Month: October 2017

Science

Drug Court a Lifeline in Battle Against Opioid, Heroin Addiction

By on Friday, October 27, 2017

Paul Coles’ journey to becoming one of the 2.5 million Americans addicted to prescription opioids began with painkillers prescribed for injuries suffered during an IED attack in Iraq. The physical scars healed, but emotionally Coles suffered. He had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and couldn’t stop using drugs. 

“It got to the point I would take three times the lethal dose of heroin and cocaine, load it into a syringe and shoot it up, trying to shut my body down,” Coles said. “I would sit there and say, ‘God if you are out there, just kill me.’”

Time after time, he cheated death. But he couldn’t escape the law. Coles found himself handcuffed, arrested and jailed on charges of felony drug possession. Yet what seemed to be a new low would turn into a lifeline.

From the moment Judge Jeri Beth Cohen looked at Coles, she knew he needed help. 

“My feeling is that opioid addiction is a terminal illness: You’re either going to end up in prison or you’re going to end up dead,” Cohen said.

“I’m seeing more and more cases,” she said. “These are young men and women between the age of, I guess, 21-30. It’s a largely Caucasian population,” she added.

​One judge, two courts, one team

Coles’ case is one of hundreds Cohen has seen during the unfolding prescription opioid and heroin epidemic in South Florida. Inside her courtroom, with graphic photos of what drugs can do to the body, she surrounds herself with professional caseworkers on the frontlines of how America’s criminal justice system handles the boom in opioid abuse.

Miami-Dade County launched the nation’s first drug court in 1989. Today there are 3,000 U.S. drug courts serving 136,000 people. But a report by Physicians for Human Rights claims few communities have adequate treatment facilities and the criminal justice objectives of drug courts often overrule the medical need of the patient.

Cohen’s drug court gives people the chance to beat their addictions, stay out of prison while eventually getting their felony drug charge expunged from the record if they complete the year-long program. 

Like Paul Coles 75 percent of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program. 

Miami-Dade County launched its first drug court when the community was facing a previous drug crisis. The approach then did not address people’s addictions, rather it was focused on jailing them for criminal conduct.

“There was a crack cocaine epidemic just like we’re looking at this opioid and heroin epidemic right now. People coming into criminal court in large numbers were taking a plea or going to jail, getting out and getting rearrested,” Cohen said.

Today there’s a stream of people in drug court struggling with addiction to a multitude of prescription pain pills and heroin. Cohen, regarded as one of the top drug court judges in the country, uses a holistic approach.

“What I find is if we can get them stabilized on a drug like Methadone or a Suboxone, which blocks a high, then they’re able to start engaging and they’re much more able to focus on getting well.” she said. The goal of the drug court is to get people treatment, steering them away from prison time and hopefully reducing recidivism rates.

“You have to take many variables into account: trauma, untreated mental illness, the chronicity or severity of the drug usage and also what’s going on in the family. If you’re not developing a treatment plan with your treatment team based on an individual’s particular risk and needs, you aren’t going to be successful with that individual,” Cohen said.

The judge bemoans the system’s lack of compassion.

“People are treated really, really poorly,” she said. “In the jails, in the courts, even in treatment they’re treated poorly. If you have money, it’s easier to access care [but] it’s still hard.”

​Zero tolerance

For all her understanding, Cohen shows little tolerance for those not following the rules. She sentences some to community service hours while others go back to jail.

There are frequent drug screenings to make sure people stick with their sobriety. Those who don’t meet the court’s year-long requirements may be returned to a traditional criminal court to face felony drug charges.

“I don’t think that sick people should be in jail. I do the best that I can to help people get well within our system, to divert them out of jail, but yet hold them accountable,” Cohen said “I feel like I do my job and I feel like I do it well.” 

“If you don’t go into the program, that’s fine with me,” Cohen tells a young, opioid-addicted mother, handcuffed and dressed in orange prison suit. “I am not going to keep you here and I am going to have the state dependency court file a termination of parental rights. I will order them to do it,” Cohen stressed.

Family reunions

“The children in my court have been removed from their parents because they have severe and chronic drug addiction and have failed to get into treatment,” the judge said. Her formula is to get parents who are struggling with opioid addiction intensive drug treatment so they can regain custody of their children.

She said 60 percent of the parents who go through the program get their children back.

“It’s getting into true recovery, improving your relationships with your family, your spouse, your children and starting that long life-long journey to recovery,” Cohen said.
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Economy

Who Will Be the Next Fed Chief?

