Day: April 17, 2018

Post-Weinstein, Film Festivals Aim for Gender Parity

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Asia Argento said he raped her during the Cannes Film Festival. Mira Sorvino said he chased her around a hotel room at the Toronto International Film Festival. Rose McGowan’s encounter happened at the Sundance Film Festival. 

Just as Harvey Weinstein did at the Oscars, the disgraced movie mogul lorded over the festival world, which provided the glitzy, champagne-flowing setting for many of his alleged crimes. And in the aftermath of Hollywood’s sexual harassment scandals, film festivals have done some soul searching.

Codes of conduct have been rewritten, selection processes have been re-examined and, in many cases, gender equality efforts have been redoubled.

When the curtain goes up on the 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, the festival will boast more female filmmakers than ever before. After last year accounting for a third of the slate, films directed by women make up 46 percent at this year’s festival.

Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the festival and chief executive of Tribeca Enterprises, particularly wanted to launch this year’s festival with the premiere of a film directed by a woman, about a woman. Lisa Dapolito’s Love, Gilda, about the comedienne Gilda Radner, will kick things off Wednesday at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The first episode of Liz Garbus’ Showtime documentary series The Fourth Estate, about The New York Times covering the first year of the Trump administration, will close the festival. On April 28, the festival will hold a day’s worth of conversations with Time’s Up, including Ashley Judd and Julianne Moore, to benefit the legal defense fund and gender equality initiative.

‘Fairly easy’ results

“For us it was, on one hand, business as usual,” said Rosenthal, pointing to previous efforts Tribeca has made to promote female filmmakers, like its Nora Ephron Award. “But we tasked ourselves early on with: Can you get to 50-50? Can we have 50 percent women filmmakers at the festival? We got to 46. I would say that it was fairly easy for us. Those pictures would probably have been in the festival without that kind of mandate.”

Efforts to improve the movie business’ record on gender equality have been ongoing at many, though not all, major film festivals in recent years. Pursuing parity has seemed at times like an arms race, with various festivals touting their male-to-female ratios. The festival world is far ahead of the industry (only eight of last year’s top 100 films at the box office were directed by women) and the Academy Awards (where Greta Gerwig became just the fifth woman ever nominated for best director this year).

Thirty-seven percent of the 122 features at this year’s Sundance were directed by women, including Seeing Allred, about women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred. For the first time, all four of the festival’s directing prizes went to female filmmakers. The festival’s top prize, the Grand Jury Prize, went to Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

At SXSW in March, eight of the 10 films in the narrative competition were directed by women. At last fall’s Toronto film festival, one third of entries were made by female filmmakers and a five-year, $3 million campaign dubbed “Share Her Journey” was launched to support female filmmakers.

Hot Docs

The Hot Docs Festival, a well-regarded documentary festival held annually in Toronto, reached gender parity for the first time this year. A year after a program in which 48 percent of the projects were directed by females, this year’s 246 films and 16 interdisciplinary projects are 50/50 on gender. The festival on Tuesday also added the premiere of Barry Avrich’s Weinstein documentary The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret.

Shane Smith, director of programming at Hot Docs, which begins April 26, said reflecting the diversity and the demands of the audience is imperative for “cultural gatekeepers” like film festivals.

“We were hoping we could get to gender parity,” said Smith. “Once we started screening the work that was coming in, and the quality of the films and the stories that were being told by female filmmakers, we saw that it was a goal that was achievable this year,” Smith said. “We weren’t going to force this to happen if the work wasn’t there. But given the strides that have happened in the last few years, it was easy, actually.”

The Cannes Film Festival, which opens May 8, has applied a different strategy. Its artistic director, Thierry Fremaux, has regularly responded to complaints about the number of female filmmakers selected for its prestigious Palme d’Or competition by saying it’s not a festival’s place to consider anything but a submission’s merit — that progress can only come further up the pipeline at studios and production companies.

Critics say Cannes’ track record (only one female filmmaker, Jane Campion, has ever won the Palme) speaks for itself. Fremaux last week announced Cannes’ main slate with three female filmmakers — Nadine Labaki, Alice Rohrwacher and Eva Husson — disappointing some who thought Cannes might adapt in the age of #MeToo.

“The question of a quota in no case concerns the artistic selection of a festival. Films are chosen for their quality,” Fremaux said at a news conference last week. “There will never be a selection made by positive discrimination.”

Weinstein, who has denied allegations of sexual assault, was for years a dominant wheeler-and-dealer at Cannes. His fall was felt acutely there. “The Cannes Film Festival will never be the same again,” said Fremaux, who vowed to re-examine the festival’s own gender parity in salaries and jury selections.

