Facebook, Twitter, Instagram allow us to share aspects of our lives with our friends, family and the world. But what does what we are sharing say about our state of mind? Some new research suggests that it may be telling the world a lot more than we think. Kevin Enochs reports.
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Tesla said on Monday it would raise about $1.5 billion through its first-ever offering of junk bonds as the U.S. luxury electric carmaker seeks fresh sources of cash to ramp up production of its new Model 3 sedan.
The move to issue junk bonds — lower-quality investments that offer higher yields — represents a bet by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk that bond investors will be as hungry as stock investors to back the company on expectations that its Model 3 will be a hit.
Tesla shares are up 67 percent this year, pushing the company’s market value to about $60 billion, above that of top U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford Motor Co., even though Tesla has yet to make an annual profit.
“Bond investors, who typically don’t love companies that don’t make money, will be far more forgiving when it comes to Tesla,” said bond expert Robbie Goffin, managing director of FTI Consulting, citing the company’s stellar stock market value.
Automaker draws a ‘B-‘
Tesla was to start pitching potential investors on Monday, IFR reported, citing lead bankers on the deal.
So far, Tesla has been raising money to pay its bills with a combination of equity offerings and convertible bonds, which eventually convert into shares. In March, the company raised $1.4 billion through a convertible debt offering.
Following the announcement, Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed its negative outlook for the automaker and assigned a “B-” rating for the bond issue — deep into junk credit territory. S&P also maintained its “B-” long-term corporate credit rating on Tesla.
“We could lower our ratings on Tesla if execution issues related to the Model 3 launch later this year or the ongoing expansion of its Models S and X production lead to significant cost overruns,” S&P said in a statement on the bonds.
Rating outlook is stable
Moody’s assigned a junk “B3” rating to the bond issue and said the company’s rating outlook was stable.
The rating agency said the overall company’s “B2” rating was supported by the fact that if Tesla ends up in serious financial trouble, its brand name, products and physical assets would be of “considerable value” to other automakers.
The automaker’s debt load increased significantly last year when it bought solar panel maker SolarCity.
CFRA equity analyst Efraim Levy said the bonds provide Tesla with funds “at least into mid-2018.”
“There is a risk they could still run out of money,” he said. “Then you’d go back to the equity markets and hope it’s not too late” to raise more money.
Burning cash
The latest effective yield on single-B rated bonds maturing in seven to eight years, the class for a Tesla issue, is around 5.5 percent, according to Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Fixed Income Index data.
Tesla’s bond will price later this week after several days of meetings with credit investors, who will weigh factors including the absence of a borrowing history, its lack of profit and its high cash-burn rate against its growth potential and its attractiveness as an environmentally friendly “green” issuer.
Ultimately, the depth of investor interest will determine the bond’s interest rate.
Tesla is counting on the Model 3, its least pricey car, to become a profitable, high-volume manufacturer of electric cars.
Tesla said last week that it had 455,000 net pre-orders for the Model 3, which has a $35,000 base price, and that the sedan was averaging 1,800 reservations per day since it launched late last month.
At the launch, Musk, however, warned that Tesla would face months of “manufacturing hell” as it increases production of the sedan.
Tesla had over $3 billion in cash on hand at the end of the June quarter, compared with $4 billion on March 31.
The company has said it expects capital expenditures of $2 billion in the second half of this year to boost production at its Fremont, California assembly plant and a battery plant in Reno, Nevada.
Tesla’s cash burn has prompted short-sellers like Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn to bet against the Palo Alto, California company.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and RBC are the book-runners on the bond offering, IFR reported.
Shares of Tesla closed down 0.5 percent at $355.17 on Monday.
Rocket Lab, a Silicon Valley-funded space launch company, said a contractor’s error was to blame for its maiden flight failing to reach orbit in May, but that the problem had been fixed ahead of another planned launch in the next two months.
The Los Angeles and Auckland-based firm, which is aiming to build to weekly commercial launches, had to terminate its first flight four minutes in when equipment on the ground lost contact with the rocket, the firm said in a statement late on Monday.
After trawling through thousands of pieces of data, Rocket Lab said in an emailed statement that an unnamed contractor’s equipment had a glitch that stopped it conveying important information from the battery-powered rocket to safety officials monitoring the launch.
“It was disappointing to see the flight terminated in essence due to an incorrect tick box,” said Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck in the statement, adding that the rocket’s failure to reach orbit had nothing to do with the rocket itself.
The successful launch of a low-cost rocket is an important step in the commercial race to bring down financial and logistical barriers to space while also making New Zealand an unlikely space hub.
The rocket had soared 224 km (139 miles) high, reaching space, before Rocket Lab ended the flight and the vehicle burnt up when re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.
Rocket Lab said the equipment problem had been fixed and it was preparing for its second of three test launches before starting commercial operations at the beginning of 2018.
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For Jisi Lazuo, the torch festival in her village in southwest China should be a celebration involving colorful ethnic clothes and eating freshly slaughtered pig.
Instead, it’s a time of stress.
“In my heart I always get worried when the torch festival comes along,” said Jisi, 37, who supports a family of two grandparents and four children.
“Traditional clothes are quite expensive, but for my own kids I can only buy whatever I can get,” she said.
