!nooticers 6 million

GENEVA, Feb 7 (Reuters) - More than six million people could die from HIV and AIDS in the next four years if U.S. President Donald Trump's administration pulls its global funding for programmes, the United Nations AIDS agency said on Friday.

Although a waiver was placed on HIV/AIDS programmes in last month's U.S. foreign aid funding freeze, many concerns remained about the future of treatment programmes, the deputy executive director of UNAIDS told reporters in Geneva.

"There is a lot of confusion especially on the community level, how the waiver will be implemented. We're seeing a lot of disruption of delivery of treatment services", Christine Stegling said.

Trump put hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of foreign aid donations on hold for 90 days upon taking office on January 20. In the following days, the U.S. State Department issued a waiver on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) - the world's leading HIV initiative - for life-saving humanitarian assistance.

While welcoming the waiver, Stegling stressed the situation remains chaotic.

Amid a broader decline of funding, Stegling warned there would be a 400% increase in AIDS deaths if PEPFAR financial support is not re-authorized between 2025 and 2029.

"That's 6.3 million people, 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths that will occur in future...Any penny, any cut, any pause, will matter for all of us" she said, urging U.N. member states to step in.

"In Ethiopia, we have 5,000 public health worker contracts that are funded by U.S. assistance. And all of these have been terminated," Stegling said.

She highlighted that community clinics were facing the biggest interruption as they are "entirely dependent" on U.S. government funding.

She expressed concern that some people may not come forward for treatment, which could in turn increase new HIV infections.

U.S. donations account for the majority of global funding for the U.N. programme that operates in 70 countries, leading global efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Trump's administration says it is reviewing all foreign-aid programmes to see if they align with his "America First" policy.

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/commonwealth-of-virginia-v-austin-curtis-peterson.200730/post-20494966

https://www.twitch.tv/thebossmanjack

Wall was patched

SO EVERY TIME THE FAKECELS OF !INCELS REJECT MY APPLICATION I CAN INVITE THEM TO !FAKELARPERCUTE TWINKCELS

!schizos !bald

Happy Lunar New Year to the dramanauts who celebrate it. 2025 is the Year of the Snake.

I made this for @NotX (definitely not @X, formerly chiobu) even though he never actually asked for it.

The following have sparks. Which one do you like best?

Update: Slightly more than a day later, 1 has 36 votes, 2 has 15 votes, and 3 has 21 votes. I will submit 1.

Yes, I realize that you wouldn't actually hold firecrackers like that. I copied the design from something on Google because I waited too long to start drawing this and couldn't come up with a better design that wasn't too similar to the previous ones. I started it around January 24.

^{The tiger is by @Dramarama. The others are by me.}

Without Firecrackers

The title is a reference to @TwoLargeSnakesMating, former rDrama codecel who left rDrama in early 2023

(Drawn with Inkscape, referenced )

(CNN) —  When a series of lightning strikes took down power across New York City on the night of July 13, 1977, streetlights, neon signs, and the bright lights of houses and skyscrapers went dark.

And just like that, for the first time in decades, the Milky Way could be seen streaked across the black sky, speckled by thousands of shimmering stars.

"I saw a (starry) sky from my location in the Bronx," said Joe Rao, a meteorologist and amateur astronomer who was living in New York City on the night of the blackout, "which I had never seen before and have never seen again."

Barring a freak power outage, the light emanating from towns and cities due to unnatural light sources is so bright that it washes out the stars. Today one-third of all humans, including 80% of North Americans, cannot see the Milky Way.

For a growing number of people, natural darkness has been lost. When the lights went out in 1977, New Yorkers could see how much they were missing.

Light pollution, the term for the brightening of the night sky by unnatural lights, is increasing worldwide. On average, skies are getting 10% brighter each year globally, with the fastest rate of change in North America.

Many species are suffering the consequences. Every year, up to one billion birds in the US are killed by colliding with buildings, a global crisis exacerbated by bright lights drawing them off their migratory paths at night. Unnatural lighting can disorient insects, and affect the leaf development of trees. A 2017 study found that light pollution poses a threat to 30% of vertebrates and more than 60% of invertebrates that are nocturnal.

