Turkey’s currency this month has suffered heavy falls triggered by U.S.-Turkish tensions over the ongoing detention of an American pastor. Washington’s threat to impose new economic sanctions sparked another steep currency drop Friday. Dorian Jones reports on the economic fall out for people in Istanbul.
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Tesla shares dropped nearly 9 percent in value Friday, amid reports of CEO and co-founder Elon Musk meeting with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Musk wrote on Twitter last week of his plans to take the company private for a price of $420 per share, writing that he had “funding secured.” On Monday, in a blog post, Musk admitted that was not true, as he was still waiting on a finalized deal with his investors, a Saudi Arabian foreign investment fund.
“I continue to have discussions with the Saudi fund, and I also am having discussions with a number of other investors, which is something that I always planned to do since I would like for Tesla to continue to have a broad investor base,” Musk wrote.
Since Musk’s original tweet, the company’s shares have dropped 12 percent overall, and reports of subpoenas being issued by the SEC have sent the company into turmoil.
In a New York Times interview Thursday, Musk said, “This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career.” The Times also reported that members of Tesla’s board are concerned with Musk’s drug use, notably his use of the sleep aid Ambien, which some believe have contributed to Musk’s controversial Twitter statements.
Last month, Musk came under fire for calling one of the cave divers who rescued 12 Thai soccer players and their coach a pedophile, citing no evidence. He later apologized for that remark.
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Stocks rose late in the day Friday as investors welcomed signs of progress in resolving the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. The Wall Street Journal reported that the countries hope to have a resolution by November.
Industrial, health care and basic materials companies made some of the biggest gains. The report came a day after China said it will send an envoy to Washington for the first talks between the countries since early June.
Marina Severinovsky, an investment strategist at Schroders, said stocks could jump if the U.S. and China make real progress toward a trade agreement. But stocks in emerging markets might make even bigger gains.
“The rally that could come, if there is a better outcome, would be in emerging markets,” she said. “China has suffered pretty greatly … the U.S. has held up pretty well.”
The late gains came in spite of weak results for several chipmakers. Electric car maker Tesla took its biggest drop in two years on reports of a wider government investigation into the company and concerns about CEO Elon Musk’s health.
The S&P 500 index rose 9.44 points, or 0.3 percent, at 2,850.13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 110.59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 25,669.32. The Nasdaq composite edged up 9.81 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,816.33. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gained 7.19 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,692.95.
The Wall Street Journal cited officials in both the U.S. and China as it said negotiators want to end the trade war before U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet at multilateral events in November.
Industrial companies made some of the biggest gains after agricultural equipment maker Deere posted stronger than expected sales. Its stock rose 2.4 percent to $140.59.
Construction equipment maker Caterpillar rose 2.3 percent to $139.34 and engine maker Paccar added 2.3 percent to $67.16.
Chipmakers fell after two companies gave weaker forecasts for the third quarter. Nvidia said it no longer expects much revenue from products used in mining digital currencies, and its stock fell 4.9 percent to $244.82. Applied Materials slumped 7.7 percent to $43.77.
While big names like Netflix, Facebook and Amazon slipped, Apple led technology companies slightly higher overall. Apple stock rose 2 percent to $217.58.
Nordstrom jumped 13.2 percent to $59.18 after raising its annual profit and sales forecasts and posting better earnings and sales than analysts expected. It’s been a mostly difficult week for department stores as Macy’s and J.C. Penney both plunged after issuing their quarterly reports.
The S&P 500 finished this week with a solid gain of 0.6 percent, but it took a difficult path to get there. Stocks fell early this week due to worries about Turkey’s currency crisis, and later investors fretted about China’s economic growth.
The recovery started Thursday as investors hoped the upcoming talks between the U.S. and China will help end the impasse that has resulted in higher tariffs from both countries.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong has fallen 13 percent since early June as the dispute has dragged on, and other emerging market indexes have also taken a hit. The S&P 500 has risen over that time.
Tesla was hit with a series of reports that concerned shareholders. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission started investigating the electric car maker last year to determine if it made false statements about production of its Model 3 sedan.
The SEC is also reportedly looking into CEO Elon Musk’s comment on Twitter about possibly taking the company private.
Tesla stock rose from about $345 a share to about $380 following Musk’s tweet last week, which said Tesla could go private for $420 a share. On Friday it dropped 8.9 percent to $305.50.
Musk also gave an emotional interview to the New York Times, published Friday, about the stress he’s experienced as the company tries to ramp up production. He said this year has been “excruciating” and described working up 120 hours a week, raising concerns about his health.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.86 percent from 2.87 percent.
U.S. crude picked up 0.7 percent to $65.91 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, added 0.6 percent to $71.83 per barrel in London.
Wholesale gasoline dipped 0.3 percent to $1.98 a gallon. Heating oil inched up 0.1 percent to $2.10 a gallon. Natural gas rose 1.3 percent to $2.95 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Gold was little changed at $1,184.20 an ounce. Silver fell 0.6 percent to $14.63 an ounce. Copper added 0.5 percent to $2.63 a pound.
The dollar dipped to 110.60 yen from 110.88 yen. The euro rose to $1.1443 from $1.1365.
The German DAX lost 0.2 percent and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.1 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain was little changed.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index added 0.4 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4 percent. In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.3 percent.
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Unions at Air France-KLM voiced concern after the company appointed Benjamin Smith as the new CEO with the support of the French state.
The company said Thursday that Smith, who is 46 and was previously Air Canada’s chief operating officer, will fill the role by Sept. 30.