Jisi belongs to the isolated Yi ethnic community. They have a distinct language and culture, and are among the poorest in China.
Most live in Liangshan, a mountainous district in the southwestern province of Sichuan and one of 14 areas of “concentrated poverty” identified by the central government.
Average incomes in Liangshan are just 27 percent of the national average, official data shows.
An ambitious poverty reduction campaign is seeking to change this, ensuring by 2020 that no one is living in poverty — defined by the government as less than 2,300 yuan a year.
China has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty over the past few decades, but doing the same for groups like the Yi poses a different set of challenges.
“A lot of that poverty is not as easily accessible for the government,” said Ben Westmore, a senior economist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“It’s people who live in mountainous areas who are not very well connected, or they’re more dispersed at the provincial level across the prefectures,” he said.
From road building to subsidies, the central government has spent large amounts of money on poverty relief in places like Liangshan.
In 2016, the Liangshan government distributed 940 million yuan ($139 million) in basic income assistance for the poorest in the region, according to the government website.
Officials in charge of Liangshan’s anti-poverty campaign declined to comment on the programs. The State Council poverty alleviation office in Beijing also declined to comment.
While many Yi welcome the state’s help, some question whether cash handouts are sustainable.
“Just giving out money is useless because one day the money will eventually run out,” said Emu Zhiji, one of the few people in his village to receive a university education.
Emu said he hopes to become a sports teacher, something that would be impossible for many Yi. Thirty percent are illiterate, compared to 4 percent nationally, and many do not speak Mandarin, the main language in China. As a result, they have limited options for earning a living beyond farming.
The government has tried to improve access to education for the Yi, but it struggles to recruit teachers to work in such a remote area. Many students battle to keep up with lessons taught in Mandarin.
Emu said more needs to be done to allow the Yi to develop within their own culture if they are to alleviate the poverty and a dependency on government programs.
“If we had better jobs we’d be able to feed and clothe ourselves on our own, but for that we need to be able to use our own language,” he said.
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The Interior Department on Monday unveiled a plan to protect the threatened sage grouse that gives Western states greater flexibility to allow mining, logging and other economic development where it now is prohibited.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the strategy for the ground-dwelling bird that has suffered a dramatic population decline across its 11-state range. Zinke insisted that the federal government and the states can work together to protect the sage grouse and its habitat while not slowing economic growth and job creation.
While the federal government has a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to protect the bird, officials also have an obligation “to be a good neighbor and a good partner,” Zinke said. The new plan ensures that conservation efforts “do not impede local economic opportunities,” he said.
The plan comes after a 60-day review Zinke ordered in June of a 2015 plan imposed by the Obama administration. The plan set land-use policies across the popular game-bird’s 11-state range that were intended to keep it off the federal endangered species list.
Mining companies, ranchers and governors in some Western states — especially Utah, Idaho and Nevada — said the plan ordered by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell would impede oil and gas drilling and other economic activity.
Environmental groups said Jewell’s plan did not do enough to protect the sage grouse from extinction.
The ground-dwelling sage grouse, long associated with the American West, has long pointed tail feathers and is known for the male’s elaborate courtship display in which air sacs in the neck are inflated to make a popping sound.
Millions of sage grouse once roamed the West but development, livestock grazing and an invasive grass that encourages wildfires has reduced the bird’s population to fewer than 500,000 across 11 states from California to the Dakotas.
Zinke said in June that “state agencies are really at the forefront of efforts to maintain healthy fish and wildlife populations” across the country, adding that the Trump administration is committed to ensuring that state voices are heard in decisions affecting land use and wildlife management.
In particular, Zinke said he has received complaints from several Western governors that Jewell ignored or minimized their concerns as the 2015 sage-grouse plan was developed. Republican governors in Idaho, Utah and Nevada all want more flexibility and say the conservation efforts should rely less on land-use restrictions “and more on numbers” of birds in a particular state, Zinke said.
The new plan is intended to provide flexibility to states instead of a “one-size-fits-all solution,” he said.
On the other side, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Republican Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming told Zinke earlier this year they opposed any changes that would move “from a habitat-management model to one that sets population objectives for the states.”
Hickenlooper and Mead co-chair a federal-state sage grouse task force that worked to develop the 2015 plan, which was backed by more than $750 million in commitments from the government and outside groups to conserve land and restore the bird’s historic range.
Nada Culver, a senior policy official at The Wilderness Society, denounced the new plan as an attempt to “abandon habitat protection for unfettered oil and gas development” in the West that “puts the entire landscape at risk.”
The 60-day review “shows a callous disregard for nearly a decade of research and collaborative work by states and agencies, while ignoring the western communities who weighed in with millions of comments and who simply want to see the [Obama-era] plans left to work as intended,” Culver said.
States affected by the plan are California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
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Nebraska regulators opened a final hearing on TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Monday, a week-long proceeding that marks the last big hurdle for the long-delayed project after President Donald Trump approved it in March.
The proposed 1,179-mile (1,897-km) pipeline linking Canada’s Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries has been a lightning rod of controversy for nearly a decade, pitting environmentalists worried about spills and global warming against business advocates who say the project will lower fuel prices, shore up national security and bring jobs.
