Month: August 2017

After Years of Decline, Teen Overdose Deaths Rise

Posted on by Cosc

After years of decline, teen deaths from drug overdoses have inched up, a new U.S. government report shows.

The drop in teen deaths had been a rare bright spot in the opioid epidemic that has seen adult overdose deaths surge year after year, fueled by abuse of prescription painkillers, heroin and newer drugs like fentanyl.

“This is a warning sign that we need to keep paying attention to what’s happening with young people,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University expert on drug abuse issues who wasn’t part of the study.

What’s not clear is why

It’s not clear why teen overdose deaths increased in 2015 or whether the trend will continue, said lead researcher Sally Curtin of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC released the report Wednesday focusing on adolescents ages 15 to 19.

The overdose death rate rose to 3.7 per 100,000 teens in 2015, from 3.1 in 2014. Most of the deaths were accidental and were mainly caused by heroin, researchers found.

Clearly, drug overdoses have been a far smaller problem in teens than in adults. Tens of thousands of adults die from overdoses each year compared to about 700 to 800 teens.

Another difference: Unlike adults, teen overdose deaths have not been climbing every year.

Teen overdoses were down

To their surprise, CDC researchers found that teen overdose deaths actually fell after 2008, and dropped as low as about 3 per 100,000 during 2012 through 2014.

The drop tracks with previously reported declines in teen drug use, smoking, drinking, sex and other risky behaviors, Keyes noted. Some experts believe those declines are related to more time spent on smartphones and social media.

The decline was driven by boys, who account for about two-thirds of teen overdose deaths. The boys’ overdose death rate fell by a third in those years, but the girls’ rate held fairly steady.

Then came the increase. The overdose death rate among boys rose to 4.6 per 100,000 in 2015 from 4 in 2014. Among girls, it increased to 2.7 from 2.2. Though small, it was the highest overdose death rate for girls since at least 1979, Curtin said.

More lethal drugs

Health expert said it’s likely teen overdoses edged up in 2015 because of the increasing availability of newer and more lethal kinds of opioids such as fentanyl, which is sometimes cut into heroin.

“If the drugs are more potent, your chances of it (drug use) being fatal have perhaps increased,” Curtin said. 
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Chinese Patriotic Action Movie Woos Audiences With Realistic Touch

Posted on by Corts

The Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 continues to set records at the box office and stir online debate in China. The film has raked in nearly $700 million in a little more than two weeks since its opening and looks all but set to become China’s biggest blockbuster.

While some are concerned about the chest-thumping nationalism they feel the film whips up, the movie, which features a Rambolike former special forces hero, is also showing that patriotic films can become big hits.

Realistic fiction

Moviegoers we spoke with liked how the film portrayed situations Chinese have and could face overseas when conflicts arise. They also noted a dispute in China that lands the main character in jail.

At the beginning of the movie, before the film’s hero, Leng Feng, travels to Africa to fight off foreign mercenaries and dodge hundreds (if not thousands) of bullets, he serves a prison sentence for killing a local gangster in China over a forced home demolition.

Forced demolitions, a byproduct of China’s breakneck economic growth, local corruption and greed, is one of the country’s big sources of social discontent.

One woman, surnamed Dong, who has watched the movie twice, said the film was both shocking and interesting. She said it made her think of recent situations when workers from China had to be evacuated from countries overseas by the Chinese military when conflicts arose.

“The director has good understanding of history and politics,” she said. “I heard similar stories (about the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya).”

Clearly, the Chinese military’s commitment to keeping its citizens safe overseas was a message the film has driven home. A closing shot in the film features a picture of a Chinese passport and a short message: “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China. When you encounter danger in a foreign land, do not give up! Please remember, at your back stands a strong motherland.”

Atypical patriotic flick

Despite such heavy overtones, and declarations by state media outlets such as the Global Times, which early on said patriotism was giving the action film a boost, those we spoke with say it is how the film was different that made it more attractive.

One woman surnamed Qi said most patriotic films are not believable.

“Usually patriotic movies like The Founding of An Army do not reflect realistic situations of everyday life like Wolf Warrior does, which showed scenes of him trying to stop a forced demolition. These kinds of things are more realistic,” she said.

Another agreed, noting that while some say Wolf Warrior 2 is too commercial and that it is just benefitting from the August lull, the film wasn’t that bad.

“It should be seen as just a regular film. If it was really all about patriotism, then “The Founding of An Army” should be doing well, but it’s not. And the reason for that is that Wolf Warrior 2 is worth watching,” she said.

Floundering military film

The Founding of An Army, a story about the People’s Liberation Army was released about the same time as Wolf Warrior 2 and just days before the Chinese military’s founding anniversary. But unlike Wolf Warrior 2, the film has floundered at the box office.

Part of that might be because censors are running official interference.

The Chinese social networking service Douban forbids users to comment and give marks to The Founding of An Army, a move apparently made to avoid any criticism of the film. Wolf Warrior 2, however, has received four out of five stars and a wide range of comments and opinions.

On the day we saw Wolf Warrior 2, the theater was packed. A ticket clerk let us look at showings for The Founding of An Army. While Wolf Warrior 2 showings were almost fully booked, the seats for The Founding of An Army were largely empty.

The clerk said that in some cases, state-owned enterprises would send employees in large groups to boost the film’s performance. There have also been reports online about moviegoers purchasing tickets for other films, but receiving one with The Founding of An Army on it.

Allegations of box office cheating are not uncommon in China. According to Cbooo.cn, a website that tracks box office revenues in China, the film is lagging far behind with less than 10 percent of Wolf Warrior’s sales.

Game changer

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Wolf Warrior 2 is the third highest-grossing film in a single territory, trailing Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($937 million) and Avatar ($750 million).

The film’s success has some predicting a brighter future for China’s domestic film industry, with some even saying it could pose a threat to Hollywood. But not all are giving the movie an easy pass. Many have expressed concern about the violence in the film.

Others worry about the nationalistic fervor the film’s glorified violence whips up.

