Three Things for September 30
1. CDC urges pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccine
The Center for Disease Control is recently stressing the importance of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and the issues to one’s health that it can help prevent. As part of this push, the CDC released new guidance yesterday, specifically urging people planning to become pregnant, are pregnant or just gave birth to be vaccinated.
“In addition to the risks of severe illness and death for pregnant and recently pregnant people, there is an increased risk for adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, including preterm birth and admission of their neonate(s) to an intensive care unit (ICU),” the CDC said in the release.
There have been 125,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in pregnant people. Of these cases, 22,000 have been hospitalized, with 161 of these leading to death; 22 of these deaths occurred in August alone.
NBC has a more comprehensive story on the topic here.
2. Kim Jong Un willing to restore inter-Korean hotlines next month
Reports from Seol, South Korea, suggest North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be willing to reopen inter-Korean hotlines next month to allow discussion to resume between the North and South Korean countries.
This announcement comes after North Korea, earlier this week, conducted further testing of advanced weapons systems, including a previously unseen hypersonic missile.
“We have neither aim nor reason to provoke South Korea and no idea to harm it,” said Kim.
In the same speech, Kim had scathing words for the U.S.
“The U.S. is touting ‘diplomatic engagement’ and ‘dialogue without preconditions’, but it is no more than a petty trick for deceiving the international community and hiding its hostile acts,” said Kim.
The U.S. is still open to conducting talks with North Korea and offers sanction relief if North Korea will agree to certain conditions.
“We remain open to engagement … to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues,” said Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy for North Korea.
3. New iPhone update allows copy and paste feature for images
IOS 15 for iPhone released on Monday, and it comes with several major new features for Apple users. Out of these new features, one stands out the most for students and people looking to take notes and save information faster and easier.
Object recognition in photos has been around in Apple products for a while now, but this has always required a connection to a Cloud server to perform. This new feature will now operate completely on the device and is built into the operating system.
Users can now take a photo through the iPhone camera and select text in the photo for the operating system to copy and transport to a new page within the Notes application on the device. Not only does this software work with books and typed words, but it also works with handwritten items.
CNBC has a step-by-step guide on how it works, as well as some useful applications of the feature.
