The world of smart appliances capable of communicating with humans is slowly taking shape, thanks to the increasing popularity and ubiquity of so-called personal assistants. At the International Consumer Electronics Trade Show now being held in Berlin, manufacturers are promoting a new generation of gadgets from smart refrigerators to window cleaning robots. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Month: September 2017
Google Glass App Helps Autistic Children Read Social Cues
The Autism Society estimates about 1 percent of the world’s population is on the autism spectrum. The disorder can affect a person’s ability to interact with others and respond to emotions and social cues. But a new app for Google Glass might be helping. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Report: Fewer Americans Along Coasts Buy Flood Insurance
Amanda Spartz nearly did not renew her home’s flood insurance policy after her first year in Florida. Two hurricanes came close to the Fort Lauderdale suburbs last year, but they didn’t hit and her home isn’t in a high-risk flood zone. She figured she could put the $450 annual premium, due next week, to another use.
Then Harvey hit Houston, its historic rains causing massive floods even in low-risk neighborhoods. Spartz, a business analyst, paid the bill this week.
Harvey a wake-up call
If Spartz had dropped her policy, she would not have been alone. Far fewer Americans compared with five years ago are paying for flood insurance in coastal areas of the United States where hurricanes, storms and tidal surges pose a serious threat, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. The center for the problem is South Florida, where Spartz lives. The top U.S. official overseeing the National Flood Insurance Program told AP that he wants to double the number of Americans who buy flood insurance.
“I was talking to my husband and I said that if something like Harvey happens here, I don’t want to be on the hook,” said Spartz, who relocated from Cincinnati. “It isn’t a lot of money to save yourself the heartache if it does happen.”
What’s driving the drop in policies? Congress approved a price hike, making premiums more expensive, and maps of some high-risk areas were redrawn. Banks became lax at enforcing the requirement that any home with a federally insured mortgage in a high-risk area be covered. Memories of New Orleans underwater in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina have faded.
Without flood insurance, storm victims would have to draw on savings or go into debt, or perhaps be forced to sell.
Fewer policies in force
The number of policies in force today has fallen in 43 of the 50 states since 2012, dropping from almost 5.5 million to just less than 5 million, a decrease of 10 percent, AP’s analysis found. In low-lying Florida, where by far more flood insurance policies are sold than in any other state, the drop has been almost 16 percent. In only two states, Hawaii and South Carolina, are at least 50 percent of homes in flood hazard areas insured under the program.
AP’s analysis also showed the percentage of homes in high-risks areas that have flood insurance is sometimes frighteningly low. In Spartz’s home of Broward County, it’s only 13 percent. In Houston’s Harris County, it’s 28 percent. In New Orleans, it’s 46 percent.
Roy Wright, the director of the insurance program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, acknowledges that the decrease is alarming and says he hopes to double the number of policies in the near future. He also wants to persuade more communities to limit construction in high-risk flood zones. Congress is likely to reauthorize the insurance program before it expires Sept. 30.
Flood insurance debate
President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, said he expects changes to the flood program to be debated on Capitol Hill later this fall, after the immediate Houston recovery is underway.
“This administration’s been pretty clear that we’d like to see some responsible reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program,” he said Thursday at the White House. “I don’t think now’s the time to debate those things.”
Last year, the program collected about $3.3 billion in premiums and paid out about $3.7 billion for losses. FEMA paid out $3.5 billion per year over the past 12 years, which included Katrina.
“It is about consumer choice. It’s about consumer education. It’s about an education related to flood risk. It’s about communities galvanizing around it. It’s also about communities making choices about how they want to build going into the future so that people are at less risk. When they are at less risk, their premiums are cheaper,” Wright told the AP.
Lax enforcement
One way to compel more homeowners to buy policies would be for banks to enforce the coverage requirement for homeowners with a federally insured mortgage if they live in a Special Flood Hazard Area. Experts said that’s not happening. Many homeowners let the policy lapse after a few years, correctly thinking the bank will not check. Or a bank will sell mortgages to another bank, and paperwork on whether homes require flood insurance isn’t reviewed. About 7 out of 10 homeowners have a mortgage.
“The banks are not watching the hen house,” said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman with the Insurance Information Institute. “They sell these mortgages from a bank to another bank and to another bank, and whether that home needs flood insurance slips through the cracks.”
In Mississippi, the number of federally insured properties fell by nearly 15 percent, from about 75,000 in 2012 to 64,000 this year. The decreases were even higher in some coastal communities, including Gulfport and Long Beach, cities that took a direct hit from Katrina.
Ned Dolese, president and co-founder of Gulfport-based Coastal American Insurance Co., suspects the drop in Mississippi is largely because of a lack of government enforcement.
“There are no teeth in FEMA or the NFIP to whack you over the head if you, the consumer, don’t renew your flood policy,” he said.
Maps redrawn
FEMA periodically redraws flood-risk maps, moving some homes from mandatory-carry areas to a less-risky category. When the requirement is lifted, homeowners gamble or believe their home is no longer in danger. As Harvey proved, a lower-risk neighborhood is not a no-risk neighborhood.