One man, surnamed Zhang, said while the movie is just a consumer product and too much should not be read into it, some of the debate the action blockbuster has stirred up online is worrying. He said he will not see the film.

“The movie is like a war mobilization film,” he said. “It’s sensational and whips up feeling of patriotism and national pride to the point that some who have seen it are saying we should wage war, we should do this and that.”

Online, many are urging the film’s director Wu Jing to follow soon with Wolf Warrior 3, even suggesting he focus on conflicts with foreign powers that showcase Chinese-made weaponry.
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Elvis Presley Legacy Thrives in Las Vegas

Posted on by Corts

Elvis Presley has been dead for 40 years, but the King’s legacy is alive and well in Las Vegas.

Elvis impersonators remain a staple of Las Vegas kitsch, performing at casino venues and wedding chapels and on street stages while decked out in garish jumpsuits, sunglasses and sideburn wigs.

At a recent Elvis convention, performers came from as far away as Japan and Australia to compete in a tribute artist contest that paid $15,000 in prize money.

Elvis performer Tyler James recalls going to Graceland for the first time when he was 5 years old — and immediately becoming hooked.

“I told my mom then I wanted my own show in Vegas as Elvis,” he said.

James now has a regular show two nights a week on an outdoor stage in downtown Las Vegas.

Elvis played hundreds of shows here, year after year — with more sellout crowds in Las Vegas than anywhere else. Sin City and the King became so deeply intertwined that fans across the country have continued to make the pilgrimage even after his untimely death. They travel to Vegas indulge in the many Elvis tribute shows, impersonators and nostalgic memories from his heyday.

Presley rose from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to become an international music and movie star in the 1950s and 1960s. His life ended at age 42, when he was found dead August 16, 1977, at his Graceland mansion in Tennessee. By then, his career had slowed and he struggled with obesity and substance abuse.

But to Sin City, he’ll always be the handsome, hip-swinging, lip-curling crooner who gave the town its Viva Las Vegas anthem.

In the modern-day entertainment capital, his influence has waned in recent years. But Presley remains a larger-than-life pop culture icon in Las Vegas’ history.

To this day, the term “Elvis impersonator” is synonymous with Las Vegas — a term the performers dislike. They prefer to be called “Elvis tribute artists.”
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Nuclear Lab Helps Scientists Peer Into Life of T. Rex Relative

Posted on by Cosc

Researchers at a top U.S. laboratory announced Tuesday that they have produced the highest resolution scan ever done of the inner workings of a fossilized tyrannosaur skull using neutron beams and high-energy X-rays, resulting in new clues that could help paleontologists piece together the evolutionary puzzle of the monstrous T. rex.

Officials with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science said they were able to peer deep into the skull of a “Bisti Beast,” a T. rex relative that lived millions of years ago in what is now northwestern New Mexico.

The images detail the dinosaur’s brain and sinus cavities, the pathways of some nerves and blood vessels and teeth that formed but never emerged.

Never-seen-before views

Thomas Williamson, the museum’s curator of paleontology and part of the team that originally collected the specimen in the 1990s, said the scans are helping paleontologists figure out how the different species within the T. rex family relate to each other and how they evolved.

“We’re unveiling the internal anatomy of the skull so we’re going to see things that nobody has ever seen before,” he said during a news conference Tuesday.

T. rex and other tyrannosaurs were huge, dominant predators, but they evolved from much smaller ancestors.

The fossilized remnants of the Bisti Beast, or Bistahieversor sealeyi, were found in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area near Farmington, New Mexico. Dry, dusty badlands today, the area in the time of the tyrannosaur would have been a warmer, swampy environment with more trees.

T. rex family member

The species lived about 10 million years before T. rex. Scientists have said it represents one of the early tyrannosaurs that had many of the advanced features, including big-headed, bone-crushing characteristics and small forelimbs, that were integral for the survival of T. rex.

Officials said the dinosaur’s skull is the largest object to date for which full, high-resolution neutron and X-ray CT scans have been done at Los Alamos. The technology is typically used for the lab’s work on defense and national security.

The thickness of the skull, which spans 40 inches (102 centimeters), required stronger X-rays than those typically available to penetrate the fossil. That’s where the lab’s electron and proton accelerators came in.

Sven Vogel, who works at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, said the three-dimensional scanning capabilities at the lab have produced images that allow paleontologists to see the dinosaur much as it would have been at the time of its death, rather than just the dense mineral outline of the fossil that was left behind after tens of millions of years.

The team, which included staff from the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh, is scheduled to present its work at an international paleontology conference in Canada next week.

More detail in new scans

Kat Schroeder, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico who has been working on the project for about a year, said the scanning technology has the ability to uncover detail absent in traditional X-rays and the resulting three-dimensional images can be shared with fellow researchers around the world without compromising the integrity the original fossil.

Schroeder’s work centers on understanding the behavior of dinosaurs, so seeing the un-erupted teeth in the Bisti Beast’s upper jaw was exciting.

“Looking at how fast they’re replacing teeth tells us something about how fast they’re growing, which tells me something about how much energy they need and how active they were,” she said. “It’s those little things that enable us to understand more and more about prehistoric environments.”
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Brazil Lawmakers Seek $1B in Taxpayer Money for Election Campaigns

Posted on by Coeco

Brazilian lawmakers facing a dearth of financing for their re-election campaigns next year proposed on Tuesday creating a fund of 3.6 billion reais ($1.1 billion) in taxpayer money to help their parties foot the bills.

The Supreme Court banned corporate donations to campaigns in 2015, drastically reducing political fund-raising.

On top of that, a massive investigation into endemic corruption in the country has uncovered a web of political bribes and kickbacks that effectively shut off under-the-table payments that politicians also relied upon.

The taxpayer fund proposed by a special committee of the lower house of Congress is part of an effort to reform Brazil’s discredited political system by reducing the proliferation of parties and making politicians more accountable to voters.

The constitutional amendment is expected to face the first of two floor votes next week in the lower chamber. It must also be approved twice by two-thirds of the Senate.

