The oceans and lakes are full of life, and most of it is not visible to the naked eye. In most bodies of water, every cubic centimeter contains many microorganisms — bacteria, zooplankton as well as single-cell plants called phytoplankton — all of them important links in the natural food chain. Scientists are now using satellites to observe and study these tiny creatures. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Giant robots and futuristic cyberpunk castles rise out of lush mountain slopes on the outskirts of Guiyang, the capital of one of China’s poorest provinces.
Welcome to China’s first virtual reality theme park, which aims to ride a boom in demand for virtual entertainment that is set to propel tenfold growth in the country’s virtual reality market, to hit almost $8.5 billion by 2020.
The 330-acre (134-hectare) park in southwestern Guizhou province promises 35 virtual reality attractions, from shoot-’em-up games and virtual roller coasters to tours with interstellar aliens of the region’s most scenic spots.
“After our attraction opens, it will change the entire tourism structure of Guizhou province as well as China’s southwest,” Chief Executive Chen Jianli told Reuters.
“This is an innovative attraction, because it’s just different,” he said in an interview at the park, part of which is scheduled to open next February.
New growth engines
The $1.5 billion Oriental Science Fiction Valley park is part of China’s thrust to develop new drivers of growth centered on trends such as gaming, sports and cutting-edge technology, to cut reliance on traditional industries.
In the push to become a center of innovative tech, Guizhou is luring firms such as Apple Inc., which has sited its China data center there, while the world’s largest radio telescope is in nearby Pingtang county.
The park says it is the world’s first of its kind, although virtual reality-based attractions from the United States to Japan already draw interest from consumers and video gamers seeking a more immersive experience.
The Guiyang park will offer tourists bungee jumps from a huge Transformer-like robot, as well as a studio devoted to producing virtual reality movies. Most rides will use VR goggles and motion simulators to thrill users.
“You feel like you’re really there,” said Qu Zhongjie, the park’s manager of rides. “That’s our main feature.”
China’s virtual reality market is expected to grow tenfold to 55.6 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) by the end of the decade, state-backed think tank CCID has said.
Farmers in the nearby village of Zhangtianshui said they were concerned about pollution from big developments, but looked forward to the economic benefits a new theme park would bring.
Most were less sure about virtual battles or alien invasions, though.
“There are lots of good things that come out of these projects,” one farmer, Liu Guangjun, told Reuters. “As for the virtual reality, I don’t really understand it.”
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Amid concerns about Russian hacking and online influence, Russian technology firm NtechLab has won a prize awarded by the United States intelligence community. VOA’s Moscow Bureau visited NtechLab to ask its general director about the award, the technology, and concerns about privacy.
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Some information technology companies are growing so concerned about not find enough digital talent that they’re training their own.
IBM, Amazon and Microsoft all now have apprenticeship programs that pay workers learning on-the-job while they build IT skills. The programs cost companies tens of thousands of dollars per trainee.
IBM Vice President Joanna Daly says the apprenticeship program the tech giant started last month will help fill the several hundred vacant early-career IT jobs in the U.S. Rhode Island-based Carousel Industries executive Tim Hebert says the company’s apprentices are loyal and stay for years.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the median pay last year for computer and information technology occupations was about $83,000, compared to $37,000 for all jobs.
The Federal Communications Commission formally released a draft of its plan to kill net-neutrality rules, which equalized access to the internet and prevented broadband providers from favoring their own apps and services.
Now the question is: What comes next?
‘Radical departure’
The FCC’s move will allow companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to charge internet companies for speedier access to consumers and to block outside services they don’t like. The change also axes a host of consumer protections, including privacy requirements and rules barring unfair practices that gave consumers an avenue to pursue complaints about price gouging.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says his plan eliminates unnecessary regulation. But many worry that his proposal will stifle small tech firms and leave ordinary citizens more at the mercy of cable and wireless companies.
“It would be a radical departure from what previous (FCC) chairs, of both parties, have done,” said Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to Tom Wheeler, the Obama-era FCC chairman who enacted the net neutrality rules now being overturned. “It would leave consumers and competition completely unprotected.”
During the last Republican administration, that of George W. Bush, FCC policy held that people should be able to see what they want on the internet and to use the services they preferred. But attempts to enshrine that net-neutrality principle in regulation never held up in court – at least until Wheeler pushed through the current rules now slated for termination.
Pai’s proposals stand a good chance of enactment at the next FCC meeting in December. But there will be lawsuits to challenge them.
More details
The formal proposal reveals more details of the plan than were in the FCC’s Tuesday press release. For instance, if companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon decide to block a particular app, throttle data speeds for a rival service or offer faster speeds to companies who pay for it, they merely need to disclose their policies for doing so.
The FCC also says it will pre-empt state rules on privacy and net neutrality that contradict its approach. Verizon has noted that New York has several privacy bills pending, and that the California legislature has suggested coming up with its own version of net neutrality rules should the federal versions perish.
