Nation and world news in brief for November 15

US Postal Service warns it must continue cost cuts or risk bailout

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Postal Service said on Thursday it must continue to cut costs and boost revenue or risks requiring a government bailout to help the organization avoid financial collapse.

USPS reported on Thursday a net loss of $9.5 billion for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, a $3-billion bigger loss than last year, largely due to a year-over-year increase in non-cash workers’ compensation expense. Total operating revenue was $79.5 billion, up 1.7%.

“If we do nothing more, we remain on the path to either a government bailout or the end of this great organization as we know it,” the Postal Service said in its revised restructuring plan issued on Thursday, adding it was facing a “still-precarious financial condition.”

USPS has lost more than $100 billion since 2007.

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes over Gaza displacements

JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Israeli authorities have caused a forced displacement of Palestinian people in Gaza to an extent that constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday.

Israel, in response, accused the organization of using rhetoric that is “completely false and detached from reality”.

The report is the latest in a series from aid groups and international bodies warning about the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave.

“Human Rights Watch found that forced displacement has been widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy. Such acts also constitute crimes against humanity,” the report said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said that Israel’s efforts are “directed solely at dismantling Hamas’s terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza, unlike Hamas which uses civilians as human shields and embeds terror infrastructure within residential areas”.

Bluesky attracts millions as users leave Musk’s X after Trump win

(Reuters) — Social media platform Bluesky is adding millions of users as people flee X after Donald Trump was elected U.S. President and as an upcoming change to the terms of service threatens to complicate legal challenges for the Elon Musk-owned platform.

Bluesky has gained about 2.5 million new users in the past week, raising its total users to more than 16 million, it said on Thursday. It is among a slew of apps looking to replace the platform formerly known as Twitter after Musk’s takeover.

“We’re seeing record-high activity levels across all different forms of engagement: likes, follows, new accounts, etc, and we’re on track to add 1 million new users in one day alone,” Bluesky said in a statement.

Several well-known organizations and personalities, including the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, British news publisher the Guardian and former CNN anchor Don Lemon have said they were leaving X due to concerns about the platform’s content and the looming terms change.

Global measles cases jumped in 2023 due to ‘inadequate’ vaccine coverage

(Reuters) — Measles cases rose 20% last year, driven by a lack of vaccine coverage in the world’s poorest countries and those riddled with conflict, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday.

Nearly half of all the large and disruptive outbreaks occurred in the African region where the number of deaths increased by 37%, they said.

Measles is caused by an airborne virus that mostly affects children under the age of five, but it is preventable with two doses of the measles shot. However, immunization coverage was “inadequate” globally, the WHO and the CDC said.

Suicide bomber in Brazil rattles nation before global summit

RIO DE JANEIRO (NYT) — The explosions that shook Brazil’s capital Wednesday evening and prompted an evacuation were an act of terrorism by a lone attacker who sought to violently disrupt democracy, police officials said Thursday.

Authorities said the only person killed was the attacker, and no one was injured. But the two explosions took place near the nation’s Supreme Court in Brasília, the capital, and put the nation on edge just days before the country is set to host a major Group of 20 summit, which President Joe Biden and other world leaders are expected to attend.

The attack echoed the violence that descended on Brasília after the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nearly two years ago, fueling worries about renewed tensions after a period of relative calm. While tensions have subsided since, Brazil’s far right has appeared energized in the days since President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping return to power in the United States.

Authorities identified the attacker as Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, a locksmith from the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Police said the attack appeared to target justices of Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Meta fined $840M in Europe for boosting Marketplace unfairly

LONDON (NYT) — ​The European Union fined Meta roughly $840 million on Thursday for breaking competition laws with Facebook Marketplace, its shopping and classified ads platform, the latest action by regulators trying to limit the ability of tech giants to expand into new product areas.

In issuing the 800 million-euro fine, European regulators said Meta had given itself an unfair advantage over rival services by bundling Marketplace into Facebook’s wider social network, providing it with immediate access to millions of potential users. They added that Meta had abused its dominance in online advertising to impose unfair business terms on rival shopping services, allowing it to collect data that could be used to strengthen Marketplace.

European regulators, led by Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition chief, have for years sought to limit the ability of tech companies to use their power in one area, like social networking, to gain a foothold in new markets such as shopping. Authorities in Europe have also accused Apple of using its dominance in smartphones to bolster music and payment services.

In linking Marketplace to Facebook’s social network, the company gave itself “advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match,” Vestager said in a statement. “This is illegal under E.U. antitrust rules. Meta must now stop this behavior.”

Trump’s transition team aims to kill Biden EV tax credit

(Reuters) — President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is planning to kill the $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Ending the tax credit could have grave implications for an already stalling U.S. EV transition. And yet representatives of Tesla — by far the nation’s biggest EV maker — have told a Trump-transition committee they support ending the subsidy, said the two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, one of Trump’s biggest backers and the world’s richest person, said in July that killing the subsidy might slightly hurt Tesla sales but would be “devastating” to its U.S. EV competitors, which include legacy automakers such as General Motors.