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15 People Dead After Firefighters Went to the Wrong Address

According to a fire official, a fire killed 15 people Thursday in a tiny garment factory in a Philippine residential area, where firefighters were delayed by going to the wrong address, flooding and traffic.

The majority of the victims looked to be industrial workers and carpenters who were sleeping in rooms when the fire broke out. The factory owner and his child were among the deceased, according to Bureau of Fire Protection Chief Superintendent Nahum Tarroza.

According to Tarroza, three persons survived with injuries after jumping from the second level of the two-story factory in panic. The three were sent to the hospital.

The firemen’ arrival was delayed by about 14 minutes because a monsoon-season downpour and wind produced flooding and traffic bottlenecks, and the firefighters were given the erroneous address, according to Tarroza.

Tarroza stated that he would launch an investigation on the firefighters’ tardy response.

The Pleasant View residential enclave in Tandang Sora village, Quezon City’s suburbs, was extinguished in two hours. Officials said an inquiry was underway to determine the reason and whether the factory owner violated any safety regulations.

According to village officials, the factory kept combustible materials and textile used in the production of apparel, as well as printed designs on shirts used for commercial advertising.

firefighters Philippines

Buildings and residential enclaves that do not meet safety requirements, as well as low enforcement of safety norms, have already resulted in fatal fires in the Philippines.

In 1996, a nightclub fire in Quezon City killed 162 people, the majority of them were students celebrating the end of the school year.

When the fire broke out, almost 400 people were crowded into the Ozone disco, but many were unable to leave since the emergency exit was covered by a new building next door.

The blaze, one of the world’s largest nightclub fires in recent decades, injured 93 people.

A nocturnal fire raced through a decrepit flat block primarily occupied by homeless people and squatters in Johannesburg early Thursday, killing at least 74 people, according to the Associated Press.

Witnesses reported that in the frenzied hurry to evacuate, several people threw babies out of third-story windows to those waiting below.

According to local and medical officials, at least 12 of those deceased were youngsters, with the youngest being a one-year-old. At a press conference, they stated that an undetermined number of individuals were still missing, and that many of the bodies retrieved had been charred beyond recognition.

More than 50 individuals were hurt, with six of them in critical condition at the hospital. Officials from the emergency services had already warned that the death toll may grow as they continued to explore the site more than 12 hours after the fire broke out about 1 a.m.

firefighters south africa

Dozens more victims were discovered on a side road outside the apartment complex, some in body bags, some wrapped in silver sheets or blankets after the body bags ran out. They were eventually removed from the scene in pathology department vehicles.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 20 years of service,” Johannesburg Emergency Services Management spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said.

Authorities had not determined the source of the fire, but Mgcini Tshwaku, a local government official, said preliminary evidence suggested it began with a candle. He claimed that residents relied on candles and fireplaces for light and warmth throughout the winter months.

Hours after the fire was put out, firefighters were still working their way through the shacks and other improvised constructions that littered the inside of the dilapidated five-story building in Johannesburg’s core business district.

Even though the fire was out, smoke poured out of the burned building, and twisted blankets and sheets hung like ropes from smashed windows, indicating how individuals had used them to escape the flames.

Some of the survivors recalled jumping out of windows after tossing their children to those below.

“Everything happened so fast, and I only had time to throw the baby out,” said Adam Taiwo, who managed to save himself and his 1-year-old son. “I also followed him after they caught him downstairs.” Taiwo stated that he had no idea where his wife, Joyce, was.

According to a witness who lives across the street, others were also throwing babies out of the blazing building, and at least one man died when he leapt from the third level and hit the concrete sidewalk ‘head first’.

Another witness, who did not provide his name, told the television news channel eNCA that he lived in the block next door and heard people yelling for help and saying, “We’re dying in here.”

firefighters south africa

According to local official Tshwaku, as the fire spread, several inhabitants became trapped behind locked gates at the exits, and there were no suitable fire escape routes.

“People couldn’t get out,” he said, adding that some of the victims may have died as a result of jumping from the building.

According to witnesses, more than 200 individuals were living in the structure, including in the basement, which was supposed to be utilised as a parking garage. Others predicted a bigger number of occupants.

Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda said 141 families had been touched by the tragedy, but he couldn’t determine how many people were in the building when the fire broke out.

He claimed that many of those inside were foreign immigrants. Other officials noted that this could make identifying victims and tracing the missing difficult because many were likely in South Africa illegally.

A woman who requested anonymity said she resided in the building and escaped with her grown son and a 2-year-old child. She stayed outside for hours with the youngster, saying she had no idea what had happened to her family’s other two children.

“I just saw smoke everywhere and ran out with this baby,” the mother explained. “I don’t have a place to live, and I’m at a loss for what to do.”

fire south africa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement that “this is a great tragedy felt by families whose loved ones perished in this awful manner, and our hearts go out to every person affected by this event.”

A Ramaphosa official said the president had offered the national disaster management agency’s assistance if needed, and the president later visited the area after cancelling a Thursday evening televised address on the BRICS economic meeting in Johannesburg last week.

The fire, according to Ramaphosa, was terrible and a “wake-up call” for South Africa’s economic powerhouse to address its inner-city housing crisis.

“We are not here to blame anyone,” Ramaphosa stated outside the burnt-out structure. “This is going to be a difficult lesson for all of us.”

Johannesburg is Africa’s richest city, yet its centre is run-down and sometimes neglected. People desperate for shelter exploit abandoned and broken-down buildings.

The structures are known as “hijacked buildings” by city officials, and they have been an issue for years, if not decades.

While local officials bore much of the guilt for the deaths, they admitted that it was frequently difficult to obtain courts to issue orders evicting the homeless from such structures.

The building in question is said to be owned by the city of Johannesburg and is a heritage site, although it is not administered by the city. According to a blue historical plaque hanging at the entrance, it was previously the location of South Africa’s notorious “pass” office, which regulated the movement of Black people under the discriminatory apartheid system.

“Denied a place in the city, many were ordered to leave Johannesburg,” according to the plaque.

Decades later, the fatal fire turned the structure into a modern symbol of Johannesburg’s marginalisation of impoverished people.

Lt. Gen. Elias Mawela, the police commissioner for Gauteng province, said at the scene that the police were aware of around 700 decrepit and abandoned structures in central Johannesburg. He encouraged local officials to act and to keep squatters out of the burned-down building in the future.

“Turn it off. That structure.” Mawela stated.

Meanwhile, Mulaudzi, the emergency services spokeswoman, stated that the fire took three hours to put out and that it took firemen a long time to work their way through all five stories.

He claimed there were “obstructions” everywhere that would have made it difficult for residents to flee the horrific blaze and hampered rescue services searching the area.

The chances of finding anyone else alive hours after the fire started were “very slim,” Mulaudzi said.

Firefighters in Northern Thailand Treed by Wild Elephants

Firefighters in Northern Thailand Treed by Wild Elephants

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP