Life is always full of surprises. When you think you’ve seen enough, there’s always some interesting twist. I recently learned, for instance, that Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong plans to introduce an AI-powered bias meter for news. It’s not entirely clear how it’d work, but it is supposed to analyze a story to understand if it’s skewed in favor of a specific point of view, and then provide, on demand, a different version of that story from another perspective. The rationale behind the introduction of the feature seems to be the idea that news and opinion are not separated enough, nowadays, and that readers are losing trust in the media. There’s certainly some truth in that, but I can see why journalists feel outraged and think that "the newspaper’s owner has publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples". However, what I’m interested in here, is not so much the debate itself, but the proposed cure for the supposed problem. Using some kind of algorithm to make up for a perceived lack of credibility is precisely the idea a tech (biotech, in this case) entrepreneur could have - and in fact the tool will rely on the same technology developed at his other companies. On a deeper level, it seems to fit into the "solutionist" line of thinking made famous by Evgeny Morozov a few years ago - the idea that there’s a technological solution to any kind of problem. Even typically human issues, such as the lack of trust in a relationship (the one between readers and writers, in this case), could be solved frictionlessly with the right app or code. This is problematic on many levels. First, one could argue that the mutual distrust that we are currently witnessing in society in general and between mainstream media and a significant part of the audience in particular, is actually fuelled and amplified by technology. While media mistrust has been building for decades , the dominant role played by social media platforms in the last decade has not only eroded the business model of publishers, but also allowed anyone to create their own "news bubble" made only of people and content that they agree with, effectively confirming and even boosting biases. The digital landscape itself, with all the abundance of fake news, misinformation, AI-generated content, has made it more challenging for individuals to discern credible information from falsehoods, only amplifying the trust crisis. The introduction of AI tools in newsroom is not necessarily going to improve the situation. A recent survey by international research group YouGov in the UK, found out that only 6% of Britons think the benefits of using AI in journalism will outweigh the drawbacks and 60% percent of respondents said they would not trust an article created with AI support. To be clear, we are not talking about stories that are totally AI-generated here, but of situations in which the AI plays the role of the journalist, collaborating with a human editor, or the other way around. More in general, in the U.S., approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults express low confidence in the ability of AI tools, including chatbots and search engines, to provide reliable and factual information. So, it’s unclear how introducing an AI tool to improve trust levels would help, if the technology is not trusted by the audience in the first place. There’s another, more serious issue to consider. To be credible and reliable, an AI bias meter should be able to explain how it reached the conclusion that an article is "biased" and - it should go without saying - be free of biases itself. But we know that one of the big problems with using AI tools for decision-making, is that it is sometimes hard , even for those who programmed them, to tell how they came to a certain conclusion. There are some many parameters at play and the way these AI tools create connections among them is so fast and, to an extent, unpredictable, that they effectively appear as "black boxes"; so much so that there’s an entire research field, called explainable AI, trying to mitigate the issue. Not only that, but far from being omniscient, impersonal and impartial oracles, machine learning results can be heavily conditioned by the quality of the input data and by the assumptions in the machine learning algorithm’s modeling. Using flawed data or unfairly attributing some aspects of a dataset more weight than others can lead to the wrong outcomes. Labeling articles as veering too much to the left or to the right, would mean having clear, unambiguous data on what can be considered belonging to the former or to the latter, and weighting them fairly and appropriately, which is no easy task. It’s very much possible that Soon-Shiong’s team has found a good solution for this, or that the bias meter tool he briefly outlined in a podcast is more nuanced than it seems. Still, until more details are released, I would maintain a healthy skepticism about well-intentioned efforts to use AI meters to combat journalists' alleged biases. Not least because they could easily be employed to provide a false impression of impartiality, while actually hiding their own biases in a way that the audience might not even be aware of.AGRF Partners with Integrated Sciences to Offer Cutting-Edge Epigenetic Services with EpiCypher CUT&RUN and CUT&Tag Technologies - BioMelbourne NetworkNo. 