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People Dropping Dead from Heat Wave in India’s 2 Most Populous States

Officials announced that at least 96 people died in two of India’s most populous states during the last few days, as the country grappled with a blistering heat wave. The deaths occurred in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and eastern Bihar, where authorities advised inhabitants over the age of 60 and those suffering from various illnesses to stay home during the day.

All 54 deaths in Uttar Pradesh were recorded in the Ballia area, around 300 kilometres (200 miles) southeast of Lucknow, the state capital. Authorities discovered that the majority of people who died were over 60 years old and had preexisting health issues that may have been aggravated by the extreme heat.

According to S. K. Yadav, a medical officer in Ballia, 300 patients have been hospitalised to the district hospital in the last three days for various ailments exacerbated by heat.

Due to the severity of the situation, authorities in Ballia cancelled leave applications and offered additional hospital beds in the emergency department to accommodate the surge of patients.

heat wave india

According to The Associated Press, the majority of the hospitalised patients are over the age of 60 and have symptoms such as high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, breathing difficulties, and cardiac problems.

R.S. Pathak, a Ballia resident who lost his father on Saturday, claimed he saw an increase in the number of patients at the hospital’s emergency ward while attending to his father.

“Nothing like this has ever happened in Ballia.” “I’ve never seen so many people die as a result of the heat,” he remarked. “People are afraid to go out. The highways and markets are mostly vacant.”

Ballia, like the rest of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh, is currently experiencing terrible heat.

On Sunday, the maximum temperature in the district was 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit), which was five degrees more than the average range. The relative humidity was recorded at 25%, amplifying the heat’s effect.

Temperatures in the state are currently above normal, according to Atul Kumar Singh, a scientist with the India Meteorological Department. He went on to say that “no relief is expected in the next 24 hours.”

According to the IMD, heat wave conditions in portions of Uttar Pradesh will linger until June 19.

Brijesh Pathak, the state’s health minister, stated that an investigation into the deaths of “so many people” in Ballia had begun.

heat wave india

The blazing heat has consumed most of eastern Bihar, resulting in 42 deaths in the last two days. 35 of the deaths occurred at two hospitals in Patna, the state capital, where over 200 people were being treated for diarrhoea and vomiting.

On Saturday, the maximum temperature in Patna was 44.7 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

In most of India, the primary summer months — April, May, and June — are generally the hottest, before monsoon rains bring lower temperatures.

However, temperatures have risen during the last decade. During heat waves, the country typically experiences significant water shortages, with tens of millions of its 1.4 billion people without access to running water.

According to a study conducted by World Weather Attribution, an academic organisation that investigates the causes of high heat, a scorching heat wave that hit portions of South Asia in April was rendered at least 30 times more likely by climate change.

In April, the heat killed 13 people during a government function in Mumbai, India’s financial centre, prompting several governments to cancel all schools for a week.

World Health Organization: How to stay cool during a heat wave, you should:

At night, relocate to the coolest room in the house. If you can’t keep your house cool, spend 2-3 hours a day in a cool area (such as an air-conditioned public facility). Avoid going outside in the middle of the day.

If possible, avoid strenuous physical activities. If you must engage in vigorous activity, do so during the coolest period of the day, which is usually between 4:00 and 7:00 a.m. Keep to the shade.

Never leave children or pets in parked cars.

During a heatwave, take chilly showers or baths to keep your body cool and moisturized. To stay cool, you can also use cold packs and wraps, towels, sponging, and foot baths. Wear light, loose-fitting natural-fiber clothing.

Wear a wide-brimmed hat or cap and sunglasses if you walk outside. To reduce heat accumulation, use light bed linen and sheets and no pillows. Drink frequently, but avoid alcohol, coffee, and sugar. Eat smaller meals more frequently. Protein-rich foods should be avoided.

During a heatwave, if you feel dizzy, weak, worried, or have strong thirst and headache, it is preferable to get to a cool spot as quickly as possible and test your body temperature. To rehydrate, drink some water or fruit juice.

If you have painful muscular spasms (especially in the legs, arms, or belly), rest immediately and swallow electrolyte-containing oral rehydration treatments. If heat cramps linger more than an hour, get medical attention. Consult your doctor if you experience unexpected symptoms or if they continue.

If you or someone you care for has heated, dry skin, delirium, convulsions, or is unconscious, call a doctor or an ambulance right away. While waiting for assistance, move the person to a cool location, place him or her in a horizontal position, elevate legs and hips, remove clothing, and begin external cooling, such as placing cold packs on the neck, axillae, and groyne, fanning continuously, and spraying the skin with water at 25-30 °C. Take your body temperature. Give no acetylsalicylic acid or paracetamol. Place a sleeping person on his or her side.

During a heatwave, try to keep your living area cool. Check the room temperature between 08:00 and 10:00, 13:00 and after 22:00 at night. Ideally, the room temperature should be kept below 32 degrees Celsius during the day and below 24 degrees Celsius at night. This is especially crucial for newborns and those over the age of 60, as well as those with chronic medical disorders.

Open all of your windows and shutters at night and early morning when the outside temperature is cooler. Close the windows and shutters (if accessible) during the day, especially those facing the sun. Turn off all artificial lighting and electrical appliances. On windows that get morning or afternoon sun, hang shades, draperies, awnings, or louvres. To chill the air in the room, hang wet towels. It is worth noting that the humidity of the air rises at the same time.

If your home has air conditioning, close the doors and windows to preserve electricity that is not needed to keep you comfortable, ensuring that power remains available and reducing the possibility of a community-wide outage. Electric fans may provide relief, but they may not prevent heat-related sickness when the temperature is above 35 °C. It is critical to stay hydrated.

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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.

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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.

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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