Backlash at Austin

Other festivals have had even tougher questions to answer. Last September’s Fantastic Fest, the Austin-based genre film festival, caused a backlash after it was revealed that the festival’s host, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, had rehired blogger Devin Faraci a year after he stepped down following an accusation of sexual assault. Fox Searchlight pulled Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri from the festival.

Weinstein had less of a connection with the Tribeca festival, but the scandal still hit close to home. The Weinstein Co. is based in the same Tribeca building as the Tribeca Enterprises headquarters. “It was: ‘Who’s the stranger next door?’ ” said Rosenthal, Robert De Niro’s longtime producing partner.

But as a Time’s Up member herself, Rosenthal is hopeful that the industry is waking up to overdue change. Festivals don’t have direct sway over what gets made and what sells, but they can play a vital role in showcasing filmmaking talent and sparking conversation.

“I’ve had a women’s lunch for 15 years at the festival,” said Rosenthal. “Now, it’s going to be very crowded.”
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Man With 3 Faces: Frenchman Gets 2nd Face Transplant

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

In a medical first, a French surgeon says he has performed a second face transplant on the same patient — who is now doing well and even spent a recent weekend in Brittany.

Dr. Laurent Lantieri of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris first transplanted a new face onto Jerome Hamon in 2010, when Hamon was in his mid-30s. But after getting ill in 2015, Hamon was given drugs that interfered with the anti-rejection medicines he was taking for his face transplant.

Last November, the tissue in his transplanted face began to die, leading Lantieri to remove it.

That left Hamon without a face, a condition that Lantieri described as “the walking dead.” Hamon had no eyelids, no ears, no skin and could not speak or eat. He had limited hearing and could express himself only by turning his head slightly, in addition to writing a little.

“If you have no skin, you have infections,” Lantieri told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “We were very concerned about the possibility of a new rejection.”

In January, when a second face donor for Hamon became available, Lantieri and his team performed a second face transplant. But before undergoing the second transplant, doctors had to replace all of the blood in Hamon’s body in a monthlong procedure to eliminate some potentially worrisome antibodies from previous treatments.

“For a man who went through all this, which is like going through a nuclear war, he’s doing fine,” Lantieri said. He added that Hamon is now being monitored like any other face transplant patient.

Hamon’s first face was donated by a 60-year-old. With his second transplanted face, Hamon said he managed to drop a few decades.

“I’m 43. The donor was 22. So I’ve become 20 years younger,” Hamon joked on French television Tuesday.

‘Hope’ for other patients

Other doctors applauded the French team’s efforts and said the techniques could be used to help critically ill patients with few options.

“The fact that Professor Lantieri was able to save this patient gives us hope that other patients can have a backup surgery if necessary,” said Dr. Frank Papay of the Cleveland Clinic. He said the techniques being developed by Lantieri and others could help doctors achieve what he called “the holy grail” of transplant medicine: How to allow patients to tolerate tissue transplants from others.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac of Harvard University, who has done face transplants in the U.S., said similar procedures would ultimately become more common, with rising numbers of patients.

“The more we see what’s happening with [face transplant] patients, the more we have to accept that chronic rejection is a reality,” Pomahac said. “Face transplants will become essentially non-functional, distorted and that may be a good time to consider re-transplanting.”

He said it’s still unknown how long face transplants might last, but guessed they might be similar to kidneys, which generally last about 10 to 15 years.

“Maybe some patients will get lucky and their faces will last longer. But it will probably be more common that some will have to be replaced,” he said, noting there are still many unknowns about when chronic rejection might occur.

Lantieri said he and his team would soon publish their findings in a medical journal and that he hoped cases like Hamon would remain the exception.

“The other patients I’m following, some have had some alteration of their transplant over time, but they are doing fine,” he said. “I hope not to do any future transplants like this.”
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Cambridge Analytica ex-CEO Refuses to Testify in UK

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him.

“There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue a formal summons for him to appear on a named day in the very near future.”

Nix gave evidence to the committee in February, but was recalled after former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie sparked a global debate over electronic privacy when he alleged the company used data from millions of Facebook accounts to help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Wylie worked on Cambridge Analytica’s “information operations” in 2014 and 2015.

Wylie has also said the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union had access to the Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica has previously said that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company also says it did no paid or unpaid work on the Brexit campaign. The company did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday that it had written to Nix to “invite him” to be interviewed by investigators. The office is investigating Facebook and 30 other organizations over their use of data and analytics.

“Our investigation is looking at whether criminal and civil offences have been committed under the Data Protection Act,” the office said in a statement.

Nix’s refusal to appear comes as the seriousness of the British inquiry becomes more evident.

