Day: October 25, 2017

Giant Sequoia Doing Well 4 Months After Idaho Uprooting

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

A 10-story-tall tree moved two city blocks on giant rollers last summer has new growth and appears happy in its new location, a tree expert said Wednesday.

Tree mover David Cox of Environmental Design examined the 800,000-pound (363,000-kilogram) sequoia in Boise, Idaho, and pronounced the tree fit.

“She looks pretty good,” he said. “But it’s still too early to tell. You still need about two or three growing seasons to really say that she’s recovered. We’re not in any danger zone. We feel like the tree is still happy.”

Moving the tallest tree ever attempted by the company required cutting back the root system that’s now being monitored for moisture content with underground sensors at the tree’s new location on city property.

Three of the four sensors Cox examined indicated the root system was not getting enough moisture, so he ordered a water truck. One was already scheduled to visit once a week this winter, but hadn’t started.

An irrigation system that includes misting hoses at the top of the tree was recently turned off by city workers in preparation for winter, and the area dried out quicker than expected, Cox said.

Cox also said he’s a bit concerned about some broken bark and smoothed-over bark at the base that might have been caused by animals or vandals or somebody climbing. He said the bark is about 9 inches (23 centimeters) thick so the living part of the tree under the bark isn’t being damaged.

Naturalist John Muir, who played a key role in establishing California’s Sequoia National Park, sent the tree as a seedling to Boise more than a century ago. It was planted in the yard of a doctor’s home.

St. Luke’s Health System in June paid $300,000 to move Idaho’s largest sequoia — which are not native to the state — to make way for a hospital expansion. Cutting down the most notable tree in the city’s urban forest could have risked a public relations backlash, and the hospital has said it never considered that option.

The tree suffered at its old location because it was shaded by a tall building. Cox also said the building created a kind of wind tunnel that caused part of the tree to dry out and turn brown. But those needles have fallen off at the new location and have been replaced with green, healthy needles.

The tree’s future health is uncertain in its new spot next to one of the city’s busiest traffic routes and only about eight blocks from the city’s core downtown area.

“We’re in a new environment here, a little more open,” Cox said. “We don’t know if we’re going to be better off or worse off. Se we’re going to prepare for drying winds.”

Winter treatments

He prescribed treatments in November, December and January to spray the tree with a type of substance to prevent it from drying out in cold winter winds, likening the process to a person applying hand lotion to prevent skin from drying out.

“It goes on kind of oily and dries waxy,” he said.

The treatments will cost about $1,500 each. St. Luke’s spokeswoman Anita Kisee said she did not know if the company will pay, and Boise’s Parks and Recreation department did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Cox under the contract with the hospital is serving only as a consultant, but said the company could chip in to partially fund expenses.

Brian Jorgenson, a city forester, checks on the tree and neighbors also appear to be watchful. He said he was challenged once by someone wanting to know if he was supposed to be poking around under the tree.

“I think the tree looks better in its current location,” he said. “It’s a lot more visible than it used to be, and we’re proud to have it on park property now.”

Cox said he plans to make site visits in January and again in March or April to consider treatments for the growing season for the sequoia, which are known to live for several thousand years in the right conditions.
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Ivanka Trump Promotes Expansion of Child Tax Credit at Capitol

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Ivanka Trump teamed up Wednesday with Republican legislators to try to ensure the tax overhaul package under construction on Capitol Hill includes an expansion of the child tax credit.

The White House adviser and presidential daughter, appearing at a Capitol Hill news conference with GOP lawmakers, framed the tax credit as crucial for working families.

“It is a priority of this administration and it is a legislative priority to ensure that American families can thrive,” she said.

Also attending were Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Dean Heller of Nevada; and GOP Representatives Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Kevin Yoder of Kansas, Claudia Tenney of New York and Martha Roby of Alabama.

Rubio and Lee have worked closely with Ivanka Trump on the issue. Details are still being worked out, but Rubio and Lee would like to see the $1,000 credit doubled and made fully refundable.

The GOP tax plan would cut the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent, reduce taxes for most individuals and repeal inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. The standard deduction would be nearly doubled, to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families; the number of tax brackets would shrink from seven and the child tax credit would be increased.

Democrats and liberal family advocacy groups say the overall plan would provide limited benefits to low-income families while offering major cuts to the wealthy — and they say that any boost to the child tax credit must be viewed in that context.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Rubio expressed optimism about the child tax proposal, saying the provision is needed because without it, people could “see a tax increase, which nobody around here is prepared to justify, because you can’t.”

Rubio praised Ivanka Trump, saying that “having the White House making it a priority of theirs has strengthened our chances.”
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Not at Home? Amazon Wants to Come in and Drop Off Packages

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Don’t want Amazon boxes sitting on the porch? The company hopes you’ll let a stranger inside to drop them off.  

Amazon said Wednesday it will launch a service called Amazon Key next month that will let people allow the door to be unlocked when they’re not there so packages can be left inside. 

The proposal drew plenty of humorous reactions on social media, as well as concerns about safety or delivery employees being mistaken for intruders. Amazon said the drivers would be well-vetted, while one expert said the company has built up trust with customers and younger customers were more likely to try it out.   