Creation of the fund was backed by most parties, despite public criticism that lawmakers should not be appropriating public money for campaigning in the midst of a budget crisis and deep recession.

The proposed legislation includes replacement of a proportional system for electing congressmen based on party lists by one where candidates with the most votes get elected.

Smaller parties opposed the change, saying it will favor the bigger established parties and the re-election of better-known politicians, while hindering the emergence of fresh faces in Brazilian politics.

Backers of the so-called “district” system say it would stop highly popular candidates from pulling in unknown politicians by party lists.

Another reform bill that has already passed the Senate establishes a minimum of votes that parties need to continue existing, a move to reduce the number of parties, now at 35.

The proliferation forces governments to forge complex coalitions to stay in power by distributing jobs, influence and pork barrel projects, which critics say is fertile ground for graft.

The proposals must be approved in Congress by Oct. 7 to apply for next year’s elections.

Individual campaign donations are allowed, but lawmakers are discussing limits of self-financing to even out the playing field and avoid rich Brazilians getting elected with their own money as millionaire Sao Paulo Mayor Joao Doria did last year.
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Tech Companies Ramp Up NAFTA Lobbying on Eve of Trade Talks

Posted on by Cobiz

Technology companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, have ramped up lobbying ahead of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, looking to avoid any future restrictions on cloud storage and to promote an international pact to eliminate technology goods tariffs.

U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators are due to start talks on the 23-year-old trade pact on Wednesday. Farming and transportation groups have traditionally dominated lobbying on NAFTA, but technology lobbyists are helping lead the recent surge in efforts to influence Washington, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Tech companies and trade organizations disclosed they had 48 arrangements with lobby groups that discussed NAFTA with administration officials or lawmakers in the second quarter, up from 17 groups in the first quarter and one group at the end of 2016, according to the data.

“It’s both defensive and offensive,” Devi Keller, director of global policy for the Semiconductor Industry Association, said of the industry’s position on the new talks. “There is an opportunity for expansion.”

The industry now has almost as many lobby groups representing its views on NAFTA as the transport sector, which includes automakers. That sector had 52 lobbying groups discussing the trade pact with government officials between April and June. Agriculture still dominates the NAFTA lobbying effort with 86 arrangements with lobbying groups.

While the auto and farm lobbies are seeking to preserve cross-border supply chains and to retain access to markets in Mexico and Canada, the tech sector wants a revamped NAFTA to help it grow future business.

President Donald Trump has blamed NAFTA for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and threatened to withdraw from the pact unless it can be reworked in the United States’ favor.

Tech firms want a ban on any future government requirements that providers of services, such as cloud computing, store data in a particular country. They also seek a commitment by NAFTA members to join a broader international pact to eliminate all tariffs on a broad range of information technology goods, including computers, smartphones, semiconductors and medical devices.

Today, the United States and Canada already subscribe to the broader tech agreement but Mexico does not.

Template for future trade

While tech goods already face no tariffs under NAFTA and industry representatives said there are no data flow restrictions in the region hampering trade, U.S. firms want an updated NAFTA to help them access other markets by serving as a tech template for future trade pacts.

Tech industry associations have sent letters to the Trump administration asking negotiators to prioritize free flows of data and low tariffs as well as global cybersecurity standards, and have met with staff at the U.S. Trade Representative.

“We’re fairly confident the issues we identified will be addressed in the negotiations,” said Ed Brzytwa, director of global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council.

It remains unclear, however, how prominently tech concerns will feature at NAFTA talks given Trump’s focus on manufacturing.

The CRP, a nonprofit group that advocates for government transparency, includes media and publishing firms in the technology sector, but the overwhelming majority of the sector’s disclosures on NAFTA came from hardware, software and digital services firms.

The CRP’s database incorporates disclosures to both the Senate and the House of Representatives and includes both in-house lobbyists and external lobbying firms.

Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon

Cisco Systems, a networking hardware company, had as many as 10 lobbyists working on NAFTA issues. On a lobby disclosure form reviewed by Reuters, Cisco Systems listed NAFTA and government procurement as the trade issues handled by its lobbyists.

Microsoft, which counts cloud computing and software as core businesses, had as many as 13 lobbyists working on NAFTA, according to the CRP database.

The disclosure forms filed by Microsoft do not make clear whether all 13 lobbied on NAFTA, which is listed along with several other trade-related issues and cloud computing.

Amazon, a major cloud services provider and internet retailer, also cited NAFTA as well as “customs procedures” in its lobbying disclosure. The Trump administration has proposed easing customs barriers for online purchases.

Cisco Systems and Amazon declined to comment for this story, while Microsoft representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
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Pink to Receive Vanguard Award at MTV Video Music Awards

Posted on by Corts

Pop star Pink has been chosen to receive the 2017 Vanguard Award, MTV’s equivalent of a lifetime achievement honor for video music, the U.S. cable and satellite television channel said Tuesday.

Pink, 37, known for her powerhouse vocals and acrobatic live shows, is being recognized for her impact on music, pop culture, fashion and philanthropy over the course of her 17-year career, the Viacom Inc. unit said in a statement.

The Don’t Let Me Get Me Philadelphia-born singer has released six studio albums since her debut in 2000, and won three Grammys and six MTV Video Music Awards.

She is also a UNICEF ambassador for children’s nutrition worldwide and supports causes dealing with such subjects as autism and human rights.

Pink will receive the honor at the MTV Video Music Awards show in Los Angeles on August 27, where she will perform her latest single, What About Us.

Previous Vanguard recipients have included Rihanna, Kanye West, Beyonce and Michael Jackson.
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Researchers to Study Chemical Contamination of US Waters

Posted on by Cosc

University of Rhode Island and Harvard University professors are collaborating through a new research center to study chemicals that have contaminated water at sites nationwide.

The chemicals, called perfluorinated chemicals, have been linked to cancer and other illnesses but aren’t regulated in drinking water. Water has been contaminated near sites of industrial facilities and U.S. military bases.

