Day: March 16, 2021

Researchers in Japan recently discovered that some sea slugs can regrow their bodies. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports that studying these slugs may one day help answer questions about our own health.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi 
 
…

A growing number of companies are making products with the environment in mind. VOA’s Julie Taboh learned about an item finder made from ocean trash.
Producer: Julie Taboh/Adam Greenbaum   
…

Pakistan says it is now facing a third wave of the novel coronavirus. Officials have particularly expressed concern over the spread of the so-called UK variant of the virus. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Camera: Malik Waqar Ahmed   Produced by: Malik Waqar Ahmed, Rob Raffaele 
…

Facebook has reached an agreement with Australia’s News Corp under a new law that makes social media giants pay domestic news outlets for their content.The terms of the multi-year deal were not disclosed in Tuesday’s announcement. The deal comes nearly one month after Australia’s parliament approved a law that would allow a government arbitrator to decide the price a digital company should pay news outlets if the two sides fail to reach an agreement.News Corp Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson said the agreement “is a landmark in transforming the terms of trade for journalism, and will have a material and meaningful impact on our Australian news businesses.”According to Facebook’s head of news partnerships in Australia, Andrew Hunter, the deal means the social media giant’s 17 million users in the country “will gain access to premium news articles and breaking news video from News Corp’s network of national, metropolitan, rural and suburban newsrooms.”The law’s passage occurred after a bitter standoff between U.S.-based Facebook and News Corp, owned by global media mogul Rupert Murdoch, that culminated with the social media giant blocking all Australian news content from the site, as well as the websites of several public agencies and emergency services, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters.The situation was resolved after negotiators for the government and Facebook reached an agreement on a set of changes to the legislation before its final passage.News Corp says its Australian subsidiary, Sky News, had also reached a separate deal with Facebook that extends an existing agreement.Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years.Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content.But the company had already signed a number of separate agreements with News Corp and other Australian media giants such as Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.Nine Entertainment and Seven West have said they have signed letters of intent with Facebook on a potential deal.
…

Despite the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, France is once again under pressure to take new measures to curb a new spread of the virus in the country.  The situation is once again deteriorating rapidly in the French capital. Hospitals in the Paris region are close to capacity and health professionals are rushing daily to find beds for their COVID patients. As of Monday, more than 4,200 patients were in intensive care units across France. The pandemic’s third wave is a reality in France and health workers have been evacuating seriously ill COVID patients to other parts of the country to cope with bed shortages. Enrique Casalino, a medical director with Hopitaux de Paris, the largest health system in Europe, describes the epidemic situation as deteriorating in the Paris region where every 12 minutes a new patient enters an intensive care unit. Casalino thinks medical evacuation to other French regions is just a temporary solution that does not solve the current crisis. He says there are only two options: a quick and massive immunization campaign to safeguard 70% of the population, which he doubts is currently achievable in France. The other would be a strict lockdown to prevent the virus from spreading further.On top of a delay in the delivery of vaccines, France is among European nations that are pausing the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to public concerns about side effects.Lockdowns have already been imposed in some hotspots in France, including Dunkirk and Nice, but not in the capital region.  A national nighttime curfew has been in force since the end of January, and bars, restaurants, museums, and movie theaters remain closed.  Still, a general lockdown in the Paris region has not been ordered.  Jerome Béglé, deputy director at Le Point, a French weekly, sees a lockdown of the Paris region as equivalent to a national lockdown as this region is the main economic center of France with 12 million people living there and a few tourists still visiting.With neighboring Italy imposing new restrictions Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron resisted the idea of a third national lockdown.Jean Castex, France’s prime minister says a national lockdown would be a last resort that cannot be ruled out due to the current situation. He says he would like to avoid one as it would place a heavy burden on the population.More than 90,000 people have died so far in France due to the COVID. The country is expected to reach a dreaded 100,000-death milestone next month.
…

