A new approach for detecting food poisoning is being used to investigate the recent outbreak of E.coli bacteria in romaine lettuce grown in the U.S. state of Arizona. The tainted produce has sickened at least 84 people in 19 states. The new method, used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, relies on genetic sequencing. And as Faiza Elmasry tells us, it has the potential to revolutionize the detection of food poisoning outbreaks. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Month: April 2018
The Arts and Crafts movement began in Britain and flourished in Europe at the turn of the 19th century. It stood for traditional crafts and against mass-produced goods that were popular in the United States at the time. But Americans too joined the movement and established the Roycroft Campus, which continues to represent and support true American arts and crafts. Olga Loginova of VOA’s Russian Service visited the campus in New York state.
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Filmfest DC is celebrating its 32nd year in the nation’s capital, by showcasing 80 films from 45 different countries to a politically savvy international audience. But the festival provides more than just entertainment. Over the years, the festival has become a cultural and economic force for a city known around the world for its bipartisan politics. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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When the 71st Cannes Film Festival opens in France next month, the jury will include a Burundian songwriter and singer who by her own admission, has nothing to do with films.
“It was a big surprise for me. First of all, I have no connection with that world of cinema. I was surprised that they chose me,” Khadja Nin told VOA’s Central Africa Service. “This event is one of the biggest in the world and to be part of that prestigious jury is of course for me a great honor in a way.”
Nin does have great connections to the world of music, having won wide acclaim for albums stretching back to the 1990s. That was likely her ticket to Cannes, where organizers strive to include personalities from the worlds of music and art as well as film.
Nin studied music at an early age, before leaving her home country to go to Europe some 40 years ago. Her albums are a mix of occidental pop music, African and afro-Cuban rhythms.
Criticize Nkurunziza? Maybe.
Although she thinks the festival isn’t the best place to talk about the politics of Burundi, she would not shy away of speaking about it, if an opportunity arose.
“I have to see how it goes. I have no idea what will happen there. It is my first time in Cannes. Of course, I will take any opportunity to talk about my country and people,” she said.
Burundi has been plagued by deadly political violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza successfully sought a disputed third term in 2015. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled the country.
Nin has been an outspoken critic of Nkurunziza’s regime.
“He decided to go for a third term and that is one thing. The second thing is: In Burundi they still kill, they still torture they still rape and that cannot continue,” said Nin.
She says she won’t stop speaking out until the end of the crisis.
“We will sit down the day that stops. That is our mission. We cannot let these people kill our children, rape our sisters and mothers. That is not possible for us,” Nin said.
“This is my goal. Really my goal. It is a full time job for me, at this moment.”
Other jury members
Other 2018 Cannes jury members include Australian actress and producer Cate Blanchett, Chinese actor Chang Chen, American writer, director, producer Ava DuVernay, French director Robert Guédiguian and French actress Léa Seydoux, American actress Kristen Stewart, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve and Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev.
The 71st Festival de Cannes runs from May 8 to 19.
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U.S. officials will not restore federal protections for Yellowstone-area grizzly bears, despite a court ruling that called into question the government’s rationale for turning grizzly management over to states that are now planning public hunts for the animals, according to an announcement Friday in in the Federal Register.
The disclosure from the Interior Department follows a months-long review of a decision last year to lift protections in place since 1975 for about 700 bears in and around Yellowstone National Park.
That review was launched when a federal appeals court said in a case involving gray wolves in the Great Lakes that the Interior Department needed to give more consideration to how a species’ loss of historical habitat affects its recovery.
Like wolves, grizzly bears in some parts of the U.S. have bounced back from widespread extermination, yet remain absent from most of their historical range.
Public hunts proposed
Interior officials said in Friday’s filing that they disagreed with the ruling in the wolf case.
They said Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population has recovered and noted that other populations of the animals living outside the three-state Yellowstone region remain protected as a threatened species.
Wyoming and Idaho have proposed limited public hunts for grizzlies this fall. Hunters would be allowed to kill as many as ten male bears and two females in Wyoming and one male and no females in Idaho.
Final decisions on the hunts are pending. Montana officials decided against a hunt this year.
