Dorset Towns of Culture 2025 activities. This project will enable people to visit local artists at shared exhibition spaces, or in their studios to view work, have discussions and make any required purchases. The Bridges Patient Participation Group has been awarded £871.50 to support patients to take part in funded cookery sessions over a course of six weeks. Previously, the Patient Participation Group have held ‘health talks’ which aimed to educate patients about specific medical conditions; with those having attended being invited to enrol on the new cookery course. The sessions will be supported by volunteers and will aim to provide the skills, confidence and information required to prepare healthy meals. Mosaic – Supporting Bereaved Children received £2,100 to provide seven 1-hour counselling sessions to six bereaved young people in Dorset. Each young person will receive a session tailored to their needs to enable them to express and talk about their emotions. Examples may include walking and crafting. Re-engage Ltd was awarded £1,944 to fund the development of a new activity group for older residents of Weymouth, which will aim to address issues of loneliness and social isolation amongst those in the population. This new group will have the further objective of establishing a strong and connected community, whilst having a long-lasting impact on improving the wellbeing of older residents. Waterside Weymouth Community Forum has been awarded £2,957 to go towards creating a community pantry which will supplement a local foodbank. There will be a focus on fresh produce, with priorities including to establish a homework club to support food security of those in education. The grant will work to create a sense of community cohesion and support social inclusion. Weymouth Foodbank has received £1,940 to help provide an additional bag of Christmas food to supplement the usual provision of tins and packets to all those who use the service. The grant will enable Weymouth Foodbank to offer items such as Christmas cakes, mince pies, biscuits, children’s selection boxes and chutneys so everybody has the chance to celebrate this season with some festive food. If you have an idea which would benefit Weymouth residents and you need some financial support, check out the town council's grants page to see if you are eligible for funding.
Mitch Marner to wear red and white Maple Leaf as Canada rounds out 4 Nations rosterAdventure Parc Snowdonia could re-open with £21million investment
A butterfly collector in Africa with more than 4.2 million seeks to share them for the future NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — What began as a childhood hobby more than six decades ago has led to what might be Africa’s largest butterfly collection in a suburb of Kenya’s capital. Steve Collins has a collection of 4.2 million butterflies representing hundreds of species. Now, running out of space and time, he hopes to hand it over to the next generation. One expert familiar with Collins and his work suggests that the collection should be digitized for global access. Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolved NEW YORK (AP) — Top ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday. That's after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans. The International Chess Federation president said in a statement Sunday that he’d let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing “appropriate jeans” with a jacket, as well as other "minor deviations” from the dress code. Carlsen quit the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships on Friday. He said Sunday he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship. 'Sonic 3' and 'Mufasa' battle for No. 1 at the holiday box office Two family films are dominating the holiday box office, with “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” winning the three-day weekend over “Mufasa” by a blue hair. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Sonic movie earned $38 million, while “Mufasa” brought in $37.1 million from theaters in the U.S. and Canada. The R-rated horror “Nosferatu” placed third with an unexpectedly strong $21.2 million. Thanksgiving release holdovers “Wicked” and “Moana 2” rounded out the top five. Christmas Day had several big film openings, including the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the Nicole Kidman erotic drama “Babygirl” and the boxing drama “The Fire Inside.” Charles Shyer, ‘Father of the Bride’ and ‘Baby Boom’ filmmaker, dies at 83 An Oscar-nominated writer and filmmaker known for classic comedies like “Private Benjamin,” “Baby Boom” and “Father of the Bride," Charles Shyer has died. He was 83. On Sunday his daughter Hallie Meyers-Shyer told The Associated Press that he died Friday in Los Angeles. No cause was disclosed. Born in Los Angeles in 1941 to a filmmaker father, Shyer's big breakthrough came