Researchers working with NASA say the discovery of three new strains of bacteria growing on the International Space Station (ISS) could prove helpful in growing crops in space and perhaps on Mars.In a study published Monday in the scientific journal Frontiers in Microbiology, researchers in the United States and India working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have discovered four strains of bacteria living in different places on the ISS – and that three of them, until now, were unknown to science.All four strains belong to a family of bacteria found in soil and freshwater; they are involved in nitrogen fixation and plant growth and can help stop plant pathogens. In other words, they are bacteria helpful to the growth of plants.  It was not entirely unexpected to find soil bacteria growing on the ISS. For years, astronauts living on the space station have been growing plants for research and food.The three new bacteria were sequenced and found to all belong to the same, previously unidentified species, with genetic analysis showing them to be closely related to Methylobacterium indicum. The researchers proposed calling the novel species Methylobacterium ajmalii, in honor of the renowned Indian biodiversity scientist Ajmal Khan.In a statement, JPL researchers Kasthuri Venkateswaran (Venkat) and Nitin Kumar Singh said the strains might possess “biotechnologically useful genetic determinants” for the growing of crops in space. Further experimental biology, however, is needed to prove that it is, indeed, a potential game changer for space farming.Venkat and Singh said with the U.S. space agency one day looking to take humans to the surface of Mars – and potentially beyond – the U.S. National Research Council has recommended the space agency use the ISS as a “test-bed for surveying microorganisms.”Along with the JPL researchers, scientists from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Cornell University and the University of Hyderabad in India contributed to the study. 
…

Over the next 10 days, the United States will achieve what President Joe Biden describes as “two giant goals” — the completion of 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots in people’s arms and 100 million checks in people’s pockets.Those payments are among the disbursements from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package the U.S. leader signed into law last week.“The American rescue plan is already doing what it was designed to do — make a difference in people’s everyday lives,” Biden said Monday during remarks in the White House State Dining Room.What his administration is promoting as the “Help is Here” tour began on Monday. It features the president and others, including Vice President Kamala Harris, visiting numerous states beginning this week to promote the benefits of the plan.The appearances are intended to highlight to voters how the aid, approved by both chambers of Congress despite uniform Republican opposition, could help them. Republican lawmakers objected to the size of the deal and said that some of the funding is not tied directly to trying to end the pandemic in the United States. “The American Rescue Plan includes a $350 billion bailout for states, rewarding those with poor fiscal management and punishing those who operated responsibly during the pandemic. Funds can be used for virtually anything a state chooses to spend money on, with next to nothing in terms of constraints or restrictions,” said Republican Senator Mike Crapo in a statement on Monday.  The ranking member of the Senate finance committee and his fellow Idaho Republican senator, Jim Risch, have introduced a bill to eliminate a provision in the legislation Biden signed that would prevent states from using relief funds to cut taxes.  Biden is scheduled to be in a key suburban Philadelphia jurisdiction Tuesday in the eastern state of Pennsylvania that he carried over former President Donald Trump in the November election.His visit there is to “highlight how the rescue plan invests in small businesses,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.U.S. First Lady Jill Biden delivers remarks at the playground of the Samuel Smith Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey, March 15, 2021.First lady Jill Biden went to the state of New Jersey on Monday where she joined Governor Phil Murphy at a school in Burlington.“We are going to safely open schools. We are going to get people back to work. We’re going to lift up the families who are struggling to get by,” she said at the Samuel Smith Elementary School.Harris traveled west to visit a COVID-19 vaccination site at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and several other locations in the area.  The vice president was asked by a reporter why the administration is compelled to sell the plan, which enjoys widespread public support.  “It’s not selling,” Harris replied. “It’s kind of like you buy a product — you’re already sold on the product, but you need some directions out of the box.” Both Biden and Harris are to make appearances in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday.Vice President Kamala Harris looks over a vaccination site at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, March 15, 2021.“When it’s a package of this size, people don’t always know how they benefit,” explained Psaki, responding to reporters’ questions on Monday about the president’s travel this week.The American Rescue Plan is one of the FILE – Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 17, 2019.Republicans, who mostly opposed the stimulus, captured the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections.  The White House is also planning to make surrogates and senior administration officials available for local television interviews in cities across the country and get more than 400 mayors and governors to talk about what the relief package means for them and their communities.  Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the House’s No. 3 Republican, said in a statement that only a small fraction of the $1.9 trillion deal was aimed at the virus and warned the relief package might eventually lead to tax increases to help pay for it. 
…