Tribes challenge move
Legal hunting of Yellowstone-area grizzlies last occurred in the 1970s.
Conservation groups and Native American Indian tribes have challenged the lifting of protections in federal court. They argue that killing grizzly bears would diminish the chances of Yellowstone’s bears re-populating other areas where grizzlies once roamed.
Andrea Santarsiere with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in that case, said Friday’s announcement reflects a belated attempt by federal officials to justify last year’s decision.
“They still occupy less than 5 percent of their historical range. That’s just not recovery,” she said.
Safari Club supports decision
Pro-hunting groups including the Safari Club intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service.
Safari Club attorney Doug Burdin said the agency’s decision was appropriate and that there were significant distinctions between the government’s distinctions between the wolves and the bears.
Chief among those, he said, was the fact that grizzly bears outside Yellowstone will remain protected in the Lower 48 U.S states while the Great Lakes gray wolves represented the last significant population of that species still under federal protection.
An estimated 50,000 Grizzlies once roamed much of North America. Most were killed off by hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Archaeologists in northern Peru say they have found evidence of what could be the world’s largest single case of child sacrifice.
The pre-Columbian burial site, known as Las Llamas, contains the skeletons of 140 children who were between the ages of five and 14 when they were ritually sacrificed during a ceremony about 550 years ago, experts who led the excavation told The Associated Press on Friday.
The site, located near the modern day city of Trujillo, also contained the remains of 200 young llamas apparently sacrificed on the same day.
The burial site was apparently built by the ancient Chimu empire. It is thought the children were sacrificed as floods caused by the El Nino weather pattern ravaged the Peruvian coastline.
“They were possibly offering the gods the most important thing they had as a society, and the most important thing is children because they represent the future,” said Gabriel Prieto, an archaeology professor at Peru’s National University of Trujillo, who has led the excavation, along with John Verano of Tulane University.
“Llamas were also very important because these people had no other beasts of burden, they were a fundamental part of the economy,” Prieto said, adding that the children were buried facing the sea, while the Llamas faced the Andes Mountains to the east.
Excavation work at the burial site started in 2011, but news of the findings was first published on Thursday by National Geographic, which helped finance the investigation.
Prieto said researchers did not find just bones at the site but also footprints that have survived rain and erosion. The small footprints indicate the children were marched to their deaths from Chan Chan, an ancient city a mile away from Las Llamas, he said.
Verano said the children’s skeletons contained lesions on their breastbones, which were probably made by a ceremonial knife. Dislocated ribcages suggest that whoever was performing the sacrifices may have been trying to extract the children’s hearts.
Jeffrey Quilter, the director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, described it as a “remarkable discovery.”
In an email, Quilter told the AP the site provides “concrete evidence” that large scale sacrifices of children occurred in ancient Peru.
“Reports of very large sacrifices are known from other parts of the world, but it is difficult to know if the numbers are exaggerated or not,” Quilter wrote.
Quilter is heading a team of scientists who will analyze DNA samples from the children’s remains to see if they were related and figure out which areas of the Chimu empire the sacrificed youth came from.
Several ancient cultures in the Americas practiced human sacrifices including the Maya, the Aztec and the Inca, who conquered the Chimu empire in the late 15th century. But the mass sacrifice of children is something that has rarely been documented.
The Las Llamas site is located in a shantytown, and has been fenced off to stop illegal developers from building homes on it.
Prieto says the site shows how in Peru history can be just around the corner.
“This site surrounded by houses in a working class neighborhood can tell us a lot about a macabre event that is perhaps one of the darkest moments in our history,” Prieto said. “But this is also part of our cultural heritage.”
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For the latest beauty and makeup trends, those in the know are ditching fashion magazines and logging on to social media. YouTube and Instagram influencers are redefining beauty standards. And as Tina Trinh reports, the industry is taking notice.
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We’re locking down the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 28, 2018.
For the second straight week, we welcome a Hot Shot Debut … this time at No. 1.
Number 5: BlocBoy JB Featuring Drake “Look Alive”
BlocBoy JB and Drake spend another week in fifth place with “Look Alive.”
