If you’ve found yourself spending less time on Facebook over the last year, you’re not alone. As the beleaguered company has battled scandal and tried to emphasize “meaningful” interactions over fake news and clickbait, it appears users are spending less time on the service.
Engagement with Facebook is set to decline or remain flat for the foreseeable future, according to a new report from eMarketer.
Daily time spent on Facebook declined by 3 minutes among U.S. users in 2018, according to the firm. Users spent an average of 38 minutes per day on the platform in 2018, the report says, down from 41 minutes a day in 2017. eMarketer expects usage to further decline to 37 minutes a day by 2020 and remain flat in 2021.
Facebook use is declining.
Image: eMarketer
In a statement, eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson attributes the slide to Facebook’s News Feed changes, which reduced clickbait and other publisher content, as well as an overall lack of popularity with teens.
While a few minutes may not seem like that big of a deal, it’s a worrying trend for Facebook, which still depends on its main app for a sizable chunk of its ad revenue. And the U.S. has long been one of its most lucrative markets. If the platform can no longer hold users’ attention in the same way, it could take a hit with advertisers.
The report does help explain Facebook’s recent decision to stop disclosing metrics for its main app and its shift toward private interactions.
It’s not entirely bleak, though. Instagram remains a bright spot for the company, with usage set to rise through 2021, according to the firm. But even with that growth, it will likely be some time before Instagram engagement reaches Facebook’s level. Time spent on Instagram is expected to reach 27 minutes per day in 2018, eMarketer says.
Protesters in Sudan staged a two-day general strike on Tuesday to pile pressure on the ruling army to hand over power to a civilian government as hundreds of passengers were stranded at Khartoum airport.
Leaders of the umbrella protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and army generals who seized power after ousting President Omar al-Bashir last month, have so far failed to iron out differences over who should lead a new governing body – a civilian or soldier.
“The response to the call for a strike has been better than we expected,” Siddiq Farukh, a leader of the protest movement, told AFP news agency on Monday.
“The two-day strike aims to deliver a message to the whole world that the Sudanese people want a real change and they don’t want the power to be with the military,” he added.
The new governing body is expected to install a transitional civilian government, which in turn would prepare for the first post-al-Bashir elections after a three-year interim period ends.
The deputy head of the Transitional Military Council, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who goes by the nickname Hemeti, said on Monday that the council was ready to hand over power swiftly.
Is a smooth transition possible in Sudan? (25:05)
Hemeti accused the opposition of not being serious about sharing power and wanted to confine the military to a ceremonial role.
“By God, their slogans cheated us. I swear we were honest with them 100 percent,” Hemeti said at a dinner with police.
“That’s why, by God Almighty, we will not hand this country except to safe hands.”
Protest leaders said medics, lawyers, prosecutors, employees in the electricity and water sectors, public transport, railways, telecommunication and civil aviation were set to participate in the strike.
They said that the strike in the telecommunications and aviation sectors would not affect operations.
But the protest movement’s plan has been dealt a blow after a key member, the National Umma Party, said it opposed the strike plan as there had been no unanimous decision over it.
“We have to avoid such escalated measures that are not fully agreed,” the party said on Sunday.
Umma and its chief Sadiq al-Mahdi have for decades been the main opponents of al-Bashir’s iron-fisted rule.
The party threw its weight behind the protest movement after nationwide demonstrations erupted against al-Bashir in December.
Mahdi’s elected government was toppled by al-Bashir in a coup in 1989.
In a recent interview with AFP, Mahdi warned protesters not to “provoke” the army rulers as they had been instrumental in al-Bashir’s removal.
Protester Hazar Mustafa said a civilian government was the only solution to Sudan’s problems.
“We see the military council as part of the former regime. We don’t see it upholding any rights and building a just state,” she said.
Ahead of the strike, the chief of the ruling military council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo have been touring Khartoum’s regional allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The oil-rich Gulf states Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with Egypt, are seen as backing the generals even as the United States leads Western calls to swiftly establish civilian rule in the country.
Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers were stranded at Khartoum airport as scores of employees at the facility went on strike. Many employees carried banners or wore badges that read “We are on strike”.
Sudanese airlines Badr, Tarco and Nova suspended flights on Tuesday, although some international flights were still scheduled.
Passengers were also stranded at Khartoum’s main bus terminal as hundreds of employees observed the strike.
“I have to travel to Gadaref to be with my family for Eid, but I’m not angry as I understand the reason for the strike,” traveller Fatima Omar said as she waited with her children at the bus terminal.
The former veep is leading the Democratic field in all the important categories except one.
He’s dominating in the polls, his fundraising is going gangbusters and he’s showing broad support from key political players in the early presidential states.
So where are the big energetic crowds, the lines around the block to get into Joe Biden’s events?
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The question is no small matter in a party still recovering from a bitter 2016 defeat — a loss marked by a lack of enthusiasm for an establishment nominee in several critical states.
Attendance at the former vice president’s launch rally paled next to some of his rivals. In his first Iowa visit, he didn’t match the crowds that greeted Elizabeth Warren or even the less well-known Pete Buttigieg in their initial visits. So far, he’s kept his events to smaller venues where there’s little danger of empty seats.
In the eyes of Biden’s progressive critics — as well as President Donald Trump, who has publicly mocked him for it — the seeming lack of excitement or teeming masses at his events is a leading indicator of a lack of passion for his candidacy.
“I started to think the polls were wrong about Biden because it’s not what we’re seeing on the ground,” said Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People, a national network devoted to promoting women of color.
“Inspiration is the X-factor and we’re waiting for the inspiration from Biden,” she said. “When the inspiration isn’t there, the turnout from the core of the Democratic base — women of color — isn’t there. And then we lose.”
To Biden’s campaign, attendance figures are a meaningless metric. Focusing on crowd size is Trump’s game, they say, an emphasis on style over substance that attempts to turn audience engagement into an argument about the 76-year-old Biden’s energy level.
Crowd size, after all, is an imperfect metric to measure a campaign’s vitality. While it can be a revealing indicator, it still lacks the scientific underpinning of polling or the fixed-dollar figures associated with fundraising. Nor does it account forthe judgment of elected and influential Democrats across the country.
Just as critics doubted Biden’s popularity before he got in the race, his campaign is confident he’ll have the crowds when he needs them.
“We’re seeing enormous enthusiasm for Joe Biden’s candidacy across the country, beginning the very first day of the campaign when he got over 100,000 contributions — 65,000 of which were brand new to our lists — from all 50 states,” said Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo.
Even so, since announcing his candidacy more than a month ago, Biden has yet to draw anything near the 20,000 people who showed in Oakland to cheer on Kamala Harris when she announced, or the 13,000 who turned out in Brooklyn for Bernie Sanders’ launch.
Last Saturday, when Biden held a rally for his headquarters’ opening in Philadelphia, his campaign estimated the crowd size was 6,000 — a count thatsome local observers thought might be generous. One local elected Democrat who supports Biden privately told POLITICO the rally was smaller and less energetic than expected.
The eventfell far short of the size his surrogates predicted in one of the nation’s largest Democratic cities. Just before Biden formally announced his candidacy last month, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped organize a fundraiser for Biden, had loftier expectations.
“He’s enormously popular here,” Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor, said in a late April interview. “We could get tens and tens of thousands of people … For one rally, I think we could do that.”
The crowd size was similar to what former President Barack Obama drew at a 2016 rally for Hillary Clinton at the same venue. As a candidate, however, in April 2008, some 35,000 people flooded Independence Mall to see Obama — before he was the nominee.
President Trump — for whom crowd size borders on obsession — seized on Biden’s Philadelphia launch, mocking the former vice president two days later at a rival Pennsylvania speech where he exaggerated the smallness of the crowd.