By on Friday, October 27, 2017

President Trump says he is “very close” to picking a person for the most important economic post in the country: the head of the US Federal Reserve. Current Chair Janet Yellen, whose term expires early next year, is one of at least five candidates under consideration. Regardless of the president’s choice, most analysts who spoke with VOA don’t expect big changes in US monetary policy. But as Mil Arcega reports, others say, sooner or later the next Fed Chief could face a slowing economy.
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Science

Advocates Welcome Trump’s Emergency Declaration on Opioid Crisis as Good First Step

By on Friday, October 27, 2017

U.S. public health advocates welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to declare the U.S. opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, but say the crisis needs additional funds to be addressed. The 90-day order enables states to use federal emergency funds to fight the crisis, but, although it can be extended, it does not provide a long-term budget. Also, as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, there are fears that emergency resources may be depleted by the cost of natural and other disasters.
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Technology

Hawaii: No Screen Time While Crossing a Street

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

Police in Hawaii will ticket people who get caught looking at digital devices while crossing a street in the state capital, Honolulu.

The law, passed in July, came into effect this week, making Honolulu the first major city in the U.S. to pass such a law.

The only exemption to the Distracted Walking Law is to use a device to call 911 to report an emergency.

The fines for the offenses will range from $15 to up to $99 for repeat offenders.

Pedestrians are still allowed to talk on their phones while crossing the streets, as long as they look at their surroundings.

The National Safety Council added “distracted walking” to its annual list of injury risks in 2015.

According to a study in the Journal of Safety Studies in 2015, some 400 pedestrians distracted by a phone were injured in the United States each year between the years 2000 and 2007. But after the introduction of the smartphone, the numbers have risen. The study found an estimated 1,300 pedestrians were injured in 2012.
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Economy

Greater Scrutiny Set for Nonimmigrant Work Visa Renewals

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

The United States has announced changes to its nonimmigrant work visa policies that are expected to make renewals more difficult.

In the past, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would generally approve the renewals unless the visa holder had committed a crime. Now, renewals will face the same scrutiny as the original applications.

“USCIS officers are at the front lines of the administration’s efforts to enhance the integrity of the immigration system,” USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna said, according to the announcement posted on USCIS’ website this week. “This updated guidance provides clear direction to help advance policies that protect the interests of U.S. workers.”

The new regulations could affect more than 100,000 people holding at least eight different types of work visas who fill out the I-129 form for renewals.

Sam Adair, a partner at the Graham Adair business immigration law firm in California and Texas, said that for the most part, he expected visa holders would most likely face lengthier adjudication periods in their renewal processes, as opposed to increased numbers of denials.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a big shift for us,” Adair told VOA. “But I think what we’ll see is just an increase in the number of requests for evidence, an increase in the delays on the adjudication of these petitions, and really it’s going to just result in more costs for the employers who are filing these petitions.”

‘High-skilled’ workers

Of all visa holders affected by this policy, those in the United States on an H-1B, a visa for “high-skilled” workers, are the biggest group. Of 109,537 people who had to submit I-129 forms in fiscal 2017, 95,485 were H-1B holders, according to data sent to VOA by USCIS.

H-1B visas have been threatened in the past, most recently by a bill proposed this year that would have raised the minimum salary requirement for workers brought in on the visa. While advocates of the program argued that it would keep workers from being exploited, many H-1B holders feared that businesses would be less willing to hire them or keep them on board.

But some Americans support the new regulations, saying that nonimmigrant work visas hurt American workers.

“It’s prudent to make sure that the people that receive those visas are in complete compliance with all of the requirements,” Joe Guzzardi, national media director of Californians for Population Stabilization, told VOA.

“It just isn’t possible to think that there aren’t American workers that couldn’t fill these jobs,” he said, noting that while the regulations might hurt businesses, they would help Americans looking for work.
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Economy

Trump Ponders New Head for Federal Reserve

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

President Donald Trump says he is “very close” to picking a person for the most important economic post in the United States, the head of the Federal Reserve. Current Chair Janet Yellen’s term expires early next year and she is one of at least five candidates for the job.

Besides Yellen, the candidates include Fed board member Jerome Powell, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, Stanford University economist John Taylor and Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn.

 

WATCH: Who Will Be the Next Fed Chief?

Moody’s Analytics economist Ryan Sweet says a new Fed chief is likely to continue current policy at least for a while because “rocking the boat” could rattle financial markets.

The Fed’s job is to manage the world’s largest economy in ways that maximize employment and maintain stable prices. During recessions, the bank cuts interest rates in a bid to boost economic growth and create more jobs.To cope with the most recent recession, the U.S. central bank slashed interest rates nearly to zero.

The jobless rate fell from 10 percent to the current 4.2 percent, and the economy stopped shrinking and began growing slowly.

Critics of the record-low interest rates said keeping rates too low for too long could spark strong inflation and damage the economy. However, the inflation rate has been below the two percent level that many experts say is best for the economy.

As a member of the Fed’s board and later as Chair, Yellen supported low interest rates and a slow, cautious return to “normal” rates. Experts also say she improved communication between the Fed and financial markets, which reduced uncertainty and reassured investors.