After the city of Central, Louisiana, successfully petitioned FEMA last year to change its flood maps, it sent letters notifying roughly 2,000 residents that their homes no longer were inside the high-risk zone. Kyle Cutrer didn’t get flood insurance when he purchased a house in Central last summer, outside the flood zone.
Last August, a slow-moving storm dumped an estimated 7 trillion gallons of rainwater on south Louisiana, more than 60 centimeters (2 feet) of rain in some places. The deluge overtopped rivers and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes, inundating many neighborhoods that had never seen such catastrophic flooding.
About 30 centimeters (1 foot) of water washed into Cutrer’s home, causing approximately $40,000 in damage. He used about $16,000 from FEMA to pay for some repairs; he paid the rest himself.
Cutrer said his real-estate agent and mortgage company had both assured him he did not need flood insurance, which would have cost him about $300 annually.
“I was told, ‘You’ll never flood. You won’t have a problem here,”’ he said. “As a first-time homebuyer, I was trying to keep that note as low as possible.”
A week after the flood, he called his insurance agent and purchased a flood policy.
“I’m not going to be able to stop the flood. But if it comes, I’ll be fine,” he said.
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Mesh Networks Can Keep People Connected During Natural Disasters
Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey pose a threat not only to human lives but also to telecommunication systems. When they go down, entire cities and communities are cut off from each other. But mesh networks can get people connected again and, during emergencies, be a crucial link to information. VOA’s Tina Trinh explains.
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Houston Toxic Waste Sites Flooded, Yet EPA Not on Scene
Floodwaters have inundated at least five highly contaminated toxic waste sites near Houston, raising concerns that the pollution there might spread.
The Associated Press visited the sites this past week, some of them still only accessible by boat.
Long a center of the American petrochemical industry, the Houston metro area has more than a dozen such Superfund sites, designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as being among the most intensely contaminated places in the country.
No immediate response
EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham could not immediately provide details on when agency experts would inspect the Houston-area sites. She said Friday that staff had checked on two other Superfund sites in Corpus Christi and found no significant damage.
“We will begin to assess other sites after flood waters recede in those areas,” Graham said.
Near the Highlands Acid Pit, across the swollen San Jacinto River from Houston, Dwight Chandler sipped beer and swept out the thick muck caked inside his devastated home. He worried whether Harvey’s floodwaters had also washed in pollution from the Superfund site just a couple blocks away.
In the 1950s, the pit was filled with toxic sludge and sulfuric acid from oil and gas operations. Though 22,000 cubic yards of hazardous waste and soil were excavated in the 1980s, the site is still considered a potential threat to groundwater, and EPA maintains monitoring wells there.
When he was growing up in Highlands, Chandler, now 62, said he and his friends used to swim in the by-then abandoned pit.
“My daddy talks about having bird dogs down there and to run and the acid would eat the pads off their feet,” he recounted Thursday. “We didn’t know any better.”
Superfund sites a priority
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said cleaning up Superfund sites are a priority, even as he has taken steps to roll back or delay rules aimed at preventing air and water pollution. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget seeks to cut money for the Superfund program by 30 percent, though congressional Republicans are likely to approve less severe reductions.
Like Trump, Pruitt has expressed skepticism about the predictions of climate scientists that warmer air and warmer seas will produce stronger, more drenching storms.
Under the Obama administration, the EPA conducted a nationwide assessment of the increased threat to Superfund sites posed by climate change, including rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes. Of the more than 1,600 sites reviewed as part of the 2012 study, 521 were determined to be in 1-in-100 year and 1-in-500 year flood zones. Nearly 50 sites in coastal areas could also be vulnerable to rising sea levels.
The threats to human health and wildlife posed by rising waters inundating Superfund sites varies widely depending on the specific contaminants and concentrations involved. But the EPA report specifically noted the risk that floodwaters might carry away and spread toxic materials over a wider area.
In Crosby, across the San Jacinto River from Houston, a small working-class neighborhood sits between two Superfund sites, French LTD and the Sikes Disposal Pits. The area was wrecked by Harvey’s floods, with only a single house from among the roughly dozen lining Hickory Lane still standing.
After the flood water receded on Friday, a sinkhole the size of a swimming pool had opened up and swallowed two cars. The acrid smell of creosote filled the air.
At the Brio Refining Inc. in Friendswood, the floodwaters had receded by Saturday. There was a layer of silt on the road leading to the Superfund site. The company operated a chemical reprocessing and refining facility there until the 1980s, leaving behind polluted soil and groundwater.
Completely underwater
The San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site was completely covered by water when an AP reporter saw it Thursday. According to its website, the EPA was set to make a final decision this year about a proposed $97 million cleanup effort to remove toxic waste from a paper mill that operated there in the 1960s.
The flow from the raging river washing over the toxic site was so intense it damaged an adjacent section of the Interstate 10 bridge, which has been closed to traffic due to concerns it might collapse.