“We have thousands of people … look at the thousands and thousands of people we have,” Trump said at a Montoursville rally, for which his campaign declined to release an estimated crowd count. “They said [Biden] had 600 people … I’d say 150.”
It’s not the first time Trump has needled Biden over crowd sizes. In 2018, when the president and Biden held dueling Nevada rallies in the homestretch of the midterm campaign — and Trump’s Elko rally had more attendees than Biden’s Las Vegas rally — Trump used the occasion to point to Biden’s prior presidential race defeat and joked that Biden “was thrilled that’s one of the biggest crowds he’s ever had.”
It’s not just the size of Biden’s events that are modest,he’s also holding far fewer of them than his primary competitors. Since his launch, he’sonly visited Iowa once. And while Democrats criss-crossed early presidential primary states during the long Memorial Day weekend, Biden took it off. (On Tuesday, he travels to Houston where he and his wife, Jill, will join an American Federation of Teachers town hall.)
There are signs that the theme could become more prominent as the campaign progresses. One of the president’s top surrogates, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, said Biden won’t have the energy to campaign full time once he gets off “the French work week campaign schedule” that the Democrat is currently on.
“He wants to make America bored again. It’s like he wants to put his audience to sleep,” Gaetz said.
“Trump’s rallies are big and raucous and enthusiastic. And the reason that matters is that in today’s politics, people want to be part of something,” Gaetz said. “Joe Biden’s rallies looks like an event where you would give a gold watch to the Democrat for a lifetime of service.”
James Carville, one of the masterminds behind Bill Clinton’s campaigns for president, said those criticisms miss an essential point about the kind of no-frills-no-thrills campaign he is running.
“He’s never been a candidate who has run on excitement. He has run on ‘you can trust me. I’m a good guy. My heart is in the right place. I’m human. You know me. I’m well-liked,’” Carville said. “Their theory of the case is people are tired of the circus. And it takes an experienced hand to settle everything down to get us back to some era of sanity.”
To that end, some Democrats say Biden’s sometimes listless crowds aren’t cause for concern, but merely reflective of the part of the electorate backing him: older, middle-of-the-road Democrats who are more likely to turn out to the polls than to boisterous mega-rallies.
Polk County Democratic Chair Sean Bagniewski said there weren’t lines around the block for Biden during his Iowa visit, but that at a local Democratic party dinner, the former vice president’s campaign dominated local chatter.
“The polls are picking up the people who might not be going to the rallies, might not be going to the meetings. But the polls can still be right,” Bagniewski said. “The rank-and-file can be reliable Democrats. They’re the people who have been around for awhile.”
Brian Fallon, former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, said that the Biden campaign isn’t going for big crowds and passion and is instead underpinned by “a very pragmatic argument. It’s not an argument designed to electrify. It revolves around electability … It’s not the type of message that inspires a movement. It’s very practical.”
There’s also the matter of Biden’s long tenure in politics. Crowds that flooded to Buttigieg or Beto O’Rourke in this cycle did so in part because they’ve never seen the candidates before.
Tad Devine, who part of Sanders’ insurgent 2016 campaign against Clinton, added that Biden doesn’t need the big crowds the way Sanders did in the last race because the former vice president doesn’t need to show he’s a legitimate candidate — he’s the frontrunner.
“Biden’s not a crowd candidate. He’s not Obama. He’s not Bernie,” Devine said. “Drawing big crowds is more important for Beto [O’Rourke] or Mayor Pete to get into the mix.”
Holly Otterbein, Daniel Lippman, Christopher Cadelago and Anita Kumar contributed to this report.
If you’re looking for a laptop with premium materials, you might check out the offerings of HP, which has lately been enthusiastic about the idea.
After launching a fancy leather-clad HP Spectre Folio last year, the company has now embraced wood for its Envy line of devices.
The devices which can be had with woody details are the Envy 13, Envy x360 13, Envy x360 15 and the Envy 17. They’re otherwise the same as the previously announced metal versions, but you can now get them with the latest Intel Core processors or 2nd-generation AMD Ryzen processors.