Facebook has said it directed Cambridge Analytica to delete all of the data harvested from user accounts as soon as it learned of the problem.

But former Cambridge Analytica business development director Brittany Kaiser testified Tuesday that the U.S. tech giant didn’t really try to verify Cambridge Analytica’s assurances that it had done so.

“I find it incredibly irresponsible that a company with as much money as Facebook … had no due diligence mechanisms in place for protecting the data of U.K. citizens, U.S. citizens or their users in general,” she said.

Kaiser suggested that the number of individuals whose Facebook data was misused could be far higher than the 87 million acknowledged by the Silicon Valley giant.

In an atmosphere where data abuse was rife, Kaiser told lawmakers she believed the leadership of the Leave.EU campaign had combined data from members of the U.K. Independence Party and customers from two insurance companies, Eldon Insurance and GoSkippy Insurance. The data was then sent the University of Mississippi for analysis.

“If the personal data of U.K. citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU,” she said in written testimony to the committee.

Leave.EU’s communications director, Andy Wigmore, called Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies.”

It is how the data was used that alarms some members of the committee and has captured the attention of the public.

An expert on propaganda told the committee Monday that Cambridge Analytica used techniques developed by the Nazis to help Trump’s presidential campaign, turning Muslims and immigrants into an “artificial enemy” to win support from fearful voters.

University of Essex lecturer Emma Briant, who has for a decade studied the SCL Group – a conglomerate of companies, including Cambridge Analytica – interviewed company founder Nigel Oakes when she was doing research for a book. Oakes compared Trump’s tactics to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in singling out Jews for reprisals.

“Hitler attacked the Jews, because … the people didn’t like the Jews,” he said on tapes of the interview conducted with Briant. “He could just use them to . leverage an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”
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Study: Diamond From the Sky May Have Come From ‘Lost Planet’

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Fragments of a meteorite that fell to Earth about a decade ago provide compelling evidence of a lost planet that once roamed our solar system, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers from Switzerland, France and Germany examined diamonds found inside the Almahata Sitta meteorite and concluded they were most likely formed by a proto-planet at least 4.55 billion years ago.

The diamonds in the meteorite, which crashed in Sudan’s Nubian Desert in October 2008, have tiny crystals inside them that would have required great pressure to form, said one of the study’s co-authors, Philippe Gillet.

“We demonstrate that these large diamonds cannot be the result of a shock but rather of growth that has taken place within a planet,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Switzerland.

Gillet, a planetary scientist at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, said researchers calculated a pressure of 200,000 bar (2.9 million psi) would be needed to form such diamonds, suggesting the mystery planet was as least as big as Mercury, possibly even Mars.

Scientists have long theorized that the early solar system once contained many more planets — some of which were likely little more than a mass of molten magma. One of these embryo planets — dubbed Theia — is believed to have slammed into a young Earth, ejecting a large amount of debris that later formed the moon.

“What we’re claiming here,” said Gillet, “is that we have in our hands a remnant of this first generation of planets that are missing today because they were destroyed or incorporated in a bigger planet.”

Addi Bischoff, a meteorite expert at the University of Muenster, Germany, said the methods used for the study were sound and the conclusion was plausible. But further evidence of sustained high pressure would be expected to be found in the minerals surrounding the diamonds, he said.

Bischoff wasn’t involved in the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.

This story has been corrected to show that the meteorite fragments fell to Earth about a decade ago, not more than a decade ago.
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More Than 100 Parts for NASA’s Orion Capsule to Be 3-D Printed

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

More than 100 parts for U.S. space agency NASA’s deep-space capsule Orion will be made by 3-D printers, using technology that experts say will eventually become key to efforts to send humans to Mars.

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, 3-D printing specialist Stratasys, and engineering firm PADT have developed the parts using new materials that can withstand the extreme temperatures and chemical exposure of deep-space missions, Stratasys said Tuesday.

“In space, for instance, materials will build up a charge. If that was to shock the electronics on a space craft, there could be significant damage,” Scott Sevcik, Vice President Manufacturing Solutions at Stratasys told Reuters.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been used for making prototypes across a range of industries for many years, but is being increasingly eyed for scale production.

The technology can help make light-weight parts made of plastics more quickly and cheaply than traditional assembly lines that require major investments into equipment.

“But even more significant is that we have more freedom with the design … parts can look more organic, more skeletal,” Sevcik said.

Stratasys’ partner Lockheed Martin said the use of 3-D printing on the Orion project would also pay off at other parts of its business.

“We look to apply benefits across our programs — missile defense, satellites, planetary probes, especially as we create more and more common products,” said Brian Kaplun, additive manufacturing manager at Lockheed Martin Space.

