Forget self-driving cars! Imagine a future filled with flying cars. The latest design comes from the Netherlands, where a company plans to officially unveil the newest combination of a gyrocopter and a sports car. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Temperatures in the Arctic in recent days have surged above the freezing point, leading to renewed fears that climate change is affecting the planet’s atmosphere and causing sea ice to melt at a faster rate than predicted. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, scientists say, but at the same time much of Europe is experiencing a severe cold spell. Some scientists believe the two events are linked, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Illegal heroin and fentanyl exports from Mexico to the United States are on the rise, according to World Drug Report 2017 compiled by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and backed by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Speaking in Mexico City, as the report, which tracks narcotics consumption and production throughout the world, was released Thursday, INCB President Raul Martin del Campo noted the significant increase of drug use around the world, highlighting the harvest and trafficking of illicit drugs in and from South America.
“Poppy harvest that you see in so many countries throughout South America, as you do in Mexico, en route to the United States has increased by a significant amount as registered in the report,” he said. “Fentanyl precursors have also been detected as entering the country, and that is having a consequence with respect to the composition of these drugs that are being exported illegally.”
Fentanyl interceptions skyrocket
Seizures of fentanyl, a significant contributor to the epidemic of overdose deaths, by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased from less than 1 kilogram in 2013 to about 200 kilograms in 2016, the INCB said.
Three-quarters of the cocaine consumed in Mexico comes from Mexico and Central America, the report noted.
Mexico is under increasing pressure to combat drug trafficking after more than 25,000 homicides were recorded last year across the country as rival drug gangs increasingly splintered into smaller, more violent groups.
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Uber is driving deeper into health care by offering to take patients in every U.S. market where it operates to their next medical appointment.
The ride-hailing service said Thursday its Uber Health business will handle rides set up by doctor’s offices or other health care providers and then bill that business, not the patient, for the service. The company said rides can be set up within a few hours or days in advance. Patients won’t need access to a smartphone to use the service.
Uber began testing the service last summer. More than 100 health care providers have signed up including hospitals, clinics and physical therapy centers.
Company leaders said they are expanding because there’s a need. They cite federal government research that estimates that more than 3 million people do not obtain medical care due to transportation problems.
“There are a lot of people out there who are not going to the doctor simply because they can’t physically make it there,” said Uber Health executive Jay Holley.
He added that the service also represents a business opportunity for Uber by connecting the company with a lot of first-time users.
Uber will bill care providers who sign up for the service monthly based on their usage. Holley said some may pass the cost on to their customers, but most of the providers it has worked with so far pay for the rides out of their operating budget.
Uber rival Lyft offers a similar service called Concierge, which allows health care providers to set up rides for patients to get to appointments. The providers pay for the rides. Lyft also has patient transport partnerships with larger health care providers.
Health insurers and others have long recognized the need to help some patients, especially those with low incomes, make their medical appointments.
Molina Healthcare Inc. has offered a transportation benefit to its customers for around 25 years and says that more than 3 million people are eligible. Molina specializes in administering the state- and federally funded Medicaid programs for poor people and the disabled.
Spokeswoman Laura Murray said the insurer found that covering transportation expenses helps patients keep regular appointments and preventive care visits, which can include things like flu shots or checkups. She said that can improve patient health and cut down on unnecessary emergency room visits.
Adams Clinical runs clinical trials for drug companies and started using Uber Health in the middle of last year. Since then, trial participation has grown and patients have started staying in the studies longer, CEO Nelson Rutrick said.
The Watertown, Massachusetts, company had used taxis before switching to Uber. Rutrick said taxis were more expensive and required advance planning to get a cab to drive an hour or two to pick someone up.
“Uber is already where the patient lives,” he said.
When refugees arrive in a new country, they bring little to no material possessions. But many bring something more valuable: their talent and skills.
Twenty refugee women and asylum-seekers from different parts of the world recently came together at a pop-up store in Phoenix, Arizona, to display their homemade products and tell their compelling stories.
The details and the countries may be different, but their stories are strikingly similar.
From Iraq
Nada Alrubaye was an art teacher who fled Iraq. “I had two boys. One, my young boy, was killed in Baghdad,” she said. “I decided to go to Turkey with another son because I wanted to protect him.” They arrived in Arizona four years ago.
“I escaped from Syria seven years ago when the war started,” said Rodain Abo Zeed, through an interpreter, “because there was no safety and no opportunities for my kids to continue their education, and because my husband’s restaurant got burned down to ashes.” She traveled first to Jordan and then came to the U.S.
From Afghanistan
Tahmina Besmal was in her early 20’s when she fled Afghanistan. “Me, my mom, and two sisters because of safety and there was no opportunities for ladies to go to school, to do a job, to be independent.” Her family lived in India for six years before coming to Phoenix.
A step toward self-sufficiency
A team of graduate social work students at Arizona State University created the Global Market pop-up store to help these women become self-sufficient. They welcomed the opportunity to sell their homemade products at this donated retail space in downtown Phoenix.
“The global market project is developed in a collaboration between local non-profits and Arizona State,” one of the students, Alyaa Al-Maadeed, said. “So the way that we designed this project is just by using a concept from the world of business, which is a pop-up store, and integrated it into the world of social work.”
