When women and girls don't have access to the internet, it costs governments a lot of money. How much money, exactly, has only been estimated, until now.
New research released Monday by Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web Foundationand its subsidiary, Alliance for Affordable Internet, has calculated that over the past 10 years, 32 low- and middle-income countries have lost $1 trillion by not helping more women get online. Those countries include India, Nigeria and the Philippines.
The digital divide is a global problem, but there are still distinct groups that are less likely to have access to the internet. These groups can be defined by their geography, their gender, their race or all three. Women in low- and middle-income countries are even less likely to have internet access than their male counterparts.
Blue Origin plans to make its second crewed flight ever on Wednesday, this time carrying the alter ego of one of the most iconic space travelers ever.
The first flight of a New Shepard rocket with humans aboard launched July 20 and carried company founder and mega-rich guy Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and student Oliver Daemen on a quick trip to space. This time around the headline passenger is William Shatner, the 90-year-old veteran actor best known for playing James T. Kirk, captain of the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek universe.
"I've heard about space for a long time now," Shatner said cheekily in a statement last week. "I'm taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle."
The Guardian
Several of the leading Democrats in Congress who have stood in the way of Joe Biden’s $3.5tn budget package, which includes popular provisions widely expected to help working-class Americans, have taken that stance despite representing districts that have some of the highest rates of poverty and income inequality in the country.
The lawmakers, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas, are resisting a progressive agenda due to their own centrist instincts and strategy for political survival.
They initially refused to consider the package until after an infrastructure bill is passed but are now negotiating with the White House over its size – critical of its price tag as well as some of its measures, such as raising the corporate tax rate above 25% and certain climate provisions that impact the fossil fuel industry.
The Guardian
A new cancer treatment can wipe out tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients, scientists have discovered.
In a landmark trial, a cocktail of immunotherapy medications harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells and prompted “a positive trend in survival”, according to researchers at the Institute of CancerResearch (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.
One patient, who was expected to die four years ago, told the Guardian of the “amazing” moment nurses called him weeks after he joined the study to say his tumour had “completely disappeared”. The 77-year-old grandfather is now cancer-free and spent last week on a cruise with his wife.
Scientists found the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab medications led to a reduction in the size of tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients. In some, their cancer vanished altogether, with doctors stunned to find no detectable sign of disease.
Al Jazeera
Beita, Occupied West Bank – For the first time since it was taken over by Israeli settlers, hundreds of Palestinians from this besieged village managed to reach their confiscated land.
With the start of the olive harvest season in Palestine, residents and landowners of Beita headed to the peak of Jabal Sabih (Mount Sabih) on Sunday to pick their crops, expecting to be blocked by the Israeli army.
The area has been the site of the illegal Israeli outpost of Evyatar, where earlier this year dozens of settlers set up caravans under the protection of the Israeli military.
“We were all afraid that we wouldn’t be able to reach our lands,” said Aisha Khader, 62, whose family owns plots on Jabal Sabih.
Al Jazeera
Shia Muslim religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s party is set to be the biggest winner in Iraq’s parliamentary election, increasing the number of seats he holds, according to initial results, officials and a spokesperson for the Sadrist Movement.
Former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki looked set to have the next largest win among Shia parties, the initial results showed on Monday.
Iraq’s Shia groups have dominated governments and government formation since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and catapulted the Shia majority and the Kurds to power.
Sunday’s election was held several months early, in response to mass protests in 2019 that toppled a government and showed widespread anger against political leaders whom many Iraqis said have enriched themselves at the expense of the country.
DW News
Germany's election-winning Social Democratic Party (SPD) kicked off a second round of "in-depth exploratory coalition talks" with the third-place Greens and fourth-place Free Democratic Party (FDP) in Berlin Monday morning.
The three parties previously met last Thursday and have scheduled 10 hours of negotiations for Monday. Moreover, four more hours of talks have been scheduled for Tuesday morning, before SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz departs for a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington DC.