Nesting sea turtles, which rely on the reflection of light on the water from celestial bodies to guide them to the ocean, can be disoriented by unnatural lights around beaches, resulting in fatal dehydration or predation.

"We've found sea turtles in elevator shafts," said Rachel Tighe, lighting project manager at Sea Turtle Conservancy, a Florida-based nonprofit funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. For the animals, she added, "it's confusion and chaos."

And humans are affected, too. While the health implications of unnatural light are still being investigated, research has linked light pollution to obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, and cancer.

"We know that if you start to shift temperatures you have really profound impacts on organisms across ecosystems, so you would imagine that if we start to mess with light cycles, we might have similarly profound impacts," said Professor Kevin Gaston, a light pollution expert at the University of Exeter, in the UK. "We're all ultimately dependent on this stuff for our very existence."

Unlike other environmental issues like climate change and deforestation, the problem of light pollution could be curbed overnight — by turning off the lights.

In 2020, the small town of Crestone, Colorado, switched off its streetlights when it ran out of money to pay the electricity bill. At night, the streets were dark, but the sky above was bright with stars.

"At the next meeting (of the Board of Trustees), someone said, 'You know, we kind of like it dark,'" recalled Kairina Danforth, mayor of Crestone at the time. Inspired to preserve natural darkness, the town decided to leave the streetlights off.

Soon, Crestone became one of a growing number of towns around the world officially recognized as a Dark Sky community by DarkSky International, an organization that promotes the battle against light pollution.

"We are probably the only Dark Sky community in the world that has no residential lights because they couldn't afford to pay the bill," said Danforth. "Now there's a strong communal support for our dark sky."

As Crestone, and the residents of New York City in 1977, can attest, a total blackout will bring back the stars instantaneously. But efforts to tackle light pollution need not be so extreme to make a big difference, said Ruskin Hartley, CEO of DarkSky International.

"The solutions are simple," he said, "and they don't involve giving up anything apart from bad quality lighting."

Light pollution experts abide by the mantra: "keep it low, keep it shielded, keep it long." In other words, ensure that lighting is low to the ground, that it is targeted to avoid light leaking in all directions, and, if possible, that it has a long wavelength, typically observed as amber colored. Finally, turn lights off when they're not needed.

Some communities are following DarkSky's recommendations by retrofitting their lighting fixtures to reduce light pollution, or simply turning off more lights. DarkSky International has worked with communities and nature reserves in 22 countries to provide support and give official accreditation to areas that have made positive changes. Nearly 300 areas are now accredited.

In 2022, DarkSky, in collaboration with the Czech Republic, developed a European policy brief on reducing light pollution, recommending that "all light should have a clear purpose," that it "should be directed only to where needed," and that it "should be no brighter than necessary." The brief suggests using current EU legislative frameworks — on biodiversity, climate change, and energy efficiency — to push for light pollution mitigation measures.

As of October 2022, 20 pieces of nationwide legislation that concern the mitigation of light pollution had been introduced in nine member states of the European Union since 2000, according to the Czech Republic's Ministry of the Environment.

Countries are further incentivized by potential economic advantages. Electric-powered indoor and outdoor lights consume 17% to 20% of global electricity production, according to the European policy brief, and cutting usage means cutting costs. Areas with dark skies are also benefitting from astrotourism, a growing trend in which tourists travel to stargaze in locations with lower levels of light pollution.

"(Under) the stars are the places we told our first stories," said Hartley. "For many communities, these have been erased and lost because of the scourge of light pollution. But more and more are starting to recover and rediscover this."

Wildlife is benefitting, too. The Sea Turtle Conservancy has changed over 30,000 lights and estimates it has darkened over 45 miles of nesting beach in Florida since 2010, possibly saving as many as tens of thousands of hatchlings. "It's really cool to be able to see such a change so quickly," Tighe said.

Despite positive changes, stemming light pollution is an uphill battle.