The plan would leave complaints about deceptive behavior and monitor privacy to the Federal Trade Commission, which already regulates privacy for internet companies like Google and Facebook.
Best behavior
Broadband providers are promising to be on their best behavior. Comcast said it doesn’t and won’t block, throttle or discriminate against lawful content. AT&T said that “all major ISPs have publicly committed to preserving an open internet” and that any ISP “foolish” enough to manipulate what’s available online for customers will be “quickly and decisively called out.” Verizon said that “users should be able to access the internet when, where, and how they choose.”
Some critics don’t put much weight on those promises, noting that many providers have previously used their networks to disadvantage rivals. For example, the Associated Press in 2007 found Comcast was blocking some file-sharing. AT&T blocked Skype and other internet calling services on its network on the iPhone until 2009.
But others suggest fear of a public uproar will help restrain egregious practices such as blocking and throttling. “I’m not sure there’s any benefit to them doing that,” said Sohn. “It’s just going to get people angry at them for no good reason. They don’t monetize that.”
Fast lanes, slow lanes
Sohn, however, suggests there’s reason to worry about more subtle forms of discrimination, such as “paid prioritization.” That’s a term for internet “fast lanes,” where companies that can afford it would pay AT&T, Verizon and Comcast for faster or better access to consumers.
That would leave startups and institutions that aren’t flush with cash, like libraries or schools, relegated to slower service, said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group. In turn, startups would find it harder to attract investors, Sohn said.
Michael Cheah, general counsel of the video startup Vimeo, said broadband companies will try to lay groundwork for a two-tiered internet – one where cash-strapped companies and services are relegated to the slow lane. To stay competitive, small companies would need to pony up for fast lanes if they could – but those costs would ultimately find their way to consumers.
The view is different at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank funded by Google and other established tech companies. Doug Brake, a telecom policy analyst at the foundation, said there’s little chance broadband companies will engage in “shenanigans,” given how unpopular they already are with the public.
Brake likewise played down the threat of internet fast lanes, arguing that they’ll only be useful in limited situations such as high-quality teleconferencing. Like the FCC, he argued that antitrust law can serve to deter “potentially anticompetitive” behavior by internet providers.
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The former face of China’s “Great Firewall,” Lu Wei, has become the first “tiger” to come under the Communist Party’s corruption investigation since President Xi Jinping began his second term last month.
Analysts say the graft probe into Lu’s corruption practices is widely believed to be legitimate and long overdue.
But Lu’s downfall has highlighted the simmering discontent among the country’s netizens, many of whom have been frustrated with tougher internet regulations imposed by him.
It has also made a mockery of so-called Xi Praise, a flattery culture centering on the building of the Xi cult, analysts add.
Graft probe
Late Tuesday, China’s top anti-corruption agency announced on its website that 57-year-old Lu, who formerly served as deputy chief of the party propaganda department, has been detained in an internal graft probe.
Along with six of his colleagues and family members, Lu was reportedly taken away by investigators late last week.
Lu, who served as the head of China’s cyberspace administration between 2013 and 2016, was the key person in implementing Xi’s cyberspace policies.
In that role, he wielded great power over what the country’s 730 million internet users could access and acted as the gatekeeper for foreign technology companies seeking to enter the Chinese market.
Because of that, Time magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2015.
Just a cat
But his political career ended when he was stripped of the title as China’s internet censor and was replaced by Xu Lin, a Xi protégé, in June 2016.
“Actually, he ceased to be a tiger long ago. He’s not a fly, but he’s now just a cat instead of a tiger because he already lost his power in June 2016,” Hong Kong-based China watcher Willy Lam told VOA.
In one of its two other statements, China’s anti-graft body Wednesday explained why Lu became the first tiger under graft investigation after the party’s 19th National Congress.
The cyberspace administration with Lu at the helm was found to have not been staunch enough in executing Xi’s instructions, lacked political responsibility and integrity while being operated by a network of small circles, the statement said.
‘Offenses of bygone’
The other statement warned not to “expect [criminal] offenses of bygone will be bygone today, lessons learned from the fall of Lu Wei.”
No details about Lu’s corruption offenses were revealed.
Chinese media reported that investigators would be mainly looking into corruption charges against Lu during the period when he worked for state-run Xinhua News Agency from 1991 and 2011.
Media speculation is also rife that Lu had angered Xi when the top leader discovered that the former internet censor had hired foreigners to masquerade as CEOs of multinational tech companies attending the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, in 2014.
Xi praise
But Lam said that Xi, who he said is a “macromania,” has no one but himself to blame for the trend of Xi Praise, a flattery culture in Chinese politics.
“This is the art of survival in the Chinese empire, so to speak. The officials have to be seen as bending forward and backward to please Xi Jinping,” Lam said.
