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We have radars to track flying objects, but a tiny fly may be even better at tracking and grabbing fast moving prey. Scientists at the University of Cambridge learned that not only the number of lenses in the fly’s eye, but also their variety, help it focus on fast moving objects. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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The U.S. Air Force is open to buying rides on previously flown SpaceX rockets to put military satellites into orbit, a move expected to cut launch costs for the Pentagon, the head of the Air Force Space Command said on Thursday.
The idea of flying on recycled rockets became a reality a week ago when privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, launched a communications satellite on a Falcon 9 booster that previously put a cargo ship into orbit for NASA.
That Falcon main stage had been recovered from a successful return landing on an ocean platform shortly after its maiden flight last April, then was relaunched and salvaged again last Thursday, marking a spaceflight first.
“I would be comfortable if we were to fly on a reused booster,” General John “Jay” Raymond told reporters at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “They’ve proven they can do it. … It’s going to get us to lower cost.”
SpaceX has so far won three launch contracts to fly military and national security satellites – business previously awarded exclusively to United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
All those flights will take place on new Falcon 9 rockets.
SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a backlog of more than 70 missions worth more than $10 billion.
After last week’s landmark launch, Musk said the company planned to fly about 20 more rockets this year, including the debut blastoff of its new heavy-lift vehicle. Up to six of those missions, including the Falcon Heavy, will use previously flown boosters, he said.
Speaking at the symposium on Wednesday, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the cost of refurbishing and reflying the Falcon 9 first stage was “substantially less than half” the cost of manufacturing a new booster – the most expensive part of the rocket. SpaceX’s website lists the cost of a basic Falcon 9 launch at $62 million.
SpaceX expects to reduce costs even further.
The company’s next goal is to launch and return a rocket and relaunch it within 24 hours. “That’s when we’ll really feel like we’ve got reusability right,” Shotwell said.
Raymond said the Air Force would need to certify that a used booster could safely deliver its satellites into orbit.
“I’m pretty comfortable we’ll get comfortable with doing it,” Raymond said. “This is just beginning.”
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Twitter on Thursday sued to block an order by the U.S. government demanding that it reveal who is behind an account opposed to President Donald Trump’s tough immigration policies.
Twitter cited freedom of speech as a basis for not turning over records about the account, @ALT_uscis. The account is claimed to be the work of at least one federal immigration employee, according to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court.
The acronym USCIS refers to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the account describes itself as “immigration resistance.” Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and has promised to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
Following Trump’s inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds that borrowed the names and logos of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies appeared to challenge the president’s views on climate change and other issues. They called themselves “alt” accounts.
Twitter spokesman Nick Pacilio declined to comment on whether the government had demanded information about other accounts critical of Trump.
User privacy advocate
Twitter, which counts Trump among its active users, has a record of litigating in favor of user privacy.
“The rights of free speech afforded Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” Twitter said in the lawsuit.
The Department of Homeland Security, which is a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment on pending litigation. The Justice Department, which typically represents federal agencies in court, and the White House had no immediate comment.
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement that it was a waste of resources to try to uncover an anonymous critic, and he called on the Homeland Security inspector general to investigate who directed the “witch hunt.”
Esha Bhandari, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Twitter user, said the government’s request was highly unusual. Requests for social media account information from the U.S. government typically involve national security or criminal charges, she said.
“We have seen no reason the government has given for seeking to unmask this speaker’s identity,” Bhandari said, adding that the right to anonymous speech against the government is “a bedrock American value” strongly protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Tweeter’s response
Shortly after the lawsuit became public, @ALT_uscis tweeted a copy of the First Amendment and a picture of part of the lawsuit. The account’s followers nearly tripled to 89,000 in the hours after the news broke.
For weeks the account has posted criticism of the administration. It tweeted a parody of the game bingo for “right-wing idiots,” said that some anti-immigration advocates must have been dropped on their heads at birth, and mocked Trump for not giving more of his wealth to charities.
Twitter said it received an administrative summons last month demanding that it provide records related to the account.
A copy of the summons filed with the lawsuit says the records are needed for an investigation to ensure compliance with duties, taxes and fines, and other customs and immigration matters.
It was not immediately clear how the anonymous account fit into those laws and regulations, and Twitter said the summons was an abuse of a law meant to be used to investigate imported merchandise.
Twitter might have a strong case that the summons was improper, said Paul Alan Levy, staff attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, who specializes in online privacy and free speech issues.
“I don’t think there is any way for the government to come out of this looking good,” Levy said.
There is no indication that the White House was aware of the summons, which was signed by a Florida-based supervisor who works in an office that investigates employee corruption, misconduct and mismanagement. The supervisor could not be reached for comment.
The summons requested, but apparently did not order, that Twitter keep the document private.
Past battles
The social media company has a history of challenging government demands for information on its users, including a 2012 demand from New York prosecutors about an Occupy Wall Street protester. In that case, Twitter was forced to hand over tweets from the protester to a judge who threatened the company with sanctions, and the protester pleaded guilty of disorderly conduct.
Twitter sued the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014, seeking permission to publicly disclose more information about requests it gets from U.S. authorities for information about its users.
The lawsuit was partly dismissed last year.
Among the lawyers representing Twitter in the latest case is Seth Waxman, a former high-ranking Justice Department official under President Bill Clinton.
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Don’t look to the Kentucky Coal Museum to bring coal back.
The museum is installing solar panels on its roof, part of a project aimed at lowering the energy costs of one of the city’s largest electric customers. It’s also a symbol of the state’s efforts to move away from coal as its primary energy source as more coal-fired power plants are replaced by natural gas. The state legislature recently lifted its decades-old ban on nuclear power.
“It’s a little ironic or coincidental that you are putting solar green energy on a coal museum,” said Roger Noe, a former state representative who sponsored the legislation that created the coal museum. “Coal comes from nature, the sunrays come from nature, so it all works out to be a positive thing.”