Asna Masood is president of one of the nonprofit partners — the American Muslim Women’s Association (AMWA). “Last year, we started new beginning skills training program for refugee women,” she said. “We teach them how to sew and then help them sell those items to the community.”
Learning a skill
Tahmina Besmal acquired sewing skills in the program and brought aprons, purses, and tablet cases she sewed at home to the pop-up store.
Other items for sale at the store included handicraft arts, soap and organic body care products, international sweets, paintings, jewelry and more. An Iraqi refugee applied henna tattoos on customers’ hands.
“The pop-up market is good for me because I bring all my stuff here. They were only in my home,” said Nada Alrubaye. “I sold some of my paintings like today, I sold two paintings and some of my jewelry.” Alrubaye said she was happy with the opportunity.
The pop-up store was only open for a month. But Megan McDermott, another graduate student on the team, said organizers have a long-term vision.
“The goal of the project is not only to bring these women short-term income. We want to really provide them with the experience of learning how to run their own business and learning how to be entrepreneurs.”
From Iraq
The goal resonates with Tara Albarazanchi, an Iraqi asylum-seeker who offered her homemade soaps and body care products.
“This pop-up market gives me that experience of working in a shop, dealing with people, dealing with cash, and knowing how to make the books,” she said. “I am talking about my products. It gives me the exposure that I was looking for.”
Organizers hope visitors to the store learned something as well.
As Alyaa Al-Maadeed explained, “It offers an educational opportunity for the customers to come in and interact with people from different parts of the world and learn their stories and learn what is a refugee and what does it mean to come from another part of the world having nothing to begin with.”
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Older men may face premature death if they spend most of the day sitting around, but it doesn’t require a huge amount of exercise to increase their chances of living longer, a study in the UK suggests.
Researchers asked 1,655 men, all between 71 and 92 years old, to wear accelerometers for one week. The goal was to assess their activity levels.
Among a subset of 1,274 men without cardiovascular disease or heart failure who wore the accelerometers as directed, participants logged a daily average of 616 minutes of sedentary time, 199 minutes of light activity and 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise.
After following the men for up to six years, there were 194 deaths.
For each additional 30 minutes of sedentary time on a typical day, men were 17 percent more likely to die during the study, researchers report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Every extra half hour of light activity, however, was associated with 17 percent lower odds of death.
“For those who are able, it remains a good idea to aim for at least 150 minutes each week of moderate or more intense activity, that is, activities that get the heart beating faster,” said lead study author Barbara Jefferis of University College London.
“Our results suggest that whilst moderate or more intense activity is best, for older men who are unable to achieve the target, doing even light physical activity is worthwhile for extending the lifespan,” Jefferis said by email.
Not surprisingly, researchers also found that men were about 40 percent less likely to die during the study when they got the minimum recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week, compared to men who didn’t achieve that amount.
Long or short bursts
And the benefit was similar whether men got this total amount of exercise in brief, sporadic bouts of less than 10 minutes at a time or they exercised in longer bouts of at least 10 minutes or more.
“We found that as long as men accumulated 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week, it didn’t matter whether it was in long or short bursts,” Jefferis said.
“This is encouraging for older adults, as it is easier for them to reach the target without worrying about sustaining activity in bouts.”
While 66 percent of the men managed to get at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise in short bursts, just 16 percent achieved this in bouts of 10 minutes or longer, the study found.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how the amount or duration of exercise men get might directly impact longevity.
Another limitation is that accelerometers used in the study didn’t distinguish between standing time and sitting, which might have different health effects, researchers note. Men who followed through with wearing the devices also tended to be younger and healthier than men who didn’t.
Mental benefits
Still, the results add to evidence that any exercise is better than none, even if more intense activity is better, said Keith Diaz, a researcher at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City who wasn’t involved in the study.
“So, whether one walks for 1 minute at a time or 10 minutes at a time, any duration of activity at a time is healthful,” Diaz said by email.
“Regular exercise can lower blood pressure, blood sugar levels, body weight, triglycerides, and unhealthy LDL cholesterol; all of which can improve your heart’s health and, in turn, longevity,” Diaz added. “Exercise can also help memory and thinking by stimulating the release of chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells and the growth of new blood vessels in the brain.”
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Facebook Inc on Thursday put an end to a test of splitting its signature News Feed into two, an idea that roiled how people consumed news in six countries where the test occurred and added to concern about Facebook’s power.
The test created two streaming series of posts. One was focused on photos and other updates from friends and family, and a second was called an “explore feed.” It was dedicated to material from Facebook pages that the user had liked, such as media outlets or sports teams.
The social media network decided to end the test and maintain one feed because people told the company in surveys they did not like the change, Adam Mosseri, head of the News Feed at Facebook, said in a statement.
“In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family,” Mosseri said.
The test began in October and took place in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka, and it quickly affected website traffic for smaller media outlets.
Mosseri said the company had also “received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information, and that we didn’t communicate the test clearly.”
He said Facebook would, in response, revise how it tests product changes although he did not say how.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled other changes to the Facebook News Feed in the past two months to fight sensationalism and prioritize posts from friends and family.