with co-writing “Private Benjamin” for which he and Nancy Meyers received an Oscar nomination. He and Nancy Meyers were frequent collaborators through their nearly 20-year marriage, including on the remake of “The Parent Trap," starring Lindsay Lohan. LeBron James at 40: A milestone birthday arrives Monday for the NBA's all-time scoring leader When LeBron James broke another NBA record earlier this month, the one for most regular-season minutes played in a career, his Los Angeles Lakers teammates handled the moment in typical locker room fashion. They made fun of him. Dubbed The Kid from Akron, with a limitless future, James is now the 40-year-old from Los Angeles with wisps of gray in his beard, his milestone birthday coming Monday, one that will make him the first player in NBA history to play in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. He has stood and excelled in the spotlight his entire career. Belgium will ban sales of disposable e-cigarettes in a first for the EU BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium will ban the sale of disposable electronic cigarettes as of Jan. 1 on health and environmental grounds in a groundbreaking move for European Union nations. Health minister Frank Vandenbroucke tells The Associated Press that the inexpensive e-cigarettes have turned into a health threat since they are an easy way for teenagers to be drawn into smoking and get hooked on nicotine. Australia outlawed the sale of “vapes” outside pharmacies earlier this year in some of the world’s toughest restrictions on electronic cigarettes. Now Belgium is leading the EU drive. Belgium's minister wants tougher tobacco measures in the 27-nation bloc. Charles Dolan, HBO and Cablevision founder, dies at 98 Charles F. Dolan, who founded some of the most prominent U.S. media companies including Home Box Office Inc. and Cablevision Systems Corp., has died at age 98. Newsday reports that a statement issued Saturday by his family says Dolan died of natural causes. Dolan’s legacy in cable broadcasting includes founding HBO in 1972, Cablevision in 1973 and the American Movie Classics television station in 1984. He also launched News 12 in New York City, the first U.S. 24-hour cable channel for local news. Dolan also held controlling stakes in companies that owned Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the New York Knicks and New York Rangers sports franchises. Snoop's game: Snoop Dogg thrills the crowd in the bowl that bears his name TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Miami of Ohio beat Colorado State in the Arizona Bowl, but Snoop Dogg was the main attraction. The Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop was much a spectacle as a football game. Snoop Dogg seemed to be everywhere all at once, from a pregame tailgate to the postgame trophy presentation. Snoop Dog donned a headset on Colorado State's sideline, spent some time in the broadcast and even led both marching bands as conductor during their halftime performance. Snoop Dogg saved the best for last, rolling out in a light green, lowrider Chevy Impala with gold rims and accents, the shiny Arizona Bowl trophy in his hand as fans screamed his name. Mavs star Luka Doncic is latest pro athlete whose home was burglarized, business manager says DALLAS (AP) — Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks is the latest professional athlete whose home has been burglarized. The star guard’s business manager tells multiple media outlets there was a break-in at Doncic’s home Friday night. Lara Beth Seager says nobody was home, and Doncic filed a police report. The Dallas Morning News reports that jewelry valued at about $30,000 was stolen. Doncic is the sixth known pro athlete in the U.S. whose home was burglarized since October. Star NFL quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City and Joe Burrow of Cincinnati are among them. The NFL and NBA have issued security alerts to players over the break-ins. Victor Wembanyama plays 1-on-1 chess with fans in New York Victor Wembanyama went to a park in New York City and played 1-on-1 with fans on Saturday. He even lost a couple of games. Not in basketball, though. Wemby was playing chess. Before the San Antonio Spurs left New York for a flight to Minnesota, Wembanyama put out the call on social media: “Who wants to meet me at the SW corner of Washington Square park to play chess? Im there,” Wembanyama wrote. It was 9:36 a.m. And people began showing up almost immediately.None