25 Illinois' TD with four seconds left upends RutgersFrench President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named centrist ally Francois Bayrou as prime minister, after a historic parliamentary vote ousted the previous government last week. Mr Bayrou, 73, a crucial partner in Macron’s centrist alliance, has been a well-known figure in French politics for decades. His political experience is seen as key in efforts to restore stability as no single party holds a majority at the National Assembly. Mr Macron’s office said in a statement that Mr Bayrou “has been charged with forming a new government”. During the handover ceremony, Mr Bayrou said that “no one knows the difficulty of the situation better” than he does. “I’ve taken reckless risks all along my political life to raise the issue of debt and deficits in the most important elections,” he said. France is under pressure from the European Union’s executive body and financial markets to reduce its colossal debt, estimated to reach 6% of its gross domestic product this year. “I know that the risks of difficulties are much greater than the chances of success,” Mr Bayrou said, adding that he hopes to lead the country towards a “needed reconciliation”. “I think this is the only possible path to success,” he said. The new prime minister is expected to hold talks with political leaders from various parties in the coming days in order to choose new ministers. Former prime minister Michel Barnier resigned last week following a no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes in the National Assembly, leaving France without a functioning government. Mr Macron in an address to the nation vowed to remain in office until his term ends in 2027. Mr Macron’s centrist alliance does not have a majority in parliament and Mr Bayrou’s Cabinet will need to rely on moderate lawmakers from the left and the right to be able to stay in power. Some conservatives are expected to be part of the new government. Mr Macron’s strategy aims at preventing far-right leader Marine Le Pen from holding “make or break” power over the government. Ms Le Pen helped oust Mr Barnier by joining her National Rally party’s forces to the left to pass the no-confidence motion last week. Mr Bayrou’s appointment is also in line with Mr Macron’s efforts to build a non-aggression pact with the Socialists so that they commit not to vote against the government in any future confidence motion. Mr Bayrou leads the centrist Democratic Movement, known as MoDem, which he founded in 2007. In 2017, he supported Mr Macron’s first presidential bid and became a weighty partner in the French president’s centrist alliance. At the time, he was appointed justice minister, but he quickly resigned from the government amid an investigation into the MoDem’s alleged embezzlement of European Parliament funds. Mr Bayrou this year was cleared in the case by a Paris court, which found eight other party officials guilty and sentenced the party to pay a fine. Mr Bayrou became well known to the French public when he was education minister from 1993 to 1997 in a conservative government. He was three times a candidate for president: in 2002, 2007 and 2012.
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Lakers reportedly ‘frontrunner’ to land Pelicans’ All-Defensive guard via trade | Sporting NewsTalk to our people, House tells Senate on Akap programMORGANTOWN, W.Va — One of the feel-good stories of the year comes in at No. 9, and it is a mixture of all that’s good and all that’s not so good in college athletics today. Mark Kellogg was named WVU’s third women’s basketball coach in three years in 2023 and did an amazing job of putting together a team that became one of the most exciting in America. With JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison leading the way, this team became the women’s version of Bob Huggins’ Press Virginia team. Timing is everything. It was the 50th anniversary of the sport at WVU, started by Kittie Blakemore, and Kellogg’s team spent most of the Big 12 Conference season ranked in the Top 25 and wound up getting a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The deck, though, was stacked against WVU, which felt it deserved a higher seed and had they gotten it, they would not have wound up in the second round facing No. 1 regional seed Iowa and the NCAA sensation Caitlan Clark. As bad as that was, the NCAA women play their regionals at the home of the No. 1 seed, a concession to building crowds for the early tournament games. That, of course, gives the home team a huge advantage, especially Iowa, who was breaking attendance records behind Clark wherever the Hawkeyes played. No one gave the Mountaineers much of a chance, but they played Iowa as tough as you could on its home floor, losing 64-54 to the team that would go to the National Championship game before losing to No. 1 South Carolina. On a neutral court, who knows what would happen? Would Caitlin Clark have finished with 32 points and eight rebounds — half her team’s total? She certainly did not write this down as a banner game in her record-shattering career, making only 8 of 22 field tries and going 5 for 14 from 3. But the game showed something about WVU’s ability to draw a national TV audience. An average of 4.9 million viewers made the game the largest pre-Final Four audience in March Madness history. WVU had the Iowa crowd worried throughout, having