The museum is in Benham, once a coal camp town whose population peaked at about 3,000, according to Mayor Wanda Humphrey, 85. Today, it has about 500 people.
The town’s second building was a company commissary known as the “big store,” where Humphrey would visit every day after school to order an RC Cola and a bag of peanuts, charged to her father’s account. Today, that building houses the Kentucky Coal Museum, which opened in 1994 with the help of some state funding. The museum houses relics from the state’s coal mining past, including some items from the personal collection of “Coal Miner’s Daughter” country singer Loretta Lynn.
It’s also the best place in town to get the most direct sunlight, which made it an ideal location for solar panels.
“The people here are sort of in awe of this solar thing,” Humphrey said.
The Southeast Community and Technical College, which owns the museum, expects the solar panels to save between $8,000 and $10,000 a year on energy costs, according to spokesman Brandon Robinson.
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Jupiter is extra close and extra bright this week, and that means some amazing, new close-ups.
The Hubble Space Telescope zoomed in on the solar system giant Monday, and NASA released the pictures Thursday. Jupiter was a relatively close 415 million miles (668 million kilometers) away.
The planet’s Great Red Spot is especially vivid. It’s a storm big enough to swallow Earth, but is mysteriously shrinking. Hubble’s ongoing observations may help explain why. Also visible in the photos is Red Spot Jr.
On Friday, Jupiter will be in opposition. That’s when Jupiter, Earth and the sun all line up, with Earth in the middle. Jupiter will appear brighter than usual — the brightest all year. Stargazers won’t want to miss it.
Look for one of the brightest objects in the night sky, visible from sundown to sunrise near the moon.
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Pirooz Parvarandeh, a longtime Silicon Valley executive, saw a problem.
Although he has lived in the United States for more than 40 years, he knew little about the contributions and accomplishments of Iranian Americans like himself. That lack of knowledge is widespread, he feared, and in his view makes Iranians in America more subject to stereotypes, discrimination and attacks.
“What image comes up with ‘Iranian’? A terrorist? A hostage-taker? Or a contributing member of society?” he asked at a talk this week at the University of California, Berkeley. “If we don’t know the contributions of Iranian Americans, how can we expect the American public to know? If the public is not with us, why would policymakers want to stick up for us?”
Last year, Parvarandeh met with other Iranian Americans to come up with the Iranian Americans’ Contribution Project, a nonprofit that uses technology to gather and analyze data about Iranian Americans. Their efforts picked up steam after Iran was listed among countries included in the Trump administration’s travel ban.
“We want to build a shield,” Parvarandeh said. “We want to build a protective mechanism to say, ‘Here is what we’ve done.'”
Counting contributions
Parvarandeh’s quest is one that many immigrant groups have considered as they try to both assimilate in the U.S. and stand proud of their cultural identity. For Iranian Americans, the issue has been especially complicated by long-standing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. An estimated one million Iranians live in the U.S., mainly in California.
The project aims to stay out of the political fray and has no religious affiliation. It approaches the question of Iranian Americans’ contributions in a systematic way, something Parvarandeh considers “pioneering” among all of the U.S. diaspora groups.
Working with software engineers, the project has come up with an algorithm that captures 200,000 unique Iranian last names and 70,000 unique first names. By applying that algorithm to public databases the organization buys or finds of professional organizations, scholarly articles and licensing bodies, the project creates a snapshot of Iranian Americans in a variety of professions.
So far, the project has found 490 Iranian American chiropractors, more than 9,000 physicians, more than 3,000 dentists and about 1,000 pharmacists. Iranians have been awarded at least 40,000 patents and they make up more than 2.5 percent of lawyers admitted to the State Bar of California. On its website, the project shows where Iranians in a variety of professions are on a U.S. map, sometimes county by county. It also offers a breakdown of professions of people found through LinkedIn.
Since some Iranian names can be found in other countries, the algorithm also calculates the probability that a person is Iranian.
Building a brand
The approach has its limits. The second generation of Iranian Americans and people marrying non-Iranian Americans may begin to take more American-sounding names. But Parvarandeh says he is hoping that Iranian Americans will participate in the project and help make it more accurate. At the moment, the data is anonymized, meaning that it doesn’t list the names of people it captures. But the project combines the data with interviews with Iranian Americans about their life stories and accomplishments.
“There are many arrows being shot in our direction,” he said. “There’s anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. and Europe. What we’re trying to do is build a reputation, build a brand.”
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross held out hope Thursday that the Trump administration will revive the U.S. Export-Import bank’s full lending powers, saying the institution is part of its “trade toolbox” to boost exports.
The U.S. government trade lender has been hobbled for the better part of two years by conservative Republicans in Congress who tried to shut it down in 2015 by revoking its charter, and then limited its lending powers last year by blocking nominations to its board of directors.
Big loans impossible
With only two active members on its five-seat board, the bank cannot make or guarantee loans of more than $10 million, preventing it from financing large exports such as U.S.-built commercial aircraft, nuclear reactors or petrochemical plants.
Thus far, Trump administration officials have not said publicly whether they support reviving EXIM’s full lending powers, but some members of Congress say that Trump has told them privately that he supports the institution.
“The bank is part of a domestically focused trade toolbox that this administration will continue to focus on in the coming months,” Ross said in brief video remarks to EXIM’s annual conference in Washington. “We will use that toolbox to rebalance our trade policy in order to put American workers first.”
Ross did not provide details of how EXIM will be used in his trade strategy or whether the administration has specific plans to nominate new board members.
Trump appears to be an ally
He urged hundreds of U.S. manufacturers, lenders and foreign government and company officials attending the meeting to work toward increasing U.S. exports to create jobs.