Drake just delivered on a promise to students at Miami Senior High School. Earlier this year, he donated $25,000 to the school, while also promising the school new uniforms that he designed himself. This week, Drake previewed the new designs on Instagram … and you can see them by going on our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.
Number 4: Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”
Post Malone dips a notch to No. 4 with “Psycho,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.
Ty is not the only guest appearing on Post’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys” album, out April 27. The set will feature 18 songs, with other guest stars being Swae Lee, 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, and G-Eazy and YG.
Number 3: Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”
While Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line slip a slot to third place with “Meant To Be,” it remains the top song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for a 20th week. It’s only the third single to last that long at No. 1.
Sam Hunt held the title for 34 weeks with “Body Like A Back Road,” while Florida Georgia Line was in the driver’s seat for 24 weeks with “Cruise.”
Number 2: Drake “God’s Plan”
Drake ends his 11-week run at No. 1, as “God’s Plan” slips to second place. It lasted a respectable 11 weeks, but now it’s your runner-up.
Drake is accustomed to dominating chart records, but J Cole just stole some of his thunder. J. Cole racked up 64.5 million streams in the 24 hours after releasing his new album “KOD.” This is the most 24-hour album streams on Apple Music, eclipsing Drake’s previous record with “Views.”
Number 1: Drake “Nice For What”
Drake shouldn’t feel too bad, though, because he just replaced himself atop the Hot 100. “Nice For What” is your Hot Shot Debut in first place. Furthermore, Drake is the only artist to have both songs debut at No. 1 …proving he’s in a class by himself.
What will Drake do next? Join us in seven days and we’ll see for ourselves.
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Mamma Mia! The members of ABBA announced Friday that they have recorded new material for the first time in 35 years.
The Swedish pop supergroup said it had recorded two new songs, including one titled “I Still Have Faith in You.”
The news was announced in an Instagram statement from Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog.
ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” and had a sequin-spangled string of hits including “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” before splitting up in 1982.
The band’s statement said the members reunited to plan a virtual tour featuring digital avatars, and decided to go back into the studio.
ABBA said “it was like time had stood still and that we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyous experience!”
“I Still Have Faith in You” is due to be performed by the group’s holograms in a December TV special broadcast by the BBC and NBC. There was no word on when the second track will be released.
Ulvaeus revealed earlier this month that digitally created virtual band members — “Abbatars” — would perform in a television show in 2018, followed by a tour in 2019 or 2020.
The band members have performed together just once since the 1980s, at a private party in 2016, and have long said they will never tour live together again.
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Participants at the Cannes Film Festival will be given fliers warning “Proper Behavior Required” as part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign at the May 8-19 event.
The top women’s rights official for the French government announced Friday that she reached a deal with Cannes organizers for the campaign. It will include written warnings urging appropriate behavior and a hotline for victims and witnesses to report abuse.
Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs Marlene Schiappa noted that Cannes is one of the places where disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein allegedly raped and harassed women.
Schiappa’s office says the French government is urging other upcoming festivals and events to join the effort.
Film festivals have been soul-searching since the Weinstein scandal, rewriting codes of conduct and redoubling gender equality efforts.
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She had traveled to Alabama all the way from California to be here for this moment.
She had managed to stay dry in a torrential downpour that would have forced many others away. Had somehow beat the odds, got in line early, and secured one of the sold-out opening day tickets for access to The Legacy Museum.
So it was a surprise to Isoke Femi that the hardest thing for her to manage were the words to describe what she had just witnessed.
“My experience in there… is so painful,” she said exiting the exhibit.
Site of slave warehouse
Built on the site of a slave warehouse in downtown Montgomery, once the epicenter of the slave trade in the United States, in a town that at one time was the capital of the Confederacy, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is filled with visual exhibits that serve as a catalyst for understanding what many blacks in the United States have historically endured.
“Five-thousand blacks were lynched between 1880 and 1940,” said civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an early supporter of the museum and the nearby National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a new memorial that sits on a grassy, six-acre hill overlooking Montgomery.
It is the first memorial and museum of its kind in the United States, tackling subjects such as racial terrorism and lynching.