Vincent Salles, unionist at CGT-Air France union, said on France Info radio that unions fear Smith’s mission is to implement plans that would “deteriorate working conditions and wages.”
The previous CEO, Jean-Marc Janaillac, resigned in May after Air France employees held 13 days of strike over pay and rejected the company’s wage proposal, considered too low.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire welcomed an “opportunity” for Air France-KLM and expressed his confidence in Smith’s ability to “re-establish social dialogue.”
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President Donald Trump says he’s asking federal regulators to look into the effectiveness of the quarterly financial reports that publicly traded companies are required to file.
In a tweet early Friday, Trump said that after speaking with “some of the world’s top business leaders,” he’s asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether shifting to a six-month reporting regimen would make more sense.
The SEC requires such companies to share profit, revenue and other figures publicly every three months.
Some believe executives are making decisions based on short-term thinking to satisfy the market at the expense of the long-term viability of their companies.
There are also tremendous expenses tied to preparing quarterly and annual reports.
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The World Health Organization says security issues could hamper efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak is in conflict-ridden North Kivu province, where some areas are too dangerous for health care workers to go.
As of Wednesday, about two weeks after the Ebola outbreak was declared in North Kivu province, there were 78 confirmed and probable cases of the viral disease, including 44 deaths.
That is nearly double the number of cases reported during a recent and separate Ebola outbreak in Equateur Province.
Health workers have fanned out in North Kivu, tracking down contacts of Ebola victims and giving them an experimental vaccine. But WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says more cases of Ebola are expected to be seen in the coming days and weeks.
“It will get worse before it gets better,” he said. “We do not know if we are having all transmission chains identified. We expect to see more cases as a result of earlier infections and these infections are developing into illness.”
He tells VOA that health workers are able to move around freely in the towns of Mangina and Beni, which are the epicenters of the disease. It is the other parts of the province that have the WHO worried.
“There are areas just next to Mangina that are level four on the UNDSS Security scale, which means that it is an area not to go to … We still do not have a full epidemiological picture, so … the worst-case scenario is that we have these security blind spots where the epidemic could take hold and then we do not know about it,” he said.
The WHO reports it is using the same Ebola vaccine that helped contain the outbreak in Equateur province.
So far, it says nearly 500 people in North Kivu have been vaccinated, including health care workers and people who have come in contact with confirmed cases of the deadly disease.
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Google is planning a return to China.
But the project is shrouded in secrecy, and employees are demanding transparency.
According to a report by The New York Times on Thursday, August 16, a petition calling for more oversight and accountability in the project racked up more than 1,000 signatures.
Reuters reported this month, the app is a bid to win approval from Beijing to provide a mobile search engine in China.
However, employees are concerned the app would support China’s restrictions on free expression and ultimately violate the company’s ‘don’t be evil’ code of conduct.
The petition, seen by Reuters says, “We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building.”
The company declined to comment.
Sources say the project – codenamed Dragonfly – would block certain websites and search terms.
It would also stand in stark contrast to eight years ago, when Google left China in protest of Beijing’s censorship.
Company executives have not commented publicly on Dragonfly.
But in a transcript seen by Reuters, Google’s Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told employees “it’s all very unclear” whether Google would return to China at all.
He also said that development is still in the early stages, and that sharing information too early could quote “cause issues”.
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As summer comes to a close and kids prepare to head back to school, retailers are counting on novelty items such as scented markers and glitter glue to help win back some of the market share they’ve lost to iPads and popular electronic gadgets. VOA’s Jill Craig takes a look at retailers back to school strategy.
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After long resisting change, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wants to revamp the “core” of the service to fight rampant abuse and misinformation. But it’s not clear if changing that essence — how it rewards interactions and values popularity — would even work.
Though Dorsey was scant on details, what is certain is that the move will require huge investments for a company that doesn’t have the same resources that Google and Facebook have to throw at the problem. Any change is likely to affect how users engage with Twitter and hurt revenue, testing the patience of both users and investors.
“Social networks have a history of … well-intentioned but badly designed efforts to fix this,” said Nate Elliott, principal at marketing research firm Nineteen Insights.
Twitter isn’t alone in having to deal with hate, abuse, misinformation and bad actors using the service for elections interference, targeted harassment and scams. And Twitter isn’t alone in proposing fixes that don’t get to the heart of the problems.
Case in point: Facebook. After Russian trolls were found to have used Facebook to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections, including by purchasing ads, the company spent a lot of time and energy building a tool that shows who’s behind political advertisements. But Elliott said it’s not even clear which ads on Facebook are the ones causing problems around foreign elections meddling. In 2016, Russian agents weren’t so much running political ads for or against candidates but rather social ads on divisive such as gun control and immigration.
But like Facebook, Twitter has to try — or at least be seen as trying.
Dorsey told The Washington Post that Twitter had not considered changing the core of the service until now. Like Facebook and others, Twitter has been accused of tinkering around the edges, tweaking policies and hiring masses of moderators when what’s really needed is a fundamental shift in how they work and how they make money in order to survive. While many former executives and other insiders have proposed radical shifts at major social networks, it’s rare for a sitting CEO to propose something as drastic as revisiting the foundation that his company is built on.
“We often turn to policy to fix a lot of these issues, but I think that is only treating surface-level symptoms that we are seeing,” Dorsey said.
Twitter confirmed Dorsey’s comments to the Post, but declined further comment.
