In this computerized age, some kids have the opportunity to play with robots. The Scottish company Robotical has developed an inexpensive toy robot that children can program to walk, dance and even play football (soccer). But besides having fun, the idea is that children will use the toys to learn about robotics and computer programming in school. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about it.
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Day: September 13, 2017
After months of anticipation – Apple unveiled its newest products Tuesday at its new Cupertino California Headquarters. Despite significant upgrades to its line of consumer products, the most hotly anticipated was the launch of Apples’ newest smartphone. But is it for you? Mil Arcega has more.
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Roughly one year ago, Denise Wallace, executive co-director of the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, received a phone call from 19-year-old Halima Aden asking if she could compete in the contest wearing her hijab.
“Her photo popped up and I remember distinctly going, ‘Wow, she is beautiful,'” Wallace said.
The Somali-American teen made headlines as the first hijab-and burkini-sporting contestant in the history of the pageant.
The bold move catapulted her career to new heights involving many “firsts,” including being the first hijabi signed by a major modeling agency.
“I wear the hijab everyday,” Aden, who was in New York for Fashion Week, told Reuters.
The hijab – one of the most visible signs of Islamic culture – is going mainstream, with advertisers, media giants and fashion firms promoting images of the traditional headscarf in ever more ways.
Nike announced it is using its prowess in the sports and leisure market to launch a breathable mesh hijab in spring 2018, becoming the first major sports apparel maker to offer a traditional Islamic head scarf designed for competition.
Teen apparel maker American Eagle Outfitters created a denim hijab with Aden as its main model. The youthful headscarf sold out in less than a week online.
Allure magazine’s editor-in-chief, Michelle Lee, is also in the mix, describing Aden as a “normal American teenage girl” on the front cover of the magazine’s July issue.
“She is someone who is so amazingly representative of who we are as America, as a melting pot it totally made sense for us,” Lee said.
Aden, born in Kakuma, a United Nations refugee camp in Kenya, came to the United States at age 7 with her family, initially settling in St. Louis.
She fondly recalled her time at the refugee camp saying, “Different people, different refugees from all over Africa came together in Kakuma. Yet we still found a common ground.”
In America, she was an A-student and homecoming queen. Now, her ultimate goal is to become a role model for American Muslim youth.
“I am doing me and I have no reason to think that other people are against me,” Aden said. “So I just guess I’m oblivious.”
Aden said she is content being a champion for diversity in the modeling industry, but in the future she hopes to return to Kakuma to work with refugee children.
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Protesters in Haiti damaged commercial buildings in the capital city and set cars on fire Tuesday, angered by government tax hikes that come at a time when foreign aid is declining.
The Port-au-Prince protest, called by former presidential candidate Jean-Charles Moise, took many by surprise and represents the biggest outcry against the administration of President Jovenel Moise since he took office earlier this year.
“The revolution has just started. Jovenel Moise will have to retract his taxes or he will have to leave immediately,” said Jacques Menard, a 31-year-old protester. “And this is a warning because the next phase can be very violent.”
Protesters took to the streets in separate groups in several districts in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, erecting flaming barricades, blocking traffic, and confronting riot police, who fired tear gas and warning shots in the air.
Several people were arrested, the police said, but there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.
Lawmakers last weekend approved an unpopular budget that raises taxes on products including cigarettes, alcohol and passports.
At the same time, foreign aid to Haiti is slowing. The country is one of the poorest in the Americas and suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010 and the worst of Hurricane Matthew last year.
“If Jovenel Moise is intelligent, he should refrain from publishing the budget, otherwise he will have to face a series of street demonstrations that will further complicate the situation,” Jean-Charles Moise said on local radio.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment, but Economy and Finance Minister Jude Alix Patrick Salomon defended the budget over the weekend.
“There are people who are blaming many things on the budget that are not true,” Salomon told reporters shortly after the spending plan was approved. “There are people manipulating the public opinion.”
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Andy Serkis, perhaps best-known for his role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, intentionally avoided a somber tone in his directorial debut Breathe, he said Tuesday.
The film, which had its world premiere Monday night in Toronto, is inspired by the parents of producer Jonathan Cavendish, Robin and Diana (played by Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy), who defied medical convention after Robin was paralyzed by polio in his 20s and later blazed a trail as disability rights advocates.
“We took license, and I took license with elevating it and slightly lifting it,” Serkis said at a news conference following the premiere where it received three standing ovations, including one for the real-life Diana who was in attendance.
Early reviewers have been more critical, however, comparing the film unfavorably to The Theory of Everything, a biopic about Stephen Hawking for which Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar in 2015.
“This is very much a crude copy, its noble intentions hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate,” a reviewer at the Hollywood Reporter wrote.
The pair are portrayed falling in love in an idyllic English countryside scene at the opening before honeymooning in Kenya and discovering they are expecting a child, Jonathan, just before Robin’s early-onset polio hits.
They later enlist a friend to create the first battery-powered mobile respirator mounted on a wheelchair, then push for them to be made widely available to those with polio.
“The essence of Robin and Diana was not drab in any sense, it was not murky or gray or somber, it was bright, they burned bright,” said Serkis, who also drew a personal connection to the film. His father was a doctor, his mother taught disabled children, and his sister has multiple sclerosis.
“This is a template of how any human being can deal with suffering, struggle and limitation,” actor Garfield said on the red carpet, later saying it was “strangely enjoyable” to play a character unable to control his body beyond facial expressions.
The Toronto International Film Festival is seen as an important stop for filmmakers showcasing their work in the long Hollywood awards season that culminates with the Oscars in March.
Serkis has also directed a Jungle Book film currently in post-production. Following its Toronto debut, Breathe will open next month’s London Film Festival before a broader October release.
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