U.S. Representative Chris Collins of New York, a Republican Trump ally who headed a small manufacturer that used EXIM working capital loan guarantees in the past, told the conference that Trump told him February 16 at a White House meeting that he was “all in” on supporting EXIM.
“We asked him very directly about the five board seats,” Collins said. “The president looked to his right and to his left and said ‘Can you get me some names? I’m all in.’ There was no hesitation whatsoever.”
Reviving EXIM, however, would anger conservative groups backed by the Koch brothers, the influential billionaire Republican donors. The groups have waged a campaign that has painted EXIM as unnecessary corporate welfare even though it is self-funding through the interest and fees it charges borrowers.
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When the U.S. president hosts a foreign leader at his home, it can be seen as a sign of hospitality, an indicator of warm relations, and a chance to put American culture on display.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously hosted the king and queen of England at his Hyde Park estate, where he served hot dogs for dinner. President Ronald Reagan hosted Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at his California ranch. President George H.W. Bush hosted a string of international leaders at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his son President George W. Bush did the same at his family home in Crawford, Texas.
With so many precedents, why would anyone point fingers at President Donald Trump for hosting foreign dignitaries at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida, estate?
The answer is money. Mar-a-Lago functions as a vacation home for the Trumps, but it also serves as a resort for paying members — which has not been true of any of the aforementioned properties that played host to presidential guests. It is not clear how much access paying guests have to the visiting diplomats, but during a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, Abe and Trump carried on some of their discussions over dinner in a restaurant on the property, in full view of other guests.
Having presidential guests stay at Mar-a-Lago — a commercial property owned by the president — raises questions about whether other guests at the property have extraordinary access to the president and his guests by virtue of their club membership — a membership whose price doubled after Trump was elected to the presidency. Critics refer to the situation as “pay to play” — where money buys access to power.
On the other hand, Mar-a-Lago — with its proximity to the beach, a spa, tennis courts and golf courses — seems an ideal place to host foreign dignitaries, as it can be a more relaxed atmosphere than Washington, D.C. The setting also implies a close, personal relationship between the president and his visitor.
Abe visit ‘well received’ in Japan
“The Mar-a-Lago meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping offers a great opportunity for the two leaders to get to know each other in a more relaxed atmosphere,” said Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations, and director of The China Institute at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
He said Abe’s visit to the Florida estate “was well received in Japan because many Japanese liked the fact that Abe was the first Asian leader to be invited by the Trump administration to the U.S., and Trump and Abe spent several intimate hours playing golf together, highlighting the close alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the strong personal ties between Trump and Abe.”
The Xi meeting, however, lacks one important component of that visit: Xi does not play golf. His government frowns on the sport.
Ely Ratner, a senior fellow in China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Boston Globe that the Xi visit to Mar-a-Lago provides a “controlled media environment,” a situation prized by the Trump administration and difficult to arrange in Washington. But it also implies a favorable relationship that, in Ratner’s mind, has yet to be achieved.
“They should have had the opening meeting in Washington and said ‘we can do the Mar-a-Lago meeting, but you have to earn it,'” he said.
Property once government-owned
Mar-a-Lago — built in the 1920s by heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post — was actually planned as a presidential retreat. Post bequeathed the estate to the federal government upon her death in 1973. But then-President Richard Nixon preferred using his own Florida vacation home in Key Biscayne, and successive presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were not interested in the estate, either.
Carter preferred the official presidential retreat, Camp David, not far from the nation’s capital and owned by the U.S. military, where he arranged the historic Camp David Accords between the leaders of Israel and Egypt.
In 1980, the government returned Mar-a-Lago to the Post family.
Trump bought the resort five years later, after threatening to buy the land between the home and the beach, spoiling the view and driving down the sales price. When Trump began struggling financially, he converted part of the property into a private club. The initiation fee for Mar-a-Lago membership is $200,000. Yearly dues are $14,000. Overnight guests pay up to $2,000 per night.
Critics say it’s not only the “pay-to-play” problem that worries them. It’s also the cost of the Trump visits and the impact on the community, where roads must be closed when the president is in town, and local law enforcement works overtime to help with security.
Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation that would mandate that Mar-a-Lago keep a public log of its visitors.
As for the high-security Camp David, hidden in the Maryland mountains, Trump has called the property “very rustic.” He recently told a German reporter, “It’s nice, you’d like it. You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.”
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Conservative activist groups that generally support Republicans but oppose a pro-export, anti-import Republican tax proposal released a study on Thursday estimating its impact on individual U.S. states, underscoring the party’s division over taxes.
The two activist groups, backed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, reported that seven states won by President Donald Trump in November’s election would be among the 10 hardest hit by the proposal.
Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity, both based in the Washington area, said the “border adjustment tax,” or BAT, would harm all 50 states, but that those heavily dependent on imports could suffer most.
The report predicted economic harm to Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — all states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. The list of hard-hit states also includes California, New Jersey and Illinois, which Democrat Hillary Clinton carried.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican who intends to include the BAT in tax reform legislation this spring, sharply criticized the study.
‘Fantasy figures’
“That so-called study will be easily discredited and probably fits the definition of fake news,” Brady told reporters. “It takes one provision, pretends the economy freezes … applies it in our current tax code and comes up with fantasy figures.”
BAT, billed as a way to boost U.S. manufacturing, would exempt export revenues from federal tax, while ending the deductibility of import costs by corporations, making imports for production or resale costlier.
The plan is part of a tax reform blueprint supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump is also working on a tax plan.
The proposal is also opposed by a number of Senate Republicans who could prevent its passage, should the House approve a tax reform bill that contains it.
Koch organizations, including the brothers’ privately held conglomerate, Koch Industries, have warned that BAT could devastate the U.S. economy by raising prices on consumer goods, including gasoline. Refineries owned by Koch Industries rely on oil imports from Canada.
The Koch groups say they support tax reform but oppose BAT.