But Li Datong, managing director of Freezing Point, a weekly that reported on all aspects of contemporary life in China, said Xi Praise is an act of self-deception.
“If Xi Jinping knows how to surf on the Internet, he will see from a bevy of [online] chat rooms that many [netizens] not only made fun of him, but also lashed out at Xi Cult. It’s a game for government officials themselves to play,” Li said.
Discontent with internet controls
Chinese internet users, however, are happy to see Lu go, venting their frustrations over Internet controls.
But on Wednesday, a report in the state-run Global Times pointed out, “while news of Lu’s removal has made a buzz on the internet, his corruption investigation isn’t aimed at addressing dissatisfaction expressed by a minority of people over tighter internet controls. Neither is it a signal that internet controls will be re-evaluated as some have expected.”
Li said netizens are aware of the fact that the country’s internet controls won’t be eased following Lu’s downfall.
“Everybody knows that there won’t be a change of policy. But they are still happy to see the executioner [Lu], who has done all evils, being taken down. [Internet] policies are national policies, which won’t be easily revised as a result of personnel reshuffle,” Li said.
On Thursday, Lu Wei was the top-trending topic on freeweibo.com, a website that captures censored social media posts. On SINA Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform, online comments posted by users in response to news reports were mostly erased.
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Toys and TVs at J.C. Penney, Barbies at Best Buy, kitchen appliances like wine refrigerators at B.J.’s. As the holiday shopping season officially kicks off Thursday, shoppers may find some surprises at their favorite stores.
Even as retailers are counting on a lift from a better economy, they’re looking beyond economic data and mapping out ways to pick up sales from other retailers as Amazon expands its reach. That can mean opening earlier than rivals on the holidays or even jumping into new product categories. The fight for market share comes as analysts at Bain say Amazon is expected to take half of the holiday season’s sales growth. And Amazon is the top destination for people to begin holiday shopping, according to a September study by market research firm NPD Group.
“The retailers are in survival mode. It’s about stealing each other’s market share,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD. “Amazon is the Grinch. They’re stealing the growth.”
WATCH: Black Friday shoppers
With the jobless rate at a 17-year-low of 4.1 percent and consumer confidence stronger than a year ago, analysts project healthy sales increases for November and December. The National Retail Federation trade group expects sales for that period to at least match last year’s rise of 3.6 percent and estimates online spending and other non-store sales will rise 11 percent to 15 percent.
Amazon is expected to be a big beneficiary as it cements loyalty among its Prime members and moves into new services and private-label merchandise. The company has introduced more than 20 such brands in the past two years in clothing, electronics, groceries and more, says Bain.
That leaves stores looking at rivals to see where they can pick up sales. There are extra dollars up for grabs this year, after thousands of store locations have closed and several retailers including Gymboree and Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy protection.
Jordan Ascencio, who has sons aged 1, 7, and 8, plans to bypass Toys R Us on Black Friday after being turned off by what she says are dirty stores and skimpy supplies. The latest problem: Her online order was canceled following a large-scale coupon glitch.
“I am not a fan anymore,” said the resident of Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Instead, she plans to buy toys at J.C. Penney and Target.
And with Gymboree shuttering a quarter of its stores, Ascencio is buying more of her children’s clothing at Target, which has launched a number of new private label brands.
Target CEO Brian Cornell recently highlighted that up to $60 billion in consumer spending will be up for the taking in the next few years, and said the chain has been picking up market share in such areas as clothing.
A weekend of shopping
The Thanksgiving weekend, when stores go all-out to attract shoppers, can be an indication of how well they’ll do through the season. About 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million people, intend to shop at some point during the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation. It expects Black Friday to remain the busiest day, with about 115 million people planning to shop then.
Stores like Macy’s, Target and Kohl’s are set to open Thursday evening as they try to woo early shoppers. Walmart starts deals in its stores at 6 p.m. J.C. Penney is opening its doors at 2 p.m., an hour earlier than last year and at least three hours ahead of its department store rivals.
Some retailers are using the weekend to test new product areas before committing to them year-round: Penney says it will have TVs and consumer electronics like game consoles as doorbusters for Thanksgiving and Black Friday only. Penney has also added year-round toy shops and increased its selection of work pants as an apparent move to grab market share from Sears, after last year going back to selling major appliances.
Penney’s Senior Vice President James Starke called these moves “market share plays.”
Both Walmart and Target have been expanding their exclusive toys offerings. Walmart is throwing parties in its stores including ones where kids can play with new toys. Best Buy created its first toy booklet for the holidays. And in its Black Friday ad, the chain features Barbies among smart TVs and other electronics.
Chris Baldwin, CEO of BJ’s Wholesale Club, says it is offering more toys and clothes. In clothing, it’s been able to offer key national brands in areas like casual athletic wear amid rampant store closures. And he says clothing sales are up by at least 10 percent as people don’t go to the mall as much.