An in-home delivery program also falls in line with Amazon’s strategy of trying to make shopping with it so convenient that consumers don’t think about buying elsewhere. And with the option requiring a specific camera that it sells, the move helps Amazon tie customers even closer to its gadgets as well as the items it delivers. 

Customers who want to use the service would need to be Amazon Prime members and would have to buy a camera and a Wi-Fi-connected lock from the Seattle-based company that starts at $250. Shoppers will then be able to choose in-home delivery as an option in the Amazon app.

When the delivery person shows up, they will knock first and scan the package. Amazon will make sure the person is at the right home and unlock the door. No codes or keys are needed, and the indoor camera will record the in-home delivery. The Amazon Cloud Cam also lets users watch a livestream or recorded video on Amazon’s Fire tablet, Fire TV or its voice-activated Echo devices that have a video screen.

The service is likely to be more of a hit with younger families, said Timothy Carone, an associate teaching professor at University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He said millennials are already comfortable posting photos and their whereabouts on Facebook, Instagram and other social media.

“They’re less concerned about privacy than older generations are,” Carone said.

Walmart is testing a similar service in California’s Silicon Valley, which lets delivery people drop off packages or stock the fridge with groceries bought from Walmart.com. The delivery person is given a one-time code to open the door and Walmart said customers will get an alert on their smartphones when someone enters.

For Amazon, the in-home delivery service helps it enter the fast-growing home security camera market, competing with Google’s Nest cameras, said Martin Garner, a device and internet analyst at CCS Insight. Tying the camera in with the in-home delivery service gives people a reason to buy it, said Garner.

“They’ve been on a mission to do this,” said Garner.

Amazon.com Inc. said in-home delivery will be available Nov. 8 in 37 cities, including Atlanta, Cleveland and Denver. The company says the service is covered by the Amazon Key Happiness Guarantee, which applies to delivery issues, property damage or theft. And Amazon said the deliveries are carried out by drivers who are vetted with background checks and driving record reviews.

The company said the smart lock can also be used to let in out-of-town guests who want to make themselves at home. And in the coming months, it can be used to grant access to housekeepers to scrub the kitchen or dog walkers to take your furry friend for a stroll.

But for package deliveries, you may need to keep your dogs and cats a bit contained: Amazon doesn’t recommend using the in-home delivery service if pets can get to the front door on delivery day. 
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Widely-used Toxins Excluded in US Agency’s Chemical Review

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Spurred by the chemical industry, President Donald Trump’s administration is retreating from a congressionally mandated review of some of the most dangerous chemicals in public use: millions of tons of asbestos, flame retardants and other toxins in homes, offices and industrial plants across the United States.

 

Instead of following president Barack Obama’s proposal to look at chemicals already in widespread use that result in some of the most common exposures, the new administration wants to limit the review to products still being manufactured and entering the marketplace.

 

For asbestos, that means gauging the risks from just a few hundred tons of the material imported annually – while excluding almost all of the estimated 8.9 million tons (8.1 million metric tons) of asbestos-containing products that the U.S. Geological Survey said entered the marketplace between 1970 and 2016.

 

The review was intended to be the first step toward enacting new regulations to protect the public. But critics – including health workers, consumer advocates, members of Congress and environmental groups – contend ignoring products already in use undermines that goal.

 

The administration’s stance is the latest example of Trump siding with industry. In this case, firefighters and construction workers say the move jeopardizes their health.

 

Both groups risk harm from asbestos because of its historical popularity in construction materials ranging from roofing and flooring tiles to insulation used in tens of millions of homes. Most of the insulation came from a mine in a Montana town that’s been declared a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site and where hundreds of people have died from asbestos exposure.

 

“Hundreds of thousands of firefighters are going to be affected by this. It is by far the biggest hazard we have out there,” said Patrick Morrison, assistant general president for health and safety at the International Association of Fire Fighters. “My God, these are not just firefighters at risk. There are people that live in these structures and don’t know the danger of asbestos.”

The EPA told The Associated Press on Wednesday that there were measures to protect the public other than the law Congress passed last year, which mandated the review of asbestos and nine other chemicals to find better ways to manage their dangers. For example, workers handling asbestos and emergency responders can use respirators to limit exposure, the agency said in a statement.

 

Asbestos fibers can become deadly when disturbed in a fire or during remodeling, lodging in the lungs and causing problems including mesothelioma, a form of cancer. The material’s dangers have long been recognized. But a 1989 attempt to ban most asbestos products was overturned by a federal court, and it remains in widespread use.

 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health analyzed cancer-related deaths among 30,000 firefighters from Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The 2015 study concluded firefighters contract mesothelioma at twice the rate of other U.S. residents.

 

Firefighters also face exposure to flame retardants included in the EPA’s review that are used in furniture and other products.

 

“I believe the chemical industry is killing firefighters,” said Tony Stefani, a former San Francisco fireman who retired in 2003 after 28 years when diagnosed with cancer he believes resulted from exposure to chemicals in the review.

 

Stefani said he was one of five in his station to contract cancer in a short period. Three later died, while Stefani had a kidney removed and endured a year of treatment before being declared cancer-free.