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The White House said Thursday that President Donald Trump plans to nominate a Lyft executive as under secretary of transportation for policy.
Derek Kan is general manager for San Francisco-based ride services company Lyft in Southern California. He previously was policy adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
The announcement comes after Chao said in late February she was reviewing self-driving vehicle guidance issued by the Obama administration.
The guidelines, which were issued in September, call on automakers to voluntarily submit details of self-driving vehicle systems to regulators in a 15-point “safety assessment.”
Automakers have raised numerous concerns about the guidance, including that it requires them to turn over significant data, could delay testing by months and lead to states making the voluntary guidelines mandatory.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Lyft Inc has nearly completed a funding round of at least $500 million, valuing the company at $7.5 billion, according to a source close to the company.
The $7.5 billion valuation marks a sharp increase from the $5.5 billion valuation at Lyft’s last financing more than a year ago.
Kan also serves on the board of Amtrak and has worked at a Silicon Valley start-up and Bain & Company.
Reuters reported in February that General Motors’ plans to deploy thousands of self-driving electric cars in test fleets in partnership with Lyft, beginning in 2018, citing two sources familiar with the automaker’s plans. GM is an investor in Lyft.
Kan will offer policy guidance as the department faces a number of big decisions at the agency.
The White House is still looking to fill many key transportation posts, including a head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The Transportation Department regulates the nation’s vehicles, airplanes, railroads, pipelines, ports and highways – including whether to allow the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over people and whether U.S. fuel efficiency standards should be revised.
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White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said he backed bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that would revamp Wall Street banks by splitting their consumer-lending businesses from their investment arms.
The National Economic Council director, also a former Goldman Sachs president, expressed support to lawmakers for a banking system where firms would focus primarily on trading and underwriting securities or issuing loans.
Big banks have strongly opposed such a move that would fundamentally overhaul their business. Reinstating the law, which was repealed in 1999, has not attracted significant attention in Congress, but advocates in the White House and both parties now argue it would provide critical safeguards to prevent another financial crisis.
Critics of that approach say it lacks nuance and would not have prevented the last financial meltdown.
The fact Cohn, widely viewed as one of Wall Street’s own, was willing to push that position spooked big banks’ representatives in Washington.
The White House confirmed Cohn’s remarks in a private meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday. A spokesperson said he was “simply discussing the President’s previously stated position” in favor of a “21st century Glass-Steagall.”
Cohn’s remarks were first reported by Bloomberg.
The Trump administration has indicated support for a return to Glass-Steagall. The White House has stuck by the idea since it was included in the Republican Party platform during the presidential campaign, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressed interest in a modernized version of the law.
When asked on Thursday when large financial institutions should begin to worry about Glass-Steagall becoming a reality, one industry representative said, “Right now.”
However, any legislation establishing such a firewall faces long odds in the current Congress. The heads of the House and Senate banking committees have indicated support for alternative approaches, and efforts to move Glass-Steagall legislation in prior years have garnered little support.
“A new Glass-Steagall would require legislation, and it simply isn’t a priority issue in Congress,” wrote Ian Katz, a financial policy analyst for the research firm Capital Alpha Partners, in a note to clients.
In the meeting which was arranged by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, Cohn was asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren about Glass-Steagall. Cohn responded favorably, noting that the Republican Party platform supports the idea, according to sources familiar with the meeting. The meeting included lawmakers from both parties and their staff.
Bringing back Glass Steagall would likely have a significant impact on banks like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup that have large highly intertwined commercial lending and investment banking operations, say analysts.
It would impact Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley to a lesser degree although, they would likely have to revert to being standalone investment banks and shed their deposit funding.
Here are some details about the law, called the Glass-Steagall Act:
What is Glass-Steagall: Originally passed as part of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933, Glass-Steagall established a firewall between commercial and investment banking activity. The law was whittled away over time as banks gained permission to engage in more trading activity, and was repealed altogether in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Who supports it?: Since the 2008 financial crisis, Glass-Steagall has become a calling card for politicians eager to crack down on Wall Street. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren frequently invokes it, and Senator Bernie Sanders made it a major part of his presidential campaign. President Donald
Trump also seized on the policy during his campaign.
What does the White House say?: The Trump administration has not backed away from his campaign stance, but there are questions about how aggressively the president will push for a new law. The issue only tends to come up when officials are asked about it. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he supported a modern version of Glass-Steagall in response to a
question during his confirmation hearing. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the White House supports the proposal when asked by reporters. Cohn responded favorably when asked by Warren at a private meeting with senators.
What would a new Glass-Steagall look like?: There are number
of ideas to create what some refer to as a “21st Century Glass-Steagall.” Warren has proposed splitting commercial and investment banking, and also barring depository institutions from using modern financial instruments like derivatives. Thomas Hoenig, the vice chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, has proposed a similar split, and would subject banks to a higher, 10 percent capital requirement. Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, would force big banks to take on so much capital they would prefer to split into smaller institutions.
Could it happen?: Although many Wall Street critics have seized on Glass-Steagall, efforts to change the law have garnered very little support. Warren’s proposal received just a handful of legislative co-sponsors. And because Congress and the White House are still consumed with complex fights over health care and tax reform, there seems to be little appetite for a
broad, controversial overhaul of the financial system.
Are there risks for banks?: Big U.S. lenders including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup would be most impacted, because their commercial lending and investment banking operations are closely
intertwined, say analysts. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley might be less impacted, although they would likely have to revert to being standalone investment banks and shed their deposit funding. But even if Glass-Steagall does not become law, the industry may have to spend money, time and
energy lobbying against the idea, when they would rather focus on rolling back existing rules.
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Cheap antibiotic disrupts negative associations in the brain
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Abuses linked to mining in countries such as Myanmar and Colombia are being overlooked by technology companies focused only on eliminating “conflict minerals” from war-torn parts of Africa in their supply chains, researchers said on Thursday.
In Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), competition for mineral resources has fueled two decades of conflict in its eastern provinces, including a 1998-2003 war that killed millions, mostly from hunger and disease.
Congo’s supply of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold – metals used in smartphones, batteries and laptops – has been under scrutiny since 2010, when U.S. laws required U.S.-listed firms to ensure supply chains were free from “conflict minerals”.
Yet the same minerals are being quarried in areas controlled by armed groups — sometimes using child labor — in countries such as Myanmar, Bolivia and Rwanda, according to research published by Verisk Maplecroft on Thursday.
The problem for tech companies was being able to trace the metals used in their products to the source mine or smelter, the risk consultancy group said in a report.
“The problem is because this is so far down the supply chain, it’s difficult for technology companies to know if those minerals they’re using are coming from irresponsibly managed operations,” said Stefan Sabo-Walsh of Verisk Maplecroft.
Sabo-Walsh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that in the most extreme cases the minerals are excavated using forced labor in order to buy weapons and fund violence.
A convoluted process
After minerals are mined, they are sold to a middleman and usually taken to the country’s capital, where the raw metal is extracted and blended with other metals, the report said.
The blend is exported to a country such as China and then transformed for use in tech products.
The complicated process “further muddies supply chain transparency efforts” for companies that strive to only use safe and ethical extraction, Verisk Maplecroft said.
Tin, which is used in tablet computers and smartphones, was ranked as having the highest risk for labor rights violations at illegal mines.
Bolivia, Myanmar and Indonesia, some of the largest tin-producing countries, pose an “extreme risk” for child labor at tin mines, the research showed.
Some smaller mines are not run by armed groups but still hurt the environment and local communities and are difficult to police, Sabo-Walsh said.
At illegal mines, waste water runoff often makes its way into local water sources, polluting the supply, he said.
“Organizations need to be aware of the bigger picture when sourcing minerals from different countries – otherwise they risk a consumer backlash or regulatory penalties from the raft of emerging supply chain legislation,” he said in a statement.
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Forty percent of Americans say they are more cautious about what they write in emails since last year’s cyber attacks against the Democratic Party, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday.
The March 11-20 opinion survey showed that a sizable minority of Americans made personal changes to how they interact online following the hacking of emails during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, which were later published by WikiLeaks and other entities.
Among respondents, 45 percent said they had changed their online passwords since the hacks.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia orchestrated the disclosure of the emails to embarrass the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Republican Donald Trump win. The emails also led to the ouster of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Moscow denies the allegations.
Concerns about online security crossed party lines, with 43 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans saying they had been more cautious about personal email since the election hacking.
“It makes you start to wonder how secure anything is as far as your own privacy,” said Delene Rutledge, 67, a retired teacher in Indiana who participated in the poll. “And yet I’m not the greatest at coming up with great passwords – I’m not sure it would make any difference.”
Despite concerns about digital privacy, only a small percentage of Americans said they had started protecting themselves online in other ways within the past month.
Five percent of adults said they had begun using secure messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp or Wickr.
Some 16 percent said they had placed tape over the camera in their computers to block any unwanted spying, a tactic advocated by Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and FBI Director James Comey.
Twenty-one percent said they had switched off the tracking capabilities of their internet browsers, while 17 percent changed their user ID on social media networks like Facebook or Twitter and 10 percent unplugged smart TVs or other internet-connected devices when not using them.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It included 3,307 American adults and had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2 percentage points.
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Twitter has unveiled a new, light mobile site aimed at emerging markets where people are still using slower 2G mobile connections.
Twitter Lite, according to the company, will use less data and will be up to 30 percent faster than the full Twitter website.
The service will be rolled out globally, but is primarily aimed at India, Africa and parts of Latin America.
“Twitter Lite provides the key features of Twitter, your timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, notifications, and more,” Twitter said in a blog post.
Twitter Lite also offers a “data saver mode” that allows a user to see smaller previews of videos and images before they fully load. That could save up to 70 percent on data usage, the company said.
For Android users, Twitter Lite can still deliver push notifications as well as offline support “so you will not be interrupted while using Twitter if you temporarily lose your connection,” the company said.
According to the global mobile phone operators group, GSMA, there were 3.8 smartphone connections globally at the end of 2016.Of those, 45 percent use slower 2G networks.
Twitter is following a trend toward tech companies offering lite versions of their services. Facebook has a lite version for both the main Facebook app and its Messenger app. Microsoft offers a lite version of Skype for users in India.
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Strong trade ties between the United States and nations in Southeast Asia are under a cloud as a U.S. investigation into trade imbalances gets underway. Regional governments say the apparent policy shift has spurred concern and anxiety.
A 90-day investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department of countries with large trade surpluses with the United States follows President Donald Trump’s call for a crackdown on “foreign importers that cheat.” Trump said the shift will result in a “historic reversal” in U.S. trade policy.
“While we’ve seen an improvement in the trade figures between January and February, we continue to be very focused on eliminating our nation’s trade imbalance,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “This administration is determined to achieve free and fair trade, to protect hard working Americans, and to grow our economy.”
Among the Asian economies singled out by Trump were those of China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Analysts say the review may mark a major change in Asia’s trading relationship with the United States.
Campaign rhetoric
After World War II, Southeast Asia’s emerging economies, beginning with Japan, looked to the U.S. economy to spur export led growth — key to the region’s progress in lifting millions out of poverty.
But charges that some trade policies, particularly China’s, had damaged the U.S. economy were a prominent feature of Trump campaign rallies.
Krystal Tan, an economist with the Singapore-based Capital Economics, said the trade investigation has led to concerns and uncertainties across the region.
“At this stage it’s still quite difficult to see what kind of measures the U.S. might want to take. It does look like countries that are probably most nervous about potentially being named currency manipulators are [South] Korea and Taiwan,” Tan told VOA.