URI announced Tuesday that it received a five-year, $8 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to establish a center focused on gaining a better understanding of how these chemicals make their way into water, through the food chain, and affect people and animals.

They will work with communities in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where contamination has been an issue. They also want to develop new detection tools. 

They chemicals are found in many household products and in firefighting foam used by the U.S. military.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued stricter guidelines last year regarding human exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA, which are currently unregulated in drinking water.

“So frustratingly little has been done on the regulatory side, I thought a center like this could help,” said professor Rainer Lohmann of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.

Lohmann, an environmental chemist, said he wants to give regulators the information they need to help communities dealing with contamination. He’s trying to devise a better way to sample and measure water for perfluorinated chemicals.

Lohmann applied for the funding to start the research center with his URI colleagues, experts at Harvard and at the nonprofit Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts.

Philippe Grandjean, who leads a research group at Harvard’s School of Public Health, has done studies suggesting that breast milk is a major source of exposure during infancy and that these chemicals may adversely affect immune system development, thereby reducing the effectives of vaccines in children. Grandjean will contribute research to the center.

Many of his studies are focused on the Faroe Islands, a country between Norway and Iceland, where the homogeneous population makes it easier to measure the effects of chemical exposure from marine food contaminants.

Elsie Sunderland, who teaches at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is trying to understand how the geochemistry of an area affects how far the chemicals will travel and enter into drinking water. She’s also figuring out how to better discern the source of the chemicals and how fish respond once exposed to contaminated water.

“For the compounds we’ve already released into the environment, we have to figure out how to assess risk from their exposure and where action needs to be taken,” she said. “More broadly, we want to raise awareness about these compounds so we don’t make any more mistakes about their release or use in ways that have unanticipated health effects down the line. The effects we’re seeing are alarming.”

Sunderland is looking at sites around Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Elevated levels of perfluorinated chemicals have been found near Joint Base Cape Cod. Firefighting foam containing these compounds was used during training exercises at the base, she said.
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Taylor Swift Hopes Verdict Inspires Assault Victims

Posted on by Corts

Immediately after a jury determined that Taylor Swift had been groped by a radio station host before a concert in Denver, the singer-songwriter turned to one of her closest allies – her mother – and later said she hoped the verdict would inspire other victims of sexual assault.

 

Swift hugged her crying mother after the six-woman, two-man jury said in U.S. District Court on Monday that former Denver DJ David Mueller had groped the pop star during a photo op four years ago. Per Swift’s request, jurors awarded her $1 in damages – a sum her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, called “a single symbolic dollar, the value of which is immeasurable to all women in this situation.”

 

Swift released a statement thanking her attorneys “for fighting for me and anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault.”

 

“My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard,” she said, promising to make unspecified donations to groups that help victims of sexual assault.

 

Nancy Leong, a law professor at the University of Denver, said the verdict is important because “we are getting to the point in society that women are believed in court. For many decades and centuries, that was not the case.”

 

Leong, who also teaches in the university’s gender studies program, said the verdict will inspire more victims of sexual assault to come forward.

 

“The fact that she was believed will allow women to understand that they will not automatically be disbelieved, and I think that’s a good thing,” Leong said.

 

Swift and her mother initially tried to keep the accusation quiet by reporting the incident to Mueller’s bosses and not the police.

 

But it inevitably became public when Mueller sued Swift for up to $3 million, claiming the allegation cost him his $150,000-a-year job at country station KYGO-FM, where he was a morning host.

 

“I’ve been trying to clear my name for four years,” he said after the verdict in explaining why he took Swift to court. “Civil court is the only option I had. This is the only way that I could be heard.”

 

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Mueller he might appeal and insisted he did nothing wrong “and I can pass a polygraph.”

 

After Mueller sued, Swift countersued for assault and battery, and during an hour of testimony blasted a low-key characterization by Mueller’s attorney, Gabriel McFarland, of what happened. While Mueller testified he never grabbed Swift, she insisted she was groped.

 

“He stayed attached to my bare ass-cheek as I lurched away from him,” Swift testified.

 

“It was a definite grab. A very long grab,” she added.

 

Mueller emphatically denied reaching under the pop star’s skirt or otherwise touching her inappropriately, insisting he touched only her ribs and may have brushed the outside of her skirt as they awkwardly posed for the picture.

 

That photo was virtually the only evidence besides the testimony.

 

In the image shown to jurors during opening statements but not publicly released, Mueller’s hand is behind Swift, just below her waist. Both are smiling. Mueller’s then-girlfriend is standing on the other side of Swift.

 

Swift testified that after she was groped, she numbly told Mueller and his girlfriend, “Thank you for coming,” and moved on to photos with others waiting in line because she did not want to disappoint them.

 

But she said she immediately went to her photographer after the meet-and-greet ended and found the photo of her with Mueller, telling the photographer what happened.

 

Swift’s mother, Andrea Swift, testified that she asked radio liaison Frank Bell to call Mueller’s employers. They did not call the police to avoid further traumatizing her daughter, she said.

 

“We absolutely wanted to keep it private. But we didn’t want him to get away with it,” Andrea Swift testified.

 

Bell said he emailed the photo to Robert Call, KYGO’s general manager, for use in Call’s investigation of Mueller. He said he didn’t ask that Mueller be fired but that “appropriate action be taken.”

 

Jurors rejected Mueller’s claims that Andrea Swift and Bell cost him his job.

 

On Friday, U.S. District Judge William Martinez dismissed similar claims against Taylor Swift, ruling Mueller’s team failed to offer evidence that the then-23-year-old superstar did anything more than report the incident to her team, including her mother.

 

 
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High-tech US Plants Offer Jobs Even as Laid-off Struggle

Posted on by Coeco

Herbie Mays is 3M proud, and it shows — in the 3M shirt he wears; in the 3M ring he earned after three decades at the company’s plant in suburban Cincinnati; in the way he shows off a card from a 3M supervisor, praising Mays as “a GREAT employee.”

But it’s all nostalgia.

 

Mays’ last day at 3M was in March. Bent on cutting costs and refocusing its portfolio, the company decided to close the plant that made bandages, knee braces and other health care supplies and move work to its plant in Mexico.