Nebraska has last word
Trump’s administration handed TransCanada a federal permit for the pipeline in March, reversing a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project on environmental grounds. But the line still needs a nod from regulators in Nebraska — which would be the last of three states to approve its proposed path into the heartland.
A lawyer for opponents of the line opened the hearing in front of the five-member Nebraska Public Service Commission on Monday morning by grilling an executive for the Canadian company about how the pipeline will be disposed of after its anticipated 50-year lifetime.
“Do we have to clean up TransCanada’s abandoned pipeline?” attorney David Domina asked TransCanada executive Tony Palmer.
On Sunday, hundreds of pipeline opponents, including members or Indian tribes, marched through downtown Lincoln under police escort, following a rally at the Nebraska Capitol.
Decision expected in November
Nebraska’s Public Service Commission is meant to weigh whether the project is in the state’s public interest, and will announce a decision by November. The arguments of opponents are constrained by the rules of the commission, however: the commission is not permitted to consider the risk of spills because the route already has an environmental permit.
Opponents — including scores of landowners on the proposed route — will instead argue the jobs are temporary and the risks of the pipeline to local industries like cattle ranching too great. They will also note that if the commission approves the line, TransCanada could seek to seize property along the route using eminent domain law — a politically unpalatable option in the conservative state.
Proponents, meanwhile, will argue the project will bring in hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.
Job numbers different
Trump has said the project would create 28,000 jobs nationwide, but a 2014 State Department study predicted just 3,900 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs.
The 830,000 barrel-per-day Keystone XL would link Alberta to an existing pipeline network feeding U.S. refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico.
The project could be a boon for Canada, which has struggled to bring its reserves to market. But demand for the line has declined since it was first proposed, due to surging U.S. production, lower prices, and other Canadian pipeline projects.
The Balkans have become embroiled in a trade war over agricultural health checks after Croatia raised import fees on some farm products by around 220 percent, triggering countermeasures by Serbia and threats from others.
Last month European Union-member Croatia raised its fees for phytosanitary controls — agricultural checks for pests and viruses — on fruits and vegetables at its borders to 2,000 kuna ($319) from 90 kuna.
It cited compliance with EU standards and protection of its consumers.
But ministers from EU candidates Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as from fellow EU aspirant Bosnia, said the move violated their respective pre-accession agreements with the bloc under which they were guaranteed equal access to markets.
“These measures are absolutely protectionist in an economic sense. They are populist in political sense and cannot be justified, They are [not] in the spirit of good neighborly relations,” Serbian Economy Minister Rasim Ljajic told reporters after meeting his Balkan counterparts in Sarajevo.
The ministers from the four countries called on Croatia to withdraw its decision and invited the European Commission to get involved to solve an issue they said violated the free trade principles.
They also asked for an urgent meeting with the Croatian agriculture minister. However, until the issue has been resolved, each country will take counter-measures it considered adequate to protect its own economic interests, they said.
Economic War in Sight?
Ljajic said that Serbia has already stepped up phytosanitary controls on all organic produce from Croatia and will increase them further. This means that goods, including meat and dairy products, could be held up at borders from 15-30 days.
“Our goal is not to wage any kind of economic war but to protect our economic interests and the free flow of goods,” he said.
Macedonia and Montenegro said they would file complaints to the World Trade Organization, of which they are members, and seek mechanisms through the body for compensation from Croatia, which raised import fees at a peak of the high season for export of fruits and vegetables from their countries.
Besides discriminating against importers on its own market, Croatia is also making exports to the EU more difficult and expensive because it is vital entry point for imports to the EU from the Balkans, the ministers said.
Commenting on the explanation from Croatia that their move was not aimed against the neighbors but against all non-EU members, Bosnia’s Foreign Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic said: “Croatia does not import raspberries from Trinidad and Tobago but from Serbia and Bosnia.” He said that Bosnia was considering an “adequate response” but declined to elaborate.
Most countries in the region import more than they export to Croatia. Only Serbia operates a trade surplus with its neighbor, with exports in 2016 reaching 116 million euros ($137 million) versus imports worth 79 million euros.
Relations remain strained between the two former Yugoslav countries and bitter foes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, despite improvements in investments, the flow of people and capital.
($1 = 6.2688 kuna)
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The Interior Department on Monday scrapped an Obama-era rule on coal royalties that mining companies had criticized as burdensome and costly.
The Trump administration put the royalty valuation rule on hold in February after mining companies challenged it in federal court. Officials later announced plans to repeal the rule entirely. The final repeal notice was published Monday in the Federal Register and takes effect Sept. 6.
Repealing the rule “provides a clean slate to create workable valuation regulations,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, adding that the repeal will reduce costs that energy companies would otherwise pass on to consumers.
Still, he said Interior remains committed to collecting every dollar due, noting that public lands are assets belonging to taxpayers and Native American tribes.
The valuation rule, crafted under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama, was aimed at ensuring that coal companies don’t shortchange taxpayers on coal sales to Asia and other markets. Coal exports surged over the past decade even as domestic sales declined.
Federal lawmakers and watchdog groups have long complained that taxpayers were losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually because royalties on coal from public lands were being improperly calculated.
