YouTube on Wednesday celebrated more than 20 billion videos being uploaded to the platform since the first clip debuted two decades ago.The online video-sharing platform has evolved from a dinner party lark into a modern lifestyle staple poised to overtake US cable television in paid viewership.PayPal colleagues Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim conceived YouTube in 2005, reportedly during a dinner party. The domain YouTube.com launched on Valentine’s Day that year.Video uploading capabilities were added on April 23, when Karim posted the first video, titled “Me at the Zoo.” The 19-second clip showing Karim at the San Diego Zoo’s elephant exhibit has garnered 348 million views.Over the next 20 years, the site expanded beyond what was imagined possible back in 2005.YouTube says that it now sees an average of some 20 million videos uploaded daily.The platform hosts everything from concert clips and podcasts to political ads, tutorials and much more.YouTube has become the world’s largest digital video service in terms of time spent by viewers and ad revenue, according to eMarketer analyst Ross Benes.The platform reached more than 2.5 billion viewers globally last year, and hit 100 million subscribers to its music and premium tier, according to market tracker Statista. YouTube is projected to surpass all US cable television services in paid subscribers within two years, according to Benes. Users worldwide watch more than a billion hours of YouTube content daily on television sets alone, Google reported.YouTube said it will upgrade its TV viewing experience this summer with improved features and “quality tweaks,” though it did not provide further details.”If you go back 20 years, it would have seemed laughable that this website with kids making parody videos would become a threat to Disney, ABC, and CBS,” Benes said. “That’s what they were able to accomplish.”Analysts consider Google’s 2006 purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock a pivotal moment, combining Google’s search and advertising expertise with a video-sharing platform that had passionate users.Google used its advertising know-how to build a successful model, sharing revenue with creators who attracted significant audiences. The company enhanced technology and negotiated with studios to address copyright violations on what was once considered the Wild West of video content.YouTube also worked its way past concerns that disturbing content, like parody videos of popular cartoon characters in violent or risque situations, were being served up to children by its recommendation software.The platform now competes with streaming services like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon Prime, as well as short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram’s Reels.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered the closure of a US agency that invested billions in African and other developing countries’ infrastructure in return for good governance, effectively ceding ground to China.The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will immediately exit projects around the world, from building roads to modernizing electricity grids, likely leaving the works under construction unless other partners step in. An MCC executive at a staff meeting on Wednesday told staff that “we are coming to an orderly close” with all programs to be discontinued, according to an employee who was present.The meeting came after a staff-wide memo, seen by AFP, informed that billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was imposing a “significant reduction” at MCC and laid out practicalities for the majority of staff who will lose jobs.Founded in 2004 under former president George W. Bush with bipartisan support, MCC signs contracts for US investment in developing countries that meet standards on economic transparency and good governance.MCC has since invested $17 billion with numerous prominent projects underway.Just in October, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema — who has consolidated democracy at home — vowed to keep upholding “shared values” with the United States as he signed a half-billion-dollar agreement to improve roads, irrigation and electricity.Trump has made clear he has limited interest in sub-Saharan Africa and that he opposes development aid, which he sees as not directly benefiting the United States, earlier shuttering the US Agency for International Development, a much larger government body.The MCC employee, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution, said the organization differed significantly from USAID.”We’re not doing humanitarian assistance. We’re not doing social justice. We’re very much building up an environment for private-sector investment in foreign economies,” she told AFP.”This is a very different thing, something that actually does put America first,” she said.”It’s interesting, if we’re worried about China’s influence in the world, that we would shutter MCC, which builds large-scale infrastructure that counters China’s influence.”- Area of competition with China -Infrastructure projects — roads, hospitals and other buildings — have been a signature selling point for China, which the United States sees as its primary adversary.Chinese President Xi Jinping in September vowed another $51 billion of investment in Africa over the next three years.The United States under former president Joe Biden acknowledged it cannot keep up with such high-profile, state-led spending but argued it can offer a more sustainable model.MCC will inform countries on Friday that compacts will be terminated within 40 days, the staffer said. After negotiations with Musk’s team, MCC was allowed extensions in four countries — Ivory Coast, Mongolia, Nepal and Senegal.In Nepal, Mongolia and Senegal, the MCC will have up to three months, with hopes of making construction sites safe.The goal is “so someone is not going to fall into a pit or something,” the employee said. “Whether or not we’ll be successful, I don’t know.”MCC was granted slightly longer in Ivory Coast where the project, which includes support for integrating major road arteries, is nearing completion.The Nepal project was sealed in 2022 despite street protests against it by leftists in Kathmandu.The $500 million grant in China’s small Himalayan neighbor aims to improve roads and increase cross-border electricity trading with US-friendly India.In Senegal, a $600 million initiative — $550 million from MCC and $50 million from the Senegalese government — has included ramping up electricity outside urban areas.Elizabeth Hoffman, executive director for North America at ONE, the anti-poverty group co-founded by Bono, voiced alarm at the shutdown.”MCC brings an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to development assistance that holds governments accountable and effectively counters malign foreign influences like China,” she said.MCC and Trump administration did not immediately comment on the cuts, which were first reported by development specialist site Devex.

A coalition of 12 American states filed a lawsuit Wednesday to challenge the Trump administration’s tariffs, saying the president cannot institute the levies without the approval of Congress.”President Trump’s insane tariff scheme is not only economically reckless — it is illegal,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. The southwestern state is joined by Democratic-led Minnesota, New York, Oregon and others in the filing. Separately, California filed a similar suit a week ago.President Donald Trump has sent markets into tumult in his second term, turning decades of free trade policy on its head with his “Liberation Day” announcements of new tariffs against numerous countries.Trump has imposed an additional 145 percent import duties on China, and Beijing responded with its own 125 percent tariffs on US goods. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he’s working on a “fair deal with China.”Meanwhile he has imposed 10 percent tariffs on other trade partners — and he is threatening more punishing levies.In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the states argue that the 1977 law invoked by Trump does not allow him to use emergency measures to impose tariffs, a power constitutionally reserved for Congress.”By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy,” the lawsuit alleges.Trump has said his protectionist policy will return manufacturing jobs to the United States. “No matter what the White House claims, tariffs are a tax that will be passed on to Arizona consumers,” Mayes said.On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Trump’s approval rating has fallen steadily during his first three months in office, hitting a low of 44 percent this week. Democrats are seizing the opportunity to illustrate how his policies are hurting pocketbooks.Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom called Trump’s tariff policy “the worst own-goal in the history of this country.”