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The head of the U.N. AIDS agency said Monday the number of new HIV infections could jump more than six times by 2029 if American support of the biggest AIDS program is dropped, warning that millions of people could die and more resistant strains of the disease could emerge.In an interview with the Associated Press, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said HIV infections have been falling in recent years, with just 1.3 million new cases recorded in 2023, a 60% decline since the virus peaked in 1995.But since President Donald Trump’s announcement the U.S. would freeze all foreign assistance for 90 days, Byanyima said officials estimate that by 2029, there could be 8.7 million people newly infected with HIV, a tenfold jump in AIDS-related deathsto 6.3 millionand an additional 3.4 million children made orphans.“We will see a surge in this disease,” Byanyima said, speaking from Uganda. “This will cost lives if the American government doesn’t change its mind and maintain its leadership,” she said, adding that it was not her place to criticize any government’s policy.Byanyima pleaded with the Trump administration not to abruptly cut off funding, which she said has resulted in “panic, fear, and confusion” in many of the African countries hardest hit by AIDS.In one Kenyan county, she said 550 HIV workers were immediately laid off, while thousands of others in Ethiopia were terminated, leaving health officials unable to track the epidemic.She noted that the loss of U.S. funding to HIV programs in some countries was catastrophic, with external funding, mostly from the U.S., accounting for about 90% of their programs. Nearly $400 million goes to countries like Uganda, Mozambique, and Tanzania, she said.“We can work with (the Americans) on how to decrease their contribution if they wish to decrease it,” she said. Byanyima described the American withdrawal from global HIV efforts as the second biggest crisis the field has ever facedafter the yearslong delay it took for poor countries to get the lifesaving antiretrovirals long available in rich countries.Byanyima also said the loss of American support in efforts to combat HIV was coming at another critical time, with the arrival of what she called “a magical prevention tool” known as lenacapavir, a twice-yearly shot that was shown to offer complete protection against HIV in women, and which worked nearly as well as for men.Widespread use of that shot, in addition to other interventions to stop HIV, could help end the disease as a public health problem in the next five years, Byanyima said.She also noted that lenacapavir, sold as Sunlenca, was developed by the American company Gilead.International aid, Byanyima said, “helped an American company to innovate, to come up with something that will pay them millions and millions, but at the same time prevent new infections in the rest of the world.” The freeze in American funding, she said, didn’t make economic sense.“We appeal to the U.S. government to review this, to understand that this is mutually beneficial,” she said, noting that foreign assistance makes up less than 1% of the overall U.S. budget. “Why would you need to be so disruptive for that 1%?”Byanyima said that so far, no other countries or donors have stepped up to fill the void that will be left by the loss of American aid, but that she plans to visit numerous European capitals to speak with global leaders.“People are going to die because lifesaving tools have been taken away from them,” she said. “I have not yet heard of any European country committing to step in, but I know they are listening and trying to see where they can come in because they care about rights, about humanity.” The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Maria Cheng, AP Medical Writer
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E-Commerce
Chess.com has a new subscription option for chess families and tight-knit players: a friends and family plan. The site, where players around the world can face off against live opponents, play bots, and solve chess puzzles, introduced its group tier in January, offering a players a discount on its top-tier offerings with the aim of winning the long-term loyalty game. For $199.99 a year, Chess.com’s “Friends and Family” Diamond Premium plan offers up to four people access to feature’s like an ad-free site experience, chess lessons, game reviews, and insights into how to improve their skills that would run an individual subscriber $120 a year. Its good for consumers, because it brings down the average cost of the membership, says Erik Allebest, founder and CEO of Chess.com. But then its also good for the business and for retention, because people tend to stick together and stay members together. Who wants to cancel a membership and then have all their friends lose their benefits? Squaring the economics Chess.com’s subscriptions are more easily compared to music streamers that video platformswith companies like Netflix and Max taking action to curb password sharing. Like an avid music fan who doesn’t want a friend or family member’s taste throwing off their recommendations, Chess.com users guard their ratingand passwordsfiercely. Nobody wants to share their chess login[someone could] play a game and mess up their rating, Allebest says. It becomes more important to have a friends and family plan, because you dont just get to share your password and do it that way. Music streamers also offer an example of how the group subscription economics could play out. In 2016, Spotify delighted customers by dropping their family plans price to just $14.99 per month. The move kept them competitive with Apple, but over time, the price has crept upit now sits at $19.99 per month. That hasn’t had a negative affect on the number of people signing up for it, though. On its most recent quarterly earnings call, Spotify co-president and chief business officer