Revamping the core could mean changing the engagement and rewards designed to keep users coming back — in the form of seeing their tweets liked, responded to and retweeted, and seeing their follower counts grow. It’s the tiny dopamine hits we get with each like that makes us feel better and keeps us returning for more. Take that away, and users might not want to return. In turn, advertisers might stay away, too, as they rely on monthly and daily user numbers, as well as user interactions, to gauge how well their ads work and how much to spend.
Unlike Facebook, Elliott said, Twitter doesn’t have billions of users to absorb any hits on user growth. Even if the changes work, he said, “it’s going to cost them so many users and so much money I can’t imagine them sticking with these kinds of changes.”
Paul Verna, an analyst with research firm eMarketer, also isn’t “terribly optimistic” that Twitter can make its service safer without hurting its business. The same goes for Facebook, and YouTube.
“Because they rely on an advertising business model, they need to not only continue to reach audiences, but try to get them to spend as much time on platforms as possible,” he said. “That creates an inherent tension between your business needs and being a good citizen.”
That said, Twitter may not have to reinvent itself completely to improve. Elliott said better policies might go a long way toward reducing the abuse. For example, it’s currently OK to harass someone on Twitter, as long as it’s not harassment based on certain categories such as gender and sexual orientation. Elliott said Twitter may just need to prohibit all harassment.
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Outfielder Rolando Rodriguez from Panama heard a reporter’s question, but he doesn’t speak English. So Georgia shortstop Tai Peete helped him out, pecking the words into Google Translate to ask about how young baseball players are sharing technology during the Little League World Series.
“It was easier than expected,” Rodriguez said of the language barrier, speaking through an interpreter.
So goes life in the International Grove, the dorms where 16 teams all are staying during the double-elimination tournament in pursuit of a world title. Apps and even video games are making it easier for the boys to communicate and get to know each other — making smartphones a key part rather than a distraction during their moment of a lifetime.
Eight teams are from U.S. states while the other teams represent various countries around the world and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Players are using Translate to input questions in their native languages and let other players read or hear them in one of more than 100 languages.
Trading pins
That’s changing some of the tournament’s traditions. For example, each team has pins that they are given to trade with other teams. While body language used to go a long way in this process, players are using technology to directly ask for trades.
No words actually need to be spoken aloud, but the kids still are helping fellow baseball players pronounce the words, learning a little bit of a new language in the process.
“I talked to the Mexico team,” Peete said. “I was talking about Little League and they couldn’t pronounce it, so I was helping them.”
Even with better technology, language and cultural barriers still exist.
It’s “a lot harder than I thought,” said Lee Jae-hyeok of South Korea, who noted through a human interpreter that players also were using Facebook to connect.
The days leading up to the start of the series on Thursday consisted of practices, interviews and hanging out in the players village. For the duration of the tournament, each team from the U.S. bracket shares a dorm with one of the international teams. The rooms have bunk beds and TVs, but no Wi-Fi.
They do have a game room, however, which allows players to get their video game fix in a more social way.
Arcade games, table tennis
The space has arcade games, including bowling and motorcycle simulators, but also activities like table tennis. Peete taught the tailgate favorite cornhole to the Australian club.
One common thread for most of the boys: Fortnite, the massively popular, multiplayer shootout video game. They don’t have their consoles but they can still play on their phones and try to impress each other with renditions of the famous dances done by the game’s characters.
But the reason for their visit to Pennsylvania loomed.
“Can we play a [baseball] game?” Peete asked a volunteer at the Little League complex before the tournament started, suggesting that maybe the whole World Series could be moved up.
“There’s nothing else to do,” he said.
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A potential ban on the popular herbicide glyphosate in Brazil over concerns it may cause cancer in humans would be a “disaster” for the country’s agricultural industry, Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said on Thursday.
A Brazilian court ruled on Aug. 3 that new products containing the chemical could not be registered in the country and existing registrations would be suspended starting from September, until health authority Anvisa issues a decision on its re-evaluation of glyphosate’s safety.
Maggi said that glyphosate is used on around 95 percent of soy, corn and cotton harvested in the country and that there is no readily available substitute. Brazil is the world’s top exporter of soy and a major producer and exporter of corn.
“Glyphosate makes it viable for us to plant and grow crops.
What is the alternative?” Maggi said at an event in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil’s Solicitor General’s office has said it is preparing an appeal to the court decision with the Agriculture Ministry’s backing. Maggi said he is confident the ruling will be overturned on appeal.
The Brazilian court case is part of a global pushback against the chemical. A U.S. judge ruled last week that Monsanto must pay $289 million in damages to a man who alleged its glyphosate-based products like Roundup caused his cancer.
Monsanto, taken over earlier this year by Bayer AG , said in a statement that more than 800 reviews, including those by the U.S. environmental and health authorities, support that glyphosate does not cause cancer. The company is appealing the U.S. court ruling.
Brazil federal prosecutors brought the case to force Anvisa to make a decision in its re-evaluation of glyphosate, which it started in 2008, said Marco Antonio Delfino de Almeida, a member of a prosecutors’ working group on pesticides.
A 2015 assessment by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer determined glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans, which provides a basis for reconsidering its safety, Almeida said.
If the Brazil ban on existing product registrations goes into effect, it could disrupt farmers who are set to begin planting soy in September.
The sale of glyphosate products would be halted and farmers who use products with suspended registrations could face legal risks, said Brazil-based agribusiness lawyer Frederico Favacho.
Anvisa told Reuters it is prioritizing its re-evaluation of glyphosate but did not give a timeframe for announcing its findings.