The world’s largest social network and its competitors are under pressure from users and government authorities to make their services less addictive and to stem the spread of false news stories and hoaxes.
Reporting by David Ingram.
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UPDATE: Dow Jones industrials fall 500 points as investors worry about fallout from steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
This is a breaking story; please check back for updates.
U.S. stocks dropped in another dizzying day of trading on Thursday as investors dissected Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s latest testimony before Congress and the possibility of stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Stocks were higher earlier in the day after Powell appeared to calm one of the market’s main worries when he said that he does not see inflation in workers’ wages “at a point of acceleration.” Investors have been nervous about the possibility that the Fed may get more aggressive about raising interest rates to beat down inflation.
But stocks slid in the afternoon after President Donald Trump told steel and aluminum executives that he’ll impose tariffs on imports next week.
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President Donald Trump says the United States will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports next week.
At a meeting Thursday with top executives from U.S. steel and aluminum companies, he announced tafiffs of 25 percent on steel products and 10 percent on aluminum.
Trump said in a Twitter post Thursday morning that “Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world.” He continued, “We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE!”
The Trump administration has shown its desire to impose tariffs on various metal imports since last year.
Earlier this month, the Commerce Department announced that it found “the quantities and circumstances of steel and aluminum imports threaten to impair national security.”
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recommended that President Trump impose a tariff of at least 53 percent on all steel imports from China and 11 other countries, and a tariff of 23.6 percent on all aluminum products from China, Hong Kong, Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam.
On Thursday China’s top economic advisor Liu He is scheduled to visit the White House to meet with top administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn.
A White House official speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters that they expect a “frank exchange of views” and will focus on “the substantive issues.”
Ryan L. Hass, David M. Rubenstein Fellow at John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings Institution told VOA he believes in the best case scenario, Liu’s visit will assure both sides that “they are committed to solving underlying problems in the bilateral trade relationship.”
Hass noted, “In such a scenario, both sides would agree on the problems that need to be addressed, the framework for addressing them, and the participants and timeline for concluding negotiations.”
Hass said if Liu He’s visit fails to exceed the White House’s expectations, then the probability of unilateral U.S. trade actions against China will go up. “If the U.S. takes unilateral actions, China likely will respond proportionately, and that could set off a tit-for-tat cycle leading to a trade war,” he said.
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Environmental activists in Kenya have pledged to take further legal action against Kenyan and Chinese corporations if contractors move forward with construction of a railway bridge across Nairobi National Park. The activists held a demonstration Thursday outside parliament.
About 100 activists chanted as they marched through the streets of Nairobi Thursday to demand that phase 2 of construction of the Standard Gauge Railway be rerouted around Nairobi National Park.
The park is a rare wildlife sanctuary located just minutes from the city center of one of Africa’s rapidly growing economic and technological hubs.
“This is a tiny park. It’s an absolute jewel to the Nairobi citizens and all of Kenya. It is crowded with guests. Everybody who comes for safari, their first stop is Nairobi National Park before they go to the Mara and all those places, and it’s a disaster if they take it away,” said Patricia Heaths.
The six-kilometer bridge planned to cross over the park is part of a much larger project – the SGR, a massive regional rail network largely funded by China. Kenya opened the Nairobi to Mombasa line last year. This second phase of the SGR in Kenya is set to connect Nairobi to Naivasha.
Environmentalists say the construction would affect the ecology of the park, endangering the wildlife and their natural habitats. Paul Mark from Friends of Nairobi National Park read a petition outside parliament.
“…The purpose of this letter is to remind you of the court orders in place which stop the Kenya Railways Corporation and any other person from construction of the Standard Gauge Railway within the Nairobi National Park,” he said.
In 2017, the National Environment Tribunal ordered a temporary halt to construction in the Nairobi National Park in response to a petition from environmental groups. The activists demanded the government conduct an environmental impact study. The case is still pending.
However, Kenya Railways, a state company, and its partner, the China Road and Bridge Corporation, moved to begin construction work in the park in late February.
The Kenya Coalition for Wildlife Conservation and Management said in a statement Thursday that it would seek to have the contractors held in contempt.
Officials at Kenya’s Ministry of Transport and Kenya Railways did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment.
Marko Pruikma sits on the board of Friends of Nairobi National Park.
“Nairobi National Park is an open park, which means animals can migrate freely in and out the southern boundaries of the park. There will be a lot of noise because of construction in certain areas. You will see certain animals removed out of their particular area going to another area pushing out other animals, and they might go out of the park, causing extra human-wildlife conflict outside the park,” said Pruikma.
Last year, environmentalists unsuccessfully tried to stop construction of phase one of the SGR which passes through Tsavo National Park. Activists say the rail line interferes with elephant migration.
A total of seven possible routes were considered for phase two of the SGR, two of which did not pass through Nairobi National Park. The government said the current design was picked as the most cost-effective and technically feasible.
The Kenya Wildlife Service also rubber-stamped the decision to build the rail bridge over the park saying it would have minimal interference with the movement of the wildlife.