There was no way to immediately access how much contaminated soil from the site might have been washed away. According to an EPA survey from last year, soil from the former waste pits contains dioxins and other long-lasting toxins linked to birth defects and cancer.
Kara Cook-Schultz, who studies Superfund sites for the advocacy group TexPIRG, said environmentalists have warned for years about the potential for flooding to inundate Texas Superfund sites, particularly the San Jacinto Waste Pits.
“If floodwaters have spread the chemicals in the waste pits, then dangerous chemicals like dioxin could be spread around the wider Houston area,” Cook-Schultz said. “Superfund sites are known to be the most dangerous places in the country, and they should have been properly protected against flooding.”
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Wildfire Smoke Chokes US West, Causes Health Concerns
The smoke from massive wildfires hangs like fog over large parts of the U.S. West, an irritating haze causing health concerns, forcing sports teams to change schedules and disrupting life from Seattle to tiny Seeley Lake, Montana.
Air quality has been rated unhealthy across the region because of blazes that show no signs of abating. Officials said Friday that one of the worst U.S. wildfire seasons in terms of land burned is likely to keep scorching Western states and blanketing them with smoke until later this fall.
Headaches, raspy voices
People who live in small towns to the populous San Francisco Bay Area have had enough.
“Last night, I went to sleep with the windows open and woke up with a stomachache and a headache,” said Tresa Snow, who owns a hair salon in Brookings, Oregon, near a large wildfire. “I knew before I could even smell it that the fire was back. And you can hear my voice, kind of raspy. We’re all kind of like that.”
She said business has been down in the town near the California border.
“Businesses are closing because they don’t have their help,” Snow said. “People have been evacuating.”
As the long Labor Day weekend approached, several high school football teams changed their season-opening games to avoid the smoke, and other athletic events have been postponed.
Fleeing homes in Burbank
In Southern California, an erratic wildfire just north of Los Angeles forced the closure of Interstate 210, an essential link to routes in and out of town just as Labor Day weekend travel was starting.
Firefighters had reduced the raging flames, but the freeway was expected to be shut down all night.
The fire also spurred mandatory evacuations. Residents in the Brace Canyon Park area of Burbank were ordered to leave their homes as the fire got dangerously close. About 50 homes were being threatened late Friday.
Air hazardous, events canceled
The poor air quality has caused the cancellation of some performances at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and the Cycle Oregon Classic Ride, a 400-mile bicycle event this month.
Smoke from wildfires in British Columbia pushed down into western Washington in August, choking the region and prompting health officials to warn the Seattle area that children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems should stay inside.
Smoke has affected the Montana town of Seeley Lake to such a degree that health officials urged people to escape the pollution weeks before an order Tuesday to evacuate part of town because of the encroaching fire.
The town’s air quality had hourly pollution readings classified as hazardous in 26 days in August, topping out the ability of the monitor to measure the pollution in many cases. It was considered hazardous Friday, too.
“There aren’t even the correct health categories to describe what they’re seeing,” air quality specialist Saran Coefield said.
Most of the smoke entering Washington state this year is coming from neighboring states and British Columbia, said Joye Redfield-Wilder of the state Department of Ecology.
“I’m smelling smoke in my office right now,” she said.
Long, destructive season
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 25,000 firefighters and personnel are spread out across the Western U.S. fighting 56 large uncontained wildfires, 21 of them in Montana and 17 in Oregon.
Fire center spokesman Jessica Gardetto said Friday that besides one of the most destructive wildfire seasons, 2017 is turning into one of the longest, starting in the spring in Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico.
“Some of these firefighters have been working on fires for six months now,” she said.
The 10,600 square miles (27,500 square kilometers) that have burned rank this season as the third-worst in the last decade. The area burned is about 2,600 square miles (6,700 square kilometers) above the 10-year average.
In Northern California, a wildfire burning near the town of Oroville has destroyed 20 homes. The blaze about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of Sacramento had consumed nearly 6 square miles (15 square kilometers) and was threatening 500 homes, officials said.
Besides poor air quality, Montana lost a historic backcountry chalet in Glacier National Park this week to a wildfire. Firefighters tried to protect two-story Sperry Chalet, which was built in 1913 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Coach: Serena Williams Gives Birth to Baby Girl
Serena Williams has given birth to a baby girl, the first child for the former world’s No. 1 tennis player, her coach Patrick Mouratoglou said via Twitter Friday.
The 35-year-old American, who is engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, has not competed since winning the Australian Open in January but has posted several videos to social media showing her hitting balls during her pregnancy.
“Congratulations @SerenaWilliams for your baby girl. I am so happy for you and I feel your emotion,” Mouratoglou wrote.
“Btw … I wish you a speedy recovery … we have a lot of work ahead of us,” he added.
Williams has dominated the sport for the past decade and is one grand slam short of Australian Margaret Court’s record of 24 major titles.
She confirmed her pregnancy in April hours after triggering frenzied speculation when she accidentally posted a short-lived selfie on social media with the caption: “20 weeks.”