 

At 62, Mays is unemployed and wants to work, though on the face of it he has plenty of opportunities: Barely 10 miles from Mays’ ranch-style brick home in this blue-collar city, GE Aviation has been expanding — and hiring.

 

In the state-of-the-art laboratory in a World War II-era building the size of 27 football fields, workers use breakthrough technology to build jet engines that run on less fuel at higher temperatures. Bright flashes flare out as GE workers run tests with a robotic arm that can withstand 2,000 degrees (1,090 Celsius).

 

The open jobs there are among 30,000 manufacturing positions available positions open across Ohio. But Mays, like many of Ohio’s unemployed, lacks the in-demand skills.

 

“If you don’t keep up with the times,” he said, “you’re out of luck.”

 

This is the paradox of American manufacturing jobs in 2017. Donald Trump won the presidency in great measure because he pledged to stop American jobs and manufacturing from going overseas, winning Rust Belt votes from Mays and other blue-collar voters.

 

It’s true that many jobs have gone overseas, to lower-wage workers.

 

But at the same time, American manufacturers have actually added nearly a million jobs in the past seven years. Labor statistics show nearly 390,000 such jobs open.

The problem? Many of these are not the same jobs that for decades sustained the working class. More and more factory jobs now demand education, technical know-how or specialized skills. And many of the workers set adrift from low-tech factories lack such qualifications.

 

Factories will need to fill 2 million jobs over the next decade, according to a forecast by Deloitte Consulting and the American Manufacturing Institute. Workers are needed to run, operate and troubleshoot computer-directed machinery, including robots, and to maintain complex websites

 

Last year, software developer was the second-most-common job advertised by manufacturing companies, behind only sales, according to data provided by Burning Glass Technologies, a company that analyzes labor market data.

 

Yet the United States for now remains a follower, not a leader, of the trend. Workers in many European and Asian countries are more likely to be working with robots than U.S. workers, studies show. In such countries as Japan and Denmark, robotics and advanced automation have created solid jobs while increasing efficiencies for manufacturers.

Trump continues to make promises about adding U.S. manufacturing jobs. In blue-collar Youngstown, Ohio, he talked about passing by big factories whose jobs “have left Ohio” on his way to a July 25 rally, then told people not to sell their homes because the jobs are “coming back. They’re all coming back.”

 

But Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and a former U.S. trade representative, conceded in an interview: “We’re not going to see the kind of manufacturing renaissance that we all want in this country unless we focus on skills training.”

 

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, in a visit to a Detroit factory in June, acknowledged the need to address the skills gap by developing advanced computing skills. And when Trump visited Pewaukee, Wisconsin, in June, he touted the value of training while doing.

 

“Apprenticeships teach striving Americans the skills they need to operate incredible machines,” Trump said. “This is not the old days. This is new and computerized and complicated.”

 

Of the 146 million jobs in the United States, only about 0.35 percent were filled by active apprentices in 2016. Filling millions of open jobs through apprenticeships would require a substantial increase in government resources. So far, the Trump administration has called for more funding but hasn’t made any progress securing the funding from Congress.

Apprenticeships are much more common at some European companies, notably German firms. At Germany-based Stihl Inc.’s plant in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for example, A.J. Scherman is learning to be a “mechatronics technician.” Mechatronics combines electrical and mechanical engineering as well as computer skills.

 

Stihl makes chain saws, leaf blowers and weed trimmers at the factory. Once he’s completed his final year in Stihl’s four-year apprenticeship program, Scherman will read diagnostic software on computer screens attached to each robot to repair and upgrade them. If necessary, he’ll hook up a laptop to program changes.

 

Scherman, 37, is also earning a college degree as part of the apprenticeship. Thanks to financial aid from Stihl, he’ll finish with zero debt.

 

Skip Johnson, Stihl’s apprenticeship coordinator, said it’s critically important to bring bright students into the plant, where they can see that the grime and dust they associate with factories are giving way to clean operations using futuristic technology.

 

“They just come in here, and they’re wide-eyed,” Johnson said.

 

U.S. manufacturing workers, excluding managers, make an average of $44,000 a year, according to government data. That’s just 2.8 percent higher, adjusted for inflation, than a decade ago after years of shifting of jobs overseas or to nonunion states. And it compares with a much higher 8 percent gain for the labor force as a whole over the past decade.

 

But a typical mechatronics engineer with a four-year degree can earn $97,000 a year; a typical software developer makes just over $100,000.

 

Festo Didactic, the education arm of Germany-based Festo, last year launched two-year mechatronics apprenticeship programs in Ohio with Sinclair Community College, and is already expanding its U.S. apprenticeship offerings. At Festo’s plant in Mason, workers monitor a robotic distribution system that self-adjusts its work flow to prevent backups.

 

“This kind of factory has nothing to do with the factory we knew in the 1960s or 1980 or even 2000,” said Yannick Schilly, who heads global supply for Festo’s North American business.

 

But there’s not much demand locally these days for the kind of repetitive tasks done in those factories by workers such as Herbie Mays.

 

He acknowledged that there are “plenty of jobs out here.

What you have to do is get training or education.”

 

 

 
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Amazon Opens ‘Instant Pickup’ Points in US Brick-and-Mortar Push

Posted on by Coeco

Amazon.com Inc is rolling out pickup points in the United States where shoppers can retrieve items immediately after ordering them, shortening delivery times from hours to minutes, the company said on Tuesday.

The world’s largest online retailer has launched “Instant Pickup” points around five college campuses, such as the University of California at Berkeley, it said. Amazon has plans to open more sites by the end of the year including one in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Shoppers on Amazon’s mobile app can select from several hundred fast-selling items at each site, from snacks and drinks to phone chargers. Amazon employees in a back room then load orders into lockers within two minutes, and customers receive bar codes to access them.

