Month: November 2021

Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of social media platform Twitter, said on Monday that he is stepping down as CEO. The 45-year-old Dorsey will remain on Twitter’s board of directors until next May, according to an email to staff that Dorsey tweeted. Twitter’s chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, will replace Dorsey as CEO effective immediately, the company said. Agrawal began his Twitter career as an engineer, then worked his way to the C-suite, becoming CTO in 2017. As the technology chief, Agrawal has played a role in “every critical decision that helped turn this company around,” Dorsey said. Bret Taylor, a member of Twitter’s board since 2016, was also named chairman.

Dorsey said the decision to step down “was my decision and I own it,” adding in the staff email, “I decided it’s finally time for me to leave. I’m really sad…yet really happy.” Dorsey added in a press release: “I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational.”

Dorsey’s departure ends his second tenure as CEO at Twitter. He served as chief executive between 2006 and 2008, and began his second stint leading the company in 2015. Twitter, co-founded in 2006 by Dorsey, Evan Williams and Christopher “Biz” Stone, was initially a way for people to send updates to a small group using text messages. The first tweet sent by Dorsey on March 21, 2006, read “just setting up my twttr.”

Twitter has more than 5,500 employees and a market cap of about $39 billion. In the past decade, Twitter has been one of the top used social media platforms around the world, behind Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Shares of Twitter surged Monday after Dorsey’s departure was announced. Twitter’s stock jumped more than 10% in early trading, but reversed itself by midday.

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President Joe Biden said on Monday the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 is a “cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”  While health experts work to learn more about the quickly spreading strain, Biden said researchers believe that current vaccines should be adequate against the variant.

Biden also continued to advocate COVID-19 vaccinations, saying in his address: “We have the best vaccine in the world, the best medicines, best scientists, and we’re learning more every single day, and we’ll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and confusion.”   He added that the variant’s arrival confirms the importance to getting the vaccine and booster shots, saying: “I know you’re tired of hearing me say this. The best protection against this new variant or any of the variants out there, the ones we’ve been dealing with already, is getting fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot. [The vaccine is] free and they are available at 80,000 locations coast to coast. Do not wait. Go get your booster if it’s time for you to do so.”

Biden noted that if medical experts and researchers discover that a new booster is needed against the Omicron variant, the United States will be the first to act. The President said: “In the event, hopefully unlikely, that updated vaccinations or boosters are needed to respond to this new variant, we will accelerate their development and deployment with every available tool. We do not yet believe that additional measures will be needed.”

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Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the newly discovered ‘Omicron’ variant of Covid-19 may evade various forms of immune protection. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it was “troublesome” that Omicron features about 32 or more variants in the virus’ spike protein, adding that other mutations could allow it to be more transmissible.  Said Fauci: “The profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it’s going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from a monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies.”  Fauci added that it may take two more weeks to have more “definitive information” about the transmissibility, severity and other characteristics of the variant, according to a readout of the conversation.

Fauci, along with Dr. Francis Collins, National Institutes of Health Director, agreed it was likely the variant – which was first identified by scientists in South Africa and has since been identified in Europe and Asia – would be detected in the United States.  Collins told CNN’s State of the Union: “We will find out because (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking at tens of thousands of viral isolates every week.”  Collins added that the presence of the Omicron variant should encourage more Americans to get vaccinated or receive a booster dose:  “It’s certainly not good news. We don’t know yet how much of an impact this will have. It ought to redouble our efforts to use the tools that we have, which are vaccinations and boosters, and to be sure we’re getting those to the rest of the world too, which the U.S. is doing more than any other country.” 

On Thursday, Chicago police confirmed they were investigating the shooting death of a 31-year-old woman who was slain at the same spot as her 14-year-old son was murdered just days earlier.

The mother, Delisa Tucker, was shot in the chest Wednesday morning near Chicago’s Wentworth Avenue while visiting the location where her 14-year-old son, Kevin Tinker Jr., was slain. Tucker leaves behind five children between the ages of four and 15. Tucker intended to light a candle at the site of her son’s slaying in the early morning hours before being struck by gunfire herself, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan wouldn’t say if they believe the shootings are connected, and indicated no one has been taken into custody as of press time. The 14-year-old victim’s father, Kevin Tinker Sr., described his son as a “good kid” who played basketball and stayed home most of the time with his younger brothers and sisters. But he said that “some violence found him” when he was walking home from a friend’s house.

Police said no witnesses to Delisa Tucker’s slaying had yet been found. Both shootings occurred in the Roseland area of Chicago where police say murders have increased by 48% from last year and 94% from 2019. The area has seen 26 shooting deaths so far in 2021.

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President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden sent appreciation to service members who lost their lives during the pandemic in a Thanksgiving video message posted on Twitter.  Biden said: “As we give thanks for what we have, we also keep in our hearts those who we lost, and those who have lost so much. And those who have an empty seat at their kitchen table or their dining room table this year because of this virus or another cruel twist of fate or accident. We pray for them.”

First Lady Jill Biden added: “After being apart last year, we have a new appreciation for those little moments we can’t plan or replicate. The music of laughter in a warm, full kitchen, the thump of small feet making big sounds, the circle of faces crowded around our dining room table, glowing in the candlelight.”

The Bidens spent Thanksgiving in Nantucket. After the video was released, the president called into NBC’s broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and gave a message to Americans. Said Biden: “My message is after two years, we’re back, America’s back.” 

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