Technology News

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Snapchat’s corporate parent disclosed Thursday that its ad sales are being hurt by a privacy crackdown that rolled out on Apple’s iPhones earlier this year, raising investor fears that the app’s financial growth is going into a tailspin.

The revelation in Snap Inc.’s third-quarter earnings report sparked a sell-off in after-hours trading that could foreshadow one of the biggest one-day drops in the company’s stock since it went public in 2017.

Snap’s shares plunged by nearly 22% in Thursday’s extended trading. If that decrease is mirrored in Friday’s regular trading session, it will approach the stock’s previous one-day nadir in May 2018 when its price also plummeted by nearly 22%. A decline of that magnitude would wipe out nearly $30 billion in shareholder wealth.

The alarms set off by Snap’s disappointing performance could foreshadow troubles for other apps that may be having more problems tracking their users online activities because of an Apple update to the iPhone’s iOS software released in April.

The change blocks online tracking on iPhones unless a user grants explicit permission to do so, making it more difficult for companies that sell ads based on the information they collect about people’s interests and location.

In a statement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the Santa Monica, California, company has had to recalibrate its operations to “navigate significant headwinds, including changes to the iOS platform that impact the way advertising is targeted.”

Facebook, an outspoken critic of Apple’s new privacy controls, had already told investors that its ad sales could suffer because of the change, but Snap’s results indicated the blow may be even bigger than Wall Street anticipated. Facebook’s shares shed more than 4% in Thursday’s extending trading. The social networking company is scheduled to release its latest quarterly results Monday.

Snap reported revenue of $1.07 billion for the July-September period, a 57% increase from the same time last year, but that was about $30 million below the projections of Wall Street analysts who steer investor expectations.

Perhaps even more troubling to investors, Snap predicted its revenue for the current quarter will range from $1.17 billion to $1.21 billion. Analysts had been forecasting revenue of $1.36 billion, according to FactSet.

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BOSTON (AP) — For several years, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools had toyed with replacing some of its 1,000 diesel buses with cleaner electric vehicles. But school leaders said the change would be too costly.

Then 12-year-old student Holly Thorpe showed up at a school board meeting to tout the benefits of going electric and returned to encourage the district to apply for a state grant.

Two years on, the school board on Wednesday approved a district plan to use state money to replace up to 50 diesel buses with electric models over the next several years.

Thorpe is overjoyed the district is making the switch. “It wasn’t imaginary any more,” she said. “It just wasn’t like an idea. It was coming to life.”

The transition is part of a small but growing movement led by parents, students and lawmakers to purchase electric school buses to improve the health of students and cut planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.

Roughly 25 million children ride school buses every year. And though only about 1% of 480,000 U.S. school buses are electric, there are signs the push to abandon diesel buses is gaining momentum:

— Late last year, the World Resources Institute announced a $37.5 million Bezos Earth Fund grant to help electrify all school buses in the country by 2030. The nonprofit will work over the next five years on the project with school districts, communities, environmental justice groups, utilities, bus manufacturers and policymakers.

— This year, a suburban Maryland district became the country’s largest to commit to going completely electric. It plans to replace 1,442 diesel buses by 2035. The first 326 electric ones will be leased from Massachusetts-based Highland Electric Transportation.

— California, the country’s electric school bus leader, has funded the purchase of 1,167 and budgeted for another 1,000 over the next three fiscal years.

“This is an opportunity to make sure that we are doing all we can to protect kids health,” said California Energy Commission member Patty Monahan. “Some of these kids in parts of Los Angeles are on the bus for an hour, two hours a day. So we want to make sure that they are breathing clean air.”

At Twin Rivers Unified School District in Northern California, where diesel buses have been replaced by 40 electric buses and 34 that run on compressed natural gas, officials say clouds of dirty air have disappeared.

“One of the drivers said ‘I can’t believe the change I’m seeing in my lifetime,’” said Tim Shannon, the district’s director of transportation services. “He said ‘I used to have to hold a handkerchief over my face to walk through the yard because of the thick diesel soot.’”

The electric buses are 60% cheaper to operate and will pay for themselves over time, Shannon said.

Some districts are planning to sell excess energy from batteries back to the grid, a move welcomed by utilities who themselves have launched programs to buy electric school buses. This summer, a school bus in a Massachusetts district delivered power back to the grid.

Efforts to replace diesel school buses are driven by the fact that children are more susceptible to health impacts of air pollution. Exposure to diesel exhaust, according to the EPA, can lead to asthma and respiratory illnesses and worsen heart and lung ailments, especially in children and the elderly.

A study of school buses in Washington state found using cleaner fuels or upgrading older diesel reduced children’s exposure to airborne particles by as much as 50% and improved their health. Their findings suggest a nationwide switch to cleaner school buses could result in around 14 million fewer absences each year. The researchers at the universities of Washington and Michigan did not examine electric buses, which produce less local pollution than those using fossil fuels.

Lead author Sara Adar, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said older diesel buses resulted in children in the Seattle area “getting higher levels of air pollution during their commute.”

“The pollutants those kids were experiencing also did seem to be linked to worse health,” she said. “We saw kids’ lungs weren’t quite as healthy.”

Diesel school bus engines are much cleaner, since the EPA implemented standards that required them to produce 90% less particulate matter. The EPA also has awarded $55 million to replace more than 2,700 old diesel school buses since 2012 and announced in October that $17 million more would be available.

With the improved standards, the diesel industry argues that switching to electric won’t significantly reduce emissions or address concerns about global warming — especially since electricity for buses still often comes from fossil fuels. They note that more than 54% of school buses are newer models with far fewer emissions.

“School districts should be able to choose the bus type and technology that works for them,” said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum. “Some may find electric buses a good fit while others will stick with diesel and utilize low-carbon renewable fuels to cut their carbon footprint and other emissions.”

Advocates point out that nearly half of diesel buses are older ones that produce dangerous pollutants and are much more expensive to maintain. But they acknowledge the challenge is getting districts with older buses funds to transition to electric ones, which often cost three times more.

Many districts are eyeing funding from several bills in Congress.

The nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill includes $5 billion for electric and hybrid school buses. Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a former preschool teacher who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education Labor & Pensions, and other advocates want $5 billion more for electric school buses in President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan.

Several congressional bills would provide billions more for electric school buses.

Some states, including Florida and Virginia, are buying electric buses with billions of dollars from the Volkswagen settlement of its diesel emissions cheating scandal.

Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the district will use $11.6 million from the settlement to start buying electric buses, but said a full transition would be impossible without federal help.

“If we as a nation prioritize environmental protection, the reduction of greenhouse gases, the maximization of new technologies that reduce our dependency on carbon fuels, then the federal investment must incentivize these transitions with actual funding,” he said. “And that’s exactly what our country needs. That’s exactly what Miami needs.”

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Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials issued new warnings Friday about China’s ambitions in artificial intelligence and a range of advanced technologies that could eventually give Beijing a decisive military edge and possible dominance over health care and other essential sectors in America.

The warnings include a renewed effort to inform business executives, academics and local and state government officials about the risks of accepting Chinese investment or expertise in key industries, officials at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center said. While the center does not intend to tell officials to reject Chinese investment, it will encourage efforts to control intellectual property and implement security measures.

National security agencies under President Joe Biden’s administration are making an aggressive public push against China, which some officials have called the greatest strategic threat to the United States. The Biden administration has simultaneously tried to ease some tensions with Beijing dating to the Trump administration and seek common ground on trade and climate change.

Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of fear-mongering about its intentions and attacked U.S. intelligence for its assessments of China, including allegations that Chinese leaders have withheld critical information about the coronavirus pandemic.

Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has stated its goals to create profitable technologies in robotics and other fields in plans known as “Made in China 2025.” The Justice Department in recent years has returned several indictments alleging theft of sensitive U.S. information on behalf of China, including vaccine research and autonomous vehicle technology.