The news underscores Amazon’s broader push into brick-and-mortar retail. The e-commerce company, which said in June it would buy Whole Foods Market Inc for $13.7 billion, has come to realize that certain transactions like buying fresh produce are hard to shift online. Its Instant Pickup program targets another laggard: impulse buys.

“I want to buy a can of coke because I’m thirsty,” said Ripley MacDonald, Amazon’s director of student programs.

“There’s no chance I’m going to order that on Amazon.com and wait however long it’s going to take for that to ship to me.”

“I can provide that kind of service here,” he said of the new program.

Instant Pickup puts Amazon in competition with vending machine services. Yet the larger size of the Amazon sites means they are unlikely to pose a threat to those selling snack and drink vending machines to offices and schools. MacDonald said Amazon considered automating the Instant Pickup points but declined to say why the company had not pursued the idea.

Amazon’s ability to shorten delivery times has been a sore point for brick-and-mortar retailers, who have struggled to grow sales as their customers have turned to more convenient online options. Until Instant Pickup, Amazon shoppers could expect to have their orders within an hour at best via the company’s Prime Now program, or within 15 minutes for grocery orders via AmazonFresh Pickup. Amazon has made two-day shipping standard in the United States.

Instant Pickup prices may be cheaper than those on Amazon.com, MacDonald said. He declined to detail how the items are priced, however.

Other locations in the program now open include Los Angeles, Atlanta, Columbus, Ohio and College Park, Maryland.
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Asked to Serve, Some CEOs Say No More to Trump

Posted on by Coeco

First it was the leader of a major U.S. pharmaceutical, then the CEO of an athletic gear company, and before the day had ended, the chief executive of a $170 billion tech giant. Three of the nation’s top executives resigned from a federal panel created years ago to advise the U.S. president.

Now, others are pushing for more executives to refuse to serve President Donald Trump after what many believe to be an inadequate response to a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one dead and dozens injured.

 

Announcing his resignation Monday, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier cited the president’s failure to explicitly rebuke the white nationalists.

He wrote on Twitter that “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which runs counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.”

The response from the president was swift, throwing a jab at Frazier, a highly respected executive and one of only four African Americans to head a Fortune 500 company, according to the Executive Leadership Council.

 

Trump tweeted that at least Frazier will now “have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

The response, and the speed in which it arrived, caught many off guard.

 

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he couldn’t “think of a parallel example” of any president responding as viciously as Trump to a CEO departing an advisory council.

 

“Usually, certain niceties are observed to smooth over a rupture,” said Galston, who served as a domestic policy aide in the Clinton administration.

 

Within hours, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, who has felt some blowback for his support of the president, resigned from the same panel, saying his company “engages in innovation and sports, not politics.”

Plank did not specifically mention Trump or Charlottesville, but said his company will focus on promoting “unity, diversity and inclusion” through sports.

 

But Intel CEO Brian Krzanich was more specific when he resigned a short time later, writing that while he had urged leaders to condemn “white supremacists and their ilk,” many in Washington “seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.”

The president followed up later in the day, tweeting that Merck “is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!”

 

Drugmakers have come under withering criticism for soaring prices in the U.S., including by Trump, though he has yet to act on a promise to contain them.

 

The exchange lit up social media, with many people lauding Frazier and blasting the president. There was also a push online seeking more resignations from the remaining executives on the same panel, just over 20 of them.

 

Trump eventually made a statement condemning bigotry Monday afternoon at a press conference, but already, other executives came to Frazier’s support.

 

Unilever CEO Paul Polman wrote on Twitter, “Thanks @Merck Ken Frazier for strong leadership to stand up for the moral values that made this country what it is.”

Frazier was not the first executive to resign from advisory councils serving Trump.

 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council in June, and two other advisory groups to the president, after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, which Trump established to advise him on how government policy impacts economic growth and job creation.

 

The manufacturing jobs council had 28 members initially, but it has shrunk since it was formed earlier this year as executives retire, are replaced, or, as with Frazier, Musk, Plank and Krzanich, resign.

 

“We’ve learned that as president, Mr. Trump is behaving exactly as he did as a candidate,” Galston said. “He knows only one mode: When attacked, hit back harder.”

 
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African Designers Show Eye-Popping Pieces at London Fashion Week

Posted on by Corts

Young designers bring African-inspired color and ethical fashion to runways in London where fashionistas and industry professionals participated in this year’s Africa Fashion Week. Mariama Diallo reports.
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Arctic Losing Its Ice Sheet

Posted on by Cosc

Each summer, climatologists and ship captains, as well as Inuits living in the Arctic, have been reporting that the ice cover is getting smaller and smaller. This may be good for Arctic tourism and fishing, but it’s very bad for polar bears. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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The Dark and Light Sides of Latest Drone Technology

Posted on by Cobiz

Drones, small flying machines with cameras mounted on them, have become easily accessible to consumers. Scientists, police and businesses have found often lifesaving uses for drones, but these relatively low-cost machines can also be weaponized. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from a recent Chemical Sector Security Summit in Houston on the light and dark side of drone technology.
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Difficult Negotiations Ahead as NAFTA Talks Begin in Washington

Posted on by Coeco

The first round of negotiations between the US, Canada and Mexico begins this week on what President Donald Trump has called “the worst trade deal ever.” He blames the 2-decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the US. Trump has vowed to scrap the agreement, unless the US gets a ‘fair deal.’ But trade experts warn that failure is not an option, especially when the stakes are so high. Mil Arcega reports.
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China: US ‘Baring of Fangs’ on Trade Will Hurt Both Sides

Posted on by Coeco

A decision by the United States to investigate China’s trade practices is a unilateralist “baring of fangs” that will hurt both sides, China’s state news agency Xinhua said Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday authorized an inquiry into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property that administration officials said could have cost the United States as much as $600 billion.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of China’s trade policies on intellectual property, which the White House and U.S. industry lobby groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs.

“While it is still too soon to say that the United States intends a showdown with China on trade, it is no exaggeration that the latest baring of fangs on Washington’s part against China, like all the other unilateral moves by Washington, will hurt not only China, but the United States itself in the long run,” Xinhua said.