“There’s no question that consumer spending has started to tick up and confidence is a little bit better, which is terrific, but we are also seeing some benefit from other retailers,” he said.
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When Gonzalo Perez bought the Castlewood Restaurant last December, it was one of the few outposts among the nearby corn and soybean fields hungry farmers could depend as a place to dine out.
It could become much more than that for Perez.
“It’s my lottery ticket,” he told VOA.
That’s because one of the largest economic development projects in the United States is moving in… right next door.
Taiwanese company Foxconn plans to build a massive flat screen manufacturing and technology facility in nearby Mount Pleasant, employing thousands of workers when completed.
It’s only a few kilometers away from Perez’s restaurant, and he hopes to start cashing in… soon.
“I hope I get a lot of business from construction people in the beginning,” he told VOA from the dining room of another restaurant he owns in a neighboring town which could also benefit from the economic boom the project could bring to the entire region.
WATCH: Foxconn deal
“You are going to probably bring a lot of hotels to the area, bring a lot of chain restaurants to the area. This is a big industry,” Perez explained.
“As they build this facility they are going to require 10,000 construction employees, plus around another 6,000 indirect employees,” says Mark Hogan, Secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, or WEDC.
“When this ecosystem is up and running in the state of Wisconsin it will be an additional 13,000 employees to the state, and another upwards of 20,000 indirect or induced jobs.”
Hogan’s WEDC is one of the chief institutions in the state that worked on the deal to attract Foxconn to Wisconsin.
“We passed special legislation which really created a pathway for the company to be successful in the state. And that had to do with environmental regulations. It had to do with incentives. It had to do with a lot of different things that just kind of cleared a pathway. All things that every other company in the state would have to comply with, but we wanted to create a faster lane for the company to be able to operate under.”
In the package offered to Foxconn is approximately $3 billion dollars in tax incentives if the company invests around $10 billion dollars in its facility and workforce. But those incentives meant to entice the company were also a concern among its critics.
“This is the largest in U.S. history, and it was somewhat surprising because Wisconsin does not generally play this game,” says Steven Deller, Professor of Applied Economics and an Economic Development Specialist with the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Deller says one of his concerns, not just as an academic but also as a taxpayer, is the potential for the state to actually owe money to Foxconn.
“But there is the Wisconsin Agricultural and Manufacturing Tax Credit,” he explained to VOA. “The way that the taxpayers may be on the hook for paying some money, if Foxconn is not paying taxes, and they have a tax credit, that means the state is paying Foxconn. So a lot of it is going to hinge on how big that facility becomes. Right not its starting at 3,000 – it could go up to 13,000. We have no idea how big it will actually become.”
For Gonzalo Perez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico 30 years ago and worked his way up from being a laborer in restaurants to now owning two of them, his biggest concern isn’t the size of the plant’s workforce or the tax incentives … it’s the potential increase in the number of his customers.
Right now he says about 200 people visit his restaurant on a good day.
“I hope to triple that,” he says.
He may not have to wait long to see an uptick in business.
Groundbreaking on the new facility is planned for 2018, and as many as 1000 Foxconn employees could be working in the state later that year.
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A startup is making fuel from waste coffee grounds to power some of London’s buses. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports.
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This weekend, TV viewers across America will again be watching advertisements sponsored by major tobacco companies, but quite different from the ones pulled from the airwaves nearly 50 years ago. Instead of attractive people enjoying a smoke, these ads will lay out in plain text and narration the dangers of using tobacco. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Goodbye, Moon. We don’t need you anymore.
The Earth’s night skies are getting brighter. A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, finds the Earth’s artificially lit outdoor areas grew by 2.2 percent per year from 2012 to 2016.
Light pollution is actually worse than that, according to the German-led team of researchers.
The measurements used in the study come from an imaging sensor on a polar-orbiting weather satellite that can’t detect the color blue generated by the new and increasingly popular LED lights, which means some light is missed by the sensor.
Overall, 79 countries, mostly in Asia, South America and Africa, experienced a growth in nighttime brightness. Sixteen countries, including areas of conflict such as Syria and Yemen, witnessed a decrease, and 39 countries, including the U.S., stayed the same.
“Artificial light is an environmental pollutant that threatens nocturnal animals and affects plants and microorganisms,” the study said.
Light pollution has been known to have adverse effects on all living creatures. People’s sleep can be marred, in turn affecting their health. The migration and reproduction of birds, fish, amphibians, insects and bats can be disrupted, and plants can have abnormally extended growing periods.
Co-author of the study, Franz Holker of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, said things are at the critical point.
“Many people are using light at night without really thinking about the cost,” Holker said. Not just the economic cost, “but also the cost that you have to pay from an ecological, environmental perspective.”
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Facebook Inc. said Wednesday that it would build a web page to allow users to see which Russian propaganda accounts they have liked or followed, after U.S. lawmakers demanded that the social network be more open about the reach of the accounts.