 

“When I entered the department in the early 70s, our biggest fear was dying in the line of duty or succumbing to a heart attack,” he said. “Those were the biggest killers, not cancer. But we work in a hazardous-materials situation every time we have a fire now.”

Mesothelioma caused or contributed to more than 45,000 deaths nationwide between 1999 and 2015, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in March. The number of people dying annually from the disease increased about 5 percent during that time.

 

In one of its last acts under Obama, the EPA said in January it would judge the chemicals “in a comprehensive way” based on their “known, intended and reasonably foreseen uses.”

 

Under Trump, the agency has aligned with the chemical industry, which sought to narrow the review’s scope. The EPA now says it will focus only on toxins still being manufactured and entering commerce. It won’t consider whether new handling and disposal rules are needed for “legacy,” or previously existing, materials.

 

“EPA considers that such purposes generally fall outside of the circumstances Congress intended EPA to consider,” said EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones, adding the agency lacks authority to regulate noncommercial uses of the chemicals.

 

One of the law’s co-authors, New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, disputes that Congress wanted to limit the review.

 

“It doesn’t matter whether the dangerous substance is no longer being manufactured; if people are still being exposed, then there is still a risk,” Udall told AP. “Ignoring these circumstances would openly violate the letter and the underlying purpose of the law.”

 

Democrats and public health advocates have criticized EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for installing people with longstanding ties to the chemical industry into senior positions at the agency. On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on a party-line vote, advanced the nomination of Michael Dourson, a toxicologist whose work has been paid for by the industry, to oversee the EPA’s chemical safety program.

 

Two prior appointments worked for the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s lobbying arm: Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator for chemical safety, and Liz Bowman, the associate administrator for public affairs.

 

The council pushed back against the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, urging the EPA’s new leadership to narrow its review. The Trump administration did that in June.

 

“Did we get everything we wanted? No. But we certainly agree the [Trump] administration put forth a reasonable final rule,” said council vice president Michael Walls. Broadening the review, he added, would send the EPA “down a rabbit hole chasing after illusory risks.”

 

The politically influential National Association of Homebuilders, which represents the residential construction industry, fears broadly interpreting the new law would lead to burdensome regulations that are unnecessary because it says asbestos disposal rules already are adequate.

 

Many of those regulations are based on a 1994 Occupational Safety and Health Administration finding that materials had to contain at least 1 percent asbestos to qualify for regulation. But public health experts say the 1 percent threshold is arbitrary.

 

“It’s bad medicine, and it’s harmful,” said Michael Harbut, an internal medicine professor at Detroit’s Wayne State University and medical adviser to an insulation workers’ union.

 

“There’s still a lot of asbestos out there,” said Harbut, who helped establish criteria used by physicians to diagnose and treat asbestos-related diseases. “It’s still legal, it’s still deadly, and it’s going to be a problem for decades to come.”
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Blake Lively Tackles Blindness in New Complex Film Role

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

To play a blind woman for her latest film role, Blake Lively took no short cuts into the darkness.

The 30-year-old actress learned to use a walking cane, wore opaque contact lenses off-camera to better understand her character, and learned how to navigate the main set without her vision.

“I wanted to know the experience of filling in the blanks in my head, learning it and then opening my eyes and seeing that, no matter what I had in my head, it was so different than I imagined,” she says.

Lively stars in All I See Is You, a dreamy, beautiful movie about a woman who lost her eyesight as an adolescent in a car accident but regains her vision through surgery in her 20s. She begins a period of self-discovery, which threatens to upend her life and marriage.

“That happens in all relationships, where you’re in an established relationship and then you start to not see things,” says Lively. “This movie speaks to relationships, I think, whether we have the literal blindness or it’s just figurative.”

It’s the brainchild of director and co-writer Marc Forster, whose career includes varied films such as World War Z, Quantum of Solace, Monster’s Ball and The Kite Runner. Inspiration for the new film came in one of the strangest places — the shower.

Forster, who has always admired fine art painters, was searching for a story that could lend itself to being painted onscreen. “I pushed it aside because I said, ‘OK, you’re a filmmaker. You’re not a painter. You’re not a true artist. You’re just a visual storyteller,”‘ he says. But one day in the shower, with soap clouding his eyes, he realized he had a visual template.

All I See Is You is certainly arty, with scenes decorated with a blur of images, bleeding colors and abstract symbols, even giving physical sensations an intense visual representation.

Forster says he was trying to shake the Hollywood cookie-cutter approach and recapture the feel of films from the 1970s, when character studies and open-ended plots ruled. “Movies became more and more close-ended and they also had to tick every box emotionally for an audience,” he says.

Indeed, Forster’s film is hard to categorize — part mystery, part horror, part a woman’s reawakening, part kaleidoscopic journey. He is very happy it cannot be pigeonholed.

“He’s created something that I’ve never seen before with the visuals,” says Lively. “So it was really just about taking a leap of faith with him and trusting him and being excited by that journey. But I think that if you even removed all of those visuals from this movie, it still works and that’s what’s important.”

The film also gave Lively, last seen in a bikini in The Shallows, a meaty and complex role — though a challenging one, too, since it centers on a woman with a disability. She says she was sensitive to making sure it was correct.