Interior disputed that, saying in the Federal Register notice that the soon-to-be-reinstated regulations “have been in place for more than 20 years and serve as a reasonable, reliable and consistent method for valuing federal and Indian minerals for royalty purposes.” As evidence, the agency noted that the Obama-era rule would have increased royalty payments by less than 1 percent a year.
Rules in place since the 1980s have allowed coal companies to sell their fuel to affiliates and pay royalties to the government on that price, then turn around and sell the coal at a higher price, often overseas. Under the now-repealed rule, the royalty rate would have been determined at the time the coal is leased, with revenue based on the price paid by an outside entity, rather than an interim sale to an affiliated company.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, hailed the repeal, saying it would encourage more responsible energy development and spur investment in federal and Indian lands.
But conservation groups criticized the action, calling it a “sweetheart deal” for the industry that will deprive states of much-needed revenues. About half the coal royalties collected by the federal government is disbursed to states including Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.
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The Pentagon has given more than 130 U.S. military bases across the United States the green light to shoot down private and commercial drones that could endanger aviation safety or pose other threats.
The number of uncrewed aircraft in U.S. skies has zoomed in recent years and continues to increase rapidly – along with concern among U.S. and private-sector officials that dangerous or even hostile drones could get too close to places like military bases, airports and sports stadiums.
While the specific actions that the U.S. military can take against drones are classified, they include destroying or seizing private and commercial drones that pose a threat, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis told reporters on Monday.
The classified guidelines were distributed early last month.
The Pentagon sent out unclassified guidance on how to communicate the policy to communities on Friday.
“The increase of commercial and private drones in the United States has raised our concerns with regards to the safety and security of our installations, aviation safety and the safety of people,” Davis said.
In April, flights of nearly all drones over 133 U.S. military facilities were banned due to security concerns.
Drones have become popular as toys and with hobbyists, and have commercial uses such as aerial photography. Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google unit have been exploring the use of drones to deliver goods ordered online.
The FAA estimated the commercial drone fleet would grow from 42,000 at the end of 2016 to about 442,000 aircraft by 2021. The FAA said there could be as many as 1.6 million commercial drones in use by 2021.
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Researchers have turned skin cells into blood vessel tissue to save a mouse’s wounded leg. They were able to do that simply by tapping the wound with a chip that uses nanotechnology to inject new DNA into the cells.
This step follows a number of significant advances in techniques to turn one type of cell into another. Scientists hope this so-called cell reprogramming can one day be used to regenerate damaged tissue, or cure conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.
The research, published Monday in Nature Nanotechnology, combines existing biotechnology and nanotechnology to create a new technique called tissue nano-transfection. The researchers turned skin cells into brain cells, in addition to demonstrating the therapeutic benefit of turning them into vascular cells.
Maintaining blood flow to deliver nutrients around a wound is critical for recovery, so by making more blood vessel cells, researchers found that a mouse’s wounded limb was more likely to survive.
A brief electric current causes the chip to eject DNA fragments that reprogram the cells. The particles only enter the very top layer of cells, so L. James Lee, a biomolecular engineer at Ohio State University and study co-author, said he was surprised to find reprogrammed cells deep within the tissue.
“Within 24 hours after the transfection, we actually observed the propagation of the biological functions deep inside the skin,” Lee told VOA. “So we were very surprised that it actually works for tissue.” Lee said it wasn’t yet entirely clear why this was possible.
Masato Nakafuku, who studies cell reprogramming at the University of Cincinnati and was not associated with the research, told VOA that he, too, was surprised “to see very efficient generation of the [vascular] cells.”
Nakafuku added a cautionary note: It is not clear that that tissue nano-transfection will work on animals as large as humans, since the treatment would have to reprogram cells much deeper in the tissue in order to be effective.
Lee told VOA he is hopeful that upcoming human trials will prove the real-world effectiveness of tissue nano-transfection.
In theory, tissue nano-transfection should be able to turn any cell in the body into any other cell type. That could make therapeutic applications of cell reprogramming easier and safer, because cells would stay in the body during reprogramming. If cells are removed from the body, reprogrammed and then returned, they could be attacked by the immune system.
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Silicon Valley’s efforts to promote workforce diversity haven’t yielded many results — unless you count a backlash at Google, where a male engineer blamed biological differences for the paucity of female programmers.
His widely shared memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” also criticizes Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.”
Google’s just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded with her own memo, saying Google is “unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success.” She said change is hard and “often uncomfortable.”
The dueling memos come as Silicon Valley grapples with accusations of sexism and discrimination. Google is also in the midst of a Department of Labor investigation into whether it pays women less than men, while Uber’s CEO recently lost his job amid accusations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.
Leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have said they are trying to improve hiring and working conditions for women. But diversity numbers are barely changing .
The Google employee memo, which gained attention online over the weekend, begins by saying that only honest discussion will address a lack of equity. But it also asserts that women “prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” while more men “may like coding because it requires systemizing.”
The memo, which was shared on the tech blog Gizmodo, attributes biological differences between men and women to the reason why “we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.”
The employee, whose identity hasn’t been released, was described in news reports as a software engineer.
While his views were broadly and publicly criticized online, they echo the 2005 statements by then-Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who said the reason there are fewer female scientists at top universities is in part due to “innate” gender differences.