These can all be had in three color-wood combinations: Nightfall Black with Natural Walnut, Ceramic White with White Birch, or Natural Silver with Pale Birch. Out of these, the natural walnut is the one that actually looks like wood from afar, whereas the other two combos are far more subdued.
Image: HP
Somewhat disappointingly, none of the combinations actually include wood on the cover or the device’s sides — the only part that’s covered in wood is the trackpad and the palm rests on both sides. It’s nice when the laptop is open, but when it’s closed, the wooden parts are invisible.
Image: HP
The HP Envy Wood Series laptops will become available this fall; pricing has not yet been announced.
And if you need something fancy to carry your new partially wooden laptop in, HP will start offering a HP ENVY Uptown tote, backpack and convertible backpack, all of which should become available this summer for $170 – $180.
Egyptian security forces have committed widespread abuses against civilians in restive northern Sinai Peninsula, some of which amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday, urging other nations to halt military assistance.
In a 134-page report titled If You Are Afraid for Your Lives, Leave Sinai!, the group said it documented arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, forced evictions, and possibly unlawful air and ground attacks against civilians.
“Some of these abuses, part of an ongoing campaign against members of the local ISIS affiliate, the Wilayat Sina’ [Sinai Province group], amount to war crimes,” the report said. ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL).
Egyptian officials had no immediate comment.
HRW compiled the report over two years interviewing more than 50 residents of the Sinai Peninsula, in northeast Egypt, where independent media coverage is effectively banned and a state of emergency has been in force since 2013.
Some died in custody because of ill-treatment and lack of medical care, HRW said, citing former detainees.
Children as young as 12 have been detained in routine sweeps, eventually being jailed in secret prisons.
“Instead of protecting Sinai residents in their fight against militants, the Egyptian security forces have shown utter contempt to residents’ lives, turning their daily life into a nonstop nightmare of abuses,” said Michael Page, HRW’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa region.
The armed fighters have also committed horrific crimes, including kidnapping and torture of residents, some of whom were killed, the New York-based watchdog said. They have also killed captured members of the security forces, HRW said.
Access to North Sinai has been restricted for years, making it difficult to independently verify what is happening on the ground.
The report said that tens of thousands of residents have been forcibly evicted or fled their homes due to the ongoing violence.
Alongside the report, a video was released showing footage of air raids on residents’ homes and extrajudicial killings of suspected armed fighters by security forces.
“Why all of this? Should we carry weapons and work with the militants or work with the army or live like victims? Everyone is preying on us,” said a North Sinai resident interviewed for the report.
Scenes of deadly attacks
Conflict in the Sinai escalated after then-President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was toppled by the military in 2013.
According to HRW, the Egyptian military presence in Sinai has not been this large seen since the country’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which strictly limited armed forces in the Sinai Peninsula.
“However, since 2013, Israel has not only allowed a build-up of Egyptian military presence in the area beyond the treaty stipulations, but also according to media reports and official statements, aided the Egyptian government forces and probably participated in airstrikes against ISIS-affiliated militants,” the report said.
In late 2017, North Sinai was the scene of the deadliest attack in Egypt’s modern history when fighters killed more than 300 worshippers at a mosque, without any group claiming responsibility.
In February 2018, the army launched a nationwide operation against ISIL, focused on North Sinai.
Some 650 armed fighters and around 45 soldiers have been killed since the start of the offensive, according to separate statements by the armed forces.
According to the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Egyptian authorities have arrested more than 12,000 people, while at least 3,076 alleged armed fighters and 1,226 military and police personnel were killed in North Sinai from 2014-2018.
The HRW report called on the United States, which gives $1.5bn annually in aid, and Egypt’s other international partners to halt military and security assistance.
It also called on the Egyptian authorities to allow independent humanitarian and relief groups to conduct operations in Sinai, including the Egyptian Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
While the closure was announced last year, the app will officially shut down and be merged with the main site on May 30, Google announced in a support post.