Orion is part of NASA’s follow-up program to the now-retired space shuttles that will allow astronauts to travel beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 260 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The agency’s European counterpart, ESA, has suggested that moon rock and Mars dust could be used to 3-D print structures and tools, which could significantly reduce the cost of future space missions because less material would need to be brought along from Earth.
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IMF: World Economy Expands Next 2 Years; Growth Fades After 2020

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

International Monetary Fund experts say the global economy will continue growing well for the next two years, but expect expansion to slow after 2020.

IMF research director Maurice Obstfeld said Tuesday fading trade could hurt growth and, “The first shots in a potential trade war have now been fired.” He repeated a warning the international rules that nurtured “unprecedented” economic growth after World War II are at risk of being “torn apart.”

Many economists worry that Trump administration efforts to slap tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners are sparking retaliatory taxes on U.S.-made products that raise the cost of trading and hurt demand, stifling economic growth. Administration officials disagree, and insist their trade and tax policies will boost growth and not spark soaring deficits.

Trade squabbles are a key issue this week as top economic officials and experts gather from 189 nations in Washington for meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

Obstfeld and his colleagues are also worried that efforts to stimulate economic recovery from the 2008 recession, such as low interest rates and massive purchases of bonds, are now ending. They put the current global growth rate at 2.9 percent, and say this moment of good growth is the time to make changes in tax and other policies that will help economies weather inevitable future downturns.

Growth in advanced economies like the United States is hampered by an aging population with larger numbers of people retiring and leaving the workforce. Slow growth in productivity and high levels of government and private debt are also threats to future growth.

The IMF predicts the world’s second-largest economy, China, will expand at a 6.6 percent rate this year and 6.4 percent in 2019. The global lender says China will continue changing its economic focus from investment and manufacturing toward consumption and services, but warns that a rising debt clouds the nation’s medium-term outlook.

 
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Ramaphosa Team to Seek $100B Investment for South Africa

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a team of business and finance experts on Monday to hunt the globe for $100 billion in investment to boost the ailing economy.

The team of economic envoys includes ex-finance minister Trevor Manuel as well as a former top banker.

Ramaphosa became president in February after winning the leadership of the ruling African National Congress last year on promises to revive the economy and crack down on corruption.

Monday’s appointments to the team also include economist Trudi Makhaya, who becomes special economic adviser to the president, former Treasury Director General Lungisa Fuzile, ex-Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and former Standard Bank chief executive Jacko Maree.

“These are people with valuable experience in the world of business, investment and finance and they have extensive networks across a number of major markets,” said Ramaphosa before leaving Johannesburg for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London.

Ramaphosa said the envoys would travel to Europe, Asia and across Africa to build an “investment book” to help plug a substantial shortfall of foreign and local direct investment.

“We are modest because we want to over-achieve,” Ramaphosa said, explaining why the government was targeting $100 billion rather than a much larger sum.

Political and policy uncertainty damaged investment and business confidence during nine-year presidency of Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, when South Africa’s credit rating was slashed to junk by two of the top three agencies and economic growth slowed to a crawl.

The tide has begun to turn under Ramaphosa, with Moody’s last month keeping the country at investment grade and changing the outlook to stable from negative.

The economic outlook has also improved, with the World Bank raising its 2018 growth forecast to 1.4 percent this month from 1.1 percent forecast in September, a touch below the Treasury’s projection of 1.5 percent.

Ramaphosa has sacked or demoted a number of ministers allied to his scandal-ridden predecessor, and reinstated Nhlanhla Nene as finance Minister after Zuma fired him in 2015.
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Russia’s Drive to Replace Western Power Technology Hits Snag

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Russia’s drive to build a large power-generating turbine to lessen its dependence on Western technology has suffered a major set-back after a prototype broke beyond repair, two sources familiar with the project told

Reuters.

In the past few years Russia has imported the large-capacity gas turbines required to run modern power stations from firms such as Siemens, GE and Alstom.

After Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over the conflict with Ukraine four years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged officials to replace imported technology with home-grown substitutes in energy, software, aerospace and medicine.

The mishap with the 110 Megawatt turbine, a capacity large enough to power a sizeable town, underlines the technical challenges.

Testing was underway on a prototype 110 MW turbine at the Saturn engineering plant in Rybinsk, central Russia, in December last year according to one of the two sources, who are both in the energy sector and familiar with the results of the tests.

“The turbine fell apart,” said the first source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “They tried to repair it in time for March, but they did not manage it.”

March was the target date for completion of tests on the turbine. Putin, in power since 1999, won a second consecutive term in an election on March 18.