Xinhua said while Chinese exporters could be the first to suffer from trade sanctions, the pain would soon spread to U.S. industries and households, adding that China was willing to resolve any disputes between the two sides through dialogue. 

The investigation is likely to cast a shadow over U.S. relations with China, its largest trading partner, just as Trump is asking Beijing to put more pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

Ken Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said in a statement Tuesday that trade and North Korea should not be linked, and said the investigation was a sign of growing U.S. discontent with Chinese trade practices.

“The president’s executive order reflects building frustration with Chinese trade and market entry policies, particularly those that pressure American companies to part with technologies and intellectual property in exchange for market access,” he said. “Chinese companies operating in the United States do not face this pressure.”

“We support actions that recognize the importance of U.S.-China commercial ties but which also encourage progress toward a more equitable trading relationship,” he said.
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Taylor Swift Wins Groping Trial Against DJ, Awarded Symbolic $1

Posted on by Corts

Taylor Swift won her trial against a Colorado radio personality on Monday after a jury found that the former DJ assaulted and battered the pop star by groping her bare bottom, and awarded her the symbolic $1 in damages she had sought.

Swift cried and hugged her mother as the verdicts were read in U.S. District Court in Denver and mouthed an emphatic “thank you” to members of the jury as they left the courtroom.

The six-woman, two-man jury, which deliberated for less than four hours following a sensational week-long trial, also rejected claims by radio personality David Mueller that members of Swift’s management team – her mother and a radio station liaison – got him fired from his “dream job” as a DJ by making false accusations.

“I acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this,” the 27-year-old singer said in a statement released immediately following the verdicts.

“My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard,” Swift said, adding that she would make donations to organizations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.

Mueller, 55, showed no reaction as the verdicts were read.

The DJ had initiated the litigation after he was fired from his job after the groping claim was reported to the radio station. In his lawsuit he called the groping accusations false, and he sued Swift, her mother, Andrea, and radio station liaison Frank Bell over his termination.

During closing statements in the case, Mueller’s attorney, Gabriel McFarland, argued that his client was a respected industry veteran who would never have risked his $150,000-per-year radio job by grabbing a major celebrity’s rear end.

But Swift was firm on the witness stand, saying that there was no question in her mind that Mueller had intentionally slipped his hand under her skirt to clutch her bare bottom.

Her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, said during his closing remarks that Swift was seeking only $1 in damages because she had no desire to bankrupt Mueller, but only wanted to send a message.

“It means ‘no means no’ and it tells every woman they will decide what will be tolerated with their body,” Baldridge said of the principle Swift was trying to defend.

U.S. District Judge William Martinez on Friday dismissed Mueller’s accusation against Swift, saying there was no evidence that she had acted improperly. The judge left standing the entertainer’s assault and battery countersuit against Mueller.

He also left intact a single claim by Mueller accusing Swift’s mother and Bell of interfering with his contract and effectively ending his career at radio station KYGO-FM. The jury rejected that claim.

Before the trial, Martinez had tossed out Mueller’s defamation-of-character claim against Swift, ruling that he had waited too long to file a lawsuit on those grounds.
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Pantone Creates ‘Purple Rain’ Hue to Honor Prince

Posted on by Corts

 A shade of purple named for the late superstar Prince was announced Monday by the icon’s estate.

 

The “Purple Rain” hue created by the Pantone Color Institute was dubbed “Love Symbol (hash)2,” paying tribute to his custom Yamaha piano and the squiggly graphic Prince began using as his name in 1993 in a testy battle with Warner Bros. Records over ownership of some of his biggest hits.

The artist switched back to Prince as a name in 2000 after his Warner contract expired.

 

Prince died in April 2016 at age 57 of an opioid overdose, according to authorities.
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Internet Firms Move to Take Down Hate Speech, Violence

Posted on by Cobiz

The internet domain registration of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer was revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate speech and incitements to violence.

GoDaddy, which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddy’s terms of service.

The white supremacist website helped organize the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally.

After GoDaddy revoked Daily Stormer’s registration, the website turned to Alphabet’s Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 a.m. Monday PDT (1500 GMT) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10:56 a.m., according to a person familiar with the revocation.

As of late Monday the site was still running on a Google-registered domain. Google issued a statement but did not say when the site would be taken down.

Caught in the middle

Internet companies have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs over hate speech and other volatile social issues, with politicians and others calling on them to do more to police their networks while civil libertarians worry about the firms suppressing free speech.

Twitter, Facebook, Google’s YouTube and other platforms have ramped up efforts to combat the social media efforts of Islamic militant groups, largely in response to pressure from European governments. Now they are facing similar pressures in the United States over white supremacist and neo-Nazi content.

Facebook confirmed Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organize the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

Facebook allows people to organize peaceful protests or rallies, but the social network said it would remove such pages when a threat of real-world harm and affiliation with hate organizations becomes clear.

“Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville,” the company said in a statement.

Several companies acted

Several other companies also took action. Canadian internet company Tucows stopped hiding the domain registration information of Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer. Tucows, which was previously providing the website with services masking Anglin’s phone number and email address, said Daily Stormer had breached its terms of service.

“They are inciting violence,” said Michael Goldstein, vice president for sales and marketing at Tucows, a Toronto-based company. “It’s a dangerous site and people should know who it is coming from.”

Anglin did not respond to a request for comment.

Discord, a 70-person San Francisco company that allows video gamers to communicate across the internet, did not mince words in its decision to shut down the server of Altright.com, an alt-right news website, and the accounts of other white nationalists.

“We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate,” the company said in a tweet Monday. Altright.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Twilio Chief Executive Jeff Lawson tweeted Sunday that the company would update its use policy to prohibit hate speech. Twilio’s services allow companies and organizations, such as political groups or campaigns, to send text messages to their communities.

Arbiters of acceptable speech

Internet companies, which enjoy broad protections under U.S. law for the activities of people using their services, have mostly tried to avoid being arbiters of what is acceptable speech.