The counterintelligence center’s acting director, Michael Orlando, told reporters in a rare briefing Thursday that the U.S. “can’t afford to lose” ground to China in several key areas: artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum computing, semiconductors and biotechnology.

Orlando noted that Chinese businesses and academics are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party and are required to serve the party’s interests.

“Although we’ve been saying this for year after year, people are not digesting this,” he said.

Orlando declined to say whether the U.S. should enact tougher restrictions or outright bans on Chinese investment in certain sectors, saying his role was not to suggest policy.

But the counterintelligence center holds regular briefings with private industry and academia while recognizing that industries and universities may still want to seek students, experts and investors from China, Orlando said. He would not name companies with which the center has met.

The center’s officer for emerging and disruptive technologies, Edward You, noted the investment of Chinese companies in U.S. and European biotechnology and pharmaceutics.

WuXi Biologics has since 2019 built a vaccine manufacturing facility in Ireland, announced plans for a production facility in Massachusetts and acquired a Bayer plant in Germany. Officials did not disclose any information linking those acquisitions to Beijing’s influence but said they were part of a broader pattern by Chinese medical companies.

Chinese companies have also offered COVID-19 testing kits and genetic testing in the U.S., meeting federal privacy standards and other regulations, You said. But the data collected by companies with ties to China could ultimately end up in the hands of Beijing, You said.

China already has the greatest access to medical data of any country, You said. With its data collection and its advancements in technology, Beijing could one day be dominant in health care and leave the U.S. wholly dependent on China, he said.

“If you’re President Xi,” he said, “that’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

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This story deletes an incorrect reference to WuXi Biologics being headquartered in Hong Kong.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Media is getting into another rough-and-tumble world — the weather.

The company is launching Fox Weather, a free streaming service and app that it expects will be used most frequently by customers on their mobile devices.

In preparation for the Monday start, Fox has been building a staff, plucking personnel from The Weather Channel and markets in New York, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Charlotte, North Carolina, and elsewhere.

Advances in weather technology and interest created by climate change and more powerful storms has made weather news a popular area in which to invest, experts say.

“It’s all we talk about,” said Sharri Berg, Fox Weather president. “We might as well build a platform for it.”

Fox Weather is moving into a market dominated by long-time players like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather — both of whom have been busy building their own new products — as well as aggressive niche players.

When Berg scrolls through weather apps, she said she sees many specialty services that concentrate on things like surf conditions or wind. Besides convenience and clarity, Berg said one of Fox’s chief selling points will be offering a single destination for people to get many things — local forecasts (with 3-D radar), severe weather warnings, weather-related news stories and a video stream that operates like a traditional TV network.

“It’s not so much reinventing the way you tell the weather story, it’s just improving upon it,” said Steve Baron, Fox Weather senior vice president for digital products and strategy.

Byron Allen, owner of The Weather Channel, sounded almost giddy at the prospect of another challenger.

“I’m just a kid from Detroit pinching myself, to be in competition with Rupert Murdoch, one of the greatest media moguls of all time,” Allen said. “That’s an honor for me.

“I would have been disappointed if he didn’t come into the weather space, because it’s a great space, and it’s an important space,” he said. “We certainly don’t mind the competition.”

The Weather Channel next year is introducing subscription-based streaming services so people who have abandoned cable will have access to their programming. It will also launch a Spanish-language streaming service.

Allen pointed to consumer surveys that rate The Weather Channel highly as a source of information. “They know we are reliable and trusted,” he said. “You don’t get that overnight. It is earned.”

Similarly, Jonathan Porter, senior vice president and meteorologist at AccuWeather, pointed to the precise forecasting services the company has built over many years that are provided to consumers and businesses — even to many Fox-owned television stations.

“Fox will have to demonstrate that they can compensate for not having all of these capabilities when they launch,” Porter said.