The United States argues that currency manipulators deliberately keep their currency low in value against the U.S. dollar in order to boost their exports.
Taiwan trade officials say the trading relationship with the U.S. is not a hostile one, as over 80 percent of Taiwan’s exports to the U.S. are intermediate goods — those sent to the U.S. for final assembly.
David Hsu, deputy director general of Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) told local media the trading relationship with the U.S. was “mutually beneficial.”
Taiwan’s main concern is the potential imposition of sanctions following the review.
Tan says South Korea and Taiwan, to avoid sanctions, will need to open their markets to more U.S. products.
Malaysia’s International Trade and Industry Minister, Ong Ka Chuan, told local media Malaysia was neither responsible for, nor taking advantage of, the U.S. trade deficit.
Ong said any sanctions could impact American manufacturers in Malaysia, such as Intel and Western Digital.
“If Trump were to punish us for this [trade surplus] the American firms will be ones dealt a severe blow,” he said.
Kuala Lumpur-based RHB Research chief economist Peck Boon Soon said the U.S. policy revision left Malaysian business cautious on the outlook.
“Yes, certainly it remains very uncertain until [Trump] really implements those policies and whether those policies would be able to be implemented. We are watching these things quite closely and we would be waiting for more developments before we decide what to do with our forecasts on exports,” Peck told VOA.
In late 2016, export growth boosted Malaysia’s economic growth rate to 4.5 percent — “the strongest in the four quarters.”
The United States is Thailand’s third largest trading partner after China and Japan. Two-way trade reached $36.5 billion in 2016, with $24.49 billion from Thai exports. The trade surplus with the U.S was $12.4 billion.
Major exports to the United States include machinery, electrical appliances, electronics and parts, rubber products and gems and jewelry.
Both Malaysia and Vietnam were key participants to the 12 nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a key component of President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy intended to counter China’s growing political and economic influence.
TPP withdrawal
Trump withdrew the United States from the TPP soon after taking office.
This week, Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, criticized the U.S. policy shift, saying the trade policies would have a “huge impact” on Vietnam’s export driven economy.
Carl Thayer, a political scientist with the University of New South Wales, says Phuc’s comments were “guarded”, but with Hanoi looking to build trading ties under China’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
“Vietnam had its heart and soul on the TPP. They have a massive surplus with the U.S. It almost equals their massive deficit with China. But there’s not very much they can do, they’re being pragmatic and looking at the RCEP – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership,” Thayer said.
Thayer said Vietnam has banked on a strong U.S. presence in Asia as a counterweight to China’s regional influence, especially in the South China Sea.
“The more Trump goes his own way Vietnam has got to do a five power balance with India, Russia, Japan, as well as China and the U.S. weakness; the U.S. side. So Vietnam has a harder time preventing being sucked into China’s orbit — in all of this — it needs a strong U.S. action,” he said.
He says bilateral relations with Vietnam, built up over the past two decades, are a casualty of the trade policy shift.
“Yes, it gets worse for Vietnam because they can’t rely on the U.S. They have no idea what [the U.S.] is going to do,” he said.
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Struggling U.S. farmers are pressing their luck with soybeans this spring, sowing record acreage even though the world is awash with the oilseed, as demand from China offers a potential lifeline.
Soybean plantings could surpass corn for the first time this year, with rising exports holding up prices and providing a narrow path to profitability for U.S. farmers facing their fourth straight year of declining incomes.
But fierce competition to supply China threatens the bottom line for U.S. growers, and 2017 prices, while seen as up slightly from 2016, are still projected to be 50 cents per bushel lower than three years ago.
Diplomatic concerns also weigh heavily as the market eyes tense relations between the two countries. U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping meet this week in Florida.
Trump has said he wants U.S. companies to stop investing in China and instead create jobs at home. He has also accused China of manipulating its currency to boost exports.
Mike Jordan, a farmer from Beloit in north-central Kansas, plans to boost soy acreage by 10 percent after success both on the yield and price fronts for his crop in 2016.
“The general sentiment is … even though Kansas is a wheat state, beans look pretty good,” Jordan said. “If you told me five years ago beans were going to produce more than half the total income on my farm, I would have wondered where you were coming from.”
Planting records
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts farmers will sow 89.482 million acres of soybeans this year, up 7.2 percent from the record 83.433 million acres in 2016. Corn acreage was seen falling to 89.996 million acres, just 514,000 greater than soybean intentions.
During the past decade, final soybean acreage has topped the March forecast by more than 500,000 acres five times, with the biggest gain in 2012, when plantings beat initial projections by 3.296 million acres. A year ago, final soybean plantings came in 1.197 million acres above March intentions.
Soybeans also are taking acreage from wheat, which has struggled on the export market. U.S. wheat plantings were seen falling to 46.059 million acres — the lowest since the government started tracking them in 1919.
The soybean crop is planted to be exported, part of its allure to farmers who see demand for wheat and corn declining on both the export and domestic fronts.
On average, 45 percent of the soybean crop has been exported during the past 10 years and the USDA projects that will rise above 50 percent in 2017/18. Corn is typically used for domestic feed or ethanol, with only about 14 percent exported.
The rising soy acreage is seeded with China in mind.
“With China, if we can keep them as a good customer … I am hoping that they can soak up the extra supplies and keep the price from collapsing,” said Dave Newby, a farmer in Bondurant, Iowa, who plans to boost his soybean acreage by 50 percent this year.
China’s soybean imports have grown for 13 years in a row and the USDA expects them to hit 87 million tonnes in the year ending Sept. 1. That would soak up one-fourth of the world crop and represent a 130 percent surge in demand in the last decade.
The next-biggest importer is the European Union — set to bring in just 13.80 million tonnes in the 2016/17 crop year.