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 4, 2024-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com , Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading superapp (NASDAQ: GRAB), announced that Grab has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider. With AWS, Grab is pursuing a technology-led strategy to accelerate growth across its mobility, deliveries, and financial services verticals, including its new digibanks, while continuing to improve its operational efficiencies and reduce IT infrastructure costs. Grab relies on the world’s leading cloud to serve 41.9 million monthly transacting users 1 and over 13 million driver and delivery partners 2 registered on its platform. Every second, Grab processes over a hundred transactions, receives over 500k GPS pings and services over 50,000 ETA requests. AWS powers Grab’s critical compute, storage, networking, and database functions. By leveraging AWS's resilient, secure, and elastic cloud, Grab accelerates innovation, rapidly launches new services, and scales efficiently across its eight-country footprint: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. “At Grab, our strategy for growth is anchored on constant innovation to outserve the needs of our users and partners,” said Suthen Thomas Paradatheth, CTO of Grab. “This requires rapid experimentation, while ensuring security and stability, along with the ability to fully harness the potential of the latest tech like generative AI. We're pleased to extend our partnership with AWS as our preferred cloud partner to continue to support us on this journey.” Grab optimizes operating costs with AWS As Grab looks to balance growth with cost discipline, it is using AWS Cloud to power the majority of its operations in Southeast Asia across verticals such as mobility, deliveries, and financial services and entities, including its digibanks in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. By adopting AWS’s suite of cloud-based solutions, Grab has been able to gain agility and reduce operational costs. Grab uses analytics service AWS Clean Rooms, which enables secure, privacy-preserving data collaboration between different entities and organizations. Grab also leverages AWS’s purpose-built databases and has migrated more than 400 backend application services from traditional virtual servers to AWS Graviton2 processors to drive high performance, as well as cost and energy efficiency. Grab relies on AWS to scale securely, swiftly, and with stability On-demand transactions made by Grab customers were up 22% in the third quarter of 2024. To cater to this surge in demand for services, Grab uses Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) as its transactional database coupled with Amazon DynamoDB. This ensures high availability, scalability, and adaptability of its platform to drive exceptional customer experience fueled by more accurate searchable data. With AWS, Grab seamlessly adapts to evolving customer needs by easily adjusting resources dynamically based on user demand. For example, during peak times like holiday sales, Grab can easily accommodate increased traffic to make transactions across the superapp seamless. Conversely, during off-peak periods, resources can be scaled down to save costs. As it looks to accelerate growth with initiatives focused on affordability, high value offerings, and digital banking, AWS provides Grab with a stable and scalable infrastructure to support this rapid expansion. For instance, Grab continues to scale its revamped Advance Booking feature across the region. It also did a region-wide roll out of its improved Group Order feature and continues to drive adoption for it, making it easier for users to join the group order, track food delivery updates, and split the bill. With AWS, Grab was also able to build and launch digital banks in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as GX Bank in Malaysia, which was launched in under 16 months, scaling rapidly to serve close to one million customers within the first year of launch. Accelerating AI-led growth at Grab with AWS As one of the pioneers of AI adoption in Southeast Asia, Grab is committed to being at the forefront of exploring how the latest AI technologies can better serve and respond to the needs of its users and partners. Catwalk, Grab’s machine learning (ML) model platform, is built on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), and has been used to deploy over 1,000 AI models in production, such as route guidance and pricing. With Catwalk, Grab provides users’ real-time decision-making across its services and delivers personalized experiences like tailored restaurant recommendations, loyalty rewards, and bespoke financial services based on users’ preferences. In addition, Grab uses AWS’s custom-designed AWS Inferentia chips with specialized ML inference capabilities to cost efficiently power its AI-powered services, including map enhancements and fraud detection in its digital banks. Grab also leverages AWS as the underlying compute infrastructure for its many AI initiatives. The superapp stores hundreds of petabytes of data and processes over 200 TB of data—the equivalent of 200,000 full-length movies—on AWS daily. This data forms the foundation of Grab's advanced analytics, ML, and