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Americans lifted their spending just 0.2 percent in January, while their incomes jumped because of last year’s tax cuts.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that the modest spending increase followed gains of 0.4 percent in December and 0.8 percent in November. Incomes rose 0.4 percent, boosted by $30 billion in tax cut-related bonuses the government estimates were paid out in January.
After-tax income jumped 0.9 percent, the most in a year, lifted by the Trump administration’s tax cuts. With consumers holding back on spending, the savings rate rose. Savings had fallen to a 12-year low in December.
The figures suggest Americans took a breather in January after shopping enthusiastically over the holidays. The healthy income gains will likely spur more spending in the coming months. Still, the slow start to the year indicates the economy may grow more slowly in the first three months of the year than it did in last year’s fourth quarter, when it expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate.
Consumers are feeling much more optimistic about the economy, which should help lift spending. Consumer confidence jumped in February to the highest level since 2000, according to the Conference Board.
“With consumer confidence elevated and disposable incomes rising, we don’t expect the softness in spending to last long,” Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said.
There were some signs of inflation pressures. A key inflation gauge that excludes the volatile food and energy categories rose 0.3 percent, the most in a year and matching January 2017’s gain. The last time core prices rose faster was in January 2007.
Fears of rising inflation stemming from faster economic growth and a solid job market contributed to a sharp fall in the stock market in early February.
Yet core prices rose just 1.5 percent in January from a year ago, the same annual gain as in December. A broader inflation measure that includes food and energy increased 1.7 percent from a year earlier, also the same as the previous month. Both figures are below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.
Americans spent much less on cars last month, reflecting a slowdown after consumers replaced thousands of cars in previous months that had been destroyed by hurricanes. That pulled down spending on long-lasting goods by 1.6 percent, the steepest fall since last January.
Adjusted for inflation, Americans’ after-tax incomes rose 0.6 percent in January, the most in five years.
Overall, the economy and job market are mostly healthy. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 210,000, the lowest level in 48 years, the Labor Department said Thursday. That is a sign that employers anticipate solid growth and want to hold onto their staffs.
U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil says it will withdraw from its joint venture with Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft due to U.S. and European sanctions against the country.
Exxon Mobil had signed a deal with Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, in 2011 that aimed to drill in difficult terrain, like Russia’s Arctic waters. It combined Exxon’s high level of technology with Rosneft’s access to the area.
The deal came under strain, however, after the U.S. sanctioned Russia in 2014 over the invasion of Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. The sanctions did not affect existing deals in the energy sector, but prohibited any business with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, an influential oligarch in Russia.
That created a series of hurdles for the partnership. Exxon has applied for a waiver but without success. Last year, the U.S. Treasury fined Exxon $2 million for signing new deals with Sechin in 2014. Exxon sued the U.S. government to stop the fine.
The deal has come under extra scrutiny because Rex Tillerson, the current secretary of state, was the Exxon CEO who had struck the deal and has had reportedly good personal ties with Sechin.
As America’s top diplomat, Tillerson has insisted the sanctions will stay in place until Russia reverses course in Ukraine and gives back Crimea. Still, the Russian deal on his watch raises significant questions about his ability to credibly enforce the sanctions and to persuade European countries to keep doing so.
The situation was escalated further last year, when the U.S. expanded sanctions against Russia for allegedly interfering in the U.S. presidential election.
Exxon said in a note to its earnings report late Wednesday that it had made the decision to end the partnership in late 2017.
“The corporation expects it will formally initiate the withdrawal in 2018,” at a cost of about $200 million, it said.
Rosneft said in a statement that it “will continue the independent development of these projects,” and that it supports Exxon Mobil’s eventual return, should the law allow that.
Equifax said Thursday that an additional 2.4 million Americans were impacted by last year’s data breach, however these newly disclosed consumers had significantly less personal information stolen.
The company says the additional consumers only had their names and a partial driver’s license number stolen by the attackers, unlike the original 145.5 million Americans who had their Social Security numbers impacted. Attackers were unable to get the state where the license was issued, the date of issuance or its expiration date.
In total, roughly 147.9 million Americans have been impacted by Equifax’s data breach. It remains the largest data breach of personal information in history.
The company says they were able to find the additional 2.4 million Americans by cross referencing names with partial driver’s license numbers using both internal and external data sources. These Americans were not found in the original breach because Equifax had focused its investigation on those with Social Security numbers impacted. Individuals with stolen Social Security numbers are generally more at risk for identity theft because of how prolific Social Security numbers are used in identity verification.
Equifax Inc. says it will reach out to all newly impacted consumers and will provide the same credit monitoring and identity theft protection services they have been offering to the original victims.
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Climbers on North America’s tallest mountain may have to start packing out more of their poop after a researcher determined a glacier in which much of it has been dumped over the past decade probably is not decomposing the human waste.
Michael Loso, a glacier geologist, calculates that 36,000 climbers between 1951 and 2012 deposited 152,000 to 215,000 pounds (69 to 97 metric tons) of feces onto Kahiltna Glacier, part of the most popular route to Denali’s summit.
For more than a decade, the National Park Service has required that climbers keep waste off the Alaska mountain’s surface. Mountaineers captured their poop in biodegradable bags held by portable toilets and pitched it into deep crevasses on the glacier.