U.S. lawmakers called the announcement a positive step. The web page, though, would fall short of their demands that Facebook individually notify users about Russian propaganda posts or ads they were exposed to.
Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc. are facing a backlash after saying Russians used their services to anonymously spread divisive messages among Americans in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. elections.
U.S. lawmakers have criticized the tech firms for not doing more to detect the alleged election meddling, which the Russian government denies involvement in.
Facebook says the propaganda came from the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization that according to lawmakers and researchers employs hundreds of people to push pro-Kremlin content under phony social media accounts.
As many as 126 million people could have been served posts on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram, the company says. Facebook has since deactivated the accounts.
Available by year’s end
Facebook, in a statement, said it would let people see which pages or accounts they liked or followed between January 2015 and August 2017 that were affiliated with the Internet Research Agency.
The tool will be available by the end of the year as “part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors who try to undermine our democracy,” Facebook said.
The web page will show only a list of accounts, not the posts or ads affiliated with them, according to a mock-up. U.S. lawmakers have separately published some posts.
It was not clear whether Facebook would eventually do more, such as sending individualized notifications to users.
Lawmakers at congressional hearings this month suggested that Facebook might have an obligation to notify people who accessed deceptive foreign government material.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who had asked for notifications, said Facebook’s plan “seems to be a serious response” to his request.
“My hope is that it will be a responsible first step towards protecting against future assaults on its platform,” he said in a statement.
Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, called it a “very positive step” and said lawmakers look forward to additional steps by tech companies to improve transparency.
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The $10 billion-dollar deal to bring a Taiwanese-based electronics manufacturer to Wisconsin is raising questions from critics despite the promise that the investment could provide tens of thousands of new American jobs and other long term benefits. The deal’s critics say Wisconsin taxpayers could lose money in what is the largest U.S. state tax incentive package ever offered to a foreign company. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Racine, Wisconsin.
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The U.S. holiday shopping season shifts into high gear this week after the Thanksgiving Day Holiday on Thursday. Black Friday, as it’s called, has become an important day for retailers because for some stores – the start of the holiday shopping season marks the transition, in accounting terms – from red, meaning debt – to black, for profitability. Based on the improving outlook for the US economy, retailers may be in for an early Christmas treat. Mil Arcega has more.
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Pumpkins, squash, beets and collard greens are just a few of the more than 50 different crops that Garner’s Produce in Virginia grows and sells at farmers markets about two hours away in Washington, D.C.
At a small soup shop in the northwest section of the District of Columbia, cooks are chopping Garner’s fresh squash and sweet potatoes for Soupergirl! vegan and kosher soups.
“We are trying to save the world one bowl of soup at a time,” said Sara Polon, a Soupergirl! founder.
Polon’s farm-to-table business model means that she buys produce to use in her soups from farmers markets around D.C. or wholesale from local growers like Garner’s Produce in Warsaw, Virginia.
“We need to think more about where our food comes from,” Polon said. “Where it was grown, who grew it, how it was picked, how it was prepared.”
Much of the produce that is sold in grocery stores is grown in other parts of the world and spends days in a shipping container before reaching a table.
“I didn’t know how corrupted our food system had become,” Polon said, adding that she thinks food should come from just a few miles away. “Why do we need to get apples from New Zealand, if they grow in Virginia?”
Bernard Boyle, farm manager for Garner’s Produce, agrees.
“You don’t know exactly” how farmers elsewhere are producing their crops, Boyle said. If the food is grown by a neighbor, “you know you’re going to get what you’re supposed to get.”
Polon’s mission is to make vegan and kosher soups using local produce to promote a healthful lifestyle. This model has sustained her business for over nine years. Sarah uses only vegetables that are in season, and she says that soup is always in season.
“Soup is not a fad, it’s not a trend. It’s classic, it’s not going anywhere,” she said.
Soupergirl! sells chilled soups in the summer using ingredients like Garner’s Produce watermelons and tomatoes. In the fall, the menu features fall-harvested produce such as lentils, butternut squash, collard greens, kale and potatoes from farms in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
Polon embraced her Soupergirl! alter ego nine years ago, when she and her mother started delivering soups they had made with local produce to individuals and businesses. She and her mom, whom she calls “the chief anxiety officer,” were making about 10 gallons of soup a day at that time.
Now, Soupergirl! produces 300 to 500 gallons of soup a day for its two D.C. locations, as well as grocery stores across several states and at farmers markets. Polon has even started a soup “cleanse” — a three-day or five-day healthful-eating plan to eat four Soupergirl! soups a day.
“It’s basically everything every doctor says you should be eating delivered right to your door,” she said.
Polon met the family in charge of Garner’s Produce at a Washington farmers market about five years ago, and they have been growing together ever since.
“She’s like family,” said Bernard Boyle. His wife, Dana Boyle, is the daughter of the man who started Garner’s Produce. She now runs the family farm.
