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If you scroll through your old photos from the mid-2010sthe golden era of Snapchatchances are a fair number of those pictures feature a dog filter or a flower crown. Now, nearly a decade later, one TikToker has now been struck by a unique dilemma. “Your daughter wants to see her baby pictures, but she was born in 2016, user @themkidzmama3 posted in a video that has since gone viral. @themkidzmama3 I saw another creator do this and I realized my daughger was a victim of the snap chat filter era too #fyp #daughtersoftiktok #filtered #momsbelike #momsover30 #motherdaughterlove original sound – Feez As the Adele’s 2015 hit “Hello” plays, a slideshow of her daughters baby photos flashes across the screen. Each photo uses a different filter, from the dog ears to a Sia wig. It’s undeniable: Her daughter is a product of the Snapchat filter era. There was a time when baby photos were professionally staged and displayed proudly in parents’ homes. But with smartphones and social media parents now have the ability to snap hundreds of photos a day (not all of them keepsake-worthy). The TikTok video gained over 26.5 million views, with other parents’ relating to Snapchat filters of that era. “There’s gonna be money in defiltering apps in the future, one user wrote in the comments. Kids nowadays wont get photo albums, theyll get an icloud folder, another added. Following the virality of @themkidzmama3’s video, another mom jumped on the trend, showing off her daughters baby photos from the same era. “I have nothing to say for myself apart from Im sorry my princess. A true victim of the Snapchat era,” she wrote in the caption of the video. @miaboardman0 I have nothing to say for myself apart from Im sorry my princess. A true victim of the Snapchat era original sound – Feez Her slideshow includes a face-swap photo featuring mom-and-daughter and a picture with the ever-present flower crown. “The flower crown was a universal baby photo for 2016-2017,” one person wrote in the comments. Another confessed: The amount of photos I have of my baby as a chicken nugget.
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There was a time when few people in the coastal Pakistani city of Gwadar understood what climate change was. After a decade of extreme weather, many more do. Rain battered Gwadar for almost 30 consecutive hours last February. Torrents washed out roads, bridges, and lines of communication, briefly cutting the peninsula town off from the rest of Pakistan. Homes look like bombs have struck them and drivers swerve to avoid craters where asphalt used to be. Gwadar is in Balochistan, an arid, mountainous, and vast province in Pakistans southwest that has searing summers and harsh winters. The city, with about 90,000 people, is built on sand dunes and bordered by the Arabian Sea on three sides, at a low elevation that makes it vulnerable to climate change in a country that has already seen its share of catastrophe from it. Its no less than an island nation situation, warned Gwadar-based hydrologist Pazeer Ahmed. Many low-lying areas in the town will be partially or completely submerged if the sea level continues to rise. The sea, once a blessing for Gwadars fishing and domestic tourism sectors, has become an existential threat to lives and livelihoods. Warming oceans mean bigger and more powerful waves, and those waves get whipped higher by summer monsoon winds. Warmer air holds more moistureabout 7% more per degree Celsius (4% per degree Fahrenheit)and that means more big rain events. Waves have become more violent due to the rising sea temperatures and eroded beaches, said Abdul Rahim, deputy environment director at Gwadar Development Authority. The tidal actions and patterns have changed. Hundreds of homes have been washed away. It is very alarming. Melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels, another cause of coastal erosion. The sea level at Karachi rose almost 8 inches (almost 20 centimeters) between 1916 and 2016, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Its projected to rise another half-inch (about 1.3 centimeters) by 2040. In areas near Gwadar, like Pishukan and Ganz, waves have swallowed up mosques, schools, and settlements. There are gashes in the cliffs at the popular picnic spot of Sunset Park, and rocks have cascaded onto the shore. Beaches run flat for dozens of kilometers because no structures remain on it. Authorities have built seawalls from stone or concrete to hold back saltwater intrusion. But they’re a small solution to a massive problem as Gwadars people and businesses are fighting climate change on different fronts. Saltwater pools on government land, salt crystals glistening in the sunshine. In the Shado Band neighbourhood, former local councillor Qadir Baksh fretted about water seeping up through the ground and into his courtyard every day, held at bay only by regular pumping. Dozens of houses have the same problem, he said. Officials, including Ahmed and Rahim, said changes in land use and unauthorized building are worsening flooding. Locals said some major construction projects have destroyed traditional drainage pathways. Gwadar is the centerpiece of a massive Chinese-led initiative to create an overland route between its western Xinjiang region and the Arabian Sea through Gwadar. Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the town to create a deep seaport, an international airport, expressways and other infrastructure. The more sensitive projects, especially the port, are tightly secured by the Pakistani military, out of sight and off-limits to the public. But there is no proper sewage or drainage system for residents despite a decade of foreign investment, and Gwadars porosity, high water table, rising sea levels, and heavier rainfall are rocket fuel for the towns vulnerability. There’s nowhere for the water to go. In the past when it rained, the water disappeared up to 10 days later, said Baksh. But the rain that came last year hasnt gone. The water rises from the ground with such speed it will reach the four walls of my home if we dont run the generator every day to extract it. Officials say its because of climate change but, whatever it is, were suffering. Gwadars fishing community is also hurting. Catches are smaller, native fish are disappearing, and migration patterns and fishing seasons have changed, said Ahmed and Rahim. There is also algae bloom and the invasion of unwanted marine species like pufferfish. Illegal fishing and foreign trawlers are responsible for a few of these things, but its mostly rising sea temperatures. People have migrated from places like Dasht and Kulanch because of water scarcity. What agriculture there was in Gwadar’s surrounding areas is vanishing due to loss of farmland and livestock deaths, according to locals. It’s part of a wider pattern in which Pakistans farmers are seeing declining crop yields and increasing crop diseases due to climate extremes, particularly floods, droughts and heat waves, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are heat waves and dust storms in Gwadar, said Ahmed. But the main impact of climate change here is that there is too much water and not enough of it. If nothing is done to address this problem, we will have no option but to retreat. The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Riazat Butt, Associated Press Mary Katherine Wildeman, Associated Press data journalist, contributed to this report.
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It’s peak season for fevers and runny noses, and when it comes to the flu, the illness has been rampant this year. In some areas, the flu has been so widespread, schools have even closed to help communities get well. This week, local news outlets have reported school closures in at least 10 states due to higher than normal flu numbers. Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee, have all kept kids home in order to disinfect, and allow teachers and students time to get well. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent data, 27 states and Washington, D.C., are experiencing “very high” flu activity levels, while 14 states are seeing “high” flu activity levels. Hospitalizations have been soaring, too. Just last week, there were an estimated 38,255 hospitalizations from the flu. Over the entire flu season, there have been 20 million cases reported, as well as 11,000 flu-related deaths. Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said, per NPR, the flu is peaking for the second time this season. “Influenza activity first peaked around the turn of the new yearlate December, early January. Activity then declined for several weeks in a row, which is usually a sign that the season is on its way out,” Rivers says. “But then it really took an unusual turn and started to rise again. So activity is now at a second peakjust as high as it was at the turn of the new year. It’s unusual.” Still, even in rough flu seasons, school closures due to the flu are rare. However this year, it has felt unavoidable in certain locations, like Northeast Ohio, where a number of schools closed over a staggering number of flu cases. St. Hilary School in Fairlawn, Ohio, addressed its high flu numbers in a post on Facebook, announcing its closure this week, writing, “St. Hilary School will be closed Tuesday, February 4, with over 20% of students and 15% of staff out due to illness,” administrators wrote. “Unfortunately, we are experiencing many of the same illnesses currently prevalent in the general community. We will be disinfecting the building and expect to reopen Wednesday, February 5, but please watch for updates.” While the flu is raging, other illnesses have felt more mild this year. COVID transmissions have been at their lowest yet this season. According to the CDC, only about 4 per 100,000 have been hospitalized during its seasonal peak. Last year, it was twice that at 8 per 100,000. Compared to the winter of 2021-2022, when there were 35 per 100,000, it feels like COVID is taking a backseat to the flu, at least for now.
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