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U.S. health officials Thursday approved a new generic version of EpiPen, the emergency allergy medication that triggered a public backlash because of its rising price tag.
The new version from Teva Pharmaceuticals is the first that will be interchangeable with the original penlike injector sold by Mylan. The Food and Drug Administration announced the approval in a statement.
EpiPen injections are stocked by schools and parents nationwide to treat children with severe allergies. They are used in emergencies to stop potentially fatal allergic reactions to insect bites and stings and foods like nuts and eggs.
EpiPen maker Mylan has dominated the $1 billion market for the shots for two decades. Several other companies sell competing shots containing the drug epinephrine, but they aren’t heavily marketed or prescribed by doctors.
In 2016, Congress blasted Mylan in letters and hearings for raising EpiPen’s to $600 for a two-pack, a five-fold increase over nearly a decade. The company responded by launching its own lower-cost generic version for $300.
Mylan continues to sell both versions at those prices, according to data from Elsevier’s Gold Standard Drug Database.
Teva’s generic shot will be the first version that pharmacists can substitute even when doctors prescribe the original EpiPen.
A Teva spokeswoman declined to comment on the drug’s price but said it would launch “in the coming months.” Generic drugs can be priced as much as 80 percent lower than the original product. But those price cuts usually appear after several companies have launched competing versions.
Teva’s bid to sell a generic EpiPen faced multiple setbacks at the FDA, which rejected the company’s initial application in 2016. While epinephrine is a decades-old generic drug, Teva and other would-be competitors struggled to replicate the EpiPen’s auto-injector device.
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Finance Minister Berat Albayrak assured international investors on Thursday that Turkey would emerge stronger from its currency crisis, insisting its banks were healthy and signalling it could ride out a dispute with the United States.
In a conference call with thousands of investors and economists, Albayrak — who is President Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law — said Turkey fully understood and recognised all its domestic challenges but was dealing with what he described as a market anomaly.
With Ankara locked in a complex rift with Washington, he also played down a decision by President Donald Trump to double tariffs on imports of Turkish metals. Washington later said it was ready to impose further economic sanctions on Turkey.
Many countries had been the target of similar U.S. trade measures, Albayrak said, and Turkey would navigate this period with other parties such as Germany, Russia and China.
Turkey, he said, has no plans to seek help from the International Monetary Fund or impose capital controls to stop money flowing abroad in response to the recent collapse of its lira currency. Before he spoke, the lira strengthened more than 3 percent, despite signs that the dispute with the United States is as wide as ever.
The lira held steady during Albayrak’s conference call but later weakened when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States was prepared to levy more sanctions on Turkey if detained American pastor Andrew Brunson was not freed.
The Turkish currency was trading at 5.85 at 1740 GMT, more than 1 percent stronger on the day. Turkey’s sovereign dollar bonds extended their gains.
The lira hit a record low of 7.24 to the dollar earlier this week, down 40 percent this year, as investors fretted over Erdogan’s influence over monetary policy and the row with the United States.
Turkey’s foreign minister said Ankara did not want any problems with Washington.
“We can solve issues with the United States very easily, but not with the current approach,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara late on Thursday.
Facing Turkey’s gravest currency crisis since 2001 in his first month in the job, Albayrak has the daunting task of persuading investors that the economy is not hostage to political interference.
Albayrak, a 40-year-old former company executive with a doctorate in finance, said Turkey would not hesitate to provide support to the banking sector. The banks were capable of managing the volatility, and there had been no major flow of cash out of deposits lately, he added.
Qatari pledge
Economists gave Albayrak’s comments a qualified welcome, and praised his ambition to get inflation down into single figures next year from above 15 percent now. But his father-in-law’s opposition to higher interest rates may complicate that quest.
“He said all the right things, but it’s one thing saying them and another thing doing them,” said Sailesh Lad at AXA Investment Managers. “He said capital controls weren’t part of the agenda, and never will be. I think a lot of the market liked hearing that.”
The lira gained some support from the announcement late on Wednesday of a Qatari pledge to invest $15 billion in Turkey. Trump has used trade tariffs in a series of disputes ranging from with Turkey and China to the European Union.
In a sign that Turkey may hope to make common cause with other affected countries, Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone on Thursday, discussing developing economic and trade ties and boosting bilateral investment, a Turkish presidential source said.
Albayrak will also meet his German counterpart Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Sept. 21.
However, in a potential complication, a foreign ministry source in Berlin said Turkish police had arrested a German citizen. ARD TV reported the man was accused of “terrorist propaganda” after criticising the government on social media.
In another element of the row with Washington, a U.S. court sentenced a senior executive of state-owned Turkish lender Halkbank to 32 months in prison in May for taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. That case has increased speculation that the bank itself could be fined for sanctions-busting.
Halkbank has said all of its transactions were lawful and Albayrak played down the risk. “We are not expecting any fines on Halkbank for sure,” he said. “But hypothetically speaking, …if one of our public banks need help, the government will stand strong by it for sure.”
The White House said on Wednesday that it would not remove steel tariffs on Turkey, appearing to give Ankara little incentive to work for the release of Brunson, a pastor on trial in Turkey on terrorism charges.
Washington wants the evangelical Christian freed but Turkish officials say the case is a matter for the courts.
The pastor row is one of several between the NATO allies, including diverging interests in Syria and U.S. objections to Ankara’s ambition to buy Russian defence systems, that have contributed to instability in Turkish financial markets.
Economic war
Erdogan has repeatedly told Turks to exchange gold and hard currency into lira, saying the country was involved in an economic war with enemies.