the game tied at 54-54 before Clark led Iowa on a 12-2 run at the end to win it, leaving Kellogg with a 25-7 record in his first season. “I think we are close, and I think we have been close all year,” Kellogg said. “No one wants to give us, it feels like, a whole lot of credit. I thought our seed was not the representation. I don’t think we are an 8-seed. Maybe now people will understand what we are and what we are about.” --- No. 10 — Hoo-Ray for JJ You can’t compile the top WVU sports stories of the year without including West Virginia shortstop JJ Wetherholt. Wetherholt went into what everyone knew was going to be his final season at WVU, going out with his coach Randy Mazey. Some people — we’re not talking fans, we’re talking scouts — thought he might be the first player drafted after a sophomore season in which he hit .449, with 16 home runs and 60 RBI in 55 games to go with 36 stolen bases. Had he repeated that season, he certainly would have been the No. 1 or 2 pick, but he battled injuries all season. After playing 55 games last year, he played only 36 this season. He never really got his stroke together, but he got it going. He had his average pushing toward .400 again but fell into a late slump come playoff time and finished the year with just five hits in his last 31 at-bats, a .161 clip. He finished the year hitting a “pedestrian” .331. The result was his draft stock fell to the point that he lasted until the seventh pick of the first round before the St. Louis Cardinals felt it was a gift from heaven to get the infielder that late. He went to Palm Beach, a Class A rookie league team, and batted .295 to put himself clearly into the future plans of the Cardinals, which probably puts himself in position to again be a teammate of centerfielder Victor Scott II, a former Mountaineer teammate who put himself in position to be termed a Cardinals’ starter of the future. --- No. 11 — It was what’s up front that counted As Rich Rodriguez took over the West Virginia football team as the 2024 calendar came to a close, he decided to keep just two of the on-field coaches Neal Brown had employed — running backs coach Chad Scott, who served as Bown’s interim replacement; and tight end coach Blaine Stewart, son of the late former Mountaineer head coach Bill Stewart. That meant the other coaches had to seek employment, and the first to sign was offensive line coach Matt Moore at North Carolina State. It was not surprising as Moore proved himself to be a solid coach as evidenced by consecutive All-American players. The first, the four-year anchor of the offensive line of 2023, was Zach Frazier, who on April 26 was selected in the second round of the NFL draft. The former Fairmont Senior star needed little preparation, earning the starting spot right out of the gate. “I just know how much the offensive line means to the Pittsburgh Steelers, their long tradition of having great o-linemen and great offensive lines,” Frazier said when drafted. “It’s special. They already went to the offensive line in the first round. It’s special. I am excited.“They’re getting a hard worker who is going to give everything he has to the organization to win football games. I couldn’t be more excited.”To date, he has put together a season of such excellence that one would suspect he will be named to the NFL All-Rookie team and, had he played a more visible position, would have been a strong candidate for the league’s Rookie of the Year Award. What do you do for an encore to a player like Frazier? Moore offered up another All-American in 2024 in left tackle Wyatt Milum, a 6-foot-6, 317-pound graduate of Spring Valley High School from Kenova, W.Va. Milum did Frazier one better, earning consensus All-America honors, which means he was picked on the first All-America team on at least three of the five major All-America selections. Milum made first team on four of them, taking home second-team All-American on the AP team. He was the fourth WVU offensive lineman in history to earn consensus All-America honors, joining Dan Mozes (2006), Mike Compton (1992) and Brian Jozwiak (1985). Of all 14 Mountaineers have been chosen as consensus All-Americans, three of them have been in the last five years as Milum joined Beanie Bishop in 2023 and Darius Stills in 2020. Milum’s career was spectacular as he did not allow a sack in 34 of his 36 games played while going the past two years without allowing one. Milum did not allow a quarterback hurry this past season and only let up seven pressures. He is graded out as the No. 3 offensive tackle in the nation, according to PFF College Rankings. In 2024, Milum did not allow a quarterback hurry and only seven pressures. PFF College lists Milum as its No. 3 offensive tackle in the nation, grading out at 90.1. --- Follow @bhertzel on X