Williams, the world’s highest-paid female athlete, was about two months pregnant when she captured her 23rd grand slam singles title at the Australian Open.
She told Vogue magazine last month about her “outrageous plan” to defend her title in Australia, where the year’s first grand slam will be played from Jan. 15-28.
Other women have left the tour to have children and returned at a high level, although none has done so at Williams’ age.
Kim Clijsters of Belgium retired and had a child before coming back at age 26 and winning three grand slam titles.
Australians Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Court also won grand slam titles after having children.
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New York Musician’s Studio Dubbed ‘Little Pakistan’
American musician Eric Alabaster loves Pakistani food, culture, speaks Urdu, and plays “Desi” music. His music studio in Brooklyn, New York, is known as “Little Pakistan.” VOA Deewaa’s Samin Ahsan has his story.
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Schoolchildren Help Build Tiny Home for Homeless Veteran
Homelessness is a serious problem, and there are a variety of approaches to combating it. Faith Lapidus has the story of one effort to tackle the problem in Los Angeles, one tiny house at a time.
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Washington-area Nonprofit Reclaims Floors and Doors, Gives Back to Community
U.S. home builders created more than a million units of housing in 2016. Often, older homes are demolished to make way for the new buildings, and things like doors, floors, windows and more are thrown away. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington on one nonprofit that reclaims old materials and gives back to the community.
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Harvey Likely to Crimp Growth, Employment Temporarily
Hurricane Harvey may temporarily slow U.S. consumer spending, hurt national economic growth and boost unemployment for a while. Experts say it is very hard to accurately predict just how seriously Harvey will hurt Houston and the U.S. economy. But, as VOA’s Jim Randle reports, one expert on the Texas economy is bullish on Houston’s recovery.
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As Texas Flooding Recedes, Health Hazards Likely to Emerge
Floodwaters are beginning to recede around Houston, and although the rain in Houston has stopped, VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, assessing its impact on the health of Houston’s residents is only just beginning.
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US Researchers Discover Two Century-Old Shipwrecks in Lake Huron
U.S. maritime archaeologists say they have discovered two shipwrecks in northern Lake Huron believed to be steamers that sunk more than a century ago.
Researchers announced Friday that they have confirmed the discoveries of the wooden freighter Ohio, which sank in 1894 and the steel-hulled steamer Choctaw, which went down in 1915.
Officials say the 202-foot-long Ohio was loaded with grain when a passing schooner collided with it, sinking both vessels. Five crew members from the schooner, which has never been found, died in the accident.
The 266-foot Choctaw was carrying coal when it was struck by a Canadian Steamship Company freighter in dense fog. All crew members from both vessels were rescued from that accident.
Researchers with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary say they found evidence of the vessels in May while using high-resolution sonar to map the bottom of Lake Huron.
The scientists say they sent remotely operated vehicles into the water in recent weeks to get video evidence of the vessels and to confirm their identities.
Officials say the vessels are well-preserved in the Great Lakes’ cold freshwater and say in the future they would like to open the sites to public diving.
Researchers say they believe there are about 200 shipwrecks in a 4,300-square-mile sanctuary of Lake Huron, with about half of the shipwrecks discovered.
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Russia Sees Artificial Intelligence as Key to World Domination
The digital arms race between the United States and Russia appears to be accelerating, fueled in part by new comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin, speaking to a group of Russian students Friday, called artificial intelligence “not only Russia’s future” but “the future of the whole of mankind.”
“The one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world,” he said. “There are colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now.”
Digital domain
Top U.S. intelligence officials have been warning of a “perpetual contest” between the United States and Russia, with much of it playing out in the digital domain.
The Defense Intelligence Agency in particular has sought to maximize its ability to make use of artificial intelligence, or AI, reaching out to private industry and academia to help maintain the U.S. advantage.
Russia and China are seen as key competitors in the digital space and have been working on how to apply technologies, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to their war-fighting doctrines.
“They’ve got their heads wrapped around the idea that 21st century warfare is as much cognitive as it is kinetic,” outgoing DIA Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart told a small group of reporters from VOA and other organizations last month.
Top officials, both in government and in the private sector, have long been willing to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and other technological advances.
But some analysts see Putin’s willingness to address the issue publicly as telling.
“[It’s] rare that you have a head of state discussing these issues,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. “He is sending a message.”
And Cilluffo hopes the U.S. is paying attention.
“A big space race is on, and it’s a race we can’t afford to lose,” he said.
US maintains advantage
Many experts say the U.S. still maintains an advantage over Russia in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Still, as Russia, China and other countries seek additional breakthroughs in how to apply such technology, the stakes are high.
“It completely changes the game of warfare,” said David Kennedy, who served with the U.S. National Security Agency and with the Marine Corps’ electronic warfare unit.
“It’s no longer going to be about who has the most bombs or who has the better bombs,” he said. “It’s going to be who can apply these principles to respond faster to fight a war and win a war.”
And Kennedy, now chief executive officer at TrustedSec, an information technology security consulting firm, sees Russia gaining.