Because Polon won’t use produce that’s out of season, she relies on her relationship with the Boyles to build her menu.
“I know that I have a farmer I can count on to get me the high-quality seasonal ingredients and I can rely on to deliver on time,” Polon said.
Polon also wants to know who is picking her produce and that they’re being treated fairly.
Garner’s Produce has the ability to grow produce throughout the winter, not only to help supply Soupergirl! but also to create work for their employees. They use heated tents to grow produce into February, whereas in the past they were done harvesting by late November.
“We treat everybody like family who works with us,” Bernard Boyle said. “We want them to make it through the winter.”
Last year, Garner’s Produce was able to produce 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of butternut squash and sweet potatoes per month. In the past couple of months, Polon has received 300 to 400 pounds of collard greens per week.
Arash Arabasadi contributed to this story.
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Babies are much more likely to die in their first few weeks of life if their mothers live close to the site of an oil spill, according to new research. Scientists studied data on infant mortality and oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region – and describe their results as ‘shocking’.
It’s estimated that 240,000 barrels of crude oil are spilled into the Niger Delta every year. The environmental effects are clear to see – waterways running thick with the choking, black liquid; suffocated wildlife; dying mangroves. The effect on the people living in the delta is slowly coming to light.
The study by scientists at Switzerland’s University of Saint Gallen is shocking: babies born in the delta are twice as likely to die in the first month of life if their mothers were living close to an oil spill before they became pregnant. Roland Hodler is lead researcher.
“We looked at the birth histories of more than 2,500 Nigerian mothers,” Holder said. “And we compared siblings, some conceived before and some conceived after a nearby oil spill.”
The researchers compared geographical data on 6,600 recent oil spills, with results from the 2013 national demographic and health survey.
Their results show that even spills that happened five years before conception doubled the chances of babies dying after birth. However, spills that happened during pregnancy appeared to have little effect.
“We think the main reason is that some of the negative health effects are just building up over time,” Holder said. “So, if you think about these negative health effects, these are due to skin contact with crude oil, or to drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated fish or crops. And also inhaling smoke from fires.”
It’s thought unborn and newborn infants are more vulnerable as they haven’t built up natural defenses. The study suggests the effects of oil spills will be felt long into the future.
In 2015 the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell agreed to share the costs of the clean-up – an operation that the United Nations says will likely take 30 years. Critics say only a fraction of the money has been paid. Shell blames oil thieves for causing many of the spills.
The Nigerian government did not respond to requests for comment.
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Babies are much more likely to die in their first few weeks of life if their mothers live close to the site of an oil spill, according to new research. Scientists studied data on infant mortality and oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger delta region – and describe their results as ‘shocking’. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Uber is coming clean about its cover-up of a year-old hacking attack that stole personal information about more than 57 million of the beleaguered ride-hailing service’s customers and drivers.
So far, there’s no evidence that the data taken has been misused, according to a Tuesday blog post by Uber’s recently hired CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. Part of the reason nothing malicious has happened is because Uber acknowledges paying the hackers $100,000 to destroy the stolen information.
The revelation marks the latest stain on Uber’s reputation. It also brought an investigation from New York’s attorney general and threats of larger-than-normal fines from British authorities for failing to promptly disclose the hack.
The San Francisco company ousted Travis Kalanick as CEO in June after an internal investigation concluded he had built a culture that allowed female workers to be sexually harassed and encouraged employees to push legal limits.
It’s also the latest major breach involving a prominent company that didn’t notify the people that could be potentially harmed for months or even years after the break-in occurred.
Yahoo didn’t make its first disclosure about hacks that hit 3 billion user accounts during 2013 and 2014 until September 2016. Credit reporting service Equifax waited several months before revealing this past September that hackers had carted off the Social Security numbers of 145 million Americans.
Khosrowshahi criticized Uber’s handling of its data theft in his blog post.
“While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.”
That pledge shouldn’t excuse Uber’s previous regime for its egregious behavior, said Sam Curry, chief security officer for the computer security firm Cybereason.
“The truly scary thing here is that Uber paid a bribe, essentially a ransom to make this breach go away, and they acted as if they were above the law,” Curry said. “Those people responsible for the integrity and confidentiality of the data in-fact covered it up.”
The heist took the names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of 57 million riders around the world. The thieves also nabbed the driver’s license numbers of 600,000 Uber drivers in the U.S.
Uber waited until Tuesday to begin notifying the drivers with compromised driver’s licenses, which can be particularly useful for perpetrating identify theft. For that reason, Uber will now pay for free credit-report monitoring and identity theft protection services for the affected drivers.
Kalanick, who still sits on Uber’s board of directors, declined to comment on the data breach that took place in October 2016. Uber says the response to the hack was handled by its chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor whom Kalanick lured away from Facebook in 2015.