The United States sold 62 percent of its exports to China in 2016, worth more than $14 billion, according to the American Soybean Association. Soybean exports helped spur the U.S. economy to its biggest gains in two years during the third quarter of 2016.
South America steps up
But growing Chinese demand does not guarantee a profit as stocks should be huge even after China satisfies its needs.
Chicago Board of Trade November soybean futures, which track the crop to be harvested this autumn, have fallen 1.0 percent since the USDA issued its acreage outlook on March 31. CBOT December corn has risen 2.1 percent.
Additionally, massive crops in Brazil and Argentina provide China with purchasing options, and the competition is likely to persist as South American farmers also have the export market at the forefront of planting decisions.
“We plant soy in Brazil because there is global demand for the grain,” said Elso Pozzobon, a farmer in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s largest soy producing state. “This crop gives producers a sense of security.”
In Argentina, soybean acreage looks set to rise as an export tax that held back seedings is expected to decrease.
“Considering that world demand is still strong and prices are better than the alternatives,” said David Hughes, who farms thousands of hectares in Argentina’s bread basket Buenos Aires province. “I would guess we are probably at a low level of acreage limit.”
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More than 400 icebergs have drifted into the North Atlantic shipping lanes over the past week in an unusually large swarm for this early in the season, forcing vessels to slow to a crawl or take detours of hundreds of miles.
Experts are attributing it to uncommonly strong counter-clockwise winds that are drawing the icebergs south, and perhaps also global warming, which is accelerating the process by which chunks of the Greenland ice sheet break off and float away.
As of Monday, there were about 450 icebergs near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, up from 37 a week earlier, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol in New London, Connecticut. Those kinds of numbers are usually not seen until late May or early June. The average for this time of year is about 80.
In the waters close to where the Titanic went down in 1912, the icebergs are forcing ships to take precautions.
Icebergs force detours
Instead of cutting straight across the ocean, trans-Atlantic vessels are taking detours that can add around 400 miles to the trip. That’s a day and a half of added travel time for many large cargo ships.
Close to the Newfoundland coast, cargo ships owned by Oceanex are throttling way back to 3 or 4 knots as they make their way to their homeport in St. John’s, which can add up to a day to the trip, said executive chairman, Capt. Sid Hynes.
One ship was pulled out of service for repairs after hitting a chunk of ice, he said.
“It makes everything more expensive,” Hynes said Wednesday. “You’re burning more fuel, it’s taking a longer time, and it’s hard on the equipment.” He called it a “very unusual year.”
‘Extreme ice season’
Coast Guard Cmdr. Gabrielle McGrath, who leads the ice patrol, said she has never seen such a drastic increase in such a short time. Adding to the danger, three icebergs were discovered outside the boundaries of the area the Coast Guard had advised mariners to avoid, she said.
McGrath is predicting a fourth consecutive “extreme ice season” with more than 600 icebergs in the shipping lanes.
Most icebergs entering the North Atlantic have “calved” off the Greenland ice sheet. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said it is possible climate change is leading to more icebergs in the shipping lanes, but wind patterns are also important.
Ice patrol a success
In 2014, there were 1,546 icebergs in the shipping lanes — the sixth most severe season on record since 1900, according to the patrol. There were 1,165 icebergs in 2015 and 687 in 2016.
The International Ice Patrol was formed after the sinking of the Titanic to monitor iceberg danger in the North Atlantic and warn ships. It conducts reconnaissance flights that are used to produce charts.
In 104 years, no ship that has heeded the warnings has struck an iceberg, according to the ice patrol.
Many companies aim for “Best in Class” status, but some are seeking another “B” — B corporation certification.
Certified B corporations, or “B corps,” address the growing consumer interest in supporting socially and environmentally responsible companies.
B corps are essentially for-profit companies that behave more like nonprofits, tackling global issues such as pollution and income disparity through everyday business practices.
‘Business as a force for good’
“B corporations are companies that are using their business as a force for good,” said Andrew Kassoy, co-founder of B Lab, the nonprofit organization that issues B corp certification. “By having that B corp certification, it makes good easy for the consumer … to know that the company is having a positive impact on society,” he added.
For many companies, doing good may take a back seat to making money. But not for certified B corps.
Multimillion-dollar brands like fashion company Eileen Fisher and ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s are among businesses certified as B corps.
“In some cases, it’s about the company trying to create more value for its workers, to create opportunity for workers to grow in the economy and have a job with dignity,” Kassoy said.
“In other cases, it might be about creating a product that’s more environmentally sustainable or socially responsible,” he said.
Growing around the globe
B corps are a growing global movement. Brands large and small make up the more than 2,000 certified B corporations, representing 130 different industries in 55 countries.
“Our foreign certifications are outpacing our U.S.-based certifications for the last year,” said Jennifer Warden, B Lab’s global partner manager. “We’ve got partners in 13 different regions — a lot in Latin America, Europe, a lot of momentum now in the Asia Pacific regions and Africa.”
To qualify as a B corp, companies must score at least 80 out of 200 points on an assessment that covers four key areas: corporate governance, employee rights, community outreach and environmental impact. Everything from waste reduction efforts to leadership roles for women and minorities are considered.
“You’re able to measure how you rank in terms of taking care of the community, how you rank in taking care of the environment, how you take care of your customer,” said Sean Cullen, project coordinator at Uncommon Goods, a Brooklyn-based online retailer that is a certified B corp.
Assessments are made every two years. In addition to maintaining a minimum score, certified B corps are also required to revise company bylaws to reflect accountability to workers and customers.
Depending on a company’s size, B corp certification costs $500 to $25,000 annually. For many, the payoff is in being among the best in the business.
Look for the logo
“When you see that certified B Corp logo on different products, you know that you’re getting a good product,” Cullen said.
B Lab maintains a website with a B corporation directory so consumers can look up a company and verify its certification.