AI initiatives, with AWS powering innovations across the company’s services offerings. Building on AWS’s compute foundations, Grab continues to develop and implement several AI-powered use cases, particularly to improve driver productivity and support merchant growth. By integrating large language models (LLMs) with point-of-interest data and historical customer notes, Grab has refined its last-mile guidance system for delivery partners. This enhancement provides drivers with more precise drop-off instructions, enabling them to complete more trips every hour, leading to higher earnings, while expediting food delivery to consumers. Additionally, Grab has rolled out a new feature that uses AI to create appetizing descriptions of food dishes in five of its eight markets. This has boosted order completion rates, bringing particular benefits to smaller, unique restaurants on the platform and enhancing the overall dining experience for customers. "AWS is proud to support Grab in its mission to drive innovation and enhance customer experiences across Southeast Asia," said Jeff Johnson, managing director, ASEAN at AWS. "By leveraging AWS's unparalleled operational performance, scalability, and cutting-edge technologies, Grab is able to deliver personalized, seamless transactions to millions of users throughout the region. As the leading cloud provider, AWS is uniquely positioned to help Grab optimize its price performance, boost operational efficiency, and continually evolve its broad suite of data-powered services. We're excited to continue collaborating with Grab as it navigates the dynamic landscape of ecommerce and superapp development, ensuring it stays at the forefront of innovation in the digital economy.” About Grab Grab is a leading superapp in Southeast Asia, operating across the deliveries, mobility and digital financial services sectors. Serving over 700 cities in eight Southeast Asian countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - Grab enables millions of people everyday to order food or groceries, send packages, hail a ride or taxi, pay for online purchases or access services such as lending and insurance, all through a single app. Grab was founded in 2012 with the mission to drive Southeast Asia forward by creating economic empowerment for everyone, and strives to serve a triple bottom line: to simultaneously deliver financial sustainability and have a positive social and environmental impact in Southeast Asia. About Amazon Web Services Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 108 Availability Zones within 34 geographic regions, with announced plans for 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com . About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. ______________________ 1 As of Grab Q3’24 results 2 As per Grab ESG Report 2023 View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241204105661/en/ CONTACT: Grab Media Team press@grab.comAmazon.com , Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA ASIA PACIFIC NEVADA WASHINGTON INDUSTRY KEYWORD: RETAIL TRANSPORT SOFTWARE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NETWORKS FINANCE INTERNET BANKING DATA MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LOGISTICS/SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT DIGITAL CASH MANAGEMENT/DIGITAL ASSETS TECHNOLOGY DELIVERY SERVICES FINTECH DATA ANALYTICS PAYMENTS APPS/APPLICATIONS SOURCE: Amazon.com , Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/04/2024 06:30 PM/DISC: 12/04/2024 06:28 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241204105661/enMatthew Byars, a talent manager who appeared on “The Real Housewives of Potomac,” has died at age 37. The Maryland Chief Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to Page Six on Friday that Byars was pronounced dead Thursday from “multiple blunt force injuries.” His death was ruled a suicide. Byars was introduced to Bravo fans as a member of Karen Huger’s management team in 2018 during Season 3 of “RHOP.” Huger, 61, described their working relationship during a 2018 interview with Bravo’s Daily Dish . “Matt is wonderful, wonderful in PR. I do have a PR, Matt is not my PR, but I would say that Matt is in a line of my agent, my booking person, and it works for me,” she explained. “I met some dynamic people through this powerful young man, who’s extremely connected,” she continued. “And my personality and his connections just work so well, and I’m blessed to have Matt in my life.” Byars was mourned by members and fans of the Bravoverse following the shocking news of his death, including “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Melissa Gorga. “I’m heartbroken. Your personality was infectious. Your jokes- you always had them. You should have done stand up- I know it was your dream,” she wrote alongside a slideshow of photos with him over the years. She said her “heart hurts” because the