Brande Stellings, senior vice president of advisory services for Catalyst, a nonprofit advocacy group for women in the workplace, said the engineer’s viewpoints show “how ingrained, entrenched and harmful gender-based stereotypes truly are.”
“It’s much easier for some to point to `innate biological differences’ than to confront the unconscious biases and obstacles that get in the way of a level playing field,” Stellings wrote in an email.
Google, like other tech companies, has far fewer women than men in technology and leadership positions. Fifty-six percent of its workers are white and 35 percent are Asian, while Hispanic and Black employees make up 4 percent and 2 percent of its workforce, respectively, according to the company’s latest diversity report .
Tech companies say they are trying, by reaching out to and interviewing a broader range of job candidates, by offering coding classes, internships and mentorship programs and by holding mandatory “unconscious bias” training sessions for existing employees.
But, as the employee memo shows, not everyone at Google is happy with this.
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A Trump Organization company has applied for four new trademarks in the Asian gambling hub of Macau, including one for casinos, public records show. The new applications highlight the ethical complexity of maintaining the family branding empire while Donald Trump serves as president, and are likely to stoke speculation about the organization’s future business intentions in Macau, where casino licenses held by other companies come up for renewal beginning in 2020.
The applications for the Trump brand were made in June by a Delaware-registered company called DTTM Operations LLC. They cover gambling and casino services, as well as real estate, construction and restaurant and hotel services. The applications were first reported by the South China Morning Post.
The new applications are identical to four marks applied for in 2006, and granted, but lapsed earlier this year. It was not clear from public records why, though under Macau law trademarks can be forfeited for non-use. There are currently no Trump-branded businesses in Macau.
Trump’s trademarks have been a source of concern to ethics lawyers and Democratic officials, who fear they can give foreign governments the opportunity to try to influence the White House. China has approved dozens of Trump trademarks since the president took office. Three U.S. lawsuits against the president contend that the Chinese marks constitute gifts from a foreign state and stand in violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Trump and his lawyers reject that argument and contend that trademarks are a crucial defense against squatters seeking to exploit his name.
Beijing says it has been fair and impartial in its handling of trademarks for the president and his daughter Ivanka Trump.
Macau’s six casino operators, including Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts, face renewals for their licenses starting in 2020. The government of the former Portuguese colony, now ruled by China, has released few details on the renewal process, which will be the first since it ended a decades-long casino monopoly and opened bidding to foreign companies in 2001.
Authorities are expected to grant renewals to all six operators, given the big investments they’ve poured into the city, but there has been speculation that they could issue one additional license to a new investor.
Macau is the world’s largest gambling market, raking in about five times more revenue last year than the Las Vegas Strip. It’s the only place in greater China where casinos are legal.
Donald Trump began applying for a sweep of trademarks in Macau in 2006. The government’s unwillingness to uphold all of them was a source of intense irritation to Trump, who became enmeshed in a lawsuit over rights to the use of his name. He wrote to then-U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in 2011 that the courts of China and Macau were “faithless, corrupt and tainted.”
“Who could expect anything different from a deceitful culture?” he added. “Their behavior should be a clear warning to the rest of the world to refrain from any trade practice or business relationship with them!”
Trump finally prevailed in that case last year after his opponent, a local company that had filed for a “Trump” mark for food and beverage services, let his trademark expire.
Trump has pledged to conduct no new foreign deals while in office and handed control of his business to his sons, though he retains ownership. He also has veered away from the casino business. Hard Rock International bought up the last vestiges of his failed Atlantic City gambling empire this year, paying just $50 million for the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal casino, which cost more than $1 billion to build.
Back in 2001, Donald Trump was part of a consortium of billionaire investors — including two men subsequently convicted of bribery and money laundering — that bid unsuccessfully for a casino license in Macau, the Wall Street Journal reported last year.
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At the recent Games for Change festival in New York City, the video games on display were a far cry from Mario Brothers and Call of Duty. Instead, game developers showed off titles that tackled civic and social issues. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explores.
((mandatory CG: GamBridzy))
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A midday nap is very much part of the Spanish traditional life style. However, having a public place in which to do so is new. Siesta & Go is the first nap bar in Madrid according to reporter Faiza Elmasry. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.
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A fossil found in northeastern Nevada shows a newly discovered fish species that scientists believe looked, and ate, like a shark.
The fossil is what remains of a bony, sharp-toothed fish that would have been about six-feet-long (1.83 meters) with long jaws and layers of sharp teeth.
The type of jaw and teeth on the fish suggest it would have chomped down on its prey before swallowing it whole, like a shark, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.
“The surprising find from Elko County in northeastern Nevada is one of the most completely preserved vertebrate remains from this time-period ever discovered in the United States,” said Carlo Romano of the University of Zurich, lead author of a Journal of Paleontology article about the find.
The fish, which researchers called Birgeria americana, predates Nevada’s most famous fossil, the Ichthyosaur, by more than 30 million years. The Ichthyosaur was a 55-foot-long (16.76 meters) reptile. One of the largest concentrations of Ichthyosaur fossils was found near Berlin, Nevada. The find led to the Ichthyosaur becoming Nevada’s state fossil.