However, Loso’s research indicates human waste never reaches the bottom of the glacier, will never be exposed to extreme temperatures and disintegrate, and likely will reappear downstream as stains on Kahiltna Glacier’s surface where melting exceeds annual snowfall.
Park Service officials say the dumping of human waste that does not decompose is not a practice they want to continue in a national park and a wilderness area.
“These changes are in direct response to the research,” Chris Erickson, a mountain ranger, said by phone from nearby Talkeetna.
The proposed regulations would allow mountaineers to drop waste in only one crevasse at high elevation. They would have to carry out the rest.
Human waste is a concern on most mountains that attract multitudes of climbers, and the issue of poop littering the routes up Mount Everest in Nepal is well-documented. Some mountains are trying to minimize the human waste problem. In Japan, bio-toilets have been set up along the route to Mount Fuji’s summit, and incinerator toilets are at the top. In Tanzania, latrines have been built for climbers making their way to Kilimanjaro’s summit.
The waste can be more than just bothersome. Climbers on Denali, the centerpiece of sprawling Denali National Park, get all their drinking water by melting snow. And snow contaminated by human excrement can spread dangerous bacteria such as E. coli, causing climbers intestinal distress and diarrhea leading to dehydration, a life-threatening condition at high altitude.
Each year about 1,100 people try to reach Denali’s summit at 20,310 feet (6,190 meters). More than 90 percent use a route that starts from a landing strip for small airplanes on Kahiltna Glacier.
Starting in 2007, the Park Service required that human waste be collected in “Clean Mountain Cans,” a portable toilet invented by a Denali park ranger that looks like an extended coffee can. Under current rules, climbers between the base camp and 15,000 feet (4,572 meters) are allowed to toss filled liners into crevasses. Rangers even marked safe places to do so.
Loso for more than a decade has studied Denali human waste management to determine whether feces broke down, and if not, where it went. He buried human waste, dug it up after a year and found it remained at temperatures just below freezing, without undergoing temperature extremes or ultraviolet light that kills bacteria.
“For most bacteria, that’s a really comfortable place to be,” Loso said.
He forecasts that poop could emerge soon on the glacier surface 7 miles (11 kilometers) below the base camp, where the surface melts faster than snow accumulates.
The area is so remote, future visitors are unlikely to see the emerging waste, but Loso’s findings motivated the Park Service to re-examine its rules. The agency also doesn’t want pollution reaching the Kahiltna River, which flows from the glacier.
Under proposed rules, all Denali dung must be deposited in one of two places: the ranger station at Talkeetna or in a crevasse at “Camp Four,” a campsite at 14,200 feet (4,330 meters). Waste dumped there tumbles down a huge ice cliff and is likely to be pulverized and rendered inert, said Erickson, the mountain ranger.
Tom Kirby, a guide for American Alpine Institute, said his company supports any effort to get the waste problem under control.
“I think that’s a pretty reasonable thing to do to promote cleanliness and to keep water coming out of Kahiltna Glacier reasonably clean,” he said.
Colby Coombs, owner of Alaska Mountaineering School, which guides visitors on Denali, said he fully supports the Park Service balancing the safety of climbers, who want to move quickly through dangerous terrain without extra weight, while protecting a wilderness area within a national park.
“Who would like to see a big pile of human waste?” he asked. “That’s disgusting.
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The battle to identify and remove extremist video online just got a new weapon. Video-sharing sites can now use artificial intelligence to scan thousands of videos as they are uploaded. Faith Lapidus reports.
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If microbes can live in the most extreme regions on Earth, scientists say it is quite possible they can live on other celestial bodies.
In a recently published study, researchers from Washington State University say bacteria, found in the hyper-arid soil of Chile’s Atacama Desert, can live dormant for decades, patiently waiting for very rare rainfalls.
Once the rain arrives, they quickly reanimate and produce offspring. Since Mars once had flowing water, scientists say it is possible that similar microorganisms may be waiting there for the next opportunity to continue life.
But other celestial bodies within our solar system, such as Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, have water now, so they too may harbor extraterrestrial life.
Studying life around deep-sea hydrothermal vents near Japan’s island of Okinawa, microbiologists led by a team from the University of Vienna found that certain microbes thrive in conditions similar to those on Enceladus.
The hardiest of the microbes were able to reproduce even in the presence of extremely unfriendly chemicals, such as ammonia and carbon monoxide.
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Facebook wants to make it easier for people to find low-skilled jobs online.
After testing the new software in U.S. and Canada since last year, Facebook added job postings Wednesday in another 40 countries across Europe and elsewhere.
The software works with both Apple and PC operating systems.
Users can find openings using the Jobs dashboard on Facebook’s web sidebar or its mobile app’s More section. The search can be filtered according to area and type of industry, as well as between full-time and part-time jobs.
Users can automatically fill out applications with information from their Facebook profile, submit the applications and schedule interviews.
Businesses can post job openings using the Jobs tab on their page, and include advertisements.
Separately, Facebook announced the introduction of a face recognition software that helps users quickly find photos they’re in, but haven’t been tagged in. The new software will help users protect themselves against unauthorized use of their photos, as well as allow visually impaired users learn who is in their photos and videos.