More talks between the leaders of the so-called "traffic light" coalition parties — a reference to their party colors — are set to take place on Friday after Scholz returns to Berlin from the US. No statements on the state of the talks are expected on Monday, with all parties underscoring the need for discretion.
Party representatives say they hope to present initial results toward the end of the week. Thus far, none of the negotiators have given details as to the state of talks, only that there are differences of opinion in a number of areas, the two most fundamental being finance and the environment.
DW News
"The father took me to his tent and closed it," said the victim.
"He kissed me on the lips, with his tongue. It was disgusting. He caressed me. I was petrified," the victim continued. "He taught me words I didn't know — like masturbation and fellatio. I thought I need to respect him, he's a priest. Plus, my parents really appreciate him."
This was just one experience of many shared in a recent report that revealed the scale of abuse within the French Catholic Church.
At least 216,000 children were abused by Catholic clerics in France since the 1950s, according to the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE).
The panel's report is damning — but its 45 suggestions could help prevent and deal with sexual abuse in the future.
The document has around 2,500 pages — 200 of which are dedicated to witness accounts, who are quoted anonymously, detailing the sexual abuse. The accounts read like a succession of nightmares.
NPR
The 125th Boston Marathon was two-and-a-half years in the making. Its champions, however, needed just over two hours to cross the finish line.
Kenyan runners Benson Kipruto and Diana Chemtai Kipyogei won the men's and women's fields, respectively. Kipruto clocked in at 2:09:51 and Kipyogei at 2:24:45, clinching the eighth Kenyan sweep since 2000.
Two Swiss athletes won the men and women's wheelchair division. Marcel Hug won his fifth event — after taking a wrong turn and missing his personal best by seconds — at 1:18:11. Manuela Schar sustained an early lead to finish at 1:35:21 and claim victory for a third time.
NPR
This story is part of the Mountain West News Bureau’s “After The Sun Goes Down” series. Listen to the full series at KUNC.org.
The hike from the abandoned Central Pacific train tunnels to the petroglyphs overlooking Donner Lake in northeast California is relatively short. But it’s hot, and the trail is steep, so the going is slow for the roughly two dozen kids from the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California.
This is the group’s annual summer trip to swim in the lake, and the tribe’s Culture and Language Resources Director Herman Fillmore wants the kids to get something more out of it. Fillmore asks a nearby chaperone if they remember the Washoe name for the place.
“Dosh Da Ow,” the chaperone replies, “... stuck in between lakes.”
Fillmore turns to children and asks if they can repeat it. “Dosh Da Ow,” the kids say.
NPR
A program focused on bridging the gap between Indigenous knowledge and Western science is entering its second year at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
It’s called Tamamta, a Yup’ik and Sugpiaq word that means “all of us” or “we”, and it’s part of UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
Fisheries professor Courtney Carothers is the faculty member in charge. She says the nine Indigenous graduate students starting their fellowships this year are from all over Alaska, but they’re united by a common goal.
NPR
Three U.S.-based economists will share this year's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their innovative work with "natural experiments" – events or policy changes in real life that allow researchers to analyze their impact on society.
David Card of the University of California at Berkeley will receive half the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.1 million, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday. Joshua Angrist of the Masschusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens of Stanford University will share the other half.
BBC
Thailand plans to end Covid quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated travellers from at least 10 low-risk nations from 1 November, officials say.
PM Prayuth Chan-ocha admitted that "this decision comes with some risk" - but it is seen as a key step to revive the country's collapsed tourism sector.
The 10 nations seen as low risk include China, Germany, the UK and the US.
Mr Prayuth said Thailand would also allow entertainment venues to reopen on 1 December and permit alcohol sales.
He added that the authorities were planning to open Thailand for more countries on that date.
Mr Prayuth's comments came in a televised address on Monday.
Referring to visitors from 10 low-risk nations, he stressed that "when they arrive, they should present a [negative] Covid test... and test once again upon arrival".
If the second test is also negative, any visitor from those countries "can travel freely like Thais", the prime minister said.