“They explore all options, and they have a substantial budget for it,” he said, noting that Moscow may have an advantage in how to apply the technology since it is willing to sidestep privacy and ethical concerns that the U.S. and even China have tried to address.
China, too, is making significant gains. But unlike Russia, China has focused more on quantum computing, launching a quantum satellite into space last year.
Quantum computing uses a quirk of physics that allows subatomic particles to simultaneously exist in two different states. As a result, a computer is then able to skip through much of the elaborate mathematical computations necessary to solve complex problems.
It is seen as a potentially game-changing tool for intelligence agencies, enabling them to hack encrypted messages from their adversaries while their own communications would be “hackproof,” if the technology can be perfected.
“The Chinese have one of the most powerful quantum encryption capabilities in the world,” DIA’s Stewart cautioned last month. “Whoever wins this space wins the game.”
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US Astronaut to Return to Earth Holding US Record for Days in Space
When U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson returns to Earth on Saturday from the International Space Station, she will have spent more time in space than any other American.
Whitson will have logged 665 days in space over three separate missions, the equivalent of about one year and 10 months outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
The world record belongs to Russian Astronaut Gennady Padalka, who spent 879 days in space.
Whitson is scheduled to return to Earth Saturday night in Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule. She will then travel to Germany before heading home to Houston, which is still crippled from Hurricane Harvey.
Whitson said in an email to the Associated Press that her home was not damaged in the storm. However, she said the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston was temporarily closed except for essential personnel, such as those staffing Mission Control for the space station mission.
“Any trepidations I might have about returning in the aftermath of a hurricane are entirely eclipsed by the all those folks keeping our mission going,” she said.
Whitson, a biochemist, began her third and latest mission on the International Space Station last November. During the mission, she performed a spacewalk and also become the first woman to command the space station twice.
She and the other crew members aboard the International Space Station also pursued hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.
At 57, Whitson is the oldest woman to have been in space.
The astronaut has said she is unsure whether this most recent space mission will be her last.
NASA had scheduled a news conference earlier this week with Whitson, to be filmed from the space station, but said it had to be rescheduled after she returns because of the impact of Hurricane Harvey in Houston.
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Comedian Berman Dies at 92
Comedian Shelley Berman, who won gold records and appeared on top television shows in the 1950s and 1960s delivering wry monologues about the annoyances of everyday life, has died. He was 92.
Berman died Friday at his home in Bell Canyon, California, from complications from Alzheimer’s disease, according to spokesman Glenn Schwartz.
Berman was a pioneer of a new brand of comedy that could evoke laughter from such matters as air travel discomforts and small children who answer the telephone. He helped pave the way for Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld and other standup comedians who fashioned their routines around the follies and frustrations of modern living.
Tributes came in Friday from Steve Martin, who tweeted that Berman “changed modern standup,” and Richard Lewis, who said there was “no better wordsmith.”
Late in his career, he played Nat David, father of Larry David, on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” With dialogue improvised by its cast, the comedy series gave Berman the opportunity to return to his improv roots and introduced him to a new generation of TV viewers.
“I’m not a standup comedian,” Berman often insisted. “I work on a stool.”
Comedy was not a childhood ambition for him. He trained as an actor, with the Goodman School of Drama in his native Chicago and with the prestigious actress-teacher Uta Hagen in New York.
“I had dreams of being an actor,” he said in a 1960 interview. “For 10 years I tried, picking up small jobs in summer stock and TV. I had a hard time of it.”
Nightclub routine
As a last resort, he put together a 20-minute routine and auditioned at the Chicago nightclub Mister Kelly’s. He was given a job, and then he had to scramble to write more material for a half-hour show.
“I was always one of those life-of-the-party boys,” he admitted, “though I never stooped to wearing women’s hats or lampshades. I was always making people laugh, in school and later in life.”
Berman’s success in Chicago led to a booking in Las Vegas. He bombed. The gamblers didn’t laugh, nor did they talk. Accustomed to slam-bang comics out of vaudeville and burlesque, they listened in amazement to the guy sitting on a stool and using big words with a routine that often consisted of one side of a make-believe phone call.
He continued on the saloon circuit, honing his craft and deciding on which direction to go. He didn’t fit any category. He wasn’t a joke teller nor a “sick” comedian. He figured he was a “humanist humorist.”
Berman made the first of many appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1959. That year he issued his first album, Inside Shelley Berman. It won a gold record and received the first-ever Grammy Award for the spoken word. Two more albums achieved gold status.
Along with his busy schedule in nightclubs and auditoriums, he fulfilled his first ambition to be an actor. He appeared in a Broadway play, The Boys Against the Girls, in 1959 and a musical, A Family Affair, in 1962. His film debut came in 1964 with the adaptation of Gore Vidal’s hit political stage drama, The Best Man, starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson.
“Not only an accomplished comedian, actor and author, Shelley was among the new breed of comedians who made a significant impact through recordings,” The Recording Academy said in a statement. “Shelley will be deeply missed, but the influence he exerted on our creative community will remain forever.”