Trump criticized Yellen during the campaign, but then as president, praised her work. Analysts Tom Buerkle of “Reuters Breaking Views” gives the Fed credit for taking effective action during a crisis when Congress was reluctant to act.

Another candidate is former investment banker Gary Cohn, who now heads the National Economic Council at the White House. He has reportedly been working on efforts to reform taxes and boost spending on U.S. infrastructure.

Fed Board member Jerome Powell is also a candidate. He is a Republican with a background in private equity who served in a top Treasury Department post. Powell supported Yellen’s approach of slashing interest rates during the crisis, and returning them to historic levels as the economy recovers.

When rates were cut to nearly zero, Fed officials took the further step of buying huge quantities of bonds in an effort to push down long-term interest rates to give additional economic stimulus. The complex procedure is called “quantitative easing.”

“Ryan Sweet of Moody’s Analytics says when the next recession appears, Powell will be more willing to use tools like quantitative easing than more conservative candidates like Kevin Warsh and John Taylor.

Warsh is a former member of the Fed’s board, a lawyer, and a former executive of a major financial firm with experience at the president’s National Economic Council.

John Taylor of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution is an eminent economist who has served on advisory councils for presidents and congress and written books on economic topics. Taylor came up with an equation, called the “Taylor Rule,” that considers inflation as well as slack in the economy as a way to set interest rates. Some conservatives say the Taylor Rule would improve policymaking.

Critics say the economy is too complex to be managed by a computer, and the Taylor Rule would make the Fed less independent and effective.

Tara Sinclair of Indeed.com says independence is a “key part” of having an effective monetary policy. She says the interest rate-setting process and other decisions need to be separate from Congress and the administration so interest rates and other policies are based on long-run economic needs.

The president is expected to announce his choice in early November.
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Economy

N. Korean Debt to Sweden Remains Unpaid After Four Decades

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

More than four decades after selling 1,000 Volvos to North Korea, Sweden is still trying to get paid for the cars.

The vehicles were part of a $131 million trade package delivered to North Korea in 1974, during a period of openness. But Pyongyang never paid anything on the deal, leaving a debt that has now accumulated with interest to $328 million, according to the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

North Korea owes millions elsewhere in Europe from purchases made during the early 1970s, when Pyongyang was expanding economic relations with the West.

“Volvo Car Corporation sold approximately 1,000 of our 144 sedan(s) to North Korea in 1974,” said Per-Åke Fröberg of Volvo Heritage in the company’s press office in Sweden, who added that he did not know what else was included in the deal. The Swedish government was also unable to say what else was included.

Fröberg said the sale of the Volvos was insured through the Swedish Export Credit Agency, or EKN. “When North Korea failed to pay for the cars, EKN stepped in, meaning that Volvo Cars did not suffer financially,” he said. “The deal was closed from our point of view.”

But not for EKN, which twice a year reminds North Korea of its outstanding balance.

“For the most part, we get no response,” Carina Kemp, the EKN press manager, told VOA’s Korean service. However, “EKN’s position is that claims will be recovered.”

Many of the Volvos remain in service, as shown by an October 2016 tweet from the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang describing “one of the Volvo’s from yr 1974 still unpaid for by DPRK.”

Sweden and North Korea have a long-standing relationship. It was the first Western European nation to establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang; two years later, in 1975, it was the first to set up an embassy in Pyongyang.

Expanding relations

At the time, North Korea was expanding economic relations with the West. “In 1972-1973, before the global oil crisis, the prices of gold, silver, lead, zinc and other export items of North Korea were rising and Pyongyang must have been confident of its payment capabilities,” said Yang Moon-soo, professor of North Korean economy at the University of North Korea Studies, in the March 2012 issue of the KDI Review of the North Korea Economy, which is published by the Korea Development Institute, a think tank run by the South Korean government.

North Korea, after noting South Korea’s economic development through introduction of Western technologies, decided “to spur development with large-scale buildup of manufacturing plants with Western equipment and financing,” he said.

Of the 16 countries that owe a total of $729 billion to Sweden, North Korea’s share accounts for 45 percent, according to the EKN Annual Report 2016. Cuba, which is the next largest debtor, owes $225 billion as of December 2016 and began making payments that year, the EKN report shows.

Experts on sovereign debt told VOA there aren’t many ways for nations to recover what they are owed by cash-strapped North Korea.

“No payment has been made since 1989,” Katarina Byrenius Roslund, deputy director of the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s press office, told VOA in an email.

“This is the largest claim that Sweden has on a single country,” Roslund wrote. “Responsibility for the claim now lies with the Swedish Export Credits Guarantee Board, which sends a reminder to North Korea every six months.”