Alex Nordstrom noted that its family plan is “making up a big proportion of [our] subscriber base.” Allebest estimates that with its current all-time high of approximately 1.5 million paying subscribers, Chess.com’s premium accounts make up about 80% of the sites revenue. The new friends and family plan could eat into that bottom line in the short term, but sees long-term loyalty as something worth an early revenue hit. If its $199 for up to four people, maybe six people in the future, youre getting fewer dollars per person, Allebest says. The bet is that youll get lower dollars-per-user, but youll get a longer lifetime subscription. Seeing what works Allebest says the site is no stranger to experimenting with different ways to attract and retain players. The company offers gift subscriptionsan effort he calls “moderately successful”and micro-tests a variety of new features among Chess.com’s Beta Club of power users. Were not innovating dramatically here, Allebest says. But we are testing it. We tried a lower price. Were going to try adding more seats to it.” Their metric of success will be subscriber turnover, or “churn” rates. Allebest says that he’s “constantly monitoring” the company’s churn, though he declined to share a specific churn rate. Itll take a year, he estimates, until they know just how successful the program is. But Allebest is confident that the program will work out, as they continue to fine-tune it to be the best value. I feel like paying a subscription for a service that provides utility in your life is fair, he says. “[Were] trying to find the right balance.”
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E-Commerce
A U.S. judge will consider on Monday the fate of President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to two million federal workers as Trump presses ahead with an unprecedented effort to dismantle government agencies and downsize the federal workforce. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston will hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by federal workers’ unions which claim the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer to government civilian employees is illegal because the U.S. Congress has not approved funding for the scheme. Trump has tasked Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, with overseeing the purge of employees through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The actions of DOGE, which is not a government department, have sown panic in Washington and triggered public protests and a flood of calls from angry voters to Congress worried about the access Musk’s team has been given to sensitive information in government computer systems that contain data on government payments to Americans and personal details of federal workers. Musk aides have taken senior positions at key government agencies while the billionaire has pushed for the dismantling of others, including USAID, America’s humanitarian and development aid agency, and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog set up in 2010 after the global financial crisis. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, PENTAGON NEXT Opposition Democrats and federal employee unions have decried the power Trump has bestowed on South African-born Musk, who appears largely unaccountable except to Trump himself. Trump says Musk does not operate unilaterally but only with his blessing. Musk and his team of young staff appear to be far exceeding the mandate given to them by an executive order Trump signed when he took office on January 20, in which DOGE was asked to provide recommendations on how to modernize technology used by the federal government. Last week Judge O’Toole temporarily paused the Thursday deadline for workers to accept Trump’s buyout plan, which offers employees pay through September if they resign now. While unions have urged members not to accept the offer, saying the Trump administration cannot be trusted to honor it, more than 65,000 government employees have so far opted to take it as of Friday. Reuters has been unable to independently verify that number, which does not include a breakdown of workers from each agency. O’Toole could decide on another temporary pause to the program, bar it outright, or allow it to proceed. A CFPB employee sounded downbeat on Sunday, saying even if the judge blocks the buyout program, he and fellow staff believe they will likely lose their jobs anyway. Russell Vought, Trump’s new acting director of the CFPB, sent an email to workers on Saturday night ordering them to cease virtually all work. On Sunday, workers received another email telling them the agency would be closed for a week starting on Monday. A labor union that represents CFPB workers filed a lawsuit late on Sunday to block Vought’s actions, arguing that he was violating Congress’s authority to set and fund the agency’s mission. The agency regulates consumer financial products and has long incurred the ire of conservatives, who view its existence as government overreach. On Friday, the same day his staff were reported to have entered the agency, Musk posted “CFPB RIP” on X, his social media platform. Trump said on Sunday he expected Musk to find billions of dollars of waste in military spending once he instructs the billionaire to turn his sights on the Pentagon. The aggressive moves by Trump and Musk are bringing new lawsuits on an almost daily basis. An effort to hollow out USAID is partially on hold after a judge’s ruling, and Trump’s effort to freeze trillions of dollars in federal loans, grants and other financial assistance has also been paused in a separate case. On Saturday a judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing government systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments at the Treasury Department. Tim Reid and Nate Raymond, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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