The Birgeria americana fossil finding is important because it sheds light on how quickly large, predator species evolved following the Earth’s third mass extinction that preceded the Triassic period about 250 million years ago.
The evidence shows the fish was alive and well about 1 million years after mass extinction 66 million years ago wiped out an estimated 90 percent of marine species.
It also shows a large fish was surviving in water previously thought to be too warm to support such life.
At the time, water near the equator, which is where land that became Nevada was positioned about 250 million years ago, could have been warmer than 96 degrees. “The eggs of today’s bony fish can no longer develop normally” at such a high temperature, researcher said.
Researchers learned of the fossil about five years ago after fossil collector Jim Jenks of West Jordan, Utah, stumbled upon it near Winecup Ranch north of Wells.
“It was just a very lucky find,” said Jenks, who was credited among the paper’s authors. “I happen to notice the teeth glinting in the sun. That is what caught my attention.”
Jenks turned the fish over to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which has a large collection of fossils and connections with leading researchers.
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For more than a decade, Shamil Zhumatov has photographed spacecraft taking off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome. After dozens of launches, he says the challenge is to find new and better ways of taking pictures.
The Soyuz spacecraft which blasted off on July 28 carried NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Russia’s Sergey Ryazanskiy, and Italy’s Paolo Nespoli to the International Space Station.
“Most launches lately have taken place in during the daytime, and this one was special, happening on the edge of day and night, about 20 minutes after sunset,” Shamil said.
It was already dark on the ground, but the upper layers of the atmosphere were still lit by sun, which created an unusual contrast — and additional technical difficulties.
“I had to change my camera settings from night-time to daylight ones quickly as I shifted from shooting the launch pad to the flying spacecraft,” Shamil says.
Photographers don’t have a choice of location at Baikonur — everyone shoots from the same position, about 1 km (mile) from the launch pad. Only remotely controlled cameras can shoot from closer distances — and Shamil’s routinely gets damaged by rocks which fly in all directions during blast-off.
After the rocket lifts off, photographers keep tracking it until it disappears from sight. A few minutes into the flight, the rocket sheds its four boosters as they exhaust their liquid fuel and can no longer propel the craft.
In daytime, they can be only seen as four tiny dots.
But on July 28, because the unusual lighting made Soyuz’s condensation trail — clouds formed by engine exhaust — very bright, it was easy to see the cross-shaped pattern formed by the discarded boosters.
“I snapped the picture after the boosters separated,” Shamil says. “From the earth, it looks like a rather slow process.”
Soyuz’s contrail and further stage separations that day could be seen for hundreds of kilometers and sparked rumors and speculation on social media, especially among UFO enthusiasts.
Shamil says he cannot remember exactly how many launches he has photographed, but reckons he has seen at least 50 crews off from Baikonur or met them as they returned to earth.
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You’re in Nepal.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has just struck your village and you must rescue the survivors.
This is “After Days,” a video game based on the real-life Nepal earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people in 2015.
Minseok Do was showing the game at the recent Games for Change festival in New York City. The games on display were a far cry from “Mario Brothers” and “Call of Duty.” These developers featured titles that tackled civic and social issues.
Public consciousness about civic and social issues has long been raised by the news and entertainment industries in the United States and other parts of the world, and now video game creators are making their own statements and hoping to reach the younger digital generation in the process.
In “After Days,” players take on the role of Ahsha, a young Nepalese woman who attempts to rescue her neighbors in the aftermath of the massive earthquake.
“Other media, such as novels and movies, require consumers to use their imagination to understand characters’ emotions,” said Do, CEO of GamBridzy. “Games have players be in characters’ shoes by letting them command and control. It is in my opinion the most powerful platform.”
In the game, players carry out various missions like transporting injured victims in stretchers and coordinating with rescue teams to restore critical infrastructure.
The first episode is set in Sindhupalchok, one of the hardest-hit districts of the earthquake in Nepal.
“Some say it will take about 10 years to complete all the restoration, but international attention is not focused on this, and it is important that we show our interest and support,” said Do. Twenty percent of proceeds from game sales will go toward rebuilding efforts.
Elin Festøy, a producer from Norway, also was in New York to promote her game.
“We really wanted to create attention and awareness around children born of war … children being born of the most hated soldiers in the world,” said Festøy.
She and her team created “My Child Lebensborn,” a mobile game in which players are the caretakers of World War Two-era children from the Lebensborn project, an attempt by the Nazi regime to create an Aryan “master race.”
Lebensborn involved child kidnappings as well as anonymous births by unwed mothers in and outside of Germany, with their offspring adopted by German families. After the war, many Lebensborn children faced prejudice and discrimination, even from their own mothers.
“It’s about being able to see children as children and not as symbols of [the] enemy,” said Festøy.
“My Child Lebensborn” is targeted at players aged 13 and up. Recognizing that 13-year-olds might not exactly run to play the game, one of the team’s goals includes creating a bundle for schools that includes both the game and an accompanying film on the Lebensborn project.
Video games at the Games for Change festival didn’t shy away from difficult or touchy topics. Indeed, they were a vehicle for discussion and dialogue.
“The problem in a lot of developing countries is that people do not talk about issues. People do not want to share their problems out of embarrassment,” said Dr. Ilmana Fasih, a director at ZMQ.