Some of the Fox News Media products — like the Fox Business Network and Fox Nation streaming service — are ideologically comfortable for viewers of the main Fox News Channel. That raises the question of whether the same would be true of Fox Weather. While executives at both The Weather Channel and AccuWeather stressed that their services are paying attention to the impact of climate change on the world’s weather, several Fox News commentators have expressed skepticism about the subject.

“We’re not debating or ignoring it,” Berg said. “It’s part of how we live now. We’ll be translating it and basing it on science and data, that is what we are focused on. This is a 100% pure weather product and weather-centric focused platform.”

In addition to more powerful storms and bigger wildfires, the science of forecasting has also changed. Newly robust computer technology has greatly improved forecasting ability, and experts say this has also fueled interest among consumers.

AccuWeather, for example, introduced a MinuteCast service in 2016, and has steadily improved upon it since, offering very precise forecasts, for example, of when it might start raining on one side of town. There’s no way a similar service could have operated two decades ago, Porter said.

Along with technology, Berg said she believes Fox is building a weather news team second to none.

“I think Fox Weather is entering the weather space at the right time, and I think we’re building it on the right platform,” she said.

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Three-time Pro Bowl safety Malcolm Jenkins spent his bye week building his portfolio.

Jenkins, a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Saints and Eagles, became a minority investor in the Premier League’s Burnley Football Club this week after touring historic Turf Moor stadium in England and watching the Clarets play Manchester City last Saturday.

“We’re really excited, especially because the Burnley Football Club has a long history of being a blue-collar, tough, well-run organization, and it has a great manager and a new leadership,” Jenkins said on the AP Pro Football Podcast. “And (Burnley chairman) Alan Pace is coming in and ALK Capital, and they are really conscious about not only just what’s happening on the pitch, but also what’s happening in society. Their team captains have been very vocal, their players taking a knee before every match,and they’ve made it a point to be inclusive. And to have the opportunity to join a club with that kind of history, that kind of pedigree, was something that was exciting for me and my team.”

Jenkins’ investment comes through his holding company, Malcolm Inc, and the new Disrupt Sports Partners, which focuses on business ventures in sports and leagues. Jenkins joins Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James and Kevin Durant as active players who’ve invested in soccer teams.

“One of my purposes in doing this investment is I want athletes to see that we don’t have to just be athletes and laborers,” Jenkins said. “We can actually be in the ownership seat and we need to begin to think of ourselves in that mindset. … The more we see that, then the people, the kids who look up to us because we’re athletes and what we can do can also look at us as examples of being in ownership and being business people and doing investments outside of our sport. I think that’s important for us not only as athletes but role models to show those examples that you don’t have to just be on the field in order to engage in sports, that we can have a stake in ownership and what we’re doing.”

Jenkins is also helping young people learn how to invest through his foundation. This year, his foundation has adopted high schools in Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey so far, providing them with savings accounts with $40 to start, and a financial literacy app through Goalsetter, which provides games to learn the basics of investing, debt and stocks, among other resources.

“The lessons that I’m learning, I’m sharing with my peers, other athletes and entertainers to be able to join me or to learn how to do it themselves and build their own generational wealth. But then also you have to build up the next generation,” Jenkins said.

RESPECT FROM RICE

Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice said Green Bay’s Davante Adams, Arizona’s DeAndre Hopkins and Cleveland’s Odell Beckham Jr. are some of his favorite wideouts to watch. He also singled out San Francisco’s Deebo Samuel.

“He shows that he’s not afraid to go across the middle, make those difficult catches and try to look for someone to run over,” Rice said of Samuel. “I used to always try to do the opposite. I used to try to run away because I was not as big.”

Rice has partnered with fellow Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis and Drew Brees to join Quaker’s “Feeding America” campaign. Quaker has committed to donating $125,000 and is asking others to join them through the Quaker Good Call Challenge. They’re asking people to fill empty canisters with loose change, go to a local Coinstar kiosk and select “Feeding America” for the donation. The campaign runs through Dec. 31.

“I just feel everyone should have a healthy meal and no one should go hungry,” Rice said on the AP Pro Football Podcast.