Although YouTube will merge existing YouTube Gaming subscriptions to the main site, it’s not possible to transfer the games content which you’ve saved in YouTube Gaming.
In the aftermath of Twitch’s acquisition by Amazon for $1 billion back in 2014, Google stepped up the competition by releasing its very own standalone, games streaming hub in YouTube Gaming in 2015.
The hub became a testbed for new features such as Super Chat and Channel Memberships, which have rolled out on the the main site, while aiming to give people just gaming content.
However, it never really took off, although gaming continues to be a popular genre on YouTube, with Google claiming more than 200 million users engage with gaming content on the platform. Now, YouTube wants to meld the gaming community with the rest of the site.
“We want to continue to build a stronger home for the gaming community that thrives on YouTube, not just the YouTube Gaming app,” the company said in its post.
Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert suffered a stroke Sunday but is “awake, responsive and resting comfortably.”
The Cavs shared a statement from Quicken Loans CEO Jay Farner (via the New York Times‘ Marc Stein).
“Dan was not feeling well Sunday morning so he was taken to the hospital by a family friend,” Farner said. “While under care at the hospital, he suffered a stroke and was immediately taken in for a catheter-based procedure, then moved in the Intensive Care Unit.”
Marc Stein @TheSteinLine
Update from the Cavaliers on owner Dan Gilbert, who is recovering from a stroke he suffered Sunday … https://t.co/zuj9Zw86Hu
This article will be updated to provide more information on this story as it becomes available.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has hit out at the United States after President Donald Trump said Washington was not looking for “regime change” in Iran but was only interested in preventing Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Zarif insisted Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons and accused the US, which has recently beefed up its military presence in the Middle East, of causing regional tensions and “hurting the Iranian people”.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “long ago said we’re not seeking nuclear weapons – by issuing a fatwa (edict) banning them”, Zarif tweeted.
Ayatollah @khamenei_ir long ago said we’re not seeking nuclear weapons—by issuing a fatwa (edict) banning them.#B_Team‘s #EconomicTerrorism is hurting the Iranian people & causing tension in the region. Actions—not words—will show whether or not that’s @realDonaldTrump‘s intent
His comments came after Trump said on Monday during a trip to Japan that a deal with Iran on its nuclear programme was possible, crediting economic sanctions for curbing activities Washington has said are behind a spate of attacks in the Middle East.
“We aren’t looking for regime change – I just want to make that clear. We are looking for no nuclear weapons,” Trump told reporters during a news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.
“I really believe that Iran would like to make a deal, and I think that’s very smart of them, and I think that’s a possibility to happen,” he said.
“It has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership.”
In response, Zarif tweeted: “Actions – not words – will show whether or not that’s @realDonaldTrump’s intent,” Zarif added, referencing the US president’s Twitter handle.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in October the US was seeking “regime change” in Iran, adding that the Trump administration was the most hostile that the Islamic Republic had faced in its four decades.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Tehran, said Iranian leaders were likely “to see the softer rhetoric from Trump as insincere, pointing to aggressive economic sanctions and a military build-up in the region as the true measures of US intentions towards to Iran”.
He added: “Experts say that in the absence of any real goals, talking with the US would be just for the sake of talking. So as long as a reduction of sanctions remains highly unlikely Iranian leaders are expected to maintain the policy of not negotiating with the Trump White House.
“For the moment, they are focusing their diplomatic energy on reaching out to regional partners to try to strike up some kind of security cooperation that endeavours to elbow out the US.”
Tensions have risen between the two countries after a US decision earlier this month to send an aircraft carrier attack force and B-52 bombers in a show of force against what Washington’s leaders said they believed was an imminent Iranian plan to attack US assets.
The US, a firm backer of Tehran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia, has also announced plans to deploy an additional 1,500 troops to the Middle East, prompting fears of a conflict.