The first source, and a second source, both said it was not possible to rebuild the prototype turbine and the project would have to start again with new equipment.

“The turbine broke up,” said the second source, who requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media. “There’s no turbine, that’s it.”

“Not fatal”

Without any home-grown equivalents, Russia should in most cases still be able to buy turbines from Western suppliers, but U.S. and European Union sanctions have made it harder to import Western power technology under certain circumstances.

Last year Russia clandestinely delivered turbines made by Siemens to a power station in Crimea, which is subject to sanctions, and the European Union retaliated by imposing extra sanctions on officials and companies involved in the operation.

Setbacks to the domestic turbine program could hamper the modernization of power generation if growing tensions with Western states result in tighter sanctions since Russia’s modernisation plan is focused on using gas turbines.

The technical hitch also carries a potential political cost: Putin has publicly trumpeted progress in replacing Western technology imports, so any failures will jar with the picture of success he has painted.

The new turbine is being developed by a consortium of ODK, a unit of state-owned conglomerate Rostec that owns the Saturn factory where the testing was being conducted, Russian state technology firm RUSNANO, and state energy firm InterRAO.

In a statement, ODK said one of the mechanisms of the prototype turbine had malfunctioned. It said that would delay work on the project, but could be fixed. “It is not fatal for the project.” It said set-backs were to be expected since this

was a pioneering project for Russia.

RUSNANO acknowledged there had been an accident but gave no details. It said it remained committed to the turbine project and expects it will be completed. InterRAO declined to comment.

Russia’s Trade and Industry Ministry, which oversees the machine-building sector, declined to comment and referred questions to Rostec.

Western sanctions

Large capacity gas turbines have been in use around the world for years but their construction is tricky to perfect.

Because they operate at extremely high speeds and high temperatures, they need to be engineered to very precise standards and they use sophisticated electronic control systems to make sure that they operate efficiently.

For many years Russia made no major investment in developing the technology because it was able to import the turbines or the know-how to produce them. A scheme started in the 1990s to develop a large-capacity turbine produced prototypes but they did not go into production.

At a meeting in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg in May last year, chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said a 110 MW turbine had been developed and testing should be completed by March 2018.

“This is the first Russian produced powerful machine with 100-percent domestic manufacture and it will, of course, help us to completely substitute purchases of foreign equipment of this capacity,” Novak told the meeting. His ministry did not respond to questions on Tuesday about the set-back.
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Wall Street Rises as Strong Netflix, Goldman Earnings Impress

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Wall Street indexes rose on Tuesday as strong earnings from Netflix, Goldman Sachs and healthcare companies boosted optimism over what is expected to be the strongest earnings season in seven years.

Netflix shares surged 6.2 percent after the video-streaming pioneer smashed analysts’ quarterly subscriber estimates, helped by a blitz of original content.

Goldman Sachs rose 0.6 percent after the investment bank’s quarterly profit blew past Wall Street’s expectations, powered by a surge in trading revenue and higher fees from debt and equity underwriting.

“The reports were pretty good and should help the overall market,” said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist at SlateStone Wealth in New York.

“As you go forward, financials seem to be one of the logical places to be invested in, especially in a rising interest rate environment. It’s the matter of markets finally having attention drawn away from the political [news].”

Analysts expect profit at the S&P 500 companies to rise 18.6 percent in the first quarter, the biggest increase in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters data.

At 9:41 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.92 percent at 24,799.54. The S&P 500 gained 0.67 percent to 2,695.89 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.92 percent to 7,222.07.

Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, led by a 1.3 percent gain in the consumer discretionary index.

UnitedHealth jumped nearly 5 percent after the largest U.S. health insurer raised its earnings forecast and posted results that beat Wall Street estimates.

J&J fell 0.4 percent, reversing course from premarket after the company reported a better-than-expected profit and raised its full-year sales forecast.

The earnings season has helped take away some focus from geopolitical and trade concerns, which have roiled the markets in recent months.

Shares of automakers Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Ford rose between 0.2 percent and 3 percent after China said it was scrapping a limit on foreign ownership of automotive ventures.

A U.S.-led attack on Syria over the weekend has so far not prompted any military retaliation from Russia, easing fears over the conflict escalating.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 2.46-to-1 ratio and on the Nasdaq, for a 2.25-to-1 ratio.
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US Senator Sanders Introducing Bill Targeting Opioid Manufacturers

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would fine opioid drug manufacturers for deceptive marketing and implement the harshest penalties yet on drugmakers found responsible for contributing to the drug epidemic.

Sanders, an independent who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, said the bill aimed to hold opioid manufacturers accountable for their role in the epidemic and force them to help pay for the crisis, which the White House

Council of Economic Advisers has estimated cost more than $500 billion in 2015.