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Several high-tech companies are teaming up on a plan to put a mobile phone network on the moon next year.
Vodaphone Germany, Nokia, and Audi are working on a mobile network and robotic vehicles that are part of a private expedition to the moon, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary year of the first manned lunar landing.
The project with PTScientists in Germany would use a 4G network to send high-definition information from rovers back to a lunar lander, which would then be able to communicate it back to Earth.
Project scientists say the system uses less energy than having rovers speak directly to Earth, leaving more power for scientific activities.
They plan to launch the vehicles from Cape Canaveral next year on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket.
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Facebook Inc has told a British parliamentary committee that further investigations have found no new evidence that Russia used social media to interfere in the June 2016 referendum in which Britain voted to leave the European Union.
Facebook UK policy director Simon Milner in a letter Wednesday told the House of Commons Committee on Digital, Culture Media and Sport that the latest investigation the company undertook in mid-January to try to “identify clusters of coordinated Russian activity around the Brexit referendum that were not identified previously” had been unproductive.
Using the same methodology that Facebook used to identify U.S. election-related social media activity conducted by a Russian propaganda outfit called the Internet Research Agency, Milner said the social network had reviewed both Facebook accounts and “the activity of many thousands of advertisers in the campaign period” leading up to the June 23, 2016 referendum.
He said they had “found no additional coordinated Russian-linked accounts or Pages delivering ads to the UK regarding the EU Referendum during the relevant period, beyond the minimal activity we previously disclosed.”
At a hearing on social media political activity that the parliamentary committee held in Washington earlier in February, Milner had promised the panel it would disclose more results of its latest investigation by the end of February.
At the same hearing, Juniper Downs, YouTube’s global head of public policy, said that her company had “conducted a thorough investigation around the Brexit referendum and found no evidence of Russian interference.”
In his letter to the committee, Facebook’s Milner acknowledged that the minimal results in the company’s Brexit review contrasted with the results of Facebook inquiries into alleged Russian interference in U.S. politics. The company’s U.S. investigation results, Milner said, “comport with the recent indictments” Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller issued against Russian individuals and entities.
Following its Washington hearing, committee chairman Damian Collins MP said his committee expected to finish a report on its inquiry into Social Media and Fake News in late March and that the report is likely to include recommendations for new British laws or regulations regarding social media content.
These could include measures to clarify the companies’ legal liability for material they distribute and their obligations to address social problems the companies’ content could engender, he said.
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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will soon get a personal assistant, similar to Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, but so smart that astronauts prefer to call it a “colleague.”
Its official name is CIMON, short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, and it will partially live in a five-kilogram ball built by Airbus. It has a video screen with rudimentary face features, cameras with face recognition, microphones and speakers.
CIMON will move freely within the space station; however, its brain will be on Earth in IBM’s supercomputer, named Watson, loaded with a huge amount of scientific knowledge.
CIMON’s main human companion will be German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who will bring it onboard ISS in June. The two are currently training together, as CIMON will have to be able to recognize Gerst’s voice and face, and also to navigate within the complicated interior of the spacecraft.
For starters, Gerst and CIMON will cooperate in experiments with crystals, a complex medical experiment, and also try to solve the Rubik’s magic cube using only videos.
A larger experiment will be the interaction between human and artificial intelligence, especially in view of future deep-space missions.
CIMON’s developers would like to see whether an intelligent interactive assistant will help reduce astronauts’ stress during long flights and improve their efficiency.
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A company’s value is often tied to the message it portrays to customers. But what happens when other companies try to take advantage of your brand?
Take the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance. The American football team wants to exclusively own the phrase: “Philly Special.” That was the trick play that helped them win the Super Bowl, and the Philly Special is, by far, the most talked-about play of the Super Bowl.
Watch the play here:
It is a gutsy move. In football-speak, it is a direct-snap reverse pass to quarterback Nick Foles, who usually throws the ball. But the coach gives the OK, and Foles tells his teammates the plan in the huddle.
The team lines up, Foles runs up the field. Tight end Trey Burton throws the football, and Foles catches it in the end zone for a touchdown.
“Play of the century”
Now, the phrase, ‘Philly Special,’ has turned into a city-wide phenomena. Bakeries are making Philly Special pastries. Some people are getting the words or even a sketch of the play tattooed on themselves.
And stores, like Ashley Peel’s Philadelphia Independents, cannot keep enough Philly Special T-shirts in stock.
“It’s the ‘Nick Foles play of the century,’ as I’m dubbing it from the Super Bowl,” Peel said. “It has a layout of the [specifics] from the play. We just got it in and we’re almost already sold out of it. It’s definitely moving well.”
It’s moving well, even as several entrepreneurs are competing to be awarded a trademark — in other words, exclusive rights — to the phrase. Many of the businesses filed their own trademark applications ahead of the Eagles.
“I do have a client that’s applied for the mark, ‘Philly Special,’” said Philadelphia-based lawyer Nancy Rubner Frandsen.
She filed a trademark application on behalf of a company called Whalehead Associates. She can’t comment too much about the application without violating attorney-client privilege, but admits the phrase goes beyond a football play.