“This isn’t representative of any one person’s story. I was trying to take different peoples’ experiences and be as honest as possible,” she says. One person she leaned on to get her performance right was Ryan Knighton, a blind author who taught Lively how the blind walk, move and even argue. (The filmmakers honored him by having Blakely wear his signature red-tinted glasses onscreen.)

Both Lively and Forster realize that the film — featuring a woman learning to be strong and independent — comes at a time when women across the country are talking about their role in male-centered businesses and society.

“I think what’s happened in this past year, since the election, is that women have really stood up for themselves. I think we realized how much further we had to go than we thought we did,” Lively says.

Foster, for his part, hopes the film will remind people to open their eyes, see what’s actually happening and make better choices. 

“We, as humanity, ultimately have to really wake up and become conscious and start seeing things,” he says. “Otherwise, we’re going to go down a path that will be unreturnable.”
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French Film Institute Goes Ahead With Polanski Retrospective

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

France’s famed film institute La Cinematheque Francaise says it will go ahead with a retrospective of works by director Roman Polanski despite opposition by feminist groups.

 

La Cinematheque said Wednesday that calls to cancel the Polanski screenings – attended by the director – only began “in the last few days” as the sexual harassment accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein gained force. The statement said it would not change the program that begins Monday.

 

Weinstein denies the allegations.

 

The institute said its role was not to moralize – in regard to the Polish-born director who in the 1970s pleaded guilty to having sex in the U.S. with a 13-year-old girl whom he plied with champagne and Quaaludes.

 

Since Polanski fled the U.S., he mostly has lived in Paris.

 
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Negligence Alleged in Sex Abuse Case Against Weinstein Co.

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

An aspiring actress has sued The Weinstein Co. alleging it was aware of sexual misconduct by its co-founder, Harvey Weinstein.

 

Dominique Huett claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles that Weinstein performed oral sex on her against her wishes at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2010.

 

A representative for The Weinstein Co. and Weinstein himself did not immediately respond Wednesday to emails seeking comment.

 

Huett’s negligence lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

 

Her attorney, Jeff Herman, says Huett is suing Weinstein’s former company because she only recently discovered claims that it knew of sex harassment allegations against its co-founder dating back to the 1990s.

 

Herman says the recent discovery argument is key to Huett overcoming the statute of limitations barring a lawsuit based on the alleged conduct.

 
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Facebook to Build Wind Farm to Help Power Omaha Data Center

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Facebook is partnering with a developer to build a wind power farm in northeast Nebraska that will supply energy for the company’s planned data center.

The social media giant announced last week that it has partnered with Trade Winds Energy to build the Rattlesnake Creek Wind Project in rural Dixon County.

Facebook plans to use energy from the wind farm to power its upcoming data center in Papillion, a suburb of Omaha. Of the 320 megawatts of power the wind farm will create, 200 of them will be allocated to the data center while the remaining will be available for other buyers.

 

Officials said the project will produce the second-largest wind farm in Nebraska, behind the 400-megawatt Grande Prairie project in Holt County. Officials also said the new wind farm will generate enough energy to power 90,000 homes.

 

Both projects are examples of the state’s rich wind resource being acknowledged, said David Bracht, director of the Nebraska Energy Office.

 

“The wind projects that have been installed [in Nebraska] have shown themselves to be very, very productive,” Bracht said.

 

A new electric rate structure rolled out in January by the Omaha Public Power District means Facebook can power its data center with 100 percent clean energy. The company also aims to get at least 50 percent of its total electricity consumption from clean and renewable energy sources in 2018.

 

Neither Facebook nor Trade Winds provided a timeline or cost for the wind farm.

 

 

 
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Cell Game: Novel Software Helps Match Up Inmates, Prisons

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A university engineering department has developed what amounts to a Tinder app for criminals — a computer program that matches inmates with suitable prisons.

The software, unique in the corrections field, has saved the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections about $3 million in its first year. It’s resulted in fewer prison assaults, shortened wait times for treatment programs by nearly two months, reduced the number of prison transfers and lightened the workload of corrections staff.

Corrections officials marvel that nobody thought of it sooner.

“It’s pretty amazing, and what we’ve seen so far is the outcomes are a lot better,” said Major William Nicklow of the state prison in Camp Hill, who oversaw the project as the prison system’s director of population management.

On Tuesday, the Lehigh University team that developed the software accepted the Wagner Prize, the top international prize in the field of operations research practice.

Their work has dramatically simplified the job of assigning inmates to prisons.

Previously, corrections staff handled prisoner assignments one at a time, a laborious and inefficient process that meant inmates farther down the list were at a disadvantage when it came to placement in high-demand treatment programs.

The software, in contrast, can assign hundreds of inmates simultaneously, taking into account dozens of factors including age and other inmate demographics, criminal history, mental illness, and educational and vocational interests to come up with the most appropriate placement for each inmate. It also identifies gang members as well as inmates most likely to be violent and separates them, reducing the threat at individual prisons.

The software can finish in minutes what it took a staff of seven an entire week to do.

“This very complex problem is mathematically modeled, put in the system and the system is advising where the inmate has to be assigned,” said Tamas Terlaky, one of the program’s developers and a professor in Lehigh’s industrial and systems engineering department. “The benefits are quite obvious.”