The New Delhi-based consulting company developed “YourStoryTeller,” a mobile app that is less video game than a digital narrative.
User-contributed stories are transformed into comic strips. Each week, a new story addresses women’s issues in India, a country where patriarchal attitudes are common.
In one example, a young woman’s studies are disrupted for an arranged marriage that takes her from India to Canada, where she is physically abused by her new husband.
Fasih acknowledged the stories are definitely not of the Disney fairytale variety, and they definitely have a point of view.
“Kids grow up watching those stories. We want kids to grow up watching these stories where there are struggles,” said Fasih. “A young boy is able to understand what are the struggles that his mom, his sisters go through. That is probably one of the best ways to defeat patriarchy.”
A voice in your ear at the touch of a hand?
The Orii ring allows people to take phone calls, handle text messages and interact with a phone’s digital assistant, all by transferring sound to a user’s ear through bone conduction.
The ring, designed by Hong Kong-based start-up Origami Labs, was inspired by Peter Wong, the visually impaired father of the firm’s co-founder Kevin Wong.
“As a visual-impaired person, I rely on the software on the smartphone to read the icons, the texts to me,” said Peter Wong, who is a technical adviser for the ring.
A key feature ensures that only the user can hear the information conveyed by the ring.
“Can you imagine it reading out your password? That’s inconvenient and inappropriate,” Peter Wong said.
What began as a Kickstarter project has become the latest example of wearable, screen-free technology.
“We want to keep our heads up, we want to be able to stay more in the moment,” said Kevin Wong, 29, who set up Origami Labs in November 2015 with three friends from university.
The tech wearable market grew 51 percent in Asia last year, according to consumer research firm GfK. The overall industry is expected to be worth $34 billion globally by 2020, research provider CCS Insight has said.
The Orii ring is expected to reach the commercial market by February.
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There are smart phones, smart light bulbs, and now smart shoes. A Japanese engineer has created LED footwear that become glowing computer displays. And even though there are other shoes on the market that glow, these shoes step it up a notch, as we hear from VOA’s Deborah Block.
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Cuban authorities have ordered the closure of one of the island’s fastest-growing cooperatives, days after announcing that they would stop issuing new permits for some private enterprise.
Scenius, which provides accounting and business consulting services, will have until December 31 to liquidate, the cooperative’s founder and director, Luis Duenas, told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Duenas said the Ministry of Finances and Prices told him the decision to close Scenius was “based on an analysis of our social purpose, or of the activities that we have approved.”
Duenas called the decision an “error” that has no place in the policy of economic opening announced by Cuban officials.
On Tuesday, Cuba’s government said it would suspend the issuance of permits for a range of occupations and ventures, including restaurants and renting out rooms in private homes.
The suspension included the growing field of private teachers as well as street vendors of agricultural products, dressmakers and the relatively recent profession of real estate broker. The announcement did not say when the issuing of permits would resume and said that enterprises already in operation could continue.
Expansion in 2010
President Raul Castro expanded an opening of the economy to private-sector employment in 200 categories of business in 2010. The government says nearly 570,000 people are employed in the enterprises, including hundreds of restaurants and guest houses. It later also legalized nonagricultural cooperatives.
Both recent moves have created fears that Cuba is putting the brakes on plans to reform its centrally planned economy, though officials say the country is not going back on its economic opening.
Duenas regretted that Scenius’ closing occurred days after the package of restrictions on independent work.
“There are many ways to do things, timing is very important, and the country is greatly affected by these things,” Duenas said.
Scenius began in January 2015 with two or three partners and in two years had more than 200. All its 70 clients are state-owned enterprises or business groups in agriculture, industry and communications.
According to official figures, there are more than 400 nonagricultural cooperatives in Cuba.
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Britain is prepared to pay up to 40 billion euros ($47 billion) as part of a deal to leave the European Union, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing three unnamed sources familiar with Britain’s negotiating strategy.
The European Union has floated a figure of 60 billion euros and wants significant progress on settling Britain’s liabilities before talks can start on complex issues such as future trading arrangements.
The government department responsible for Brexit talks declined to comment on the Sunday Telegraph article. So far, Britain has given no official indication of how much it would be willing to pay.
The newspaper said British officials were likely to offer to pay 10 billion euros a year for three years after leaving the EU in March 2019, then finalize the total alongside detailed trade talks.
Payments would be made only as part of a deal that included a trade agreement, the newspaper added.
“We know ([the EU’s] position is 60 billion euros, but the actual bottom line is 50 billion euros. Ours is closer to 30 billion euros but the actual landing zone is 40 billion euros, even if the public and politicians are not all there yet,” the newspaper quoted one “senior Whitehall source” as saying.
Whitehall is the London district where British civil servants and ministers are based.
‘Go whistle’
A second Whitehall source said Britain’s bottom line was “30 billion euros to 40 billion euros,” and a third source said Prime Minister Theresa May was willing to pay “north of 30 billion euros,” the Sunday Telegraph reported.
David Davis, the British minister in charge of Brexit talks, said on July 20 that Britain would honor its obligations to the EU but declined to confirm that Brexit would require net payments.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit advocate, said last month that the EU could “go whistle” if it made “extortionate” demands for payment.