As part of his effort to set things right, Khosrowshahi extracted Sullivan’s resignation from Uber and also jettisoned Craig Clark, a lawyer who reported to Sullivan.
Clark didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent through his LinkedIn profile. Efforts to reach Sullivan were unsuccessful.
On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office confirmed that it had opened an investigation into the data theft, but a spokeswoman wouldn’t comment further. New York law requires that companies notify the attorney general and consumers if data is stolen.
In London, Britain’s Deputy Information Commissioner James Dipple-Johnstone said Wednesday the company faces “higher fines” because it concealed the hack from the public.
The Information Commissioner’s Office and the National Cyber Security Center are working to gauge the severity of the problem for British Uber users.
Uber’s silence about its breach came while it was negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission about its handling of its riders’ information.
Earlier in 2016, the company reached a settlement with the New York attorney general requiring it to take steps to be more vigilant about protecting the information that its app stores about its riders. As part of that settlement, Uber also paid a $20,000 fine for waiting to notify five months about another data breach that it discovered in September 2014.
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Iraq and General Electric have signed a deal to develop Iraq’s power infrastructure, which would help bring much-needed electricity to areas facing significant shortages across the country.
GE says in a statement released Wednesday that the more than $400 million contract will help building 14 electric substations and supply critical equipment such as transformers, circuit breakers and other outdoor equipment to revamp existing substations.
GE says the substations will hook up power plants in the provinces of Ninevah, Salahuddin, Anbar, Baghdad, Karbala, Qadissiyah and Basra to the national grid.
It says GE will also help Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity secure funding through various financial institutions.
Despite billions of dollars spent since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, many Iraqi cities and towns are still experiencing severe power cuts and rolling blackouts.
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Each year in America, when summer ends and fall begins, it’s a safe bet you’ll find pumpkins and sweet potatoes flavoring everything from coffee to pie. It’s seasonal food that makes its way from farms to tables around the country from Thanksgiving to Christmas time. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports from a farm feeding local produce to area businesses stewing seasonal sensations.
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You can reach into your pocket and tell whether you’ve grabbed coins or keys, and now researchers in California have developed a robot with a similar level of tactile sensitivity. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Uber Technologies Inc failed to disclose a massive breach last year that exposed the data of some 57 million users of the ride-sharing service, the company’s new chief executive officer said on Tuesday.
Discovery of the company’s handling of the incident led to the departure of two employees who led Uber’s response to the incident, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who was named CEO in August following the departure of founder Travis Kalanick. Khosrowshahi said he had only recently learned of the matter himself.
The company’s admission that it failed to disclose the breach comes as Uber seeks to recover from a series of crises that culminated in the Kalanick’s ouster in June.
“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it,” Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
According to the company’s account, two individuals downloaded data from a web-based server at another company that provided Uber with cloud-computing services.
The data contained names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of some 57 million Uber users around the world. The hackers also downloaded names and driver’s license numbers of some 600,000 of the company’s U.S. drivers, Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
Bloomberg News reported that Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan and a deputy had been ousted from the company this week because of their role in the handling of the incident. The company paid hackers $100,000 to delete the stolen data, according to Bloomberg.
Though such payoffs are rarely discussed in public, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and private security companies have told Reuters in the past year that an increasing number of companies have made payments to criminal hackers who have turned to extortion.
None have previously come to light that aimed to suppress breaches that would have required public disclosure, such as those involving protected personal information. Sullivan did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Sullivan, formerly the top security official at Facebook Inc, is a former federal prosecutor and one of the most admired security executives in Silicon Valley.
Kalanick learned of the breach a month after it took place, in November 2016, as the company was in negotiations with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the handling of consumer data, according to Bloomberg.
Uber representatives did not respond when asked to comment on the Bloomberg report.
Khosrowshahi said he had hired Matt Olsen, former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency, to help him figure out how to best guide and structure the company’s security teams and processes.
“While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,” he said. “We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.”
Sue Brogan’s street is barely above sea level on a good day.
During autumn’s “king tides,” when the sun and moon align to create the highest tides of the year, Biscayne Bay backs up through storm drains and flows into Brogan’s street, in Miami’s low-lying Shorecrest neighborhood.
Roads flood. The salt water rusts cars and kills greenery. For now, it’s mostly a nuisance several days a year. But Brogan knows it’s only going to get worse.
“It’s more of a warning situation. Where is it going to go from this?” she asks.
Climate change is expected to raise sea levels a minimum of three-quarters of a meter by the end of the century, according to the estimates that regional planners use. That puts most of Shorecrest underwater year-round, along with other low-lying waterfront neighborhoods. And higher seas mean increased risk of tidal flooding and storm surges across this hurricane-prone city.
The planners’ high-end estimate is two meters of sea level rise. That would submerge most of the glitzy city of Miami Beach, across the bay.