Other corrections departments have taken note. At least three other states as well as the federal prison system have made inquiries about the software, Terlaky said.
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Austerity to Hit Jordan as Debt Spikes, Economy Slows

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Jordan’s high and rising public debt has worried the International Monetary Fund and prompted a downgrade from Standard & Poor’s. So the government is planning a blast of austerity by year-end.

Tax hikes and subsidy cuts —- likely to be highly unpopular —- are on the agenda as the country’s debt to GDP ratio has reached a record 95 percent, from 71 percent in 2011.

“Postponing problems might increase the popularity of the government but would be a crime against the nation,” Prime Minister Hani Mulki told a group of parliamentarians this week.

After an IMF standby arrangement that brought some fiscal stability, Jordan agreed last year to a more ambitious three-year program of long-delayed structural reforms to cut public debt to 77 percent of GDP by 2021.

The debt is at least in part due to successive governments adopting an expansionist fiscal policy characterized by job creation in the bloated public sector, and by lavish subsidies for bread and other staple goods.

It also hiked spending on welfare and public sector pay in a move to ensure stability in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” protests in the region in 2011. But the economy has slowed, battered by the turmoil in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

The economic strains reduced local revenue and foreign aid, forcing Jordan to borrow heavily externally and also resort to more domestic financing.

Although there has been some progress this year with improving remittances, tourism and some rebound in exports, there has been no pickup in growth since 2015 — with the officials forecasting 2 percent growth this year from an earlier IMF 2.3 percent target.

“This year we are at a crossroads. Everything I am trying to do is to stop the hemorrhage and start breathing,” Mulki was quoted as saying at another meeting to garner support.

The rising debt accentuated by the protracted regional conflicts on Jordan’s borders was the main reason Standard and Poor last week downgraded its sovereign rating to B+.

Subsidy risk

Economists said Jordan’s ability to maintain a costly subsidy system and a large state bureaucracy was increasingly untenable in the absence of large foreign capital inflows or infusions of foreign aid, which have dwindled as the Syrian crisis has gone on.

Jordanian officials say they expect less donor support next year than any time since the crisis began. They are also concerned that Gulf states, hit by lower oil prices, have so far not committed any support funds given after the “Arab Spring” to be renewed.

Politicians and economists say the government’s fiscal consolidation plan envisages a doubling of bread prices and raising sales taxes on basic food and fuel items.

This should cut into the estimated 850 million dinars ($1.2 billion) the government pays in annual subsidies from bread to electricity to water.

But economists reckon subsidy cuts are bound to worsen the plight of poorer Jordanians, a majority of the country’s population, and removing subsidies has triggered civil unrest in the past.

As well as debt, the IMF has also pointed to the unemployment rate, which has risen sharply in the last two years to 16 percent, and to low tax collection.

The IMF says Jordan stands out among countries in the region with among the lowest tax collections. Personal taxes constituting only 0.4 percent of GDP, with nearly 95 percent of the population not subject to income tax.

Critics say any hikes would extract more from the segment of salaried employees that already pays while leaving influential business tycoons outside the tax net.

“The tax burden in comparison with countries of the region except the oil producers is low… there is big generosity in exemptions,” said Jihad Azour, the IMF’s director of the Middle East and Central Asia department during a recent visit to Jordan.

Economists fear that the IMF’s tax recommendations endorsed by the government that range from expanding corporate income tax to dividends and tougher sanctions for tax evaders will hurt business sentiment in a country whose political stability has turned it a safe haven.

“It’s important to activate growth to bolster stability and ensure a faster drop in debt,” said the IMF’s Azour adding that tackling Jordan debt problem was crucial for its future prosperity in a turbulent region.
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Trump OKs Test Program to Expand Domestic Drone Flights

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Americans could see a lot more drones flying around their communities as the result of a Trump administration test program to increase government and commercial use of the unmanned aircraft.

President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead Wednesday, signing a directive intended to increase the number and complexity of drone flights.

The presidential memo would allow exemptions from current safety rules so communities could move ahead with testing of drone operations.

States, communities and tribes selected to participate would devise their own trial programs in partnership with government and industry drone users. The administration anticipates approving at least five applications, but there is no limit on the number of communities that can join.

The Federal Aviation Administration would review each program. The agency would grant waivers, if necessary, to rules that now restrict drone operations. Examples include prohibitions on flights over people, nighttime flights and flights beyond the line of sight of the drone operator.

 

Among the things that could be tested are package deliveries; the reliability and security of data links between pilot and aircraft; and technology to prevent collisions between drones and other aircraft and to detect and counter drones flying in restricted areas.

 

Drone-makers and businesses that want to fly drones have pushed for looser restrictions. Trump discussed the issue with industry leaders at a White House meeting in June.

In the past two years, the FAA has registered over 1 million drones. The majority of them belong to hobbyists. There are now more registered drones than registered manned aircraft in the U.S.

Safety restrictions on drone flights have limited drone use, and U.S. technology companies seeking to test and deploy commercial drones have often done so overseas. For example, Google’s Project Wing is testing drones in Australia, and Amazon is testing drone deliveries in the United Kingdom.

