General

People who have had COVID-19 more than once are two or three times more likely to have a range of serious health problems than those who have only had it once, the first major study on the subject said Thursday. Multiple infections have surged as the pandemic rumbles on and the virus mutates into new strains, but the long-term health effects of reinfection have not been clear. The U.S. researchers said their new study published in the Nature Medicine journal was the first to look at how reinfection increases the risk of health problems from acute cases as well as

Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday. The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic. Zuckerberg said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic lockdowns ended. “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Wednesday announced the creation of a carbon offset plan meant to help developing countries speed their transition away from fossil fuels. Kerry launched the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) with the intention of funding renewable energy projects and accelerating clean energy transitions in developing countries. The United States will develop the program with the Bezos Earth Fund and Rockefeller Foundation, with input from the public and private sectors which would operate through 2030 and possibly be extended to 2035. Kerry said Chile and Nigeria were among the developing countries to have shown early interest in

NASA again rescheduled its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Nicole churned toward the east coast of Florida, officials said. A launch attempt, which had been scheduled for November 14, will now take place on November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the U.S. space agency, said on Twitter. It is the third delay of the highly anticipated launch in as many months. “Our people are the most important aspect of our mission,” wrote Free, who is NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development. “Adjusting our target launch date for #Artemis I prioritizes employee

  Inflation and abortion topped the list of issues motivating U.S. voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections, followed by crime, immigration and gun policy, an exit poll conducted by Edison Research showed. Turnout for the midterms, which will determine control of Congress and a number of state governorships, was about evenly divided between men and women, according to the poll. The following is a summary of some of the survey’s latest findings: About 6 out of 10 voters said they were “dissatisfied or angry” about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, and about the same percentage said

Facebook parent company Meta is preparing to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to U.S. media reports. The layoffs, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are expected to affect thousands of employees and would be the company’s first job cuts of this scale in its 18-year history. The job cuts are expected to come as early as Wednesday. Meta has not commented on the news reports. The expected layoffs would follow a string of job cuts at technology companies in recent months, including Twitter, Microsoft, Lyft and Stripe. Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said in his company’s