The legislation, called the Opioid Crisis Accountability Act of 2018, would ban marketing that falsely suggests an opioid does not have addictive qualities or risks and would fine companies that are found liable for contributing to the epidemic $7.8 billion.

Companies that violate the marketing provision would be fined 25 percent of the profits from their opioid products.

The legislation would also create criminal liability for top executives of pharmaceutical companies that are found to have contributed to the epidemic.

“At a time when local, state and federal government are spending many billions of dollars a year, those people will be held accountable and asked to contribute to help us address the crisis,” Sanders said in an interview. “It shouldn’t just be the taxpayer that has to pay for the damage that they did.”

The bill does not yet have any co-sponsors, and with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, it is unlikely to move forward anytime soon.

More than 63,600 people died because of drug overdoses in 2016, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Congress has held several hearings on the opioid crisis in recent months and recently appropriated billions of dollars to address the epidemic. It is considering dozens of bills to address the crisis, but the legislation so far has been fairly limited in scope, including bills that address government policies and authorize the creation of grant programs.

Several states, including Ohio and Kentucky —  among the hardest hit by drug addiction — have filed lawsuits against opioid manufacturers for fueling the epidemic.

“The real legal struggles have taken place at the state level,” Sanders said. “It seems to me that it’s appropriate to take that fight… here to the federal government.”

 
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China Confused About Trump Currency Manipulation Charges

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

China has responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s charges China and Russia are manipulating the value of their currencies.

Monday, Trump tweeted, “Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates. Not acceptable!”

His charge came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department declined to label China and Russia as currency manipulators in its latest report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday the messages coming from the United States are confusing, and China will continue to promote the reform of its currency exchange rate mechanism.

Trump said Russia and China are devaluing their currencies amid a possible new round of sanctions against Russia and a simmering trade war with China.

In general, when a country artificially devalues its currency, its exports become cheaper and more competitive in the global marketplace.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration is closely watching China’s currency practices. “That’s something that the Treasury Department is watching very closely and we’re continuing to monitor it,” she said Monday.

In a semiannual report titled “Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States” released Friday, the Treasury Department did not designate China as a currency manipulator, but put it as one of the six countries on a monitoring list. The other five countries on the list are Japan, Korea, India, Germany, and Switzerland. Russia is not on the monitoring list.

The Chinese currency, the Renminbi, has appreciated about three percent against the dollar since the beginning of this year, after strengthening by six percent in 2017.

In the past three years, the Federal Reserve raised interest rate six times to a range between 1.5 percent and 1.75 percent, and says it expects to raise the rate two or three more times this year.

Usually, when a country raises its interest rates, the value of its currency rises, making its exports more expensive and less competitive. However, higher U.S. interest rates have not raised the value of the dollar.
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Senegal Acrobats Defy Cultural Norms to Pursue Circus Passions

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Senegal has a small but ambitious circus. It began as a local association offering arts and acrobatics workshops to disadvantaged kids from poor neighborhoods around the capital. The circus troupe has grown from there and now performs abroad, though some of the acrobats continue to face resistance from their families. Chika Oduah reports for VOA from Dakar.
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FIFA Charges World Cup Host Russia for Fan Racism

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

FIFA charged World Cup host Russia with fan racism Tuesday, less than two months before the tournament begins.

Monkey chants were aimed at black French players, including Paul Pogba, during France’s 3-1 friendly win over Russia in St. Petersburg last month.

“Disciplinary proceedings have been opened against the Russian Football Union for this incident,” FIFA said.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is overseeing World Cup preparations, told state news agencies Tuesday that Russia was cracking down on racist fans.

“We’ll do anything so there are no discrimination cases,” he said. “But if that happens … there should be zero tolerance for these people.”

The RFU said it is cooperating with the FIFA investigation.

“A request has been made to the Interior Ministry to identify several persons who were involved in these incidents,” RFU anti-discrimination officer Alexei Smertin was quoted as saying Monday by the Tass news agency. “If these people’s guilt is proven, then there’s a high likelihood they won’t be allowed to attend World Cup and Russian league games.”

Russia was previously charged with racist behavior by its fans at the last two European Championships. On both occasions, the RFU paid a fine.

It’s the third racism case this season at St. Petersburg Stadium, which will host a World Cup semifinal match. Zenit St. Petersburg has twice faced UEFA charges for racism by its fans in Europa League games.

Zenit fans flew a banner praising convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic when playing a Macedonian club in November and are accused of using a racially charged term to mock an injured black player in a game against Leipzig. The second case is due to be heard by UEFA on May 31, two weeks before the World Cup begins.
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What Does It Take to Make Computer Science Attractive to Girls?