“In order to maintain American leadership in this emerging industry here at home, our country needs a regulatory framework that encourages innovation while ensuring airspace safety,” Michael Kratsios of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told reporters in a conference call.

The trial program will collect data on drone operations that will aid the government’s effort to develop a separate air traffic control system for low-flying unmanned aircraft, he said.

The test zones are expected to start going into place in about a year. The program would continue for three years after that.

Safety concerns over drones have risen recently after the collision of a civilian drone and an Army helicopter over Staten Island, New York, and the first verified collision in North America between a drone and a commercial aircraft, in Quebec City, Canada.

The test program doesn’t address complaints by local governments that low-flying drones present safety, privacy and nuisance risks. The FAA says it has the sole authority to regulate the national airspace, but some communities have passed their own restrictions.

Doug Johnson, vice president of technology policy at the Consumer Technology Association, said the test program recognizes that “the federal government cannot manage policymaking and enforcement by itself” and must work with local governments.

“Public-private partnerships like those that would be created by the program are critical to realizing the economic benefits of drones,” he said.

The association, whose members include drone-makers, has estimated 3.4 million drones valued will be sold in the U.S. this year, 40 percent more than last year. Revenue from those sales is estimated at about $1.1 billion.

 
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Rock & Roll Pioneer Fats Domino Dies

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Fats Domino, the amiable rock `n’ roll pioneer whose steady, pounding piano and easy baritone helped change popular music while honoring the traditions of the Crescent City, died Tuesday. He was 89.
 
Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, coroner’s office, said Domino died of natural causes at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.
 
In appearance, he was no Elvis Presley. He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat as an album cover. But Domino sold more than 110 million records, with hits including “Blueberry Hill,” “Ain’t It a Shame” and other standards of rock ‘n’ roll.
 
He was one of the first 10 honorees named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Rolling Stone Record Guide likened him to Benjamin Franklin, the beloved old man of a revolutionary movement.
 
His dynamic performance style and warm vocals drew crowds for five decades. One of his show-stopping stunts was playing the piano while standing, throwing his body against it with the beat of the music and bumping the grand piano across the stage.
 
Domino’s 1956 version of “Blueberry Hill” was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry of historic sound recordings worthy of preservation. The preservation board noted that Domino insisted on performing the song despite his producer’s doubts, adding that Domino’s “New Orleans roots are evident in the Creole inflected cadences that add richness and depth to the performance.”
 
Domino became a global star but stayed true to his hometown, where his fate was initially unknown after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. It turned out that he and his family were rescued by boat from his home, where he lost three pianos and dozens of gold and platinum records, along with other memorabilia.
 
Many wondered if he would ever return to the stage. Scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006, he simply tipped his hat to thousands of cheering fans.
 
But in May 2007, he was back, performing at Tipitina’s music club in New Orleans. Fans cheered – and some cried – as Domino played “I’m Walkin’,” “Ain’t It a Shame,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” “Blueberry Hill” and a host of other hits.
 
That performance was a highlight during several rough years. After losing their home and almost all their belongings to the floods, his wife of more than 50 years, Rosemary, died in April 2008.
 
Domino moved to the New Orleans suburb of Harvey after the storm but would often visit his publishing house, an extension of his old home in the Lower 9th Ward, inspiring many with his determination to stay in the city he loved.
 
“Fats embodies everything good about New Orleans,” his friend David Lind said in a 2008 interview. “He’s warm, fun-loving, spiritual, creative and humble. You don’t get more New Orleans than that.”
 
The son of a violin player, Antoine Domino Jr. was born on Feb. 26, 1928, to a family that grew to include nine children. As a youth, he taught himself popular piano styles – ragtime, blues and boogie-woogie – after his cousin left an old upright in the house. Fats Waller and Albert Ammons were early influences.
 
He quit school at age 14, and worked days in a factory while playing and singing in local juke joints at night. In 1949, Domino was playing at the Hideaway Club for $3 a week when he was signed by Imperial record company.
 
He recorded his first song, “The Fat Man,” in the back of a tiny French Quarter recording studio.
 
“They call me the Fat Man, because I weigh 200 pounds,” he sang. “All the girls, they love me, ’cause I know my way around.”
 
In 1955, he broke into the white pop charts with “Ain’t it a Shame” – but actually sang the lyrics as “ain’t that a shame.” The song was covered blandly by Pat Boone as “Ain’t That a Shame” and rocked out years later by Cheap Trick. Domino enjoyed a parade of successes through the early 1960s, including “Be My Guest” and “I’m Ready.” Another hit, “I’m Walkin,’ ” became the debut single for Ricky Nelson.
 
Domino appeared in the rock ‘n’ roll film “The Girl Can’t Help It” and was among the first black performers to be featured in popular music shows, starring with Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. He also helped bridge rock ‘n’ roll and other styles – even country/western, recording Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” and Bobby Charles’ “Walkin’ to New Orleans.”
 
Like many of his peers, Domino’s popularity tapered off in the 1960s as British and psychedelic rock held sway.
 
Domino told Ebony magazine that he stopped recording because companies wanted him to update his style.
 