Roslund said the Volvos “are no longer a common sight on Pyongyang’s streets, but the odd Volvo 144 is still rolling down the country roads, often as a taxi.”

Paths to spare parts

Volvo’s Fröberg said he did not know whether the original deal included spare parts for the cars. But because the model purchased in bulk by North Korea, the 144, “was sold all over the world, they might have had their ways to get hold of parts through various channels.”

North Korea owes money elsewhere in Europe. The Swiss government reports it has claims for $241 million as of December 2016. North Korea owes Finland and private Finnish businesses more than $35 million, according to a YLE Uutiset report. Pyongyang “ordered paper machines and other assorted equipment” in the 1970s, according to YLE.

Isabel Herkommer, media spokeswoman at Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), told VOA via email that “Swiss Export Risk Insurance (SERV) has an agreement with North Korea, which exempts the country from payment at the moment.”

According to the SERV Annual Report 2016, the agency signed a new restructuring agreement with North Korea in October 2011. Herkommer wrote that “there has not been a debt settlement with North Korea,” and when asked whether the Swiss government considered waiving all or part of the debt owed by North Korea as Russia recently did, she said, “No, this has not been considered.”

Outi Homanen of Finnvera, Finland’s export credit agency, said “that although the debts were not paid [on] original due dates, there are no defaulted receivables at the moment.”

However, experts on sovereign debt and the international monetary system say that there aren’t many ways for countries to recover their claims from North Korea. In 2014, Russia forgave 90 percent of the nearly $11 billion in debt that it and the Soviet Union before it was owed by North Korea.

“International debt is typically thought of as having two enforcing mechanisms. The first is that if a country wants to be able to borrow more, it has to be repaying or have repaid its previous debts,” said Dane Rowlands, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa, Ontario. “Since North Korea seems happy not to engage officially with the international community and capital market, cutting them off is not a useful enforcement tool.”

Asset seizure

He added that seizing exposed assets is another option for lenders but one that would not be effective against North Korea.

Hamid Zangeneh is an economics professor at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. An expert in the debt of economically developing nations, he said that in North Korea’s case, “it really doesn’t matter because it is not part of the international monetary system.”

Rowlands speculated that Switzerland and North Korea might have made a deal when they signed the debt restructuring agreement in 2011.

“Given the relatively few channels of international finances that North Korea has access to, I could see them doing a deal with Switzerland saying we [North Korea] will pay back a portion of the debt. … What that would end up doing is Switzerland forgives the rest of the debt and they don’t have claim on seizing North Korean deposits for example,” he said.

According to the SERV 2016 report, the Swiss agency had claims of 179.1 million Swiss Francs ($210 million) with North Korea as of the end of 2016. However, the report says the claims have been reduced to 17.9 million Swiss Francs ($21 million), or about 10 percent of the original claim.

SECO’s Herkommer said, “There has not been any debt cancellation. We cannot make any further comment.”
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Economy

Summer Internships Offer Real World Experiences

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

When kids go back to school, they usually talk about what they did during their summer vacation. The 15 and 16-year-olds who joined Summer RISE in Montgomery County, Maryland, have some unique stories about work in fire departments, non-profits, private businesses and many other workplaces. Faiza Elmasry tells us about one of the high schoolers who spent 3 weeks in the biology lab at a local college. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Economy

US House of Representatives Approves a $4T Fiscal 2018 Bill

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday approved a $4 trillion fiscal 2018 budget blueprint, a major step forward toward the introduction of a Republican tax cut bill.

The measure narrowly passed (216-212) despite last-minute resistance from the ranks of Republicans.

House passage makes enactment of an eventual tax bill more likely in the Senate, although decisions on numerous thorny issues lie ahead.

Approval of the budget resolution was a victory for President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders, who have vowed to rewrite the tax code, a feat that has not been accomplished in more than four decades.

“President Trump has always made cutting taxes for hard-working American families, creating more jobs for American workers, and simplifying the rigged and burdensome tax code a priority, and he looks forward to further cooperation with Congress to advance the Administration’s pro-growth and pro-jobs agenda,” the White House said in a statement.

Democrats oppose plan

The Republican plan is opposed by Democrats, who contend it would benefit primarily the wealthy and corporations.

“The struggle Republicans had in passing the budget shows how uncomfortable many of them are with eliminating the state and local deduction. In the weeks ahead, Democrats will do everything we can to preserve it and work to defeat any tax proposal that favors the wealthy few over the middle class many,” Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

 

 
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Technology

Twitter Surprises With Third Quarter Earnings

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

Twitter is reporting a loss of $21.1 million in its third quarter, but turned in a better-than-expected profit when one-time charges and benefits are removed.

 

Shares of Twitter Inc. soared almost 9 percent before the opening bell Thursday.