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

In the United States less than 18 percent of the women who graduate from college major in computer science. The shortage of females with computer skills comes at a time when there are a lot of jobs available in computer science, a field that pays better than most. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee looks at the cultural and other reasons for the shortage of women in this important area — and what one university in Los Angeles is doing to inspire girls.
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Top EU Court: Poland Broke Law by Logging in Pristine Forest

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The European Union’s top court has ruled that Poland violated environmental laws with its massive logging of trees in one of Europe’s last pristine forests.

The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice said that, in increasing logging in the Bialowieza Forest, Poland failed to fulfil its obligations to protect natural sites of special importance.

Poland had argued that felling the trees was necessary to fight the spread of bark beetle infestation.

Environmentalists say the large-scale felling of trees in Bialowieza was destroying rare animal habitats and plants, in violation of regulations. They held protests and brought the case before the court last year.

Poland has since replaced its environment minister and stopped the logging. Warsaw has said it will respect the EU court’s ruling. 

 
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Toyota to Launch ‘Talking’ Vehicles in US in 2021

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start selling U.S. vehicles that can talk to each other using short-range wireless technology in 2021, the Japanese automaker said on Monday, potentially preventing thousands of accidents annually.

The U.S. Transportation Department must decide whether to adopt a pending proposal that would require all future vehicles to have the advanced technology.

Toyota hopes to adopt the dedicated short-range communications systems in the United States across most of its lineup by the mid-2020s. Toyota said it hopes that by announcing its plans, other automakers will follow suit.

The Obama administration in December 2016 proposed requiring the technology and giving automakers at least four years to comply. The proposal requires automakers to ensure all vehicles “speak the same language through a standard technology.”

Automakers were granted a block of spectrum in 1999 in the 5.9 GHz band for “vehicle-to-vehicle” and “vehicle to infrastructure” communications and have studied the technology for more than a decade, but it has gone largely unused. Some in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission think it should be opened to other uses.

In 2017, General Motors Co began offering vehicle-to-vehicle technologies on its Cadillac CTS model, but it is currently the only commercially available vehicle with the system.

Talking vehicles, which have been tested in pilot projects and by U.S. carmakers for more than a decade, use dedicated short-range communications to transmit data up to 300 meters, including location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles.

The data is broadcast up to 10 times per second to nearby vehicles, which can identify risks and provide warnings to avoid imminent crashes, especially at intersections.

Toyota has deployed the technology in Japan to more than 100,000 vehicles since 2015.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said last year the regulation could eventually cost between $135 and $300 per new vehicle, or up to $5 billion annually but could prevent up to 600,000 crashes and reduce costs by $71 billion annually when fully deployed. 

NHTSA said last year it has “not made any final decision” on requiring the technology, but no decision is expected before December.

Last year, major automakers, state regulators and others urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to finalize standards for the technology and protect the spectrum that has been reserved, saying there is a need to expand deployment and uses of the traffic safety technology.
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US Bans American Companies from Selling to Chinese Phone Maker ZTE

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned American companies from selling components to Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp for seven years after breaking an agreement reached after it was caught illegally shipping goods to Iran, U.S. officials said Monday.

The U.S. action, first reported by Reuters, could be devastating to ZTE since American companies are estimated to provide 25 percent to 30 percent of the components used in ZTE’s equipment, which includes smartphones and gear to build telecommunications networks.

The ban is the result of ZTE’s failure to comply with an agreement with the U.S. government after it pleaded guilty last year in federal court in Texas to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by illegally shipping U.S. goods and technology to Iran, the Commerce Department said.

The Chinese company, which sells smartphones in the United States, paid $890 million in fines and penalties, with an additional penalty of $300 million that could be imposed.

“If the company is not able to resolve it, they may very well be put out of business by this. Many banks and companies even outside the U.S. are not going to want to deal with them,” said Eric Hirschhorn, a former U.S. undersecretary of commerce who was heavily involved in the case.

As part of the agreement, Shenzhen-based ZTE Corp promised to dismiss four senior employees and discipline 35 others by either reducing their bonuses or reprimanding them, senior Commerce Department officials told Reuters. But the Chinese company admitted in March that while it had fired the four senior employees, it had not disciplined or reduced bonuses to the 35 others.

ZTE officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Commerce Department order quoted a ZTE official’s letter admitting it “had not executed in full” some disciplinary measures and that there were “inaccuracies” in a 2017 letter.

But, the Commerce order said, ZTE “argued that it would have been irrational for ZTE to knowingly or intentionally mislead the U.S. government in light of the seriousness of the suspended sanctions.”

