عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Prince Harry, Matt Damon to Address this Year's Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
TT
TT

Prince Harry, Matt Damon to Address this Year's Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)

Prince Harry, actor Matt Damon, and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andrés are set to speak at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York on Sept. 23 and 24, the Clinton Foundation announced Thursday.

The theme of this year’s gathering of political, business and philanthropic leaders is “What’s Working” – an effort to shine a spotlight on potential solutions and effective aid in a tumultuous period marked by war, increased income inequality and food insecurity.

Former President Bill Clinton said this year’s Clinton Global Initiative would “double down” on the progress made on the climate crisis, global health, gun violence, and other important issues.

“We started CGI because we wanted to have a meeting where people didn’t just talk about big problems, but where we could roll up our sleeves and get something done,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “It’s more important than ever to be optimistic and realize we all have the ability to make a difference.”

Since returning in 2022 after a six-year hiatus, CGI has tried to maintain an optimistic tone, while also developing new ways to help, including the launch last year of The CGI Ukraine Action Network, a collaboration between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine.

“Bill, Chelsea, and I are so inspired by the undoubtable impact of the CGI community – 500 million people affected through programs, partnerships, and solutions that are addressing our climate crisis, economic disparities, equality for women and girls worldwide, and more,” Secretary Clinton said in a statement.

That impact helps CGI draw a wide range of leaders, including Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, The AP reported.

The Duke of Sussex plans to discuss the launch of The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network, an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. He also plans to address his nonprofit’s collaboration with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and his wife Meghan outlined on a recent trip to Colombia.

Water.org co-founder and Oscar winner Damon is expected to discuss the status of the $1 billion plan he announced in 2022 to give 100 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America lasting access to water and sanitation.

Business leaders scheduled for the conference, which runs at the same time as United Nations General Assembly week, include Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, Gap CEO Richard Dickson, IKEA CEO Jesper Brodin, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach, Moderna Chairman Noubar Afeyan, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Andrés is expected to discuss how he turned World Central Kitchen into one of the fastest growing humanitarian nonprofits with a focus on feeding people quickly in the aftermath of disasters or the outbreak of war. After seven World Central Kitchen workers were killed earlier this year by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, Andrés said, "Their examples should inspire us to do better, to be better.”

Other philanthropic leaders set to speak include Emerson Collective Founder Laurene Powell Jobs, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, Hispanic Federation CEO Frankie Miranda, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson, International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband, and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Sam Bencheghib, co-founder of the Indonesia-based Sungai Watch, plans to attend this year’s CGI seeking funding for his nonprofit which places barriers in rivers to prevent pollution from reaching the ocean and then removes the trash collected. At previous CGI meetings, he made contacts that resulted in Sungai Watch becoming one of The Elevate Prize Foundation’s 2024 winners.

Last year, Bencheghib attended CGI to make a commitment to expand Sungai Watch’s work to Jakarta and its rivers. His nonprofit will make good on that commitment later this year.

But Bencheghib said he is also proud to bring something tangible to this year’s CGI, especially considering the “What’s Working” theme. He will showcase furniture created out of the plastic bags pulled from the polluted rivers by his new social enterprise Sungai Design.

The company turns 500 plastic bags into a bench; 2,000 plastic bags become a lounge chair.

“Fighting plastic pollution definitely feels never-ending,” Bencheghib said. “Forty percent of the trash we collect are these plastic bags and they are not recyclable in this country ... We were looking for a way to turn plastic bags into something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing, something that is a great conversation starter, that raises awareness about what that plastic bag can become if you don’t throw it into the river and if the right setup is in place.”

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

What Is ALS, the Disease That Killed Actor Eric Dane?

US actor Eric Dane speaks about his ALS diagnosis during a news conference to discuss health insurance at the Department of Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2025. (AFP)
US actor Eric Dane speaks about his ALS diagnosis during a news conference to discuss health insurance at the Department of Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2025. (AFP)
TT
TT

What Is ALS, the Disease That Killed Actor Eric Dane?

US actor Eric Dane speaks about his ALS diagnosis during a news conference to discuss health insurance at the Department of Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2025. (AFP)
US actor Eric Dane speaks about his ALS diagnosis during a news conference to discuss health insurance at the Department of Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2025. (AFP)

Eric Dane, known for his roles on "Grey’s Anatomy" and "Euphoria," died this week from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at age 53.

The fatal nervous system disease, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, killed Dane less than a year after he announced his diagnosis.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ALS is rare. In 2022, there were nearly 33,000 estimated cases, say researchers, who project that cases will rise to more than 36,000 by 2030.

The disease is slightly more common in men than in women and tends to strike in midlife, between the ages of 40 and 60.

Here’s what to know.

What is ALS? It affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control and getting worse over time.

ALS causes nerve cells in the upper and lower parts of the body to stop working and die. Nerves no longer trigger specific muscles, eventually leading to paralysis. People with ALS may develop problems with mobility, speaking, swallowing and breathing.

The exact cause of the disease is unknown, and Mayo Clinic experts said a small number of cases are inherited.

It’s called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the Hall of Fame New York Yankees player. Gehrig was diagnosed with ALS in 1939 on his 36th birthday, died in 1941 and was the face of ALS for decades.

