In the US, airline-canceled or "significantly delayed" flights (as opposed to passenger-canceled) are entitled to a full refund. The airline will not tend to tell you this, and they'll resist quite a bit, but you're legally entitled to one, even on a non-refundable ticket.
Under EU law (this was before Brexit) you are entitled to a full refund if the flight is cancelled by the airline. If the flight is cancelled less than two weeks before departure you are also entitled to compensation of a few hundred Euro.
I actually got a cash refund from Ryanair, although it took a long time and at every stage they recommended I take vouchers that would have expired after 12 months instead.
It's still British law for now. I've not heard that it's planned to be cut in the mass-cut of EU laws, but given that it's pro-consumer it may well be.
Keep in mind UK law. The airline cancelled so the customer can insist on cash refund.
I spent a week or two messaging with BA via Twitter DMs to ensure I got a cash refund, rather than dealing with their website which was steering everyone to vouchers.
At least Air Canada was forced by the Canadian government to pay back vouchers to people who asked for them, as part of a deal for financing.
I was able to claim the full value of the flight I had to cancel in April 2020.
Interestingly, even the initial vouchers took many months to be delivered to my email (6 months or more I think). But the refund was very quickly paid. The power of government coercion...
It's widely accepted that the Huanan market cases are an early super-spreader event and not the first human infections. Basically we don't know who and where the first infected humans were. We do know lots of people got infected at the market and that became the first time a new pneumonia was noticed in hospitals.
Trillions and trillions of mutations and still the most dangerous H5N1 viruses were created a decade ago by Fouchier and Kawaoka. And how did that help us prepare for the inevitable natural evolution of the same virus?
Sure, but that's only if you restrict it to H5N1 instead of looking at the history of Influenza A and things like the Spanish Flu, which was the most deadly disease in human history and derived from a mutated bird flu.
Even still, H5N1 has repeatedly infected humans in the wild... the most famous case in Hong Kong infecting 18 people and killing 6 of those. So you can make the case that GoF is irresponsible given the stakes, but it seems important to acknowledge that you're basically just hoping these horrific viruses don't mutate as we predict them to.
That would be the case if GoF research was necessary to defend against these viruses, but that’s not the case. AFAIK, GoF research played no part in the development of vaccines and treatments for Covid.
Sure, but it took over a year, trillions of dollars of economic disruption and millions of lives to develop the vaccines — its all balance of probabilities and costs.
Some of the proposed research that was GoF adjacent (that was never actually performed) was to develop pseudo viruses more similar to hACE strains that would evoke an immune response in horseshoe bats, effectively vaccinating them. Would the small, but certain, risk of an accident from that research been worth it if it could’ve averted the last 3 years and every future sarbecovirus pandemic?
It still might be the case that we shouldn’t risk GoF - but the simplistic “hurr durr, greedy virologists just want their grant money and don’t understand the risk” takes are childishly simplistic. There is nobody on earth more attuned to the risk of pandemics than the people doing this research, it’s why they’re doing the research.
I found it suspicious that it mentions "sleeping in cars" which shouldn't be needed for day trips as most places in the country are at most 3 hours drive from Amsterdam and places in Belgium and Germany can be reached that fast as well.
Day trip means people return home at night, not that they sleep in the cars.
Seems to cover more than that, things we should be ignorant of could simply be labeled as False. Malinformation seems to be about how facts should only be interpreted in a certain way. So for example a factual statistic but it can only mean what the government decided it means (i.e. supports the government's policy).
But a public company has higher public transparency obligations than a private one. Why do you think being afraid of Elon will make them more transparent than being afraid of the SEC?
Cynically, the SEC will only issue fines in most cases. Elon will (according to accounts from friends who have worked at his companies) fire leadership without hesitation and possibly publicly shame them, too.
You accidentally hit upon what "free speech" means when used by whales. If Musk berates and bullies an employee with endless racist and sexist slurs, he'd get in trouble. But if he points his mook armies at that same employee and subjects them to the same abuse, it's all good. Just freedom of speech.
This is missing the point so badly it seems almost intentional. Public outcry at the actions of the government is entirely different from incited bullying of individuals with no public presence.