Founded by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization working in marginalized and impoverished communities, the group hopes the Memorial and The Legacy Museum will help change the national narrative about race.
“We must face the truth of our origins,” Jackson told VOA in an exclusive interview immediately following his own trip through the museum in its opening hours. “We are a post-genocidal, post-slavery, post-Jim Crow society.”
Facing the past
But not a post-racial society, says Mark Potok, former senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who spent much of his career tracking hate groups in the United States.
“It is white people in this country, and in the South in particular, who are so averse to facing the past squarely,” he said.
Potok says racism and bigotry, particularly in Alabama, which now hosts this museum and memorial, are not yet consigned to the history books.
“It’s worth remembering that 15 years ago, a very short time ago, the majority of white people in Alabama voted to keep segregated schools in the state constitution,” Potok said.
Jackson says it’s not just Alabama.
“And even today … 200 attempts to get federal anti-lynching legislation has not passed,” he said.
Speaking to the impact of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, he hopes “this will give us a deeper narrative … and we will seek to become better. At the end of the day, we must educate and enlighten us. Not make us get behind more barriers.”
Change at the ballot box
The biggest barrier in Jackson’s mind today is the one keeping people from the ballot box.
“There are 4 million blacks in the South unregistered to vote,” he said.
Mark Potok agrees with Jackson, and believes the best way to bridge the racial divide in the United States is to vote.
“You know, it’s not beating up white supremacists on the streets of Charlottesville,” he said. “It is really changing the people who represent us.”
Isoke Femi, still reeling from her walk through the images and displays that deal with powerful and uncomfortable truths long avoided, sees hope in the crowds around her.
“The love it took to do this, the commitment, the courage, and the fact that everybody is here that it’s not just something that black people are coming to. Everybody is here. And even if they can’t find the words … they want the healing of America.”
In that healing, Jesse Jackson hopes there is also a lesson.
“We must learn to live together,” he said. “And that is one of the great challenges of our past.”
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For some people, makeup isn’t just about the latest shade of lipstick or eye shadow. It’s about empowerment.
Just ask the fans at Beautycon, a recent two-day event in New York that showcased more than 100 makeup and beauty brands, along with speaker panels featuring social media stars whose expertise is all things beauty.
At Beautycon, the spotlight wasn’t on supermodels or fashion editors, but everyday people who have used social media to upend the industry. With online fans numbering in the millions, these Instagram and YouTube influencers are charting a path into a once exclusive field and forcing insiders to rethink conventional notions of beauty.
“I figured out a way to express myself through social media and through my platform and just share my individuality,” said Irene Kim, a Korean-American social media influencer who spoke on a panel, “Niche is the New Norm.”
“Beauty is limitless,” Kim said. “It’s whatever you want to do and how you want to express yourself.”
Mecca Iman is a makeup enthusiast who agrees.
“It’s deeper than just, how it looks, it’s how you feel,” she said.
Democratization of beauty
“There’s no longer a publisher who’s dictating what is beauty or what does health and well-being mean,” said Moj Mahdara, CEO of Beautycon Media. “Now you have a generation of young people who are creators creating that dialogue for a consumer, but that consumer is really their friend — their friend, their fan, it’s a two-way conversation.”
Iman teared up during a meet-and-greet session with social media star Raye Boyce. Boyce, who’s better known by her online handle, “ItsMyRayeRaye,” posts instructional makeup and beauty videos on YouTube and currently has 1.8 million subscribers.
“She’s just so relatable and so cool and then the makeup that she does, I learn from her. I learn so much from her,” Iman said.
Major brands take note
Boyce recently partnered with CoverGirl to promote the company’s cosmetics on her social media channels. She was also given the opportunity to visit the research and development labs of Coty, the parent company of CoverGirl and other consumer beauty brands like Clairol, Rimmel and Max Factor.
“I feel like them listening to us, they’re trying to understand the space,” Boyce said.
Nabela Noor, a beauty influencer with 749,000 Instagram followers and counting, has partnered with companies like Sally Hansen, Benefit and e.l.f. Cosmetics.