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Mohamed Salah, one of England’s most popular soccer stars, has been taking heat from some fans on social media for posting a heartwarming Christmas photo. Even though the Egyptian-born Salah practices Islam, he posts a photo every year of his family in front of a Christmas tree as a show of respect to British culture, a move that some of his fans were angered by. Per news.com.au : Mohamed Salah has caused uproar with a sweet family photo that has become embroiled in an ugly storm. As a proud Muslim man, the Egyptian has faced a backlash from Instagram users with some calling him a “hypocrite”. Salah has previously refused to buckle to the annual criticism and has explained his decision to continue to celebrate the holiday in the UK. He has previously said his decision to embrace Christmas is a gesture of “respect.” A post shared by Mohamed Salah (@mosalah) Salah’s critics referred to him as a traitor to his Muslim faith. “Delete this right now.” one Instagram user wrote. “We Muslim people look up to you, and you do this in return,” another said, with another calling it “disgraceful.” “With all the warnings, you still go ahead and post this shame post of yours,” another said. Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller , EXEMPLUM , which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube , Tubi , or Fawesome TV . “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge . “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto . A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play , Vimeo on Demand , or YouTube Movies . Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms .
BARCELONA (XINHUA) – Spain’s solar power is on track to overtake wind power as the leading source in the country’s expanding renewable energy sector, which now accounts for more than half of the total energy mix, industry insiders told Xinhua . Renewable energy sources have supplied 57.5 per cent of Spain’s electricity production this year, according to the association of renewable energy companies. Wind power remains the largest contributor with 22.4 per cent, followed by photovoltaic solar energy at 18.3 per cent. Red Electrica de Espana (REE), the national grid operator, reported that large photovoltaic plants will soon surpass wind farms as the energy source with the highest installed capacity in Spain. Ground-based photovoltaic installations, excluding self-consumption systems on rooftops of homes and businesses, now have a combined capacity of over 29,600 megawatts – nearly double the 15,300 megawatts recorded in 2021, according to REE. Renewable energy expert at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) Alvaro Luna a described Spain’s solar power capacity as “healthy”, citing the country’s strong resource availability and growing production. “Spain is among the European Union countries doing their homework in terms of renewable energy penetration and the energy mix,” Luna said in an interview with Xinhua . However, Luna emphasised the need to address gaps in energy sharing, noting that not all households and businesses have access to rooftops for solar panel installations. He also called for greater innovation in solar technology, describing it as a “European problem”. “Photovoltaic energy has immense potential as the alternative energy source Europe needs, but we’re not fully utilising the technology,” he said.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s false claims linking autism to childhood vaccinations are receiving new scrutiny now that President-elect Donald Trump has selected him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a sprawling agency with a budget of $1.7 trillion that oversees research into both autism and vaccines. The myth that autism is caused by childhood vaccines — proposed in 1998 by a British doctor who was later banned from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom — has been thoroughly debunked . Hundreds of studies have found vaccines to be safe . The World Health Organization estimates that over the past 50 years, immunizations have saved 154 million lives around the world. Philadelphia news 24/7: Watch NBC10 free wherever you are Kennedy, who espouses a number of health-related conspiracy theories , has pointed to vaccines to explain the substantial rise in autism diagnoses in recent decades, which have ballooned from an estimated 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 today. Research suggests that much of that increase is due to increasing awareness and screening for the condition; changing definitions of autism to include milder conditions on the spectrum that weren’t recognized in previous years; as well as advances in diagnostic technology. “For a very long time, the anti-vaccine movement has been exploiting families of autistic people, promoting a market for pseudo-scientific treatments that don’t provide the answers they’re looking for and that can expose autistic people to real harm,” said Ari Ne’eman, co-founder of the nonprofit Autistic Self Advocacy Network and an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “More discredited conspiracy theories linking autism and vaccines are not the answer.” Timothy Caulfield, research director at the University of Alberta’s Health Law Institute in Canada, who studies health misinformation, said that people often are more willing to believe conspiracy theories about conditions such as autism, whose causes are complex and not fully understood, than diseases with clear causes. People seem less inclined to speculate, for example, about alternative explanations for Down syndrome, which causes intellectual disabilities and has long been known to be caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world. “It’s really a shame because there are vulnerable families [of people with autism] who need our support,” said Judith Miller, a clinical psychologist and senior scientist and training director at the Center for Autism