 

The San Francisco company had a loss of 3 cents, but a gain of 10 cents if those non-re-occurring events are removed.  That’s 2 cents better than industry analysts had predicted, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

 

Revenue was $589.6 million in the period, in line with expectations.
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Technology

Twitter Toughens Abuse Rules – and now has to Enforce Them

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

Twitter is enacting new policies around hate, abuse and ads, but creating new rules is only half the battle – the easy half.

The bigger problem is enforcement, and there the company has had some high-profile bungles recently. That includes its much-criticized suspension of actress Rose McGowan while she was speaking out against Harvey Weinstein, and the company’s ban, later reversed, of a controversial ad by a Republican Senate candidate.

 

The twists and turns suggest that Twitter doesn’t always communicate the intent of its rules to the people enforcing them. The company says it will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future.
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Technology

Ancient Origami Art Becomes Engineers’ Dream in Space

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

Robert Salazar has been playing with origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, since he was 8 years old. When he sees a sheet of paper, his imagination takes over and intricate animals take shape.

“Seeing the single uncut sheet, it has everything you need to create all of the origami that have ever been folded. It is all in the single sheet so there is endless potential,” Salazar said.

The endless potential of origami, folding a single sheet of paper into an intricate sculpture, reaches all the way to space.

Salazar’s 17-year experience with origami is appreciated at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As a contractor and intern, Salazar is helping create objects that may one day be used in space exploration.

“Origami offers the potential to take a very large structure, even a vast structure, and you can get it to fit within the rocket, go up, then deploy back out again. So it greatly magnifies what we are capable of building in space,” Salazar said.

Folding a large object into a relatively small space is not a simple task.

“A big challenge in origami design in general is that because all of these folds share a single resource, which is a single sheet … everything is highly interdependent, so if you change just one feature it has an impact on everything else,” Salazar said.

“One of our guide stars really is keep it as simple as can be,” said Manan Arya, a technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Don’t add unnecessary complexity because every piece of complexity, every piece of hardware you add, that ends up being another potential point of failure.”

Starshade

Folding an object the size of a baseball diamond so that it could fit into a rocket is the goal of a NASA project called Starshade.

Once it opens in space, Starshade would allow a space telescope to better see the planets around bright stars.

“Seeing an exoplanet next to its parent star is like trying to image a firefly next to a search light, the searchlight being the star,” said Arya, who is  working on the Starshade project. “Starshade seeks to block out that starlight so you can image a really faint exoplanet right next to it.”

Origami robot

Origami is also used in designing a robot called the Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot, or PUFFER. It has a body that can fold itself flat and roll under small spaces. PUFFER has been tested on desert terrains and snowy slopes. It may one day end up on a mission to another planet.

 

“It [PUFFER] is to explore environments otherwise inaccessible to a robot that could not fold itself to fit inside these cracks, [to] explore cave systems, could be other planets, even on our own,” Salazar said.

Origami antenna

Another application for space origami design is to pack an antenna into satellites the size of a briefcase, called CubeSats.

“The bigger the antenna you have, the more gain your antenna has, so it is useful to have a big antenna that gets packaged into this tiny space that unfolds out to be a large antenna. The biggest CubeSat antennas right now are about half a meter,” Arya said.

Unexplored territory

There are also largely unexplored surfaces that can utilize origami concepts in designing new technologies.

“So often, origami design has been tailored toward materials that are already lying flat,” Salazar said. “But there is actually a vastly, a much larger field of application for which the surfaces are not flat, so they could be parabolic. They could be spherical. They could be many combinations of doubly curved surfaces coming together. All of these things can also be folded.”

In the current origami-inspired technologies being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there is a graceful beauty to the folding and unfolding of designs such as the Starshade, which unfurls into what looks like a sunflower. In origami, Salazar said, art, science and engineering are only superficially different.

“Really, when it comes down to it, you’re looking at the world,” he said. “You’re making observations. You’re finding patterns in these observations. [You’re] developing an understanding of what you see, then using that understanding to create. And when you’re creating, [it] can either be creating with the intention of solving a physical problem or it could be nonphysical. It could be aesthetic. You’re trying to find a particular impact on people when they see your work. So really, the practice is the same.”

In origami, Salazar said art, science and engineering are quite similar. They draw on making observations and creating something that produces an impact.
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Technology

Ancient Art of Paper Folding Becomes Engineers’ Dream in Space

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

Paper folding known as origami is widely considered a Japanese art form. From a single piece of paper, an animal, a flower or even a boat can take shape. Besides the fun and artistic side of origami, the art of paper folding also has applications that can take it to outer space. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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Technology

Trump Orders Test Program for More Drones

By on Thursday, October 26, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday ordered the Transportation Department to launch a test program to increase the number of drones for commercial and civil use.

“The program will help tackle the most significant challenges in integrating drones into the national airspace while reducing risks to public safety and security,” the department said.

