Five privately held Israeli-founded companies in California have reached or surpassed a $1 billion valuation in 2021, boosting the state’s nation-leading unicorn count to 22, according to the United States – Israel Business Alliance (USIBA). Each has at least one Israeli founder and maintains its global or U.S. headquarters in California. “California continues to attract many of the best and brightest innovators in the world,” USIBA president Aaron Kaplowitz said. “We’re seeing today a new generation of Israeli entrepreneurs contribute to northern California’s innovation ecosystem and benefit from a deep bench of venture capitalists.” New York hosts 21 Israel-founded unicorns.…
Author: zenger.news
Two prairie dog pups have appeared above ground at the Tiergarten Schonbrunn zoo in Vienna for the first time since their birth in mid-April. “The young were born and growing up in an underground burrow,” said Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck, zoo director. “When they were born, they weighed around 15 grams (0.5 ounces) each. They were naked and blind.” After they appeared on the surface, the two unnamed pups could be seen playing and scuffling. The two female prairie dog pups born in the Vienna zoo in April. (Daniel Zupanc/Zenger News)Prairie dogs are herbivorous burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North…
NEW DELHI — Aparna Sen, a 48-year-old homemaker, came back from a Covid-19 vaccination site in Rajkot, a city in India’s western state of Gujarat, with localized pain in the vaccination site as well as a gold nose ring and a hand blender. “There was some hesitancy initially regarding the vaccines as some messages were being circulated on WhatsApp that you will get a fever or might die two years after taking jabs,” Sen told Zenger News. She says she knew those weren’t true but wasn’t “sure what to do”. But when the second wave started approaching, she said she knew they had to…
PUNE, India — Twenty-one Covid-19 vaccination mixing accidents in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have led to the country discussing the feasibility of administering a cocktail of vaccines. The first case of the accidental trial saw a man being administered two different doses in the state’s Maharajganj district. In the second such case, 20 people were inoculated with two different vaccines in the state’s Siddharthnagar district. To date, no adverse effect has been recorded. The state government ordered a probe into the matter after the accidents gained domestic and international media attention. The Indian government is giving mixed signals over the topic…
A visual-effects artist from London who left school at 15 has since gone on to work on major productions, such as the hit TV show “Black Mirror” and the movie-megahit “Frozen.” Three decades later, he shares a new clip from his online “Spinosaurus Swamp Things” series. “The spino babies are back, but have grown quite a bit!” he said. Julian Johnson-Mortimer’s latest dinosaur VFX creations notched up 2.5 million views; he has over 75,000 subscribers on his channel. He said he was unable to find much work at first, and one day started painting. “I started painting a watercolor. I…
NEW DELHI — Alikkoya, a 45-year-old fisherman staying on the Lakshadweep island, was heartbroken to see his shed, the only source of livelihood he had, being razed by the authorities in the name of “development”. India’s smallest Union Territory Lakshadweep, off the coast of the southern state of Kerala, is an archipelago consisting of 36 islands with an area of 32 square kilometers (12 square miles). It has 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks, and 10 inhabited islands. Although Alikkoya’s petition against the demolition is still pending in the Kerala high court, he is angry at the elected representatives since…
CANBERRA, Australia — An architect of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is maintaining pressure against a proposed overhaul of the program. Bruce Bonyhady, the inaugural chairman of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, is aghast the Morrison government remains committed to introducing an assessment model universally slammed by the disability community. He believes the independent assessment policy will undermine the scheme. “It cannot possibly identify individual needs,” Bonyhady said on June 10. The government wants to replace typical National Disability Insurance Scheme support packages based on funding approved for participants with similar circumstances with personalized budgets based on independent assessments. Disability Minister Linda Reynolds has indicated…
BRISBANE, Australia — The North-eastern state of Queensland’s government will commit AU$ 2 billion ($1.55 billion) towards renewable energy projects to keep public assets in Queensland’s hands, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says. The landmark investment by the state government will further its initial contribution of AU$ 500 million ($387 million) to the Queensland Renewable Energy Fund. Just weeks before the state budget, the premier declared Queensland’s public-owned power generators would be forced to increase investment in renewable energy, with an investment into manufacturing jobs, under the multibillion-dollar plan to cut emissions and lower electricity prices. “This is positioning Queensland for the future,” the premier…
SYDNEY — Australian Crown is yet to examine why 19 of its staff were arrested in China for gambling promotion offenses, a royal commission has been told. The James Packer-backed group’s chief risk officer Anne Siegers on June 10 said there had been no “root cause” analysis into the 2016 incident. “A review could be undertaken now,” Siegers told the inquiry into whether Crown can retain a license for its Melbourne operations. “But we would not get the full benefit as four or five years have passed.” Last years’ New South Wales Bergin Inquiry provided Crown Resorts executive chairman Helen Coonan’s evidence…
BRISBANE, Australia — A list of Covid-exposure sites in Queensland and New South Wales is expected to grow after a woman left locked-down Melbourne to go on a road trip across three states before testing positive on the Sunshine Coast. Regional centers in New South Wales and Queensland are on alert after the woman’s case was confirmed on June 9. She and her husband left an unidentified suburb on the edge of greater Melbourne on June 1, while the Victorian capital was in lockdown to control community transmission of the virus. They then traveled through regional Victoria, crossed the border into New…