Berman’s comedy career stalled in 1963. He was performing his act before an audience for a documentary-style NBC show, Comedian Backstage, when a telephone ringing interrupted him; it was the second night it happened. He stormed backstage and ranted at everyone in sight. His outburst, edited to make him appear temperamental, was included in the telecast.
Back to acting
“Once you’re known as being difficult, it becomes too hard to deal with management and even fellow artists,” he remarked in 1986. The bookings fell off, and Berman returned to acting, with little luck. He and his wife, Sarah, were forced to file for bankruptcy, and he began a long struggle to pay off his taxes and creditors.
He found work in television series such as The Twilight Zone, Rawhide and Peter Gunn and occasional movies including Divorce American Style. He became active in regional theater and also worked his old routines before college and lecture audiences.
For more than 20 years he taught comedy at the University of Southern California.
In recent years, he landed guest roles on series including The King of Queens, Boston Legal and CSI: NY, and appeared in the film Meet the Fockers.
He retired from performing in 2014 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Sheldon Leonard Berman was born in Chicago and attended public schools. After training as an actor, he joined an improvisational company in Chicago, Compass Players, the beginning of the famed Second City. Watching his fellow performers, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Berman said in 2000, “I learned more in two weeks than I did in four years at Goodman.”
He married in 1947, and he credited Sarah with helping him to survive through his jobless period while trying to be a comedian, the bankruptcy, the rebuilding of his career and the loss of their son, Joshua. They also had a daughter, Rachel, who, along with his wife, survives him.
Berman said of his marriage: “The love we have and the way it has grown, that’s what I’d like to be remembered for.”
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Hogwarts School Off to Flying Start in New Digital Experience
Harry Potter’s magical world is coming alive like never before.
Fans of the best-selling books and films can now fly through the boy wizard’s Hogwarts School and its quidditch pitch, in an immersive digital experience.
The Hogwarts Experience was launched on the fan website Pottermore.com on Friday to coincide with the Sept. 1 date when 11 year-old orphan Potter first started at Hogwarts school in J.K. Rowling’s 1997 book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”
While Hogwarts School has been created many times for movies, in art work and even in theme parks, the free digital experience allows fans to fly through the exterior of the castle, the forbidden forest including Hagrid’s hut, and the quidditch pitch.
“This new feature on our website marks the first time fans will have the opportunity to explore the famous wizarding school any time, any place and at their own pace,” Henriette Stuart-Reckling, global digital director for Pottermore, said in a statement.
Rowling’s seven Harry Potter books have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and were made into eight films that grossed $7 billion.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Wet and Wild in the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon — one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World — has inspired adventurers, poets and painters for hundreds of years. Whether looking down from its massive rim or up from the rushing waters of the Colorado River, it’s easy to see how it got its name. National parks traveler Mikah Meyer explored the majestic site during an eight-day adventure he says he’ll never forget. He shared highlights with VOA’s Julie Taboh.
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New Uber CEO Highlights Iranians in Tech
In Silicon Valley, all eyes are on Dara Khosrowshahi, the new CEO of Uber, who starts his turnaround of the ride-hailing firm on Tuesday.
But for Iranian Americans working in tech, Khosrowshahi’s appointment is not just about who will guide Uber, a nearly $70 billion company that has searched since June for a new leader.
Khosrowshahi, 48, is Iranian American. Born in Tehran, he came to the U.S. when he was nine. His appointment highlights the prominence of people of Iranian descent in the tech industry at a time when many feel under increased scrutiny.
“The Persian Mafia in Tech gets $70B bigger!” noted one Iranian American tech investor.
Khosrowshahi’s hiring prompted Ali Tahmaseb, a tech entrepreneur, to compile a list of more than 50 Iranian Americans who have founded companies, become tech investors or are in leadership roles at tech firms.
They include Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and Falon Roz Fatemi, founder and chief executive of Node.io and, when she was 19, Google’s youngest employee at the time.
Uber board’s appointment of Khosrowshahi comes at a time when Iranian Americans are increasingly worried about how they are perceived, said Leila Austin, executive director at the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, a non profit organization based in Washington, D.C.
More than 80 percent of Iranian Americans in a recent survey said they worried about rising discrimination, double those had expressed the same concern in 2015. And 56 percent said they had personally experienced discrimination.
Khosrowshahi, until recently the chief executive at Expedia, spoke out against the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict Iranians traveling to the U.S.
The Trump administration argues that its more restrictive visa and immigration policies will make the United States safer, and American citizens more prosperous.
In January, Khosrowshahi told his employees in a memo, obtained by Business Insider, that the travel ban would make the U.S. “ever so slightly less dangerous as a place to live, but it will certainly be seen as a smaller nation, one that is inward-looking versus forward thinking, reactionary versus visionary.”
Khosrowshahi faces a long list of problems at Uber. Sexual harassment claims. An aggressive, break-things culture. Internal strife within the board.