Under the program, drones will be test flown at night, fly over people for safety tests, fly out of sight of the operators and deliver packages. It would also test technologies to prevent collisions with other aircraft. 

“Drones are proving to be especially valuable in emergency situations, including assessing damage from natural disasters such as the recent hurricanes and the wildfires in California,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said.

A novelty for now

Right now, drones in the United States are largely a novelty. Federal aviation officials say there are about 1 million registered drones in the country. Most of them belong to people who fly them as a hobby.

They are small and relatively inexpensive and can be modified to deliver small packages and even pizzas.

But the lack of federal and local rules and safety regulations have restricted more widespread commercial use.

There is also the inevitable concern that drones could become a tool for terrorists.

Terrorist tool?

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently told a U.S. Senate panel, “The expectation is it’s coming here imminently.” He called drones “relatively easy to acquire, relatively easy to operate, and quite difficult to disrupt and monitor.”

A drone flown by a hobbyist unintentionally crash landed on the White House lawn in 2015.

Along with Wednesday’s announced test program, the Trump administration wants to enhance the powers of police to track drones and shoot down any that appear to be a threat.
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Science

Giant Sequoia Doing Well 4 Months After Idaho Uprooting

By on Wednesday, October 25, 2017

A 10-story-tall tree moved two city blocks on giant rollers last summer has new growth and appears happy in its new location, a tree expert said Wednesday.

Tree mover David Cox of Environmental Design examined the 800,000-pound (363,000-kilogram) sequoia in Boise, Idaho, and pronounced the tree fit.

“She looks pretty good,” he said. “But it’s still too early to tell. You still need about two or three growing seasons to really say that she’s recovered. We’re not in any danger zone. We feel like the tree is still happy.”

Moving the tallest tree ever attempted by the company required cutting back the root system that’s now being monitored for moisture content with underground sensors at the tree’s new location on city property.

Three of the four sensors Cox examined indicated the root system was not getting enough moisture, so he ordered a water truck. One was already scheduled to visit once a week this winter, but hadn’t started.

An irrigation system that includes misting hoses at the top of the tree was recently turned off by city workers in preparation for winter, and the area dried out quicker than expected, Cox said.

Cox also said he’s a bit concerned about some broken bark and smoothed-over bark at the base that might have been caused by animals or vandals or somebody climbing. He said the bark is about 9 inches (23 centimeters) thick so the living part of the tree under the bark isn’t being damaged.

Naturalist John Muir, who played a key role in establishing California’s Sequoia National Park, sent the tree as a seedling to Boise more than a century ago. It was planted in the yard of a doctor’s home.

St. Luke’s Health System in June paid $300,000 to move Idaho’s largest sequoia — which are not native to the state — to make way for a hospital expansion. Cutting down the most notable tree in the city’s urban forest could have risked a public relations backlash, and the hospital has said it never considered that option.

The tree suffered at its old location because it was shaded by a tall building. Cox also said the building created a kind of wind tunnel that caused part of the tree to dry out and turn brown. But those needles have fallen off at the new location and have been replaced with green, healthy needles.

The tree’s future health is uncertain in its new spot next to one of the city’s busiest traffic routes and only about eight blocks from the city’s core downtown area.

“We’re in a new environment here, a little more open,” Cox said. “We don’t know if we’re going to be better off or worse off. Se we’re going to prepare for drying winds.”

Winter treatments

He prescribed treatments in November, December and January to spray the tree with a type of substance to prevent it from drying out in cold winter winds, likening the process to a person applying hand lotion to prevent skin from drying out.

“It goes on kind of oily and dries waxy,” he said.

The treatments will cost about $1,500 each. St. Luke’s spokeswoman Anita Kisee said she did not know if the company will pay, and Boise’s Parks and Recreation department did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Cox under the contract with the hospital is serving only as a consultant, but said the company could chip in to partially fund expenses.

Brian Jorgenson, a city forester, checks on the tree and neighbors also appear to be watchful. He said he was challenged once by someone wanting to know if he was supposed to be poking around under the tree.

“I think the tree looks better in its current location,” he said. “It’s a lot more visible than it used to be, and we’re proud to have it on park property now.”

Cox said he plans to make site visits in January and again in March or April to consider treatments for the growing season for the sequoia, which are known to live for several thousand years in the right conditions.
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Economy

Ivanka Trump Promotes Expansion of Child Tax Credit at Capitol

By on Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Ivanka Trump teamed up Wednesday with Republican legislators to try to ensure the tax overhaul package under construction on Capitol Hill includes an expansion of the child tax credit.

The White House adviser and presidential daughter, appearing at a Capitol Hill news conference with GOP lawmakers, framed the tax credit as crucial for working families.

“It is a priority of this administration and it is a legislative priority to ensure that American families can thrive,” she said.