She has a pretty big public presence. She was on the Joe Rogan podcast with Jack. Calling someone out for being terrible never seemed to bother anyone until apparently 5 seconds ago.
"incited bullying of individuals with no public presence"
Elon Musk never even mentioned her - he simply referred to Twitter's actions as "obviously incredibly inappropriate" and linked to an article that happened to mention her.
> "bullying of individuals with no public presence"
You can't be serious. This person is literally responsible for burying the Hunter Biden laptop story and is personally responsible for banning Trump. That's a public position whether you like it or not. I don't think anyone would think we can stop criticizing Putin the moment he exits office.
Imagine if Jack Dorsey ran Twitter without a Twitter account. That would not negate your ability to criticize his leadership even if he never spoke.
1. This "employee" is in a very high position and makes $17 million/year.
2. She is in charge of Twitter's censorship team. She can send an email and block and ban every single account that tweeted something abusive at her.
This "employee" is also the very person who chose to A.) Block President Trump and B.) Ban the story about Hunter Bidens's laptop from the New York Post, which was declared real by the NYT two years later.
Furthermore, Elon did not berate her by name or handle, he just said that what Twitter did was "obviously incredibly inappropriate" with a link to a story mentioning her, even though he did not mention her by name.
She's calling it abusive, not because Elon called her names (he never mentioned her, just the story) even though she was behind the biggest bans and censorship. She's upset that her power has been exposed and she might have some accountability for her decisions.
For how powerful she is, imagine if we weren't allowed to criticize the President, or a member of Congress, or Jeff Bezos, or even Elon Musk himself because it might hurt their feelings. When you are in a position of that much power, criticism must come with it, and you don't get to complain about that.
Yes, this is totally bizarre. You have enormously powerful people shaping the public discourse not only crying foul at idea they might face the slightest bit of accountability, but also successfully lobbying other people to defend them from any public criticism. Then we have to listen to them sanctimoniously talk about how "disinformation" threatens democracy, or whatever! Faceless Twitter employees shaping political discourse during an election get a free pass, though?
Meanwhile, these same people have no problem with using their power to shape and weaponize discourse against other people! For example, the news media regularly unmasks regular Twitter users simply for having a huge following with non-media approved opinions and then shrugs when they face death threats. But...don't you dare talk about the journalist that did it!
It should be noted that trump had just attempted a coup against the United States when he was blocked. Preventing him access to his bullhorn was and is a good idea.
If that were true, someone would have been charged by now, and I'm not talking about the desperate misdemeanor charges they've been pulling out of their asses to save face.
It should be noted that trump "attempted a coup" without any weapons. It should be noted the only deaths on January 6th were trump supporters. It should be noted that trump's last tweet that got him banned was "let your voices be heard, and go home in peace". I should start watching Netflix and marvel comic movies again so I can exist in your reality.
Attempted murder is a crime. Failing at your attempt to overthrow the government because you tried doing it without weapons does not shield you from consequence. I'm not even talking only legal consequence here; it is completely reasonable to look at what Trump tried to do and refuse to engage with him.
Counterargument: If you hire someone make a painting of your dog, would you hold their work to a higher standard than if you had done the work yourself?
I expect leaders to lead by example and to not punish others for behaving the same way leadership does. Leaders trashing workers isn't them doing the job they are paid to do.
> For 2021, national tourist board Visit Britain has forecast that visitor numbers will be lower even than in 2020, when travel restrictions were at their highest.
Not sure how they evaluated the travel restrictions, but in 2020 there were travel corridors between many European countries including the UK, while for most of 2021 to enter the UK there were required PCR tests (usually 3) and home quarantine. 2021 restrictions definitely felt more strict, at least in the summer.
Restrictions for arrivals were only lifted for the vaccinated in the autumn.
The point is that she gets called because of buzzwords such as Blockchain and AI and what have you.
If the education and job experience is made up, how do you know you're not getting calls because you sent a fake CV mentioning great education and relevant past jobs?
Is this true? Many (most?) airlines offered vouchers en masse when they had to cancel most flights during COVID, with no option for full refunds.