Even in some parts of Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the darkest places on Earth, you can now see a distant glow emanating from nearby La Serena, one of the country's fastest-growing cities, said Hartley.

"You can't escape it anymore, and it is just a product of waste and ignorance," he added. "How can we get more people to care about this?"

For Rao, who was 21 on the night that the Milky Way appeared above his house in the Bronx, and is now 68, optimism for the fate of our skies is at an all-time low. "I'm beginning to wonder whether anybody is going to be able to see a good dark sky anymore, 30, 40 years from now," he said. "It's very, very sad."

But as the movement to save the dark grows, there is still a faint hope that a star-studded future is possible.

Literally crying.

!animalposters !cats

The instability, the trumpflation - really not good for folks that enjoy the market.

So I make breastmilk and memorial jewelry and there's a big company in China that manufactures the jewelry. There's actually even a really big well known brand that's I've seen that uses their jewelry and lots of smaller businesses do too. I've looked and looked and LOOKED to find something else but there's nothing like them.

My husband is a Trump guy even though he says he doesn't like him. We've had discussions about the tariffs and he's saying that it's corrective to bring jobs back to the US.

Well I was just talking to the owner that manufactures the jewelry and he told me that they might have to shut down because they basically sell at wholesale and barely make a profit and DHL and UPS are charging more for the headache of the tariffs. He's not sure if they will have to pay or the buyers will have to. I'm hoping a praying that it's us as the buyer.

So I told my husband this and he was like, "well, it's just the market correcting itself." I was like, "you're not even a little mad that my business might be affected?!" Idk what he said but he was laughing and I blew up in his face.

I told him that he doesn't care enough about anyone but himself. He doesn't care about women's rights, lgbtq+ rights, immigrants, not my business, nothing.

Now I locked myself in my bathroom and I'm crying. He keeps trying to talk to me but I won't talk to him. Talk me down man.

I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach the $4B/day FY2026 reduction this weekend https://t.co/XQBK3rqkwo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025

Reducing the federal deficit from $2T to $1T in FY2026 requires cutting an average of $4B/day in projected 2026 spending from now to Sept 30.

That would still result in a $1T deficit, but economic growth should be able to match that number, which would mean no inflation in 2026.

Super big deal.

I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach the $4B/day FY2026 reduction this weekend https://t.co/XQBK3rqkwo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025

I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach the $4B/day FY2026 reduction this weekend

I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach the $4B/day FY2026 reduction this weekend https://t.co/XQBK3rqkwo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025

Elon Musk's DOGE commission gains access to sensitive Treasury payment systems

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Government Efficiency, run by President Donald Trump's billionaire adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has gained access to sensitive Treasury data including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems, according to two people familiar with the situation.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-treasury-5e26cc80fcb766981cea56afd57ae759

"They seem to want Treasury to be the chokepoint on payments, and that's unprecedented," the person added, emphasizing that it is not the bureau's role to decide which payments to make — it is "just to make the f-ing payments."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/politics/doge-treasury-department-federal-spending/index.html

Federal Outlays Breakdown, these are what the treasury actually pays out

Throughout this page, we use outlays to represent spending. This is money that has actually been paid out and not just promised to be paid. When issuing a contract or grant, the U.S. government enters a binding agreement called an obligation. This means the government promises to spend the money, either immediately or in the future. As an example, an obligation occurs when a federal agency signs a contract, awards a grant, purchases a service, or takes other actions that require it to make a payment. Obligations do not always result in payments being made, which is why we show actual outlays that reflect actual spending occurring.