It says the latest reinforcements are in response to a “campaign” of recent attacks including a rocket launched into the Green Zone in Baghdad, explosive devices that damaged four tankers near the entrance to the Gulf, and drone attacks by Yemeni rebels on a key Saudi oil pipeline.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks.
Trump, on a four-day visit to Japan, welcomed Abe’s help in dealing with Iran after broadcaster NHK said the prime minister was considering a trip to Tehran as early as mid-June. Iran said a visit was unlikely in the near future.
“I know for a fact that the prime minister is very close with the leadership of Iran, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
At his joint news conference with Trump, Abe said Japan would do what it could on the Iran issue.
Trump last year withdrew the US from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran, and is ratcheting up sanctions seeking to end Iran’s international sales of crude oil and strangle its economy.
Japan was a major buyer of Iranian oil for decades before US sanctions which Trump said were taking effect.
“They were fighting in many locations,” he said of Iran. “Now they are pulling back because they have serious economic problems.”
Rescue workers at the site of the attack in Kawasaki [Kyodo via Reuters]
At least 16 people, including eight primary school children, have been wounded in a suspected stabbing attack in the Japanese city of Kawasaki, just outside Tokyo, according to local media.
Two children and an adult were without vital signs after the incident on Tuesday morning, Japan‘s national broadcaster NHK said, citing city authorities.
A male suspect was detained on the spot by the police and was badly hurt after stabbing himself in the shoulder, according to NHK.
It said the man, likely in his 40s to 50s, reportedly began slashing at people waiting at a bus stop. Two knives, along with some victims, were found in a nearby park, it added.
Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, reporting from Tokyo, said the attack took place very close to a train station and at a time when the area was likely to be very busy with commuters.
“I heard the sound of lots of ambulances and I saw a man lying near a bus stop bleeding,” an eyewitness, who was not identified, told NHK.
“There is another bus stop near the elementary school and I also saw elementary schoolchildren lying on the ground … It’s a quiet neighbourhood, it’s scary to see this kind of thing happen,” he added.
Footage broadcast on local TV stations showed multiple police cars, ambulances and fire engines at the scene.
Emergency medical tents were put up to treat the wounded.
Thanks to a group of Chinese researchers and a rare genetic mutation, we’re discovering that the world’s best bear can get even moreadorable.
On Sunday, scientists at Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China released a photo of an all-white, albino giant panda — believed to be the first of his (or her) kind known to human researchers.
The image, taken by the reserve’s motion-activated cameras in mid-April, shows the one- to two-year-old panda cub walking through brush, approximately 2,000 meters above sea-level. With white claws, white fur, and red eyes, the unnamed critter carries all the hallmark signs of albinism.
According to an official statement from the local conservation authority, the discovery of this rare cub indicates “that there is a ‘whitening’ mutant gene in the giant panda population in Wolong.”
Should the cub mate with another wild panda and pass its genetic code along when it is fully grown, it is quite possible that we could be looking at more albino panda cubs down the line — the species’ well-known mating issues notwithstanding.
Albinism “usually has no significant effect on the animal’s activity or reproduction,” according to the conservation authority. Outside of being slightly more visible to predators and sensitive to sunlight, our new panda friend should have about as good of a chance at survival as any of its black-and-white peers.
“Looking at the photo, the individual appears physically strong, with a steady gait,” the statement notes.
The discovery comes as part of a larger conservation effort in southwest China, aiming to learn more about multiple species in the region.
Moving forward, researchers intend to tag and track the animal for further study and protection. As of 2016, giants pandas are no longer endangered, but their global population remains vulnerable today.
No word yet on when we can expect more photos of the rare baby.
Special thanks to Sarah Stebbins for aiding with translation.
![Rescue workers at the site of the attack in Kawasaki [Kyodo via Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/5/28/0d41e6ae10a34868bfe8595f1fe12baa_18.jpg "Japan stabbing attack: Children among wounded in Kawasaki")
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