What are some signs of ALS? Experts say the first symptoms are often subtle. The disease may begin with muscle twitching and weakness in an arm or leg.

Over time, muscles stop acting and reacting correctly, said experts at University of California San Francisco Health. People may lose strength and coordination in their arms and legs; feet and ankles may become weak; and muscles in the arms, shoulders and tongue may cramp or twitch. Swallowing and speaking may become difficult and fatigue may set in.

The ability to think, see, hear, smell, taste and touch are usually not affected, UCSF experts said.

Eventually, muscles used for breathing may become paralyzed. Patients may be unable to swallow and inhale food or saliva. Most people with ALS die of respiratory failure.

How is ALS diagnosed and treated? The disease is difficult to diagnose because there’s no test or procedure to confirm it. Generally, doctors will perform a physical exam, lab tests and imaging of the brain and spinal cord.

A doctor may interpret certain things as signs of ALS, including an unusual flexing of the toes, diminished fine motor coordination, painful muscle cramps, twitching and spasticity, a type of stiffness causing jerky movements.

There’s no known cure for ALS, but the drug riluzole has been approved for treatment. According to the Mayo Clinic, it may extend survival in the early stages of the disease or extend the time until a breathing tube is needed.

Another much-debated drug, Relyvrio, was pulled from the US market by Amylyx Pharmaceuticals in 2024. Its development had been financed, in part, by the ALS Association, the major beneficiary of the 2014 " ice bucket challenge " viral phenomenon.

Other medications are sometimes prescribed to help control symptoms.

Choking is common as ALS progresses, so patients may need feeding tubes. People may also use braces, wheelchairs, speech synthesizers or computer-based communication systems.

After the onset of the disease, experts say patients may survive from two years to a decade. Most people live from two to five years after symptoms develop, and about a fifth live more than five years after they are diagnosed.

Varieties

Snowstorm Paralyzes Vienna Airport

People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
TT
TT

Snowstorm Paralyzes Vienna Airport

People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl

Massive snowstorms caused power outages and transport chaos in Austria on Friday, forcing the Vienna airport to temporarily halt all flights.

Flights departing from the capital, a major European hub, were cancelled or delayed, and more than 230 arrivals were similarly disrupted or rerouted.

"Passengers whose flights have been delayed are asked not to come to the airport," the facility said in a statement.

The area received 20 centimeters (nearly eight inches) of snow, national news agency APA reported.

The main highway south of Vienna was closed for several hours, and other sections of highway were temporarily inaccessible because of snowdrift, stranded lorries or poor visibility, said the national automobile association, OAMTC.

According to AFP, electric companies reported power outages in several regions in the south and east, including Styria, where 30,000 homes lost electricity.

The weather was forecast to improve from around midday, but the risk of avalanches remained high.

Varieties

NASA Delivers Harsh Assessment of Botched Boeing Starliner Test Flight

NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
TT
TT

NASA Delivers Harsh Assessment of Botched Boeing Starliner Test Flight

NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File

NASA on Thursday blamed what it called engineering vulnerabilities in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft along with internal agency mistakes in a sharply critical report assessing a botched mission that left two astronauts stranded in space.

The US space agency labeled the 2024 test flight of the Starliner capsule a "Type A" mishap -- the same classification as the deadly Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters -- a category that reflects the "potential for a significant mishap," it said.

The failures left a pair of NASA astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station for nine months in a mission that captured global attention and became a political flashpoint.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision-making and leadership," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a briefing.

"If left unchecked," he said, this mismanagement "could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."

The top space official said the investigation found that a concern for the reputation of Boeing's Starliner clouded an earlier internal probe into the incident.

"Programmatic advocacy exceeded reasonable bounds and place the mission, the crew and America's space program at risk in ways that were not fully understood at the time," Isaacman said.

He said Starliner currently "is less reliable for crew survival than other crewed vehicles" and that "NASA will not fly another crew on Starliner until technical causes are understood and corrected" and a problematic propulsion system is fixed.

But the administrator insisted that "NASA will continue to work with Boeing, as we do all of our partners that are undertaking test flights."

In a statement, Boeing said it has "made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team that directly align with the findings in the report."

- 'We failed them' -

Isaacman also had harsh words for internal conduct at NASA.

"We managed the contract. We accepted the vehicle, we launched the crew to space. We made decisions from docking through post-mission actions," he told journalists.

"A considerable portion of the responsibility and accountability rests here."

In June 2024 Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams embarked on what was meant to be an eight-to-14-day mission. But this turned into nine months after propulsion problems emerged in orbit and the Starliner spacecraft was deemed unfit to fly them back.

The ex-Navy pilots were reassigned to the NASA-SpaceX Crew-9 mission. A Dragon spacecraft flew to the ISS that September with a team of two, rather than the usual four, to make room for the stranded pair.

The duo, both now retired, were finally able to arrive home safely in March 2025.

"They have so much grace, and they're so competent, the two of them, and we failed them," NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya told Thursday's briefing.

"The agency failed them."

Kshatriya said the details of the report were "hard to hear" but that "transparency" was the only path forward.

"This is not about pointing fingers," he said. "It's about making sure that we are holding each other accountable."

Both Boeing and SpaceX were commissioned to handle missions to the ISS more than a decade ago.