‘Vigilant against Chinese threats’

Under terms of the ban, U.S. companies cannot export prohibited goods, such as chip sets, directly to ZTE or via another country, beginning immediately.

Shares of big U.S. ZTE suppliers fell sharply on the Commerce ban. Optical networking equipment maker Acacia Communications, which got 30 percent of its total 2017 revenue from ZTE, tumbled 35 percent, hitting a near two-year low. Acacia said it was suspending affected transactions and assessing the impact.

Shares of optical component companies including Lumentum Holdings fell 8.9 percent and Finisar dropped 4 percent. Oclaro, which got 18 percent of its fiscal 2017 revenue from ZTE, lost 14.1 percent.

ZTE “provided information back to us basically admitting that they had made these false statements,” said a senior department official. “That was in response to the U.S. asking for the information.”

The ban on supplying ZTE comes two months after two Republican senators introduced legislation to block the U.S. government from buying or leasing telecommunications equipment from ZTE or its Chinese rival Huawei Technologies, citing concern the companies would use their access to spy on U.S. officials.

“China does not play by our rules, and we must be vigilant against Chinese threats to both our economic security and national security,” said Republican Representative Robert Pittenger after the Commerce announcement. Pittenger is sponsoring legislation that would strengthen the U.S. national security review process for foreign investments.

Meanwhile, Britain’s main cybersecurity agency said Monday it has written to organizations in the U.K.’s telecommunications sector warning about using services or equipment from ZTE.

‘Devastating’

Douglas Jacobson, an exports control lawyer who represents suppliers to ZTE, called the ban highly unusual and said it would severely affect the company.

“This will be devastating to the company, given their reliance on U.S. products and software,” said Jacobson. “It’s certainly going to make it very difficult for them to produce and will have a potentially significant short- and long-term negative impact on the company.”

ZTE has sold handset devices to U.S. mobile carriers AT&T, T-Mobile US and Sprint. It has relied on U.S. companies including Qualcomm, Microsoft and Intel for some components.

Shares of Taiwan’s MediaTek, which sells smartphone chips and competes with Qualcomm, were not trading when the announcement was made.

The U.S. action against ZTE is likely to further exacerbate current tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade.

After the U.S. placed export restrictions on ZTE in 2016 for Iran sanctions violations, China’s Ministry of Commerce and Foreign Ministry criticized the decision.

A five-year federal investigation found last year that ZTE had conspired to evade U.S. embargos by buying U.S. components, incorporating them into ZTE equipment and illegally shipping them to Iran.

ZTE, which devised elaborate schemes to hide the illegal activity, agreed to plead guilty after the Commerce Department took actions that threatened to cut off its global supply chain.

The U.S. government had allowed the company continued access to the U.S. market under the 2017 agreement.

The new restrictions stem from a Jan. 16 report by a U.S. monitor appointed by a federal judge in Texas who accepted the guilty plea in March 2017. Although Commerce Department officials would not discuss the report, they said the department followed up in February.

The U.S. government’s investigation into sanctions violations by ZTE followed reports by Reuters in 2012 that the company had signed contracts to ship millions of dollars’ worth of hardware and software from some of the best-known U.S. technology companies to Iran’s largest telecoms carrier.
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Kendrick Lamar Becomes First Rapper to Win Pulitzer

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

California rapper Kendrick Lamar on Monday became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, one of the most prestigious arts awards in the United States.

Lamar, 30, won the Pulitzer for his 2017 album “DAMN.” and was also the first music winner in the 100-year history of the Pulitzers to come from outside of the world of classical or jazz.

Rap officially surpassed rock in 2017 as the biggest music genre in the United States.

Lamar’s fusion of jazz, poetry and blues with social themes and love songs has made him one of the most innovative rappers of his generation.

The Pulitzer board on Monday hailed “DAMN.,” which was released in April 2017, as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”

Previous Pulitzer music winners include jazz musicians Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman.

“DAMN.,” Lamar’s fourth album deals with religion, love, personal struggles and racial politics. It topped the Billboard 200 album charts for three weeks on its release last year and powered Lamar to five wins at the Grammy Awards in New York in January.

But the album failed to win the top Grammy prize – album of the year – in what was seen as a snub by music industry voters for the rap genre despite its rising popularity.

Only two hip-hop albums have ever won the Grammy for album of the year: Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1999 and Outkast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” in 2004.

Lamar was born and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, the home of hip-hop pioneers NWA, and started making music as a 16-year-old.

He also produced the soundtrack for the 2018 superhero box-office hit film “Black Panther,” and performed the lead single “Pray For Me” with The Weeknd.
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