Last week, the Bank of England said Brexit uncertainty was weighing on the economy. Finance Minister Philip Hammond wants to avoid unsettling businesses further.
If Britain cannot conclude an exit deal, trade relations would be governed by World Trade Organization rules, which would allow both parties to impose tariffs and customs checks and leave many other issues unsettled.
The EU also wants agreement by October on rights of EU citizens already in Britain, and on border controls between the Irish Republic and the British province of Northern Ireland, before trade and other issues are discussed.
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Kenya’s Elections Observation Group (ELOG) plans to deploy about 5,000 observers to monitor Tuesday’s vote. ELOG also will use Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) to monitor the presidential election.
The Elections Observations Group, (ELOG) which is made up of civil society and faith-based organizations, met Saturday in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and said it will deploy about 5,700 election observers. Of those, approximately 1,700 observers also will monitor the elections using Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT).
Simon Wanjiru, the PVT Manager at ELOG, says the group is non-partisan, so its election observers will give independent and authentic results. ELOG began monitoring elections in Kenya in 2010.
Wanjiru adds that the system will be used as a monitoring mechanism to flag irregularities.
“We want to increase the confidence of the public in the elections and also we want to remove any uncertainties on the people, and they need to believe that now the systems have been done right and we will be able to show if they have been done correctly by the commission,” he said.
ELOG officials say PVT works in five steps. In the first stage, observers go to polling stations and verify whether they have network coverage. Once this is verified the second step entails the observer filling out a simulation form and sending it to the data center. This ensures the observer understands the process of reporting via text message or SMS.
The third step involves the message check, where the data base receives the texts and checks for any errors in answering. The fourth step involves the data reporters contacting observers who have not yet reported, and troubleshoots. The fifth and final step includes a data-quality check where errors and inconsistencies are flagged by the database automatically.
Wanjiru says the monitoring group will abide by constitutional mechanisms in a scenario where results are withheld.
“It’s only the IEBC, [Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission], which is mandated to release the results, but for ELOG we only do the verification so we cannot verify before they have released,” he said. “Remember the constitution says the IEBC has to release the results in seven days. In case it goes beyond seven days, we don’t just say we are going to release but we will compel, we have a court. And we can use the other CSOs [Civil Society Organizations], who can now help beef up and compel the IEBC to have the results out then we can verify.”
Joyce Majiwa, of the Institute for Education in Democracy, (IED) spoke to VOA on the sidelines of the press conference.
According to Majiwa the IED seeks to nurture democracy and good governance in Kenya and Africa. She further notes that the key areas in Tuesday’s polls include electoral rules violations, among others. Majiwa adds that the monitoring will improve systems for future elections.
“We will make recommendations for future preparedness, we can make recommendations if there are violent areas especially women and girls. We can make recommendations for prosecution. We will have to follow up whether prosecutions are happening, and we will make recommendations to political parties as well.”
In 2013, ELOG monitored the elections in Kenya and projected President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory at 49.7 percent, while the official figures from IEBC stood at 50.07 percent.
Kenya is scheduled to vote August 8.
Supporters of the United Auto Workers say they’re not giving up their fight to unionize a Nissan auto assembly plant in Mississippi after a stinging defeat, even as UAW opponents say Friday’s loss proves workers don’t want the union.
More than 62 percent of workers voting in a two-day election at Nissan Motor Co.’s Canton plant voted against the UAW, with 2,244 ballots against the union according to the National Labor Relations Board. Voting for union representation were 1,307 workers, or 38 percent.
“They know we didn’t need it,” said Nissan worker Kim Barber, an outspoken union opponent who said she was celebrating Friday’s result. “We didn’t need outside interference coming into our plant.”
UAW defiant
Amid tears at a union office near the plant just north of Jackson, UAW supporters voiced defiance, with some calling for the election to be rerun after the minimum six-month wait. The union filed charges moments before the polls closed Friday night making new allegations that Nissan had broken federal labor law and intimidated workers into voting “no.” If the labor board agrees, it could order a new election at the plant.
“It hurts,” said union supporter Phillip White. “We ran against a machine; we ran against a monster; we ran against all the lies.”
The UAW has never fully organized an international automaker in the traditionally anti-union South, although it did persuade some maintenance workers to join at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee. The UAW’s lack of influence among southern autoworkers has reduced its bargaining power when Detroit automakers lose market share and close plants. After pouring resources into the organizing drive at Nissan, this loss could leave UAW leaders with tough decisions.
Odds of success
“The result of the election was a setback for these workers, the UAW and working Americans everywhere, but in no way should it be considered a defeat,” UAW President Dennis Williams said in a statement.
Kristen Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research said that although the UAW was the underdog, odds were unlikely to improve soon, as President Donald Trump’s appointees take over the National Labor Relations Board. A corruption scandal involving union employees allegedly taking bribes from a former Fiat Chrysler executive also threatened to spread.
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The World Health Organization reports that there are 2 to 3 million cases of melanoma skin cancer reported every year. Sunscreen is a big part of preventing these cancers, but chemical laden sunscreens have their drawbacks. That’s why scientists are scouring the natural world to understand how plants protect themselves from damaging ultraviolet rays. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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