“The goal is that one day, all companies will be able to manage and measure their impact with the same rigor as their profits,” Kassoy told VOA.
“And by doing that … all companies will compete to be best for the world, not just best in the world,” he said.
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Teaching is a stressful profession. A 2014 survey found that nearly half of U.S. teachers say they experience a lot of daily stress. That affects their health, well-being, and job satisfaction.
Jayne Donohoe is out to change that, with exercise. The physical education teacher at Gunpowder Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, notes that physical activity produces endorphins — chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers — and also improves the ability to sleep, which in turn reduces stress.
She organized a Teachers Fitness group at her school, which meets after the day’s classes and offers a variety of exercise classes.
“Today we’re doing Bodyflow’ which is like a yoga-Pilates-type class. Before that we had a step aerobics class, or we had a Bootcamp,” she said. “We all come from a variety of shapes and sizes and fitness levels. If I can get them to show up, I can usually keep them in here. That’s probably the hardest part because they are tired. I tell them ‘You’re tired. Once you come here and exercise, it’s going to give you energy.’ I started my workday at 7 a.m., so it’s a long day for me, but I know it’s important. So I’m here.”
Watch: Teaching Teachers a Healthier Lifestyle
Keep Teachers Healthy
Many workplaces in the area offer similar programs. But Jenny Ward, spokeswoman for Baltimore County Public schools’ Employee Wellness, says they are especially important for teachers.
“They do have a very specific job during the day and they’re really tied to their classrooms with their students. They don’t have as much free time or flexibility in their day,” she said. “So it’s more difficult for them to schedule physical activity in their day, which is why we offer classes after work. So, as soon as the students left, they can change to their fitness attire and go to the gym with all of their coworkers who participate.”
The program is a big hit. It draws teachers from nearby schools, and they’re not all women.
“We have three men teachers,” Donohoe said. “One was staying today, but when the class got changed to Bodyflow instead of Bootcamp, he decided to go to his gym. The two other teachers are not interested yet. But I’ll get them, don’t you worry!”
Exercise and be happy
Gunpowder Principal Wendy Cunningham has watched attendance rise since Donohoe started the program a year and half ago.
“The teachers are excited to be together, to exercise, to support one another, to be healthy and maintain healthy habits,” she said. “Learning about how to manage stress has been extremely important. That is helping them to be more productive, be more positive in the classroom and have a lot more patience with all students every day,” Cunningham added.
“It’s very important for stress reduction, for just making you feel better about yourself,” Donohoe said.
Participating teachers agree. Third-grade teacher Ashley Schuchardt says being part of this group makes exercising more fun.
“Really, it’s the people,” she said. “They are a great support team. They really help you after a really long day. They help you keep going. I’m not a person who loves exercise, but they really make it fun. So I keep coming back week after week.”
Eating right
Exercise is only one component of Donohoe’s Wellness program. Good nutrition is another.
“We have a weight loss healthy teachers program that I also organize,” she said. “We meet once a week. I bring in guest speakers on motivation and nutrition. We’ve been doing that since last year. We’ve lost over 300 pounds (136 kg), 18 of us, and you feel better and healthier, and you’re drinking more water and you’re eating better.”
Employee Wellness spokeswoman Jenny Ward is excited about the prospects for the program.
“We’re happy to say we have more teachers and staff participating than we have before,” she said. “But it’s still not high enough. We still have quite a few more staff that we try to get involved in healthy eating, healthy activity, stress management, and all components of wellness.”
Ward hopes to see every school offering on-site fitness classes at the end of the workday — in Baltimore and beyond.
Teaching is a stressful job. To help teachers take care of their mind and body, a wellness program was introduced in Baltimore County public schools. Faiza Elmasry visited a school that offers the new program. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Many companies aim for B Corporation certification. Certified “B corps” address the growing demand for social and environmental responsibility. And more consumers are letting their wallets do the talking, aligning with business that complement their personal values. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports on the category of companies called B corps.
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Mexico’s central bank chief said Wednesday the bank altered course on how to protect the peso after a couple of tweets by U.S. President Donald Trump in early January pummeled the currency to near historic lows and wiped out the effect of a $2 billion currency intervention.
The Banco de Mexico in early January had sold dollars to fight off the peso’s nosedive to record lows amid fears the protectionist policy pronouncements of then President-elect Trump could further hammer Latin America’s second-largest economy.
“I’ll say it like this, in simple terms: with two tweets from you know who, the effect [of that intervention] vanished,” Mexican Central Bank chief Agustin Carstens said Wednesday.
“It was precisely then we thought that instead of using hard currency like dollars, it would be better to move to a scheme in which there was the possibility of offering hedges” without having to eat into Mexico’s currency reserves, Carstens added.
Carstens did not specify what tweets he was referring to. But Trump in early January targeted Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. with the threat of a “big border tax” over cars built in Mexico meant for U.S. consumers.
Since then, Mexico’s central bank has moved from intervening directly in the foreign exchange market through dollar sales by implementing an exchange hedging program for up to $20 billion.
The bank earlier Wednesday sold its entire offer of $200 million in foreign exchange hedges in an auction in which demand far outstripped supply, reflecting appetite for the program aimed at supporting the country’s peso currency.
Carstens said that the peso, which fell to a low of nearly 22 per dollar following the U.S. elections in November but has since recouped most of those losses, is still undervalued and has room to appreciate.
Future interest rate decisions by the U.S. Federal Reserve should not cause further depreciation in the peso, Carstens added.
Regarding monetary policy, Carstens also said that depending on the evolution of inflation expectations, the Banco de Mexico may be able to stop following Fed decisions in tandem.
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As part of his policy to roll back what he calls “job killing” environmental regulations, President Trump has proposed cancelling funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program – a widely supported environmental project involving six states. In its 34 years, the program has allowed America’s largest estuary to recover from near disaster.
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