Also attending were Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Dean Heller of Nevada; and GOP Representatives Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Kevin Yoder of Kansas, Claudia Tenney of New York and Martha Roby of Alabama.

Rubio and Lee have worked closely with Ivanka Trump on the issue. Details are still being worked out, but Rubio and Lee would like to see the $1,000 credit doubled and made fully refundable.

The GOP tax plan would cut the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent, reduce taxes for most individuals and repeal inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. The standard deduction would be nearly doubled, to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families; the number of tax brackets would shrink from seven and the child tax credit would be increased.

Democrats and liberal family advocacy groups say the overall plan would provide limited benefits to low-income families while offering major cuts to the wealthy — and they say that any boost to the child tax credit must be viewed in that context.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Rubio expressed optimism about the child tax proposal, saying the provision is needed because without it, people could “see a tax increase, which nobody around here is prepared to justify, because you can’t.”

Rubio praised Ivanka Trump, saying that “having the White House making it a priority of theirs has strengthened our chances.”
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Technology

Not at Home? Amazon Wants to Come in and Drop Off Packages

By on Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Don’t want Amazon boxes sitting on the porch? The company hopes you’ll let a stranger inside to drop them off.  

Amazon said Wednesday it will launch a service called Amazon Key next month that will let people allow the door to be unlocked when they’re not there so packages can be left inside. 

The proposal drew plenty of humorous reactions on social media, as well as concerns about safety or delivery employees being mistaken for intruders. Amazon said the drivers would be well-vetted, while one expert said the company has built up trust with customers and younger customers were more likely to try it out.   

An in-home delivery program also falls in line with Amazon’s strategy of trying to make shopping with it so convenient that consumers don’t think about buying elsewhere. And with the option requiring a specific camera that it sells, the move helps Amazon tie customers even closer to its gadgets as well as the items it delivers. 

Customers who want to use the service would need to be Amazon Prime members and would have to buy a camera and a Wi-Fi-connected lock from the Seattle-based company that starts at $250. Shoppers will then be able to choose in-home delivery as an option in the Amazon app.

When the delivery person shows up, they will knock first and scan the package. Amazon will make sure the person is at the right home and unlock the door. No codes or keys are needed, and the indoor camera will record the in-home delivery. The Amazon Cloud Cam also lets users watch a livestream or recorded video on Amazon’s Fire tablet, Fire TV or its voice-activated Echo devices that have a video screen.

The service is likely to be more of a hit with younger families, said Timothy Carone, an associate teaching professor at University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He said millennials are already comfortable posting photos and their whereabouts on Facebook, Instagram and other social media.

“They’re less concerned about privacy than older generations are,” Carone said.

Walmart is testing a similar service in California’s Silicon Valley, which lets delivery people drop off packages or stock the fridge with groceries bought from Walmart.com. The delivery person is given a one-time code to open the door and Walmart said customers will get an alert on their smartphones when someone enters.

For Amazon, the in-home delivery service helps it enter the fast-growing home security camera market, competing with Google’s Nest cameras, said Martin Garner, a device and internet analyst at CCS Insight. Tying the camera in with the in-home delivery service gives people a reason to buy it, said Garner.

“They’ve been on a mission to do this,” said Garner.

Amazon.com Inc. said in-home delivery will be available Nov. 8 in 37 cities, including Atlanta, Cleveland and Denver. The company says the service is covered by the Amazon Key Happiness Guarantee, which applies to delivery issues, property damage or theft. And Amazon said the deliveries are carried out by drivers who are vetted with background checks and driving record reviews.

The company said the smart lock can also be used to let in out-of-town guests who want to make themselves at home. And in the coming months, it can be used to grant access to housekeepers to scrub the kitchen or dog walkers to take your furry friend for a stroll.

But for package deliveries, you may need to keep your dogs and cats a bit contained: Amazon doesn’t recommend using the in-home delivery service if pets can get to the front door on delivery day. 
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Science

Widely-used Toxins Excluded in US Agency’s Chemical Review

By on Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Spurred by the chemical industry, President Donald Trump’s administration is retreating from a congressionally mandated review of some of the most dangerous chemicals in public use: millions of tons of asbestos, flame retardants and other toxins in homes, offices and industrial plants across the United States.

 

Instead of following president Barack Obama’s proposal to look at chemicals already in widespread use that result in some of the most common exposures, the new administration wants to limit the review to products still being manufactured and entering the marketplace.

 

For asbestos, that means gauging the risks from just a few hundred tons of the material imported annually – while excluding almost all of the estimated 8.9 million tons (8.1 million metric tons) of asbestos-containing products that the U.S. Geological Survey said entered the marketplace between 1970 and 2016.

 

The review was intended to be the first step toward enacting new regulations to protect the public. But critics – including health workers, consumer advocates, members of Congress and environmental groups – contend ignoring products already in use undermines that goal.