“I refused to change,” he said. “I had to stick to my own style that I’ve always used or it just wouldn’t be me.”
 
Antoine and Rosemary Domino raised eight children in the same ramshackle neighborhood where he grew up, but they did it in style- in a white mansion, trimmed in pink, yellow and lavender. The front double doors opened into an atrium with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and ivory dominos set in a white marble floor.
 
In 1988, all of New Orleans seemed to be talking about him after he reportedly paid in cash for two Cadillacs and a $130,000 Rolls-Royce. When the salesman asked if he wanted to call his bank about financing, Domino smiled and said, “I am the bank.”
 
In 1998, he became the first purely rock ‘n’ roll musician to be awarded the National Medal for the Arts. But he cited his age and didn’t make the trip to the White House to get the medal from President Clinton.

That was typical. Aside from rare appearances in New Orleans, he dodged the spotlight in his later years, refusing to appear in public or even to give interviews.
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Companies in Ukraine, Russia Come Under New Cyberattack

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A new strain of malicious software has paralyzed computers at a Ukrainian airport, the Ukrainian capital’s subway and at some independent Russian media.

 

The Odessa international airport in Ukraine’s south, the Kyiv subway and prominent Russian media outlets such as Interfax and Fontanka on Tuesday reported being targeted.

 

The cyberattack appears to be similar to a major attack in June that locked the computers of hospitals, government offices and major multinationals with encryption that demanded a ransom for their release. The software appeared to have originated in Ukraine.

Moscow-based cyber security firm Group-IP said in a statement Wednesday the ransomware called BadRabbit also tried to penetrate the computers of major Russian banks but failed. None of the banks has reported any attacks.

 

Moscow-based cyber security company Kaspersky Lab said it was aware of more than 200 companies in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany targeted by the ransomware.

 

The Odessa airport said in a statement its information systems have been affected, although it continues to service flights. The subway in the capital, Kyiv, said it cannot process online payments and bank card payments.

 

The operations of Russia’s only privately owned news agency, Interfax, have been paralyzed since Tuesday.

 

 
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Qatari Exec Set to Meet Investigators in FIFA Bribery Case

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Qatari soccer and television executive Nasser al-Khelaifi was scheduled to be questioned by Swiss investigators who allege he bribed a top FIFA official in World Cup broadcasting rights deal.

 

Al-Khelaifi, the Paris Saint-Germain president, was set to meet with Switzerland’s federal prosecutors on Wednesday, two weeks after they revealed criminal proceedings against him.

 

He denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.

 

As CEO of BeIN Media Group — formerly Al Jazeera Sports — Al-Khelaifi secured Middle East TV rights for four World Cups, including the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

 

Al-Khelaifi and former FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke are suspected of bribery, fraud, criminal mismanagement and document forgery linked to a 2026-2030 rights deal.

 

A luxury villa on Sardinia was seized two weeks ago, and Italian financial police alleged al-Khelaifi allowed Valcke to use it.

 

 
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Kaspersky: We Uploaded US Documents But Quickly Deleted Them

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Sometime in 2014, a group of analysts walked into the office of Eugene Kaspersky, the ebullient founder of Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, to deliver some sobering news. The analysts were in possession of a cache of files belonging to the Equation Group, an extraordinarily powerful band of hackers that would later be exposed as an arm of the U.S. National Security Agency. But the analysts were worried; the files were classified.

 

“They immediately came to my office,” Kaspersky recalled, “and they told me that they have a problem.”

According to him, there was no hesitation about what to do with the cache.

 

“It must be deleted,” Kaspersky says he told them.

 

The incident, recounted by Kaspersky during a brief telephone interview on Monday and supplemented by a preliminary timeline provided by company officials, could not be immediately corroborated. But it’s the first public acknowledgement of a story that has been building for the past three weeks — that Kaspersky’s popular anti-virus program uploaded powerful digital espionage tools belonging to the NSA and sent them to servers in Moscow.

 

The account provides new perspective on the U.S. government’s recent move to blacklist Kaspersky from federal computer networks, even if it still leaves important questions unanswered.

 

To hear Kaspersky tell it, the incident was an accident borne of carelessness.

 

Kaspersky was already on the trail of the Equation Group when one of its customers in the United States — Kaspersky referred to them as a “malware developer” — ran at least two anti-virus scans on their home computer after it was infected by a pirated copy of Microsoft Office 2013, according to Kaspersky’s timeline. That triggered an alert for Equation Group files hidden in a compressed archive which was spirited to Moscow for analysis.

 

Kaspersky’s story at least partially matches accounts published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. All three publications recently reported that someone at the NSA’s elite hacking unit lost control of some of the agency’s powerful surveillance tools after they brought their work home with them, leaving what should have been closely guarded code on a personal computer running Kaspersky’s anti-virus software.

 

But information security experts reading the bits of information dropped by anonymous government officials are still puzzling at whether Kaspersky is suspected of deliberately hunting for confidential data or was merely doing its job by sniffing out suspicious files.

 

Much of the ambiguity is down to the nature of modern anti-virus software, which routinely submits rogue files back to company servers for analysis. The software can easily be quietly tweaked to scoop up other files too: perhaps classified documents belonging to a foreign rival’s government, for example.