beloved entrepreneur did not tell her that he was suffering “earlier this week” — presumably when they last spoke. “Thank you for bringing me my very 1st performance of ‘ON DISPLAY”- you and I- WE ARE LOYAL,” Gorga, 45, continued. “They don’t make them like us. I wish I could have saved you.” Several of her co-stars shared their heartache under the post, with Dolores Catania commenting , “We all loved him very much sorry for your loss i know how close u were 💔mat we will miss u rest in peace my friend.” “So heartbroken and devastated, I can’t believe this is true. We were together the last two weeks,” Margaret Josephs penned . “Matty B the sweetest soul forever in our hearts we love you 🙏💔🕊️.” “RHOP” alum Charrisse Jackson-Jordan shared a picture with him on her Instagram Story and told him to rest in peace. Page Six reached out to Bravo for comment. Huger has not publicly commented on Byars’ death. During her chat with the Daily Dish, she revealed she had helped her longtime pal through tough times. “I encourage Matt when life is difficult. A lot of people call me ‘Mama Karen’ in Potomac because I love helping young folk,” she noted. “When life was trying to him, I reached out and told him to go to school, and he did, and now we work together.” Comedian Bruce Vilanch appeared to first break the news of Byars’ passing on Thursday via a public Facebook post . “Matt Byars ended his struggle this morning. Those of you who knew him can DM me for more information,” he wrote. “Sorry to be the bearer...” If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org .
The Biggest Disappointments of 2024A Utah man was left stumped by a seemingly "impossible" word search puzzle for kids that was shared with him by an equally baffled friend. Word searches and other cognitively stimulating activities have been found to provide a boost to brain health, particularly as we get older. In 2021, a study published in the journal Neurology saw researchers ask 1,903 older individuals without dementia to report on how often they engaged in cognitively stimulating activities. These activities included things like reading books, writing letters, visiting the library and playing games like puzzles or board games. The study, which spanned seven years, found individuals with high levels of cognitive activity developed Alzheimer's at a later age - five years after those with lower levels of cognitive activity. Tom, a puzzle enthusiast from Millcreek, Utah, has been enjoying plenty of cognitive activity of late, though "enjoying" might not actually be the right word. A week or so ago, he was sent a seemingly innocuous children's word search by one of his friends. He remembers being a little confused because, firstly, it was for kids, and secondly, his friend told him they were having real trouble solving it. "The puzzle was in a little local newsletter that gets sent out about once a month," Tom told Newsweek . "My friend started working on it, and got stuck at some point and asked me for help." Though he's not usually one for kids' puzzles , there was something about the way his friend described the word search that made him intrigued. "They phrased it in a 'am I crazy or is this puzzle impossible ?' kind of way." The festive-themed puzzle, which came as part of "Milo's Kid Corner," listed 11 different words to find, including "snow," "icicle" and "skating." "Help Milo find some of his holiday favorites," the sheet read. "Circle the words in the puzzle and have fun." While Tom's friend had achieved the first of those two calls to action, they were not having a great deal of "fun" for reasons Tom eventually discovered. "This word search is missing several words," he said. "It took me like three attempts at scanning through letter by letter before I thought something was up." Online Assistance The apparent lack of words left Tom scratching his head. "It seems like such an easy thing to avoid, you know?" he said. Eager to get some second opinions, he posted a screenshot of the word search to Reddit under the handle u/the_portals . It sparked a healthy discussion. "We started coming up with theories for how this could've happened," he said. Eventually, a couple of interesting theories emerged. "Some of the commenters on the original post pointed out that the puzzle only asks you to find 'some' of the words, so technically it isn't broken," Tom said. "We also thought that they could've asked ChatGPT to generate the puzzle, and just copy-pasted it into the newsletter without double-checking." Tom has his own ideas about what led to this though. "Personally, I choose to believe it's intentionally missing words, so you set it in front of your kid to keep them busy for a while," he said. If that is the case, then credit to whoever came up with the word search. It hasn't only kept the kids busy, but a fair few adults as well.
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