“Obviously it brings everyone together, it was our Super Bowl championship that brought it all about,” she said. “It’s got the term ‘Philly’ in it — from the trademark standpoint, it would be deemed to be descriptive. But then you combine it with the term, ‘Special,’ and it could make a very unique trademark.”
Some of the other businesses that want to trademark the term include a sandwich maker, a gift shop manufacturer … and the Philadelphia Eagles. The team was actually the last to file a trademark application. Even so, experts say, it’s likely the rights will be awarded to the Eagles.
Newsjacking
“This particular term, ideally, should belong to the Eagles,” said Dr. Jay Sinha, an associate marketing professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
He added the phenomenon around ‘Philly Special’ is not the first time there’s been a rush to trademark a term after a big event, like the Super Bowl. And it’s even got a name: ‘newsjacking.’
“The term, newsjacking, means where a company rides or takes advantage of some event happening in current affairs and uses it for their own commercial purposes, especially for marketing in branding,” Sinha said.
For example, think of famous movie lines, like: ‘May the force be with you,’ from “Stars Wars.” When sequels are released, other companies often try to take advantage of the film’s popularity for marketing purposes, like an ice cream shop that posts a sign reading, ‘May the swirl be with you.’
“If there’s anything which is relevant in popular culture as well as the news, companies like to ride on it,” Sinah said.
In this case, it likely will be several months before the U.S. Patent Office announces who will be awarded the rights to the now famous phrase. By then, though, another Super Bowl will be approaching and the excitement of the Philly Special could be fading.
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Artificial Intelligence is on the cusp of transforming our world in ways many of us can barely imagine. While there’s much excitement about emerging technologies, a new report by 26 of the world’s leading AI researchers warns of the potential dangers that could emerge over the coming decade, as AI systems begin to surpass levels of human performance.
Automated hacking is identified as one of the most imminent applications of AI, especially so-called “phishing” attacks.
“That part used to take a lot of human effort – you had to study your target, make a profile of them, craft a particular message – that’s known as phishing. We are now getting to the point where we can train computers to do the same thing. So you can model someone’s topics of interest or preferences, their writing style, the writing style of a close friend, and have a machine automatically create a message that looks a lot like something they would click on,” says report co-author Shahar Avin of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at Britain’s University of Cambridge.
In an era of so-called “fake news,” the implications of AI for media and journalism are also profound.
Programmers from the University of Washington last year built an AI algorithm to create a video of Barack Obama, allowing them to program the “fake” former president to say anything they wished. It’s just the start, says Avin.
“You create videos and audio recordings that are pixel to pixel indistinguishable from real videos and real audio of people. We will need new technical measures. Maybe some kind of digital signatures, to be able to verify sources.”
There is much excitement over technology such as self-driving AI cars, with big tech companies alongside giant car makers vying to be the first to market. The systems, however, are only as secure as the environments in which they operate.
“You can have a car that is as good and better at navigating the world than your average driver. But you put some stickers on a ‘Stop’ sign and it thinks it’s ‘Go at 55 miles per hour.’ As long as we haven’t fixed that problem, we might have systems that are very safe, but are not secure. We could have a world filled with robotic systems that are very useful and very safe, but are also open to an attack by a malicious actor who knows what they are doing,” adds Avin.
The report warns that the proliferation of drones and other robotic systems could allow attackers “to deploy or re-purpose such systems for harmful ends, such as crashing fleets of autonomous vehicles, turning commercial drones into face-targeting missiles or holding critical infrastructure to ransom.”
He says AI use in warfare is widely seen as one of the most disturbing possibilities, with so-called ‘killer robots’ and decision-making taken out of the hands of humans.
“You want to have an edge over your opponent by deploying lots and lots of sensors, lots and lots of small robotic systems, all of them giving you terabytes of information about what’s happening on the battlefield. And no human would be in a position to aggregate that information, so you would start having decision recommendation systems. At this point, do you still have meaningful human control?”
There is also the danger of AI being used in mass surveillance, especially by oppressive regimes.
The researchers stress the many positive applications of AI; however, they note that it is a dual-use technology, and assert that AI researchers and engineers should be proactive about the potential for its misuse.
The authors say AI itself will likely provide many of the solutions to the problems they identify.
Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of the largest sports retailers in the U.S., will immediately end the sale of assault-style rifles in its stores and stop selling guns of any type to anyone under age 21.
The company made the announcement Wednesday, precisely two weeks after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“We deeply believe that this country’s most precious gift is our children. They are our future. We must keep them safe. Beginning today, DICK’S Sporting Goods is committed to the following: http://d.sg/RTC,” the company said in a post on Twitter.
“We need to make a statement,” chairman and CEO Edward Stack said in an interview Wednesday on CNN. “We don’t want to be part of this story any longer.”
Stack said the Florida shooting suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, legally purchased an AR-15 assault rifle from Dick’s in November, but it was not the one used to kill 14 students and 3 staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Stack, who said he remains a strong advocate of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, asserted the nation’s gun laws do not prevent dangerous people from buying guns and that lawmakers must act to strengthen those laws.
The executive called on elected officials to ban assault-style firearms, high-capacity magazines and “bump stocks,” which are devices that enable semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds per minute. Stack also proposed raising the minimum age to buy guns to 21.