However, Turks appeared not to be heeding his appeal. Central bank data showed foreign currency deposits held by local investors rose to $159.9 billion in the week to Aug. 10, from $158.6 billion a week earlier.
Erdogan has called for a boycott of U.S. electronic goods and Turkish media have given extensive coverage to anti-U.S. protests, including videos on social media showing Turks apparently burning dollar bills and destroying iPhones.
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A majority of U.S. states has adopted technology that allows the federal government to see inside state computer systems managing voter data or voting devices in order to root out hackers.
Two years after Russian hackers breached voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona, most states have begun using the government-approved equipment, according to three sources with knowledge of the deployment. Voter registration databases are used to verify the identity of voters when they visit polling stations.
The rapid adoption of the so-called Albert sensors, a $5,000 piece of hardware developed by the Center for Internet Security, illustrates the broad concern shared by state government officials ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, government cybersecurity experts told Reuters.
CIS is a nonprofit organization based in East Greenbush, N.Y., that helps governments, businesses and organization fight computer intrusions.
“We’ve recently added Albert sensors to our system because I believe voting systems have tremendous vulnerabilities that we need to plug; but also the voter registration systems are a concern,” said Neal Kelley, chief of elections for Orange County, California.
“That’s one of the things I lose sleep about: It’s what can we do to protect voter registration systems?”
As of August 7, 36 of 50 states had installed Albert at the “elections infrastructure level,”according to a Department of Homeland Security official. The official said that 74 individual sensors across 38 counties and other local government offices have been installed. Only 14 such sensors were installed before the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
“We have more than quadrupled the number of sensors on state and county networks since 2016, giving the election community as a whole far greater visibility into potential threats than we’ve ever had in the past,” said Matthew Masterson, a senior adviser on election security for DHS.
The 14 states that do not have a sensor installed ahead of the 2018 midterm elections have either opted for another solution, are planning to do so shortly or have refused the offer because of concerns about federal government overreach.
Those 14 states were not identified by officials.
But enough have installed them that cybersecurity experts can begin to track intrusions and share that information with all states. The technology directly feeds data about cyber incidents through a non-profit cyber intelligence data exchange and then to DHS.
“When you start to get dozens, hundreds of sensors, like we have now, you get real value,” said John Gilligan, the chief executive of CIS.
“As we move forward, there are new sensors that are being installed literally almost every day. Our collective objective is that all voter infrastructure in states has a sensor.”
Top U.S. intelligence officials have predicted that hackers working for foreign governments will target the 2018 and 2020 elections.
Maria Benson, a spokesperson for the National Association of Secretaries of States, said that in some cases installations have been delayed because of the time spent working out “technical and contractual arrangements.”
South Dakota and Wyoming are among the states without Albert fully deployed to protect election systems, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The South Dakota Secretary of State’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The Wyoming Secretary of State’s office said it is currently considering expanding use of the sensors.
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In 1995, a patient sick with the Ebola virus, in what was then called Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, miraculously recovered from this deadly disease. At that time, when the virus first jumped from animals to man, Ebola meant almost certain death.
Doctors found that this patient had antibodies to fight the virus in his bloodstream even after he recovered.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, invited the patient to the U.S., where researchers cloned the cell that had helped him beat Ebola.
“We brought the person back to the United States to draw his blood and try to clone the B cells that make the antibodies that this person had produced … to then, essentially, clear his virus and, hopefully, protect him against any future exposure,” Fauci told VOA.
Because the NIH scientists made numerous copies of that cell, it is called a monoclonal antibody — in this case, mAB114. It’s hoped that it can be used to target the Zaire strain of Ebola currently spreading in eastern Congo.
Fauci said mAB114 is still experimental.
“We have done a number of tests in an animal model and have shown that when you infect an animal up to five days after they become infected, and you passively transfer this antibody, you can actually protect the animals from getting sick and they recover,” he said.
Not all treatments that work in animals work in humans, something Fauci knows all too well. One treatment for HIV/AIDS that Fauci found worked well in monkeys had disastrous effects when tested in humans.
Fauci’s staff is conducting a phase one clinical trial in volunteers at the NIH hospital to make sure mAB114 is safe. So far, no one can say whether the treatment works, but because of the dire situation in Congo, and the fear the virus will spread in the armed conflict that is going on in the region, Fauci said the antibody has been given to five people with Ebola.
At a news conference Tuesday, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said he had been told they were doing well.
As of now, there’s no approved treatment for the disease, although there is a vaccine that protects people who may have been exposed to the virus but who are not sick.
Other experimental treatments are also being used to help end the outbreak in Congo. One of them is ZMapp, a combination of three monoclonal antibodies. In 2016, NIH found ZMapp safe and well-tolerated, but without an outbreak, it is impossible to prove effectiveness.
Fauci said another antiviral drug, remdesivir, is being used in patients with Ebola from West Africa, even though that outbreak is over. Scientists have found the Ebola virus can remain in the semen, so men are being treated to prevent further spread.
Remdesivir, or GS-5734, is produced by Gilead. On its website, Gilead says remdesivir is thought to work by blocking a key enzyme the virus needs to reproduce itself. Tomas Cihlar, Gilead’s vice president for biology, is quoted as saying, “Based on animal studies, we believe that the compound is able to penetrate the organs and tissues throughout the body where Ebola replicates.”
So far, there are no proven treatments for Ebola. Scientists are hopeful that that therapeutic antibodies could be the best way to stop this virus. An international study led by Scripps Research suggests that antibodies may be valuable treatments against new viruses and could help a patient’s immune system fight the Ebola virus after being infected.