“The reason why I wanted to do what I’m doing is because I wasn’t seeing anyone else like me,” said the plus-sized, Muslim Bangladeshi-American. “I wasn’t seeing myself represented on television, in the media. I thought, if I’m not seeing it happen, I’m going to make it happen for myself,” she added.
“By being online and being myself and being proud of who I am, I’ve been able to help people feel good about themselves,” she said.
Tokyo Stylez, originally from Nebraska, calls himself “one of the others’“ or an “alien.” The flamboyant hairstylist started posting his wig creations on Instagram, and now works with artists like Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Rihanna.
“People really support what I do, they trust my vision, they trust my judgment on things. So if I say, ‘Go do this’ they really go do it, which is amazing,” said Tokyo, who also commands upward of $900 per person for all-day workshops where he teaches his hair techniques. “I just do me, and it works for me,” he said.
Beauty from the inside out
Self-acceptance is a key theme for the demographic that marketers have dubbed Generation Z, the post-millennial group born in the mid-90s to mid-2000s who are well-versed with consumer technology. A section of Beautycon entitled “B-Well” focused on health and well-being, with vendors hawking probiotic beverages, vitamins and healthy snacks.
“Beauty is both inside and out, and how you treat your insides and your mental health and your physical health and your spirituality is all a part of how you foster beauty,” Mahdara said. “I think the industries around health and well-being and beauty are colliding into one and will be a very big movement moving forward.”
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European Union countries backed a proposal Friday to extend a partial ban on the use of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that studies have shown are harmful to bees.
The full outdoor ban will be on the use of three active substances: imidacloprid, developed by Bayer CropScience; clothianidin, developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer CropScience; as well as Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.
“All outdoor uses will be banned and the neonicotinoids in question will only be allowed in permanent greenhouses where exposure of bees is not expected,” the European Commission said in a statement.\
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From T-shirts, socks and toys to knives and lanterns, a store in upstate New York takes pride in only selling goods that are made in America. Olga Loginova from VOA’s Russian service talked to the store owner about his business, which emerged after the 2008 financial crisis.
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The U.S. economy likely slowed in the first quarter as growth in consumer spending braked sharply, but the setback is expected to be temporary against the backdrop of a tightening labor market and large fiscal stimulus.
Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2.0 percent annual rate, according to a Reuters survey of economists, also held back by a moderation in business spending on equipment as well as a widening of the trade deficit and decline in investment in homebuilding.
Those factors likely offset an increase in inventories. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent pace in the fourth quarter. The government will publish its snapshot of first-quarter GDP Friday at 8:30 a.m.
Don’t lose sleep
The anticipated tepid first-quarter growth will, however, probably not be a true reflection of the economy, despite the expected weakness in consumer spending. First-quarter GDP tends to be soft because of a seasonal quirk. The labor market is near full employment and both business and consumer confidence are strong.
“I would not lose sleep over first-quarter GDP, there is the residual seasonality issue,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Overall the economy is doing very well and will continue to do well this year and into 2019.”
Economists expect growth will accelerate in the second quarter as households start to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion income tax package on their paychecks. Lower corporate and individual tax rates as well as increased government spending will likely lift annual economic growth to the administration’s 3 percent target, despite the weak start to the year.
Federal Reserve officials are likely to shrug off weak first-quarter growth. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates last month in a nod to the strong labor market and economy, and forecast at least two rate hikes this year.
Minutes of the March 20-21 meeting published earlier this month showed policymakers “expected that the first-quarter softness would be transitory,” citing “residual seasonality in the data, and more generally to strong economic fundamentals.”
Consumer spending lackluster
Economists estimate that growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, braked to below a 1.5 percent rate in the first quarter. That would be the slowest pace in nearly five years and follows the fourth quarter’s robust 4.0 percent growth rate.
Consumer spending in the last quarter was likely held back by delayed tax refunds and impact of tax cuts. Rebuilding and clean-up efforts following hurricanes late last year probably pulled forward spending into the fourth quarter.
“Our new consumer survey found that 37 percent of consumers thought they didn’t get any extra income from the tax cut or did not know what to do with it,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “It is possible this means that there is a lag in the consumer response to tax cuts.”