And scientists say three to three-and-a-half meters is extreme but plausible. In that scenario, Miami Beach is gone and Miami is an archipelago.
Planning for this future is difficult, expensive and often controversial. But the Miami region has little choice.
“Sea level rise is an existential threat,” said City of Miami Chief Resilience Officer Jane Gilbert. “But it is not an imminent existential threat … We have time to plan.”
Miami Beach leads way
As a barrier island with some of the most expensive real estate in the region, Miami Beach is quite literally on the front lines of climate change. The city has the motivation, and the resources, to take some of the most aggressive action in the region.
Residents are paying for roughly half a billion dollars’ worth of seawalls, raised streets, sewer pumps and more.
“Thankfully, our residents — the folks that are footing the bill for this work — realize that the cost of doing nothing is much greater,” said Public Works Director Eric Carpenter.
There have been some hiccups. Raising roads put adjacent properties below street level. At least one flood-damage insurance claim has been denied as a result, and residents and businesses are worried there will be more.
Miami Beach is working to resolve the dispute.
“I think there are inherent risks with being first,” Carpenter said.
But the city gets credit for moving forward despite the challenges.
“It’s not working perfectly. But they’re at least doing the experimentation,” said Zelalem Adefris with the advocacy group Catalyst Miami.
Redesigning Shorecrest
Across the bay, she added, the City of Miami has been slower to act. But there are signs of progress.
Just this November, city voters approved a $400 million “Miami Forever” bond issue, half of which is earmarked for sea-level rise adaptation.
Shorecrest will likely see some of that money to upgrade sewers and raise roads.
More controversial proposals are on the table, too, like buying up some of the most flood-prone homes and turning the land into a flood-absorbing park. Residents could move to higher-density housing to be built on higher ground.
Brogan’s building would be demolished. But she doesn’t mind.
“With climate change, with rising water, we’re going to have to abandon certain property,” she admitted.
But like many in the mixed-income neighborhood, Brogan rents her apartment. Others are skeptical of the idea.
“I don’t think the homeowners are going to be very happy about that,” said Daisy Torres, president of the Shorecrest homeowners’ association.
Objections come not only from residents whose houses would be torn down. Some people living near the areas where the city proposes building that higher-density housing don’t like the idea, either, she added.
Jane Gilbert stresses that there are no immediate plans to rearrange Shorecrest. “They have a good amount of time to still be in that area,” she said. “It’s really much more long-term.”
“We feel the more we are having those conversations now, the easier it is for everyone to adapt over time,” she added.
High and (not) dry in Highland Village
Meanwhile, in another flood-prone low-lying community just a short drive north, those conversations are further behind.
Frank Burrola lives in a trailer in Highland Village, a mostly low-income neighborhood of homes and trailers on small plots in the city of North Miami Beach. Fall high-tide flooding is a virtual certainty on his street. And a storm several years ago left his yard with knee-high water.
“Right now, we’ve got a real serious problem,” Burrola said. “I don’t know if we’re still going to be around in five years if this keeps up.”
While the cities of Miami and Miami Beach are beginning to prepare, “there are other areas that really don’t have the funding, and they’re the ones that are really suffering,” said climate analyst Keren Bolter with the South Florida Regional Planning Council.
North Miami Beach is considering putting homes on stilts, and replacing trailers that flood with “tiny” homes that meet building codes, according to community development director Richard Lorber. But he doesn’t know where the funding will come from.
“My little city can’t stop king tide,” Lorber said, using the term for the fall high tides.
North Miami Beach officials say Miami-Dade County will have to take the lead. The county says the city is in charge. Neither has immediate plans for Highland Village.
It may take a disaster before major changes happen.
“It’s ironic, but in our way of doing emergency management, it’s tough to get the money before the storm. And after the storm there’s a lot of money,” said Miami-Dade County Chief Resilience Officer Jim Murley.
Barring a disaster, Murley said, “it’s easier to find the money” if a community comes to a collective decision on what it wants to do.
However, “most of the time, you just sort-of continue getting by,” he added. “And people make a decision on their own accord if they want to stay or leave.”
Engineering or retreat?
In the long run, the fate of Miami and many of the world’s coastal cities depend largely on how much, and how fast, the oceans rise. Scientists still have a lot to learn before they can make accurate predictions. But, they warn, the pace of sea level rise is increasing.
For many, retreat from the coast is inevitable.
“We’re going to have to leave sooner or later,” said Caroline Lewis, founder of the climate advocacy group the CLEO Institute. “But if we can have a planned retreat, and we could implement some of our ideas about keeping people as safe as possible for as long as possible, then we would have accomplished a great deal that the whole world could learn from.”
But in a city that carved itself out of a swampy wilderness, optimists abound.
“There’s an engineering solution to every problem,” Carpenter said. “It just comes down to, is there the political will to go through whatever pain may be associated with that solution, and the will to try and fund it.”
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