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Turkey Earthquake Kills More Than 35,410, Making It The Deadliest In Modern History

Turkey

(CTN NEWS) – ANKARA – The earthquake that occurred last week in Turkey claimed the lives of more than 35,410 people, making it the deadliest tragedy to strike the nation since its founding 100 years ago, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement on Tuesday.

Many tens of thousands of survivors who were left homeless were still trying to meet basic requirements, like seeking shelter from the cold, even though the death toll is almost certainly increasing considerably.

The number of confirmed fatalities in Turkey exceeded that from the devastating earthquake in Erzincan, which claimed almost 33,000 lives in 1939.

According to Erdogan, the earthquake and its aftershocks on February 6 near Kahramanmaras resulted in 105,505 injuries.

The number of fatalities in neighboring Syria has increased to around 3,700, bringing the total in both nations to nearly 39,000.

People who lost their houses in the devastating earthquake lineup to receive aid supplies at a makeshift camp, in Iskenderun city, southern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

More than 13,000 people were still receiving medical care in hospitals, according to the Turkish president, who has referred to the earthquake as “the calamity of the century.”

Following a five-hour Cabinet meeting at the AFAD disaster agency’s headquarters, Erdogan said 47,000 structures, which contained 211,000 homes, had either been completely demolished or were in such horrible shape that they needed to be torn down.

Erdogan said of ongoing rescue efforts: “We will keep working until we get our last person out of the wrecked structures.”

Governments and aid organizations increased their efforts to send aid to Turkey’s and Syria’s ravaged regions.

The situation was particularly dire in Syria, where a 12-year civil conflict has complicated relief efforts and required days of bickering over how to even bring aid into the country, let alone distribute it. Some attendees claimed they received nothing.

A family mourns moments after a relative’s body was pulled out of a building destroyed during the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Meanwhile, families crowded into train compartments in Turkey.

To give “desperately needed, life-saving help for over 5 million Syrians” for three months, the UN launched a $397 million appeal on Tuesday.

It comes a day after the international organization announced an agreement with Damascus to transport U.N. aid through two additional border crossings from Turkey to rebel-held areas of northwest Syria, but the needs are still great.

In Jinderis, one of the worst-hit areas in northwest Syria, Ahmed Ismail Suleiman set up a makeshift shelter made of blankets outside his wrecked home.

18 people slept outside under the improvised tent because he was terrified to relocate his family back into a home that might not be structurally stable.

An excavator works among the debris of collapsed buildings during the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

He added that “we sit here but cannot sleep lying down. We are awaiting a suitable tent.”

As nighttime temperatures drop to approximately minus 4 degrees Celsius, locals have so far been able to assemble about 2,500 tents, according to Mahmoud Haffar, head of the town council, but 1,500 households are still without shelter (26 degrees Fahrenheit).

The issue of when assistance will arrive is still brought up, according to Haffar.

One woman claimed that while tents were in low supply, donated bread and water were abundant in the community.

Only those squeezing into shelters appeared to be receiving supplies, according to Raeefa Breemo, in government-held Latakia to the southwest.

“To survive, we must eat and drink. Everything has stopped—our lives, our employment, everything, added Breemo.

People who lost their houses in the devastating earthquake sit outside their tent at a makeshift camp, in Iskenderun city, southern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Rescue teams, physicians, generators, and food have all offered their assistance, but the needs are still great after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake and strong aftershocks toppled or damaged tens of thousands of buildings, ruined highways, and temporarily shut down airports.

In addition to a sizable region in northwest Syria that is home to millions of people, the earthquake also hit ten provinces in Turkey that are home to almost 13.5 million people.

The health minister of Turkey stated samples from dozens of places in the water system revealed the water was unsafe to drink and that a large portion of the water infrastructure in the earthquake-affected area was not functioning.

Since last week, displaced families have sought sanctuary on train cars in the Turkish port city of Iskenderun.

On Tuesday, scores of people were still residing in the trains, even though many had recently gone for adjacent camps or other regions of Turkey.

According to Nida Karahan, age 50, “the wagons have become our home,” Anadolu Agency.

Dust covers a family photo album found among the debris of a building destroyed during the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023.(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Although the first Saudi relief plane carrying 35 tonnes of food touched down in Aleppo, which the Syrian government controls, transporting help to Idlib, controlled by the country’s rebels, has proven particularly challenging.

Before the agreement reached on Monday between the U.N. and President Bashar Assad’s administration of Syria, the international organization was only permitted to provide aid to the region through a single border crossing with Turkey or on government property.

The recently inaugurated crossings at Bab al-Salameh and Al Raée will be operational for three months. Russia reacted angrily when it was suggested that the crossings might be opened permanently.

According to its Foreign Ministry, the West was attempting to send aid “exclusively” to regions that were not under the control of the Syrian government.

Even though the first U.N. relief convoy with 11 trucks entered northwest Syria through Bab al-Salameh on Tuesday, major humanitarian organizations noted that logistical issues persist.

In this photo released by the official Syrian state news agency SANA, workers unload humanitarian aid sent from Saudi Arabia for Syria following a devastating earthquake, at the airport in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (SANA via AP)

Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, stated that the conversations are constantly going back and forth. “Each side must consent to receive convoys.”

As search teams uncover additional victims, the death toll in both countries is expected to grow, and the window for discovering survivors was dwindling.

Nevertheless, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency in Turkey, teacher Emine Akgul was rescued from an Antakya apartment block by a mining search and rescue team more than 200 hours after the earthquake struck.

Rescuers in the Adiyaman province located 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin, and before trying a risky extraction from a structure that was further collapsing as rescuers were working, doctors gave him an IV with fluids.

Turkish TV revealed that the man was taken away on a stretcher after receiving an oxygen mask and a neck brace from medical personnel.

Authorities in Turkey continued to target contractors allegedly connected to the fallen buildings, and many blamed the extensive destruction on poor construction.

Rescue workers pull out Muhammed Enes Yeninar from the debris of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (Ismail Coskun/IHA via AP)

Turkey has implemented building regulations adhering to earthquake engineering requirements, although experts claim these regulations are rarely observed.

Erdogan stated on Tuesday that the nation would begin constructing 30,000 homes in March.

To meet the housing demand throughout the seismic zone, he added, “our goal is to finish the construction of high quality and safe buildings in a year.”

190 families were sleeping on mats generally used for training on the floor of a basketball court at a temporary shelter in a sports facility in Afrin, in northwest Syria.

The families hung blankets from columns or sports bars to provide privacy.

Everyone has been ill for the past nine days, according to Sabah el Khodr and her two toddlers. The kids were dozing on the court’s floor while covered in blankets.

According to local officials, the shelter is only in place while new tents are set up.

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

Google

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

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.

google

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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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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

Supreme Court

(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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