But the ground is now shifting, said one executive at a major Silicon Valley firm. Twitter, for one, has moved sharply against harassment and hate speech after enduring years of criticism for not doing enough.

Facebook is beefing up its content monitoring teams. Google is pushing hard on new technology to help it monitor and delete YouTube videos that celebrate violence.

All this comes as an influential bloc of senators, including Republican Senator Rob Portman and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, is pushing legislation that would make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking of women and children.

That measure, despite the noncontroversial nature of its espoused goal, was met with swift and coordinated opposition from tech firms and internet freedom groups, who fear that being legally liable for the postings of users would be a devastating blow to the internet industry.

 
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Science Experiments, Ice Cream Head for Space Station

Posted on by Cosc

A SpaceX capsule rocketed to the International Space Station on Monday, carrying tons of science research, plus ice cream.

As has become customary on these cargo flights, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral shortly after liftoff, a key to its long-term effort to recycle rockets and reduce costs.

“Gorgeous day, spectacular launch,” said Dan Hartman, NASA’s deputy manager of the space station program.

Experiments make up most of the 6,400 pounds of cargo, which should reach the orbiting lab Wednesday. That includes 20 mice that will return alive inside the SpaceX Dragon capsule in about a month.

Ice cream aboard

The Dragon is also doubling as an ice cream truck this time.

There was extra freezer space, so NASA packed little cups of vanilla, chocolate and birthday cake ice cream, as well as ice cream candy bars. Those treats should be especially welcomed by U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, in orbit since November. She’s due back at the beginning of September. Newly arrived U.S. spaceman Randolph Bresnik turns 50 next month.

The space station was zooming 250 miles above the Atlantic, just off Nova Scotia, when the Falcon took flight.

It was the 14th successful booster landing for SpaceX and the sixth on the giant X at the company’s touchdown spot at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, just a few miles from its NASA-leased pad at Kennedy Space Center.

“It’s right on the bull’s-eye, and a very soft touchdown,” said SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann.

The experiments

The mice on board are part of a study of visual problems suffered in space by some male astronauts. Scientists will study the pressure in the animals’ eyes, as well as the movement of fluid in their brains. Thirty days for mice in space is comparable to three years for humans, according to Florida State University’s Michael Delp, who’s in charge of the experiment. The study may help explain why female astronauts don’t have this vision problem, which can linger long after spaceflight, he added.

The Dragon also holds an instrument to measure cosmic rays from the space station. This type of device has previously flown on high-altitude balloons. The Army has an imaging microsatellite on board for release this fall from the station. It’s a technology demo; the military wants to see how small satellites like this, with low-cost, off-the-shelf cameras and telescopes, might support critical ground operations. It’s about the size of a dormitory-room refrigerator.

Also going up on behalf of the Michael J. Fox Foundation: protein crystals that, in space, might shed light on Parkinson’s disease. The mission got a televised plug from Fox, an actor who has the disease.

Three Americans, one more than usual, and an Italian will tackle all this scientific work in orbit. The station also is home to two Russians; that number will go back up to three in a year or so.

SpaceX delivery

This is the 13th delivery by the Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, one of two private shippers hired by NASA. The other is Orbital ATK; its next supply run is in November from Wallops Island, Virginia.

The SpaceX Dragon is the only supply ship capable of returning items to Earth. It parachutes into the Pacific; the others burn up during re-entry.

This particular Dragon is brand new, as is the Falcon rocket. In June, SpaceX launched its first reused Dragon, and in March, its first reused Falcon. From now on, the company said it may only fly used Dragons.

SpaceX is also developing a crew Dragon for NASA astronauts, set to debut next year. Boeing is working on its own capsule to ferry space station astronauts.

In the meantime, SpaceX is aiming for a November debut of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which will feature three first-stage boosters and 27 engines, versus the single booster and nine engines on the Falcon 9. It will have two-thirds the thrust of NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which was used during the Apollo moon program. All three of the Falcon Heavy’s first-stage boosters are meant to fly back to a touchdown.
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Downtown? Petula Clark Goes Down Farm

Posted on by Corts

Grammy award-winner Petula Clark sang her global hit “Downtown” about as far from “where the neon signs are pretty” as she could at the weekend — to thousands in a field in rural England.

It was the 84-year-old’s first outdoor festival in a career spanning, well, eight decades.

“I’m always trying new things,” she told Reuters.

Clark’s set at the Fairport Cropredy Convention included some of her other ’60s hits, including “Color My World,” “I Know a Place” and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway,” but also new songs from her latest album “From Now On.”

“This is not an old ’60s thing by any means, I don’t do … looking back,” she said.

Indeed, she is working on a new album of French-Canadian songs ahead of a tour next May.

As might be expected, Clark closed her Cropredy show with her biggest hit, “Downtown”, leading the crowd as they sang along with the chorus.

“Downtown” topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1964, reached number two in the U.K. chart, won Clark her first Grammy and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003.

Clark, whose career stretches back to World War II, when she sang on BBC radio to entertain British troops aged nine, has never shied from breaking new ground.

In the 1950s, she moved to Paris and recorded numerous songs in French, working over the years with the likes of Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg and Charles Aznavour. Her website lists 10 “gold record” singles that have sold a million copies, including one each in French and German.

She has appeared in numerous films, including singing and dancing with Fred Astaire in 1968’s “Finian’s Rainbow” directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

The same year, in a U.S. TV special, she sang a duet with African-American singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte. As they sang the anti-war song “On the Path of Glory” co-written by Clark, she touched his arm — to the dismay of the show’s sponsors.

A white woman touching a black man on television was taboo in 1960s America.

To head off the sponsors, Clark’s team destroyed all other takes.

“We were not going to be told what to do and what not to do,” she said. “Maybe I was naive. It seemed to me like a storm in a teacup but of course it was that particular time in that particular country.”

A U.S. tour in November and December takes Clark from California to New York. Then she plays eight dates in French Canada, where she will perform in French.

So no plans to slow down?

“Not at the moment. My voice is in great shape. I don’t really do anything to help it, I just go out and do it,” she said.
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