And then there is the actual Uber business, which has transformed transportation worldwide. The company has faced more pressure from Lyft, its main U.S. competitor. It has given up in big global markets, ceding to rivals in China, Russia and India. In his first all-hands meeting with Uber employees, Khosrowshahi said the company planned to go public in 18 to 36 months.
No doubt Khosrowshahi’s job at Uber is a big one, yet the enormity of the challenge adds to the Iranian community’s sense of pride, said Pirooz Parvarandeh, a longtime Silicon Valley executive who created a nonprofit to gather and analyze data about Iranian Americans’ contributions to the U.S.
Khosrowshahi’s ascendancy at Uber is “symbolic of the value and service that Iranian Americans bring to America,” he said.
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‘Dolores’: The Labor Activist Behind ‘Yes We Can!’
“Yes We Can,” President Barack Obama’s famous catch phrase, was borrowed from a petite fiery American Latina named Dolores Huerta. Not many people know Huerta’s name, or her contributions to American civil rights, but a new documentary, Dolores, by filmmaker Peter Bratt reveals 70 years of her rich life and work as an American union leader and activist.
In the late 1950s, Dolores Huerta, a community organizer and activist in California gave voice to disenfranchised Latinos in America. “I had seen the miserable conditions of farm workers,” she said. “Cesar Chavez said we have to organize a union.” So, Huerta and the American labor leader founded the National Farm Workers Association in California.
“We had benefits. We had a life insurance plan. We had an office we started a credit union, the first farm worker credit union in the history of the United States of America where people could get loans. We had a cooperative store we did services, we did immigration work we did their income taxes, we had like a five-year plan to have a national strike in the Central Valley because we wanted all of the growers to negotiate together,” says Huerta.
Voting rights
Uniting farmworkers in Delano, California, in the ’60s, was one of many of Dolores Huerta’s contributions. She told the Voice of America how she helped change voter registration in California, leading to a larger voter turnout in the state.
“One of the major bills that we passed was that you could register voters door to door in California. Before that, you had to go down to the courthouse from Monday to Friday 9-5 to register to vote, and of course, working people couldn’t do that because they were working at those particular hours.” As a result, she says, it’s easy to vote in California today.
Huerta says the film Dolores underscores the significance of social activism in the United States. “It became really apparent that the racism that touched the black people was the racism that touched other groups. So, (we) were marching for everybody,” she says.
Through her social activism, Dolores Huerta also became an icon of the feminist movement. African-American activist Angela Davis says Huerta, a woman in a sea of men, energized the labor movement. She united the workers, she staged protests against discrimination and inspired African-American activists, men and women alike. “There was a time when rarely could you discover women of color who would identify as feminists because it was assumed to be a question simply of gender. And if it was a question simply of gender that gender was white,” says Davis.
“It became really apparent that the racism that touched the black people was the racism that touched other groups,” Huerta explained. “So we were marching for everybody.” As for being considered a feminist icon, she admits, “I think I kind of evolved into that.” Raised Catholic, Huerta gave birth to 11 children who she often left behind as she pursued her union work. Today, she realizes the significance of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion if she needs to.
Labor union contributions
As for the state of the labor union movement today? Huerta says, though progress has been made, there is still a lot of racism and discrimination in the country. “I believe a lot of the issues we have in the United States right now is because people do not know the contributions of people of color, that indigenous Native Americans were the first slaves, that African slaves built the White House and the Congress. That it was the people from Mexico, the people from Asia, that built the infrastructure of our country. Because of labor unions, we have the eight-hour day, we have the weekends, we safety standards, we have unemployment insurance, disability insurance, we have public education, we have social security, all of this was fought for by people in labor unions.”
Unfortunately, says Dolores filmmaker Peter Bratt, many Americans do not know this part of history. “Stories like Dolores’s often times get marginalized and even Dolores is kind of painted as a foreigner. She is as American as apple pie or chips and salsa and her story is an American story and it should be told.”
Dolores Huerta also coined the famous slogan “Yes We Can,” that defined Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. “We were organizing in Arizona,” she recalled. “When I met with some of the professional Latinos, they told me in Spanish, ‘In California you can do all that; In Arizona, no se puede.’ And my response was to them was ‘Si, se puede! Si, se puede!’”
In 2012, Dolores Huerta was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today, at age 87, she is continuing her community work with the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
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China to Host Fellow BRICS Members at Summit
China on Sunday hosts the annual summit of leaders from the BRICS countries — the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They represent 40 percent of the global population, and observers say the talks are aimed at showcasing the nations’ combined economic might as a counter to Western domination of world affairs.
As host, China hopes to make the meeting in the southeastern city of Xiamen a landmark event. However, it is hamstrung by sharp differences among member countries on several issues, as well as lurking suspicions that China is using the Beijing-headquartered group as a platform to advance its political and business interests.