Napkin math with last years numbers:

• Social Security: $374 B (19.7%)

• National Defense: $262 B (13.8%)

• Health: $246 B (13.0%)

• Net Interest: $242 B (12.8%)

• Medicare: $233 B (12.3%)

• Income Security: $162 B (8.5%)

• Veterans Benefits and Services: $105 B (5.5%)

• Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services: $52 B (2.7%)

• Natural Resources and Environment: $39 B (2.1%)

• Transportation: $36 B (1.9%)

• Other: $43 B (2.3%)

Total Outlays Spending: $1.9 trillion

Assuming boomers and the defense companies are untouchable and muskrat isn't r-slurred enough to default on interest payments overnight this can be met by immediately halting payments for:

• Income security(162b) + Vets services(105b) + Education(52b) + Environment (39b) + transportation (36b) + Other(43b) = (.162+.105+.052+.039+0.036+.043) trillion = 0.437 Trillion dollars

Lets slap on a halt for all healthcare outlays including medicaid for 246b to get 0.683 Trillion dollars . Nowhere near enough dollarydoos to meet the target.

Lets make some harder sacrifices. All outlays to the penta-GONE (262b) for 0.945 Trillion. Now the target can easily be solved by reducing SS payments by 14% .

Bigger picture 1 trillion dollars is 3.65% of nominal GDP and 1 trillion dollars worth of outlays being halted for a year from this scheme fires a solid chunk of 2 million soldiers, 2 million federal employees, every contractor so something like ~5-7 million people? Pulling some galaxy brained napkin math out my butt thats 1/16th the total workforce for an additional 6% unemployment not including private sector income loss by sept 30.

UPDATE: FAKE NEWS

MULTIPLE ABOVE SPENDING BUDGET BY 3

Will this go through ?

Who knows ? Its literally the most illegally r-slurred way of cutting the deficit imaginable .

But muskrat says its the plan and this is what the payments system controls

!neolibs

!meowr

they been good boize this year, they deserve it come on!

Superbowl Ad pic.twitter.com/3937hP1iiV

— GoodAssSub (@GoodAssSub) February 10, 2025

Please thank @Kongvann for this or else

Also there's a new furry award in the shop, as you can see here on this post not limited to just the house! Now everyone can dabble in yiffing OwO

For context, if you use the progressive stack award, your posts are (temporarily) treated as if they have 2x their actual upmarseys. This was thought of as so powerful by the jannies that it costs 1500 coins for just 6 hours. Now, if you make a post that gets 140 upmarseys, and at the same time someone makes an effortpost that gets 30 upmarseys, or chud ragebait that gets 50 upmarseys, your post will actually be below them on the front page. In fact, since upmarseys are basically normally distributed (getting 30 upmarseys is pretty average, getting 90 makes yours one of the top posts of the day, getting 150 would make it the top post of the day), any sort of multiplier would change the content of the front page immensely, let alone a multiplier so large it treats mediocre effortposts and slightly above average chud ragebait as superior to the actual top post as chosen by users.

The fact that /h/chudrama is blocked by default is irrelevant, because most active users have it unblocked, so even if you block /h/chudrama every post you make is still effectively being deranked. And besides, there are plenty of people who want to read /h/chudrama and not have it be literally the only thing they see on the front page

!nonchuds

Enter BetNone. The cuck chair isn't real. - 11 bets

Enter BetJust one, but it'll be a doozy. - 8 bets

Enter Bet2-9 - 7 bets

Enter BetTen or more! He's going to completely restructure the government on day ONE - 49 bets - WINNER!

!BETS

!goomble !goomblers !goombling !project2025

Closed. He's starting to list them.

RESULTS

He's way past ten at this point, just crankin' 'em out like crazy. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/

Should have made the bet "how many EOs will he sign in the cuck chair?" (It was four.) instead of "how many will he sign today". Would have made the bet more interesting.

Ah well, c'est la vie

Your turn

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1igqnoh/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_anime_other_piracy/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1igqo6h/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_anime_other_piracy/

https://old.reddit.com/r/animenews/comments/1igd8x6/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_piracy_in_the_us/

https://old.reddit.com/r/animepiracy/comments/1ignpv7/anime_other_piracy_in_the_us_gets_backing_by/

New Bill to Effectively Kill Anime & Other Piracy in the U.S. Gets Backing by Netflix, Disney & Sonyhttps://t.co/DPQvaZTyt3

— Pirat_Nation 🔴 (@Pirat_Nation) February 3, 2025