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More than 100 cases of measles have been diagnosed this year in 21 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
As of July 14, 107 people had contracted the viral infection in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and the nation’s capital.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through the air via coughing and sneezing. The illness starts with a fever, runny nose, cough, red eyes and a sore throat. It’s followed by a rash that spreads over the body. While the disease is treatable, the CDC said, one or two out of every 1,000 children who get measles die from complications.
This year’s outbreak is on pace to surpass last year’s, when 118 people from 15 states and the District of Columbia were reported to have measles. In 2016, 86 people from 19 states contracted the illness.
The CDC said the majority of people who contracted measles were unvaccinated. Prevention is key, because the virus can be spread easily.
The measles virus can live for up to two hours in an airspace where the infected person coughed or sneezed, according to the CDC. Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90 percent of unimmunized people in close contact with the infected person will also become infected.
In 2015, the United States experienced a large, multistate measles outbreak linked to an amusement park in California. The outbreak most likely started with a traveler who became infected overseas, then visited the park. The source of the infection was never identified.
The CDC recommends children get two doses of the vaccine, starting with the first dose at 12 to 15 months of age, and the second dose at 4 through 6 years of age.
Lifetime effectiveness means adults vaccinated as children don’t need to be revaccinated.
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A federal court in New York has charged 22 Chinese importers with smuggling nearly half-a-billion dollars in counterfeit goods into the United States from China.
The fake products include such popular luxury items as Louis Vuitton bags, Michael Kors wallets, and Chanel perfume.
Twenty-one of the defendants were arrested Thursday.
U.S. attorneys say the suspects allegedly smuggled the China-made counterfeit goods in large shipping containers disguised as legitimate products and brought them into ports in New York and New Jersey.
The defendants apparently intended to sell the fake products across the United States with a street value of nearly $500 million.
Along with smuggling and trafficking in counterfeit goods, the suspects are also charged with money laundering and immigration fraud.
“The illegal smuggling of counterfeit goods poses a real threat to honest business,” assistant attorney general Brian Benczkowski said. “The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who seek to exploit our borders by smuggling counterfeit goods for sale on the black market.”
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The scientific community has long acknowledged that vaccines work and have saved millions of lives. However, a vocal community, particularly in the U.S., believes that vaccines expose children to health risks and can cause harm.
It can be easy to write off these opinions, but psychology researchers have long known of many cognitive biases that can lead people to make poor judgments. Several of these researchers are interested in how people end up receiving and believing fallacious ideas as they relate to vaccines.
Cognitive misers
The human mind isn’t like a computer. Our brains aren’t composed of truth values coded as ones and zeros. Emotion, confidence and memory can all impact how we form beliefs. The problem is we often don’t recognize when we aren’t thinking logically.
Gordon Pennycook, a researcher at Canada’s University of Regina, said he’s interested in “the tendency for people to be lazy in the way that they think.” Essentially, he said, high-level reasoning takes a lot of mental effort, and we humans are cognitive misers. If we don’t have to think that hard, we won’t.
“Part of the problem, though,” Pennycook told VOA, “is that when it comes to more complicated domains, like in the realm of science, our intuitions are often wrong. So we need to spend more time thinking about it.”
In 2015, Pennycook published a paper titled On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bulls**t that focused on whether people find meaning in statements randomly made up of common buzzwords. One example: “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.”
He found that people who ascribed meaning to these nonsensical statements were more likely to believe in complementary and alternative medicine, which Pennycook asserts are the same people who are less likely to get vaccines.
“I don’t want to call it open-minded, but it’s a so-open-minded-that-your-brain-kind-of-falls-out type of situation,” he said.
Cognitive biases
The unwillingness or inability to think critically is somewhat tied to another well-known psychological phenomenon, the Dunning-Kruger effect. First formally identified in 1999 by its namesakes, the cognitive bias refers to a broken link between actual knowledge and perceived competence.
As Pennycook puts it, “The incompetent are too incompetent to recognize their incompetence.”
For example, people with little knowledge of vaccines may feel extra certain about the little information they have, whether it’s correct or not. Pennycook noted this can create the frustrating situation where “the people we want to help the most are the least aware of how much help they need.”
And when people feel confident, they aren’t likely to try to challenge those beliefs or ideas. This phenomenon is referred to as confirmation bias.
Panayiota Kendeou, an educational psychologist at the University of Minnesota, said the pre-existing belief that vaccines are dangerous “influences how [anti-vaccine parents] evaluate any information that they come across, and they view the information in alignment with their pre-existing beliefs.”
Confirmation bias creates a filter on new information. Information that a person agrees with is strengthened, while evidence to the contrary is ignored. In Kendeou’s opinion, “that’s the major or main bias when it comes to vaccinations.”
Misconceptions and misinformation
Kendeou studies reading comprehension and learning, but is particularly interested in what those messages contain. She is an expert in misinformation and has researched how inaccurate or totally misleading information is assessed by a person reading it.
She decided to test whether she could change the way people engage with written misinformation. Kendeou had participants read messages about vaccination, but some of the participants were told to pay special attention to who made claims and whether those claims made sense.
Kendeou found corrective measures like this did help those participants recognize misleading information. And, she told VOA, “what we find a month later is that we get some maintenance of the effect.”
It wasn’t a large difference, but participants were still better at correctly rejecting bad information about vaccines than they were before the test.