Research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Every dollar and hour spent trying to debunk a conspiracy theory is a dollar and an hour lost that could have been spent trying to understand how to help families.” A complex condition Finding the causes of autism is complicated, because it’s not a single disorder, said Manish Arora, a professor of environmental medical and climate science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “Autism is a spectrum, not a single narrow disease,” Arora said. “It’s many, many things under one umbrella.” Although people diagnosed with autism often have similar strengths and challenges, “there are many paths to autism and many presentations of autism,” Miller said. Scientists have found a variety of risk factors for autism — most of which exist before birth — but there is no single cause for a neurological and developmental condition that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn and behave. A number of the traits sometimes seen in people with autism — such as being sensitive to loud noises, for example, or finding it difficult to interpret social cues — are also found in people who have not been diagnosed with autism. Doctors diagnose autism based on a person’s behavior, noting that there is no simple test for the condition, as there is for Covid or diabetes, said Arora, founder and CEO of a start-up company that researches biomarkers for autism and other neurological conditions. Finding the cause of an infectious disease — such as influenza, which is caused by the flu virus — is much more straightforward. While researchers continue to study the factors that influence the development of autistic traits, “the one thing we know doesn’t cause autism is vaccines,” said Catherine Lord, a psychologist and researcher at the Center for Autism Research and Treatment at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Genetic vulnerability Doctors have long known that genes play a large role in autism, simply by noting that autism can run in families. For example, in identical twins — who share all of their DNA — if one twin has autism, the other usually does, as well. In the case of fraternal twins — who share about half their DNA — if one fraternal twin has autism, the chance that the other will have autism ranges from 53% to 67%, according to an analysis of research studies. Scientists have identified more than 100 genes related to autism, Miller said, and genes are believed to play a role in 60% to 80% of cases. “The genetics of autism have never been better understood,” said Dr. Gregory Cejas, medical director of the Autism Clinical Center and Fragile X Clinic at the Washington University School of Medicine. “We’re making leaps and bounds about known genetic causes of autism.” Yet genes clearly don’t explain every case of autism. Autism is very different from conditions like sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis, which are caused by a single gene. Scientists believe that people develop autistic traits due to a combination of genetic vulnerability and environmental exposures, Lord said. “People have found many, many different genetic patterns associated with autism, but none of them are only associated with autism and none of them are always associated with autism,” Lord said. For example, fragile X syndrome — caused by a mutated gene on the X chromosome — is the most common known cause of autism. But only a fraction of children with the genetic mutation actually develop autism, Miller said. It’s possible that this mutation leaves some people more vulnerable to developing autistic characteristics, while others with the same mutations don’t develop autistic traits, because they are shielded by protective factors that have not yet been identified. Some people blamed the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine with autism because symptoms of the condition often occur at around 12 to 15 months of age, the same time toddlers get that immunization. But Miller notes that “most of the genetic conditions that affect our life and health aren’t apparent at birth. Symptoms or characteristics won’t show up until later, but the genetic code will have been with us the whole time.” Prenatal vulnerability Many of the known risk factors for autistic characteristics occur before birth or at the time of delivery, Arora said. Babies who experience complications at birth , such as their umbilical cord becoming wrapped around their neck, have a higher risk of autism. So do babies born prematurely , perhaps because of something that happened in the womb. Children are also slightly more likely to be diagnosed with autism if they have older fathers and possibly if they have older mothers, Miller said. It’s not clear if something in the biology of older parents causes a child to have a higher risk of autism, or if socioeconomic issues could play a role. It’s possible that older parents have better access to health care, making it more likely for their child to receive an autism diagnosis. A mother’s health influences her child’s autism risk in several ways, according to multiple studies: Children have a greater chance of being diagnosed with autism if their mothers were exposed to high levels of air pollution or developed a serious infection , such as the flu or pneumonia, while pregnant. While Ne’eman, of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said he’s not opposed to basic biological research on autism or its causes, he said those studies do little to help people with autism overcome the barriers they face in their everyday lives. He notes that only 8.4% of the $419 million spent on autism research in the United States is devoted to support and services for people with autism. “We need an autism research agenda,” he said, “that reflects the true priorities of autistic people and our families: supports across the lifespan and inclusion in the community.” This article first appeared on NBCNews.com . Read more from NBC News here:
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The world's most climate-imperilled nations stormed out of consultations in protest at the deadlocked UN COP29 conference Saturday, as simmering tensions over a hard-fought finance deal erupted into the open. Diplomats from small island nations threatened by rising seas and impoverished African states angrily filed out of a meeting with summit hosts Azerbaijan over a final deal being thrashed out in a Baku sports stadium. "We've just walked out. We came here to this COP for a fair deal. We feel that we haven't been heard," said Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). An unpublished version of the final text circulating in Baku, and seen by AFP, proposes that rich nations raise to $300 billion a year by 2035 their commitment to poorer countries to fight climate change. COP29 hosts Azerbaijan intended to put a final draft before 198 nations for adoption or rejection on Saturday evening, a full day after the marathon summit officially ended. But, in a statement, AOSIS said it had "removed" itself from the climate finance discussions, demanding an "inclusive" process. "If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29," it said. Sierra Leone's climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai, whose country is among the world's poorest, said the draft was "effectively a suicide pact for the rest of the world". An earlier offer from rich nations of $250 billion was slammed as offensively low by developing countries, who have demanded much higher sums to build resilience against climate change and cut emissions. UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the revised offer of $300 billion was "a significant scaling up" of the existing pledge by developed nations, which also count the United States, European Union and Japan among their ranks. At sunset, a final text still proved elusive, as harried diplomats ran to-and-fro in the stadium near the Caspian Sea searching for common ground. "Hopefully this is the storm before the calm," said US climate envoy John Podesta in the corridors as somebody shouted "shame" in his direction. Earlier, the EU's climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said negotiators were not out of the woods yet. "We're doing everything we can on each of the axes to build bridges and to make this into a success. But it is iffy whether we will succeed," he said. Ali Mohamed, the Kenyan chair of the African Group of Negotiators, told AFP: "No deal is better than a bad deal." South African environment minister Dion George, however, said: "I think being ambitious at this point is not going to be very useful." "What we are not up for is going backwards or standing still," he said. "We might as well just have stayed at home then." The revised offer from rich countries came with conditions in other parts of the broader climate deal under discussion in Azerbaijan. The EU in particular wants an annual review on global efforts to phase out fossil fuels, which are the main drivers of global warming. This has run into opposition from Saudi Arabia, which has sought to water down a landmark pledge to transition away from oil, gas and coal made at COP28 last year. "We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially the small island states, to be ripped off by the new, few rich fossil fuel emitters," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Wealthy nations counter that it is politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding. The US earlier this month elected former president Donald Trump, a sceptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, and a number of other Western countries have seen right-wing backlashes against the green agenda. A coalition of more than 300 activist groups accused historic polluters most responsible for climate change of skirting their obligation, and urged developing nations to stand firm. The draft deal posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources. Even $300 billion would be a step up from the $100 billion now provided by wealthy nations under a commitment set to expire. A group of developing countries had demanded at least $500 billion, with some saying that increases were less than met the eye due to inflation. Experts commissioned by the United Nations to assess the needs of developing countries said $250 billion was "too low" and by 2035 rich nations should be providing at least $390 billion. The US and EU have wanted newly wealthy emerging economies like China -- the world's largest emitter -- to chip in. China, which remains classified as a developing nation under the UN framework, provides climate assistance but wants to keep doing so on its own voluntary terms. bur-np-sct/lth/givNone
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