“There is no doubt that Beijing senses an opportunity to burnish its credentials as the ‘sole champion’ of globalization and multilateralism at a time when the United States, under the Trump administration, seems to be turning inward and away from multilateralism,” Mohan Malik, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies at Honolulu, told VOA in an emailed response. “Lacking friends and allies, Beijing is keen to set up as many multilateral forums and financial institutions as possible to bring small- and medium-sized developing countries into its orbit.”
Some in China believe that the BRICS platform offers an opportunity to push for these causes and perhaps enhance Chinese President Xi Jinping’s image as a world leader. The question, however, is whether Russia and India, which have an array of differences with Beijing, are interested in it.
Internal squabbles
Analysts note that Moscow has serious reservations about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure development project making progress in central Asia, where Russia has plans to implement a similar program, called the Eurasian Economic Union. Separately, China and India have had their disagreements.
This past week, the two Asian giants carefully backed down from one of their biggest disagreements in the Himalayan region in years, agreeing to de-escalate a 10-week-old standoff on their disputed border. India did not confirm that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the Xiamen summit until after the agreement was signed.
Recent years have seen China taking the lead in establishing or expanding homegrown international organizations where Western countries have little or no role. Beijing has also ensured that these organizations are headquartered in China.
In addition to BRICS, there is China’s National Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
BRICS Plus
More recently, China has been pushing a new proposal of BRICS Plus, which aims to bring non-BRICS countries into the organization.
China argues that doing so would strengthen the organization and make it a more potent force.
“BRICS is not an exclusive club. The impact of BRICS cooperation reaches far beyond the five countries,” said Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a recent press conference in Beijing. “I believe the BRICS Plus model will fully release the vitality of BRICS cooperation.”
Not everyone sees the proposal the same way, and it has met with stiff resistance and suspicion.
“China wants to be the leader of the organization, and the other four may not agree and that is why China is pushing to recruit more members,” said Oliver Rui, a professor of finance and accounting at the China Europe International Business School.
Some say China’s push to expand the organization is aimed at strengthening its position in BRICS, instead of making it stronger.
“Wang Yi’s idea of inviting other developing countries to join the partnership under the BRICS Plus concept would potentially unravel BRICS and transform it into just another SCO-like bloc, led and dominated by China [and Russia], that is likely to be anti-West in orientation and bolster Chinese leadership and serve Chinese interests,” Malik said.
For now, Beijing has been forced to abandon its effort to formalize the idea at the Xiamen summit, which begins Sunday and wraps up Tuesday.
Still, Foreign Minister Wang said China would stick to BRICS’ existing practice, which allows the host nation to invite other countries to the summit as a one-time opportunity. He also said that more would be done to help explain BRICS Plus and the rationale behind the idea.
BRICS without mortar
With a divide over expansion and a lack of clarity over the role the organization should play — whether it should have an economic or political agenda or both — some feel BRICS has yet to find that bonding element to hold the five countries together.
“I think the BRICS is kind of falling apart, due to many different kinds of reasons,” Rui said. “First, these five countries, naturally, they should not be a part of one organization.”
The group is not a trade bloc capable of influencing trade flows and decisions in the World Trade Organization. And the organization’s partners often complain of a huge trade balance in favor of Beijing because Chinese business tends to sell a lot more than it buys from these countries.
Beijing, however, is optimistic.
At the press conference, the Chinese foreign minister defended BRICS, saying that it reflects the aspirations of emerging markets and works for strengthening their economic situation. “It also plays an increasingly important role in promoting international peace and development,” he said.
VOA’s Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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US Unemployment Edges Upward to 4.4 Percent
The U.S. unemployment rate rose slightly in August and the net gain in jobs was lower than economists predicted.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department says the jobless rate rose one — tenth of one percent to 4.4 percent. While that is an increase, it is still close to a 16 — year low.
Across the economy, there was a net gain of 156,000 jobs — tens of thousands fewer than the prior month.
Wages continued to grow at a 2.5 percent annual rate. PNC Bank chief economist Gus Faucher says “soft” wage growth is a persistent problem, but predicts a tight labor market may soon prompt employers to offer higher pay.
Economic analyst Mark Hamrick of Bankrate.com says the lack of wage growth when unemployment is low is causing “a lot of head — scratching” ((is very puzzling)) for economists. He says part of the problem is that weak growth in productivity is hurting wage growth.Hamrick adds that a flood of retirements of the baby boomer generation means younger workers, who tend to have lower wages, are taking over.
Government economists who monitor unemployment say Hurricane Harvey had “no discernable effect” on these jobless figures because the data was collected before the storm struck. Faucher says the next jobless report may show substantially weaker growth because of Harvey, but that the impact will be temporary as people are hired for reconstruction efforts.
The report says 7.1 million Americans are out of work, and another 5.3 million who want full — time jobs stuck with part — time work. There were job gains in manufacturing, construction, professional services, and health care.
A separate survey by the University of Michigan shows more than half of consumers say their personal financial situation has improved over the past few months. That is the best showing in about 17 years. Economists watch consumer attitudes closely because consumers who feel financially secure are more likely to make major purchases like cars or homes. Consumer demand drives most U.S. economic activity.
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