When reflecting on how to reach anti-vaccine people, Kendeou said, “Having good logical arguments, it’s a great first step. But also alerting [people] that they need to pay attention who provides those logical arguments is even more important.”
Fear as double-edged sword
Unfortunately, accepting new correct information can be difficult if a person is feeling fearful.
“What we know from our work is that negative emotions like fear and anxiety narrow your attention,” Kendeou said. “And when you end up in that state of mind, you do end up focusing on certain information and not other [information] because of that narrowness in attention.”
Fear of an immediate threat, even one that’s not real — like getting the flu from the influenza vaccine — restricts a person’s ability to see the whole situation. That metaphorical tunnel vision can limit people’s ability to think critically.
But Derek Powell, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, suggests that fear could also change the minds of people who don’t support vaccines. “At root, that [fear] is kind of the thing that’s driving this, for good or ill,” he said.
Rather than focusing on the oft-disproven idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism, Powell and his colleagues wanted to test if a message about the severity and risk of contracting measles, mumps or rubella convinced parents that vaccines are necessary. In a 2015 experiment, they did just that.
Powell assigned participants to one of three groups. The “fear” group was told about the chances of catching an immunizable disease and the resulting severe symptoms. In a second group, participants heard about studies proving vaccines don’t cause autism. A third group was given no additional information.
Powell said the idea was “even if you thought there was a little bit of risk to a vaccine, if we persuaded you there was a lot of risk to not vaccinating, that might kind of overall tip the scale in favor of vaccination.”
As expected, participants who learned about the risks of contracting preventable diseases were more supportive of vaccines. Interestingly, Powell noted that “emphasizing the safety of vaccines in scientific research showing there was no autism link between MMR vaccine and autism wasn’t really effective.”
Sticky beliefs
It seems that just refuting an existing belief about vaccines isn’t enough. Powell said that some beliefs can be “sticky,” in that they are difficult to dismiss.
Kendeou, the University of Minnesota educational psychologist, agrees, saying while there are ways to combat bad information on vaccines, “there is no magic ‘erase and replace’ strategy.” Misconceptions, she said, never fully go away, but we can lessen their impact by reminding people to think critically and seek good evidence to refute bad arguments.
Researchers and communicators still find it difficult to keep that advice in mind.
“There’s a tendency to want to shake somebody until they start acting sensible, and I totally understand it,” Powell said. “I’ve felt it myself, but I don’t think it’s actually going to work in terms of changing their minds.”
For at least one previously anti-vaccine mom, Powell is correct.
Carli Leon, a mother of two children and previously self-described “loud voice” against vaccinations, said insulting comments online didn’t change her mind.
“When people would ridicule me and call me a bad mother, it only made me dig my heels in more. What helped me was people asking me questions [that] got me to think. That got me to recognize the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxx community and my own hypocrisy with my own beliefs that I had,” Leon said.
“You never know who is reading these posts online,” she added. “It might just change somebody’s mind.”
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Russia says the latest U.S. sanctions imposed on Russian, Chinese, and Singaporean companies are “destructive” and “useless.”
The U.S. penalized the three companies Wednesday, accusing them of helping North Korea avoid international sanctions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday the new U.S. sanctions come when “joint international efforts” are needed toward a settlement in North Korea. Moscow said the sanctions could undermine denuclearization talks.
The U.S. has accused a Chinese trading company and its affiliate in Singapore of falsifying documents aimed at easing illegal shipments of alcohol and cigarettes into North Korea. The companies are said to have earned more than $1 billion.
A Russian company was also sanctioned for providing port services to North Korean-flagged ships engaged in illegal oil shipments.
The sanctions freeze any assets the companies may have in the United States and bars Americans from doing business with them.
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A mobile blood-testing lab. Hand-washing stations on street corners. Motorcycle taxi drivers forbidden from sharing spare helmets. If Ebola is coming, the city of Goma in eastern Congo wants to be ready.
An outbreak suspected of killing 43 people is spreading across the lush farmlands of eastern Congo, where ethnic and military conflicts threaten to hobble containment efforts.
Goma, a lakeside city of 1 million people near the Rwandan border, is more than 350 kilometers (220 miles) south from the epicenter of the outbreak in the town of Mangina in North Kivu province, and no cases have been confirmed there.
But the virus has already spread to neighboring Ituri province, and the number of infected is rising daily. Residents in the busy trading hub are taking no chances.
“It’s not only me who fears the appearance of Ebola. The whole community here is scared,” said shopkeeper Dany Mupenda. “To protect ourselves we stick to the rules of hygiene to avoid being one of the victims of this epidemic.”
UNICEF has set up hand-washing stations around the city. Health workers check residents’ temperatures in public places and at the entrance to the city. The hospital has set up a mobile lab to test suspected cases.
900 lives
It is the kind of preparation that has become routine in Congo, which has experienced 10 Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered on the Ebola River in 1976. In all, it has killed 900 people.
Ebola causes diarrhea, vomiting and hemorrhagic fever and can be spread through bodily fluids. An epidemic between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa.
Congo, a vast, forested country, has become a staging ground for new treatments, including the first use of vaccines that helped contain an outbreak that was declared over in July, just days before the latest flare-up was discovered.
Goma residents know that medical breakthroughs mean little if simple measures are not taken on the ground. After basketball games, teams have been told not to shake hands, said Fiston Kasongo, a young basketball player. “What scares me is the speed with which Ebola spreads and the consequences that follow,” he said.
Patrons of Goma’s popular motorcycle taxis have to risk speeding helmetless across town.