LEGENDARY NFL POSTERS NOW DIGITAL ART

Award-winning pop culture artist John Costacos, considered a creator of the genre of sports art with his sports personality posters, has unveiled a blockchain-based digital collectibles company, the Costacos Collection. The initiative will team with charitable foundations of players such as Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Warren Moon.

Costacos’ previous collections sold more than 30,000,000 posters from 1986-96. The new format utilizes the blockchain medium to allow great athletes to capture their most significant moments, tell their most meaningful stories, and create new digital experiences, including new digital art as NFTs. A percentage of the sales of the NFTs will go a charity that each athlete will earmark in advance. Moon for example, runs the Crescent Moon Foundation, providing scholarships every year to underprivileged children who might otherwise find attending college impossible.

“My relationship with every athlete came from listening to their creative process and thinking of what we, as fans, would want to see, and that process has never really changed over the years,” Costacos says. “The growth of digital technology gives us an exciting chance not just to offer pieces in digital form, but to take them and retell the story with the athlete’s input now, 20 years later, with additional custom content.”

The collection also will draw from the Topps Company’s vast content of historical archives and working with Costacos to create new content with Topps’ current athletes.

One of the earliest posters Costacos created was of Bears quarterback Jim McMahon. The “Mad Mac” is among the most iconic items in the series.

“Our Bears teams exuded brashness in pop culture, and the Costacos work was the pinnacle of being recognized well beyond football,” McMahon says. “To be a part of John’s digital art launch is a great next step in reintroducing this brash and disruptive art to a world that loves brashness, and wants it in a new form. Bears Nation and beyond will love this, as will all the athletes past and present who will be riding this new wave with him and his team.”

SPIELMAN HONORED BY LIONS

The Detroit Lions are honoring former linebacker Chris Spielman by displaying his name at Ford Field along with the franchise’s all-time greats.

The 1991 All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowl linebacker will be inducted into the Pride of the Lions at halftime of Detroit’s game on Oct. 31 against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Detroit has honored 18 other players, including Hall of Famers Barry Sanders, Joe Schmidt, Lem Barney and Dick “Night Train” Lane.

Nearly a year ago, the Lions hired Spielman to be a special assistant to team owner Sheila Ford Hamp and president Rod Wood.

Spielman is the franchise’s career leader in tackles and helped the Lions to the NFC title game on Jan. 12, 1992, the closest they’ve come to a Super Bowl. After Spielman’s playing career, he was an NFL television analyst.

“Anytime you are recognized for an individual award, as a part of a team-oriented pursuit, your immediate thoughts go to your family, teammates, coaches and all of the people in the organization,” Spielman. “My time as a player was defined by these great relationships I forged, and I realize that they are the biggest reason for any success I may have had. It truly was an honor to represent Lions fans around the world, the city of Detroit and every Lions player past, present and future for eight great seasons.”

HYGENIC SPORT

Now that fans are attending games throughout the NFL once again, best-in-class hygiene practices are critical to keeping people healthy. To do so, the Green Bay Packers and Tork, a leader in professional hygiene from Essity, partnered to raise awareness at games, and in the community with the “Tackle Hygiene with Every Catch” campaign.

With 112 receptions by Packers players in the first five weeks of the season, nearly $30,000 in donations in hygiene products such as hand sanitizer, paper towels, and toilet paper have resulted.

For every catch the Packers made during the campaign, a donation has gone to local organizations, including NEWCAP, Inc.; Golden House; Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative; and Pathfinders. The campaign also includes helpful reminders of the effective, easy-to-use hygiene products used throughout the stadium on game days and every day.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how critical hand hygiene is in preventing illness and keeping fans, players, and the community healthy,” says Chad Watson, director of sales and business development for the Packers. “We’re proud to partner with Tork to promote hygiene in the Green Bay and Milwaukee communities through donations of Tork sustainable hygiene products.”

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AP Pro Football Writers Barry Wilner and Rob Maaddi and Sports Writer Larry Lage contributed.

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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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