 

The administration’s stance is the latest example of Trump siding with industry. In this case, firefighters and construction workers say the move jeopardizes their health.

 

Both groups risk harm from asbestos because of its historical popularity in construction materials ranging from roofing and flooring tiles to insulation used in tens of millions of homes. Most of the insulation came from a mine in a Montana town that’s been declared a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site and where hundreds of people have died from asbestos exposure.

 

“Hundreds of thousands of firefighters are going to be affected by this. It is by far the biggest hazard we have out there,” said Patrick Morrison, assistant general president for health and safety at the International Association of Fire Fighters. “My God, these are not just firefighters at risk. There are people that live in these structures and don’t know the danger of asbestos.”

The EPA told The Associated Press on Wednesday that there were measures to protect the public other than the law Congress passed last year, which mandated the review of asbestos and nine other chemicals to find better ways to manage their dangers. For example, workers handling asbestos and emergency responders can use respirators to limit exposure, the agency said in a statement.

 

Asbestos fibers can become deadly when disturbed in a fire or during remodeling, lodging in the lungs and causing problems including mesothelioma, a form of cancer. The material’s dangers have long been recognized. But a 1989 attempt to ban most asbestos products was overturned by a federal court, and it remains in widespread use.

 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health analyzed cancer-related deaths among 30,000 firefighters from Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The 2015 study concluded firefighters contract mesothelioma at twice the rate of other U.S. residents.

 

Firefighters also face exposure to flame retardants included in the EPA’s review that are used in furniture and other products.

 

“I believe the chemical industry is killing firefighters,” said Tony Stefani, a former San Francisco fireman who retired in 2003 after 28 years when diagnosed with cancer he believes resulted from exposure to chemicals in the review.

 

Stefani said he was one of five in his station to contract cancer in a short period. Three later died, while Stefani had a kidney removed and endured a year of treatment before being declared cancer-free.

 

“When I entered the department in the early 70s, our biggest fear was dying in the line of duty or succumbing to a heart attack,” he said. “Those were the biggest killers, not cancer. But we work in a hazardous-materials situation every time we have a fire now.”

Mesothelioma caused or contributed to more than 45,000 deaths nationwide between 1999 and 2015, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in March. The number of people dying annually from the disease increased about 5 percent during that time.

 

In one of its last acts under Obama, the EPA said in January it would judge the chemicals “in a comprehensive way” based on their “known, intended and reasonably foreseen uses.”

 

Under Trump, the agency has aligned with the chemical industry, which sought to narrow the review’s scope. The EPA now says it will focus only on toxins still being manufactured and entering commerce. It won’t consider whether new handling and disposal rules are needed for “legacy,” or previously existing, materials.

 

“EPA considers that such purposes generally fall outside of the circumstances Congress intended EPA to consider,” said EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones, adding the agency lacks authority to regulate noncommercial uses of the chemicals.

 

One of the law’s co-authors, New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, disputes that Congress wanted to limit the review.

 

“It doesn’t matter whether the dangerous substance is no longer being manufactured; if people are still being exposed, then there is still a risk,” Udall told AP. “Ignoring these circumstances would openly violate the letter and the underlying purpose of the law.”

 

Democrats and public health advocates have criticized EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for installing people with longstanding ties to the chemical industry into senior positions at the agency. On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on a party-line vote, advanced the nomination of Michael Dourson, a toxicologist whose work has been paid for by the industry, to oversee the EPA’s chemical safety program.

 

Two prior appointments worked for the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s lobbying arm: Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator for chemical safety, and Liz Bowman, the associate administrator for public affairs.

 

The council pushed back against the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, urging the EPA’s new leadership to narrow its review. The Trump administration did that in June.

 

“Did we get everything we wanted? No. But we certainly agree the [Trump] administration put forth a reasonable final rule,” said council vice president Michael Walls. Broadening the review, he added, would send the EPA “down a rabbit hole chasing after illusory risks.”

 

The politically influential National Association of Homebuilders, which represents the residential construction industry, fears broadly interpreting the new law would lead to burdensome regulations that are unnecessary because it says asbestos disposal rules already are adequate.

 

Many of those regulations are based on a 1994 Occupational Safety and Health Administration finding that materials had to contain at least 1 percent asbestos to qualify for regulation. But public health experts say the 1 percent threshold is arbitrary.

 

“It’s bad medicine, and it’s harmful,” said Michael Harbut, an internal medicine professor at Detroit’s Wayne State University and medical adviser to an insulation workers’ union.

 

“There’s still a lot of asbestos out there,” said Harbut, who helped establish criteria used by physicians to diagnose and treat asbestos-related diseases. “It’s still legal, it’s still deadly, and it’s going to be a problem for decades to come.”
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