“We are told that it can spread through the sweat of heat, and as our helmets are not worn by one customer only, they allowed customers to ride with no helmet to prevent the spread,” said a taxi driver named Wemba.
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The United States economy, the world’s largest, is “crushing it,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow declared Thursday.
“This is the hottest business economic environment in the world today,” Kudlow told reporters at the White House.
“President [Donald] Trump completely changed the business environment here for the better,” Kudlow said. “And that’s why we’re crushing it on the economy. My message today is very simple, the biggest political event this year is an economic boom that virtually no one expected could happen. We’re growing. Three percent in the first half, 4 percent in the second quarter.”
Trump has made a tax cut and sharply curtailed government regulation a cornerstone of his 17-month presidency.
Kudlow predicted that “the boom is sustainable. The workforce is growing,” and “business and consumer confidence is high and rising.”
He defended Trump’s imposition of tariffs on an array of imports from across the world.
“People like to go at him” on tariffs, Kudlow said. “That’s silly. Don’t blame Trump. Blame the breakdown of the world trading system. That’s a point I love to make. I make it all the time. China being the biggest culprit, but not the only culprit.”
Kudlow said the World Trade Organization “is broken. People have been raising tariffs and non-tariff barriers, violating rules we thought had been in place for over 20 years. The president believes that it’s in the American interest, both workers, farmers, the whole economy — we have got to clear away all the existing protectionism that he inherited and start over and turn a new leaf.”
Trade with Turkey
He said that in the newest tariff dispute with Turkey, Trump imposed higher levies on Turkish steel and aluminum exports irrespective of Washington’s ongoing dispute with Ankara over its detention of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who is awaiting trial on espionage and terrorism-related charges. Trump has unsuccessfully demanded Brunson’s release.
“I think that basically the president is dissatisfied with Turkey on trade,” Kudlow said. But he said trade and the Brunson case were not linked.
“I can just tell you policy-wise, they are not connected,” he said. “Personally, I think they ought to release the pastor, but that is not part of the discussion.”
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The rise of information sharing in the digital age has made it easier to disseminate knowledge, but it also brings with it heightened risks: from hackers stealing our information, to launching cyberwarfare and even potentially weaponizing legitimate platforms. This week on “Plugged In,” VOA Contributor Greta Van Susteren explores these challenges and how they are impacting global cybersecurity. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.
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A Chinese delegation will travel to the United States later this month to resume negotiations as a trade war intensifies between the world’s two biggest economies.
China’s Commerce Ministry says Vice Minister Wang Shouwen will meet with David Malpass, an assistant U.S. Treasury secretary for international affairs.
The ministry issued a statement saying Beijing welcomes dialogue, but “will not accept any unilateral trade restriction measures.”
China and the United States have engaged in a round of reciprocal tariffs since July 6, when Washington officially imposed 25 percent tariffs on more than 800 Chinese products worth $34 billion. Beijing retaliated by imposing the same percentage of retaliatory tariffs on 545 U.S. items, also worth $34 billion.
The two sides will impose an additional round of tariffs on $16 billion worth of goods from each country effective August 23.
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Scientists in Florida are on the cusp of developing promising methods to control toxic algae blooms like the “red tide” that has been killing marine life along a 150 mile (240 km) stretch of the Gulf Coast, the head of a leading marine lab said Wednesday.
Michael Crosby, president and chief executive of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, welcomed a red tide emergency order issued this week by Governor Rick Scott, designating more state money for research, cleanup and wildlife rescues.
Scientists field-testing solutions
Interest in mitigation technologies has been heightened by a 10-month-long toxic algae bloom off Florida’s southwestern coast that has caused mounds of rotting fish to wash up on beaches from Tampa to Naples.
The red tide also has been implicated in at least 266 sea turtle strandings and is suspected or determined to have caused 68 manatee deaths so far this year, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission figures.
In hopes of combating future outbreaks, scientists are field testing a patented process that would pump red-algae-tainted seawater into an ozone-treatment system and then pump the purified water back into the affected canal, cove or inlet, Crosby said.
Experiments carried out in huge 25,000-gallon tanks succeeded in removing all traces of the algae and its toxins, with the water chemistry reverting to normal within 24 hours, he said.
Scientists also are studying the possible use of naturally produced compounds from seaweed, parasitic algae and filter-feeding organisms that could be introduced to fight red tides.
A ‘bad bloom’
Red tides occur on an almost yearly basis off Florida, starting out in the Gulf of Mexico where swarms of microscopic algae cells called Karenia brevis feed on deep-sea nutrients and are sometimes carried by currents close to shore, usually in the fall.
This year’s Gulf Coast Florida bloom is the worst in more than a decade, originating last October and persisting well into the summer tourist season while spreading across 150 miles of coastline spanning seven counties.
“It’s a bad bloom by any standard,” said Richard Stumpf, an oceanographer who studies red tides for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
For reasons not well understood, strong northerly winds that normally break up a red tide by December failed to materialize last winter, Stumpf said.
It remains to be seen whether a single year of altered wind patterns will turn out to be an isolated deviation or part of more long-term changes in climate, Stumpf said.
Natural phenomenon
But scientists say red tides in and of themselves are a natural phenomenon observed as far back as the 1600s.
For humans, exposure can cause respiratory difficulties, burning eyes and skin irritation. The toxins are often fatal to marine life.
The latest bloom coincided with the spawning season for snook, an ecologically important and popular game fish in Florida, Crosby said. A portion of emergency funding ordered by the governor is earmarked for assessing impacts on that fish.
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