Business spending
Business spending on equipment is forecast to have slowed after double-digit growth in the second half of 2017. The expected cooling in equipment investment partly reflects a fading boost from a recovery in commodity prices. Economists expect a marginal impact on business spending on equipment from rising interest rates and more expensive raw materials.
“While we do not expect rising rates to crush equipment spending, a slowdown nevertheless appears in store,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Higher interest rates will hurt at the margin.”
Investment in homebuilding is forecast to have declined in the first quarter after rebounding in the October-December period. Government spending probably contracted after two straight quarterly increases. Spending is, however, expected to rebound in the second quarter after the U.S. Congress recently approved more government spending.
Trade was likely a drag on GDP growth for a second straight quarter after royalties and broadcast license fees related to the Winter Olympics boosted imports.
With consumer spending slowing, inventories probably accumulated in the first quarter. Inventory investment is expected to have contributed to GDP growth after subtracting 0.53 percentage point in the fourth quarter.
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Amazon.com Inc. more than doubled its profit Thursday and predicted strong spring results as the world’s biggest online retailer raised the price for U.S. Prime subscribers, added U.S. football games and touted its cloud services for business.
The results showed the broad strength of the company, which has been expanding far beyond shipping packages, the business that has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The forecast beat expectations on Wall Street, sending shares up 7 percent to a new record in afterhours trade and adding $8 billion to the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and largest shareholder.
Seattle-based Amazon is winning business from older, big box rivals by delivering virtually any product to customers at a low cost, and at times faster than it takes to buy goods from a physical store. It is expanding across industries, too, striking a $130 million deal to stream Thursday night games for the U.S. National Football League online and working to ship groceries to doorsteps from Whole Foods stores nationwide.
Sales jumped 43 percent to $51.0 billion in the quarter, topping estimates of $49.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
Prime now $119
Prime, Amazon’s loyalty club that includes fast shipping, video streaming and other benefits, has been key to Amazon’s strategy. Its more than 100 million members globally spend above average on Amazon.
The company announced Thursday it will increase the yearly price of Prime to $119 from $99 for U.S. members this spring.
The fee hike is expected to add a windfall to Amazon’s subscription revenue, already up 60 percent in the first quarter at $3.1 billion.
“We do feel it’s still the best deal in retail,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, said on a call with analysts. He said the number of items Prime members can get within two days had grown fivefold since the last price increase four years ago.
Advertising and the cloud
Despite the surge in shopping, Olsavsky gave credit for Amazon’s $1.6 billion profit last quarter to two younger businesses: advertising and Amazon Web Services.
Revenue from third-party sellers paying to promote their products on Amazon.com was an unusually large bright spot during the quarter, with sales in the category, which includes some other items, growing 139 percent to $2.03 billion. This included $560 million from an accounting change.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which handles data and computing for large enterprises in the cloud, won new business and saw its profit margin expand. It posted a 49 percent rise in sales from a year earlier to $5.44 billion, beating estimates.
Amazon remains the biggest in the space by revenue, and its stock trades at a significant premium to cloud-computing rival Microsoft Corp.
Amazon’s shares have also outperformed the S&P 500, rising 30 percent this year as of Thursday’s market close, compared with the S&P’s less than 1 percent decline.
More workers, spending
Notorious for running on a low profit margin, Amazon has still reaped rewards for shareholders as it has bet on new services like voice-controlled computing and has expanded across continents and industries.
Global headcount was up 60 percent from a year earlier at 563,100 full-time and part-time employees, thanks to a hiring spree and an influx of workers from Whole Foods Market.
The company plans to increase its video content spending this year, Amazon’s Olsavsky said, with a prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” in the works. The third quarter will also see extra spending to prepare for the busy holiday season.
Amazon is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Berkshire Hathaway Inc to determine how to cut health costs for hundreds of thousands of their employees.
And it is expanding its retail footprint outside the United States, particularly in India. Amazon’s international operating loss grew 29 percent to $622 million in the first quarter.
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Much remains to be done before a new North American Free Trade Agreement is reached, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Thursday, tempering hopes for a quick deal as ministers met in Washington for a third successive day.
Negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada have been working constantly for weeks to clinch a deal, but major differences remain on contentious topics such as autos content.