He said Dick’s, which also stopped selling high-capacity magazines, is prepared for any backlash but will not change its policies on gun sales. “We’re comfortable with our decision,” he said, adding that Dick’s will continue to sell an array of hunting and sport firearms.
The announcement is one of the strongest positions taken by a major U.S. corporation since the massacre, which has reignited the national gun debate and sparked a wave of gun-control rallies across the country.
More than a dozen U.S. corporations have ended partnerships with the National Rifle Association since the mass shooting, including Delta Airlines and United Continental Holdings, Inc., which owns United Airlines.
NRA ties
Other companies that have cut ties with the NRA include Avis, Best Western International, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Metlife, the Hertz Corporation, and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation.
The NRA is one of the country’s most powerful lobbying groups for gun rights and claims 5 million members. In the 2016 elections, the NRA gave $54 million in political donations, much of that during the presidential race.
It is not unusual for some members of Congress to have individually received hundreds of thousands of dollars — even millions — from the NRA. While some Democrats are also recipients of NRA financial support, the top benefactors are currently members of the Republican Party.
NRA reaction
Last week, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington that those advocating for stricter gun control were exploiting the Florida shooting.
Gun control advocates have noted that many teenagers in America can legally purchase assault rifles before they’re eligible to vote or drink alcohol. Twenty-eight of the 50 states have no minimum age requirement for owning a rifle.
Another giant U.S. retail seller of guns, Walmart, Inc., stopped selling AR-15 rifles and other semi-automatic weapons in 2015.
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Growth in China’s manufacturing sector in February cooled to the weakest in more than 11/2 years, raising concerns of a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the world’s second biggest economy this year as regulators tighten the screws on financial risks.
The weakness was driven by disruption to business activity by the Lunar New Year holidays and curbs to factory output from tougher pollution rules, but there are worries of a bigger loss in momentum.
“Although a recovery looks possible in the short-run as the anti-pollution campaign winds down, the risk is still that the economy fares worse this year than is generally expected,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China Economist at Capital Economics.
Index raises concern
The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released Wednesday fell to 50.3 in February, from 51.3 in January. But it remained above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis, the 19th straight month of expansion.
The drop may raise some concerns for China’s leaders as they prepare for the start of the National People’s Congress (NPC) next week where Beijing will unveil its economic targets for this year.
Globally, solid demand has kept many export-reliant economies humming over the past year or so, though a move toward tighter policy in advanced nations could cut into growth this year.
The latest PMI’s subindex of new export orders fell to 49.0, the lowest in at least a year, as the yuan currency appreciated against the dollar.
Chen Zhongtao, an official with China Logistics Information Center (CLIC), said that “13.6 percent of firms reported concerns over the appreciating Chinese currency and greater currency fluctuations,” the highest number of companies to do so since March 2017.
CLIC said in a statement that export sluggishness is expected to continue this year as steel firms are more reluctant to ship goods in the face of rising global protectionism.
Lunar New Year effect
The index for output stood at 50.7, down from 53.5 in January as the Lunar New Year holidays disrupted factory activities, the statistics bureau said. Total new orders also expanded much slower in February.
Raw material input prices fell for the second consecutive month to the lowest since July 2017, indicating cost pressure from price rises on manufacturing firms is easing.
“I think besides the Lunar New Year factor, the stricter pollution measures in the north before the National People’s Congress might have weighed on activities as well,” said Betty Wang, Senior China Economist at ANZ.
Wang expects momentum to pick up in the months ahead as the pollution crackdown tapers off.
Still, there are signs that China may continue with the pollution crackdown, with top steelmaking city of Tangshan proposing new restrictions on production once the current curbs expire in March.
The weeklong Lunar New Year holidays, which fell in February this year but January in 2017, tend to distort data early in the year.
Many factories and offices start to scale back operations ahead of time before shutting for the entire holiday or longer, while some manufacturers front-load shipments or replenish inventories ahead of the break.
Moderating growth in 2018
Boosted by government infrastructure spending, a resilient property market and unexpected strength in exports, China’s manufacturing and industrial firms helped the economy post better-than-expected growth of 6.9 percent in 2017.
A sister survey showed activity in China’s service sector slowed to lowest since October last year in February. The official non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 54.4 from 55.3 in January.
The services sector accounts for more than half of China’s economy, with rising wages giving Chinese consumers more spending clout.
Chinese policymakers are counting on growth in services and consumption to rebalance their economic growth model from its heavy reliance on investment and exports.
Economists polled by Reuters expected China’s economic growth will moderate to around 6.5 percent this year as the property market cools and as authorities press ahead with a clamp down on riskier financial activity that is driving up borrowing costs.
Analysts and financial markets are widely expecting the government to announce a 2018 growth target of around 6.5 percent at the NPC, the same as last year.
A composite PMI covering both the manufacturing and services activity stood at 52.9 in February, down from January’s reading of 54.6.
“Looking ahead, we think growth is likely to fall short of expectations this year, with many underestimating the headwinds from slower credit growth and a cooling property sector,” Capital Economics’ Evans-Pritchard said.
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