Concerns have been fanned by increasingly explicit warnings from U.S. government officials after tensions with Russia escalated in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.

 

Kaspersky denied any inappropriate link to the Russian government, and said in his interview that any classified documents inadvertently swept up by his software would be destroyed on discovery.

 

“If we see confidential or classified information, it will be immediately deleted and that was exactly [what happened in] this case,” he said, adding that the order had since been written into company policy.

 

An AP request for a copy of that policy wasn’t immediately granted.

 

Kaspersky’s account still has some gaps. How did the analysts know, for example, that the data was classified? And why not alert American authorities to what happened? Several reports alleged that the U.S. learned that Kaspersky had acquired the NSA’s tools via an Israeli spying operation.

 

Kaspersky declined to say whether he had ever alerted U.S. authorities to the incident.

 

“Do you really think that I want to see in the news that I tried to contact the NSA to report this case?” he said at one point. “Definitely I don’t want to see that in the news.”

 

So did he alert the NSA to the incident or not?

 

“I’m afraid I can’t answer the question,” he said.

 

Even if some questions linger, Kaspersky’s explanation sounds plausible, said Jake Williams, a former NSA analyst and the founder of Augusta, Georgia-based Rendition InfoSec. He noted that Kaspersky was pitching itself at the time to government clients in the United States and may not have wanted the risk of having classified documents on its network.

 

“It makes sense that they pulled those up and looked at the classification marking and then deleted them,” said Williams. “I can see where it’s so toxic you may not want it on your systems.”

 

As for the insinuation that someone at the NSA not only walked highly classified software out of the building but put it on a computer running a bootleg version of Office, Williams called it “absolutely wild.”

 

“It’s hard to imagine a worse PR nightmare for the NSA,” he said.
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You Own It: New Zealand Party Told to Pay for Eminem Rip-Off

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

A New Zealand judge said Eminem’s lyrics “You own it, you better never let it go” turned out to be prophetic after ruling a political party breached copyright by using a song similar to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in its campaign ads.

High Court Judge Helen Cull on Wednesday ordered the conservative National Party to pay the Detroit rapper’s publisher 600,000 New Zealand dollars ($415,000) plus interest.

The case earlier featured odd moments such as gowned lawyers listening studiously to profanity-laced rap and Eminem collaborator Jeff Bass flying in from Detroit to play the song’s distinctive opening riff, which he wrote.

“We think it’s a very strong judgment, and a cautionary tale for people who make or use sound-alikes around the world,” said Adam Simpson, a Sydney-based lawyer who represented Eminem publisher Eight Mile Style.

“We hope that we see more original music in advertising as a result, and that writers get properly acknowledged and rewarded for their hard work.”

Speaking by phone from Detroit, Eight Mile Style publisher Joel Martin said he’d been infuriated during the trial by the defense’s absurd contention that “Lose Yourself” wasn’t original because it used the same chords as other songs.

“They could have said anything but question its originality,” he said.

Martin said he hadn’t yet discussed the ruling with Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers III, but was glad the rapper hadn’t been needed to travel to New Zealand “to watch the paint dry in the court room.”

National Party President Peter Goodfellow said in statement he was disappointed with the ruling. He said the party purchased the music in good faith from an Australia-based library that had bought it from a U.S. supplier.

He said the party was considering its next steps and had already lodged a claim against the suppliers and licensors of the sound-alike track.

The National Party ran a television ad 186 times that used the song “Eminem Esque” during its successful 2014 election campaign before pulling the ad off the air.

In her 132-page ruling, Cull said “Eminem Esque” sounded like a copy and was a copy, reproducing the essence of “Lose Yourself.” She said it was no coincidence the composer of “Eminem Esque” had the music to the original in front of him when he wrote his song.

The judge based the amount of the award on a hypothetical license fee that the party might have paid to use the song. She noted that Eight Mile Style rarely grants permission to use “Lose Yourself” in advertising.

Cull stopped short of awarding additional damages, saying the party had only used the song after receiving professional advice that it could do so, and hadn’t acted recklessly. She has yet to rule on who will pay the hefty legal costs.

The National Party was ridiculed back in 2014 when the case was first filed and lawmaker Steven Joyce defended using the song, an action he said was “pretty legal.”

“Pretty legal? That’s not a concept that exists. That’s like being sort-of dead,” TV show host John Oliver later joked on “Last Week Tonight.”

The ruling comes at a difficult time for the conservative party, which just lost the 2017 election to a coalition headed by the liberal Labor Party.
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Online Resources Aid Female Candidates

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Only about 1 in 5 politicians in the US is female, even though women make up just over half of the US population. With many saying 2018 could be “The Year of the Woman” in American politics, new tools have become available for women running for office. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti shows us some high-tech and social media sites geared toward female candidates.
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A Look Back At America’s Decades-Long War On Drugs

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The United States is suffering through an unprecedented, deadly wave of opioid and prescription drug overdoses. The drug crisis comes nearly 50 years after the government declared a “War on Drugs.” VOA’s Chris Simkins looks back at the War on Drugs and how experts say mistakes of the past cannot be repeated in this new battle against opioid drug abuse.
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