Complicating matters, the Trump administration has threatened to impose sanctions on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum on May 1 if not enough progress has been made on NAFTA.
President Donald Trump, who came into office in January 2017 decrying NAFTA and other international trade deals as unfair to the United States, has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the agreement with Canada and Mexico, which took effect in 1994.
“It is going, it’s going, but not easy — too many things, too many issues to tackle,” Guajardo told reporters after a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Now under way for eight months, the talks to revamp the accord underpinning $1.2 trillion in trade entered a more intensive phase after the last formal round of negotiations ended in March with ministers vowing to push for a deal.
Lighthizer is due to visit China next week, and when asked if a deal was possible before the USTR left, Guajardo said: “It will depend on our abilities and creativity. We are trying to do our best, but there are still a lot of things pending.”
Although Washington is keen for an agreement soon to avoid clashing with a July 1 Mexican presidential election, the three NAFTA members remain locked in talks to agree on new rules governing minimum content requirements for the auto industry.
Still, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland rejected the notion that discussion of the so-called rules of origin for the automotive sector was holding up the process.
“I would very much disagree with the characterization of the autos conversation as being log-jammed,” she said as she entered the USTR offices. “This is a week when very good, significant progress is being made on rules of origin for the car sector.”
Freeland said she would skip a planned visit to a NATO summit in Brussels on Friday, and vowed to stay in Washington for “as long as it takes.” Guajardo, too, said he was ready to remain in Washington this week for more talks.
Disagreements
The three sides are also trying to settle disagreements over U.S. demands to change how trade disputes are handled, to restrict access to agricultural markets and to include a clause that would allow a country to quit NAFTA after five years.
Bosco de la Vega, head of Mexico’s National Agricultural Council, the main farm lobby, said he believed the three would be able to reach an agreement on agricultural access.
But the auto sector rules were still contentious, he added.
“It’s the most important issue there,” he said, adding that he had earmarked May 10 as the deadline for a quick deal.
Separately, Canada on Thursday unveiled details of how it plans to prevent the smuggling of cheap steel and aluminum into the North American market in a bid to avoid the U.S. tariffs.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced the plan last month, said Ottawa would hire 40 new trade officers to probe complaints, including those related to steel and aluminum.
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A prehistoric sloth hunt is frozen in time in footprints preserved in the New Mexico desert, according to new research.
It’s an extremely rare find that authors say could revolutionize our understanding of how ancient humans interacted with large animals.
It also may shed light on whether our ancestors drove the giant ground sloth to extinction.
Footprints in footprints
In the gypsum sediments of New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument, scientists found more than 100 prints dating back approximately 10,000 to 15,000 years.
The footprints seem to show humans stalking giant ground sloths, animals that could reach the size of an elephant. The creatures went extinct around the end of the last Ice Age, at roughly the same time as humans arrived on the scene.
In some of the prints, the humans walked in the sloth tracks, even though the stride of a giant sloth was longer than that of a human. One human appears to draw near a sloth on tip-toe.
Where the human tracks approach the sloth tracks, the animal suddenly changes direction. The researchers found what they call “flailing circles,” rounded heel prints and knuckle and claw prints where it looks like the animal reared up on its hind legs to defend itself with its front limbs.
Risky hunting
Hunting an animal the size of a giant sloth, with long arms and sharp claws, “would have come with huge amounts of risk,” said Bournemouth University geology professor Matthew Bennett, senior author of the research, published in the journal Science Advances.
“If you were chasing a small rabbit or something, [there’s] little risk associated,” he added. “But going head to head with a sloth, the chances are that you might come off badly.”
With the newly discovered footprints, “we can begin to understand how they did it,” Bennett said. “That gives us a better understanding whether we are guilty or not” of hunting the animals to extinction.
“It is very rare, if not unique, to see unequivocal evidence of human interactions with large vertebrates based on tracks,” said retired University of Colorado Denver paleontology professor Martin Lockley, who was not involved with the new research.
“There are only a handful of ancient human footprint sites in North America, making this one of the best,” he added.
The authors say there are likely more tracks to be found at the White Sands site.
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