Month: March 2018

Amid Flood of Chinese Products, India Wants Fairness

Posted on by Coeco

Sampad Yadav, who sells electrical goods in a shop in the business hub of Gurugram on the outskirts of New Delhi, says Chinese goods such as LED lamps are popular with customers. “When people make a price comparison, and want to move towards the cheapest goods, those are usually Chinese products.”

 

As in many other countries, Chinese products such as lamps, electronics, smartphones and engineering goods from the manufacturing giant have flooded Indian markets.

 

However India has long fretted that areas in which it is strong such as generic drugs and Information Technology services, which make up some of its main exports to Western markets, remain shut out of China. That has made it difficult to bridge a ballooning trade deficit of about $50 billion between the two countries.

 

But there is optimism this could change following a meeting this week between the commerce ministers of the two countries in New Delhi.

 

“The Chinese side have agreed to work on the issue, prepare a road map to bring the trade to balanced level over a period of time,” Indian Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said after discussions with his Chinese counterpart, Zhong Shan.

 

Trade experts hope the growing tensions on trade issues between the United States and China will prompt Beijing to open up its markets more to Indian exports. “I think China is definitely under pressure now, looking into the kind of initiation which has happened against China,” says Ajay Sahai, who heads the Federation of Indian Exports Organization.

 

The meeting between the Indian and Chinese commerce ministers this week came amid efforts to deescalate tensions between the Asian neighbors following a period of rocky ties and a tense 70-day face-off between their troops in the Himalayas last year.

Despite a long-lingering boundary dispute and an often-fraught diplomatic relationship, trade ties between the Asian giants have gained significant momentum and China is now India’s largest trading partner. Bilateral trade in 2017 topped $80 billion rising by more than 20 percent over the previous yea.

 

But worryingly for New Delhi, the trade deficit remains high despite a marginal growth in Indian exports – they add up to about $16 billion versus Chinese imports into India of about $68 billion.

 

Market access a key issue

India exports mainly raw materials like iron ore, copper and cotton yarn to China. “In whatever value added exports where we are competitive, unfortunately the market is not open for us,” says Sahai.

 

However China has promised to give greater market access to Indian goods, particularly pharmaceuticals and agricultural goods such as rice, as well as service exports, according to the Indian commerce minister. “They have decided to work in a way that will address security issues from their side as well as introduce Indian companies to those who can buy these products in China,” says Prabhu.

 

New Delhi, which is trying to ramp up domestic manufacturing, is also urging China to manufacture more goods exported to India within the country.

Whether the promised actions translate into concrete outcomes remains to be seen. But exporters are hopeful. Sahai points out that China has invited Indian traders to what is being billed as the country’s first importers fair to be held in Shanghai later this year – it is being showcased as a measure to further open up China’s market.

 

The positive tenor of talks between the two countries comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on Chinese imports valued at $60 billion.

 

New Delhi could also face U.S. ire on trade issues – although its exports to the United States are comparatively small, it has a high trade deficit in its favor and Washington has often complained of protectionist barriers in India. In February, Trump called out India for imposing higher duties on Harley-Davidson motorcycles than the U.S. does on Indian motorbikes.

 

Amid growing fears that global trade faces uncertain times, analysts have called on countries like India to focus on increasing trade within the region.   

 

India and China also said they will strengthen cooperation in the World Trade Organization and other multilateral and regional frameworks to maintain their common interests.
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In Philippines, Devotees Re-Enact Good Friday Crucifixions

Posted on by Corts

Filipino Roman Catholic devotees, including a woman, were nailed to wooden crosses in a gory Good Friday re-enactment of Jesus Christ’s sufferings that was watched by thousands of spectators but frowned upon by church leaders.

At least three of eight devotees wearing crowns of twigs were crucified by midafternoon by villagers north of Manila who were dressed as Roman centurions.

The spectacle in San Pedro Cutud village reflects a unique brand of Catholicism that merges church traditions with folk superstitions. Many of the mostly impoverished penitents undergo the ritual to atone for sins, pray for the sick or a better life, or give thanks for what they believe were God-given miracles.

Church discourages ritual

The Lenten rituals are frowned upon by church leaders in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, especially if the event is used to boost tourism and business. The re-enactments of the crucifixion, however, have persisted and became an awaited tourist attraction in the largely unknown village in Pampanga province, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the capital.

While the crucifixions have become a summer tradition to locals, they still leave many foreign tourists bewildered.

“It’s terrible,” Luke Henkel from Florida said. “You wanna stop it.”

Mayor Edwin Santiago of San Fernando, the city where San Pedro Cutud lies, said more than 400 police officers were deployed and first-aid stations set up to look after the huge crowds.

“We provide assistance because we can’t stop the influx of tourists,” Pangilinan said. “We don’t promote it as a festival but it’s rather a show of respect to a local tradition.”

Tourists and commerce

Villagers used the crowd-drawing events to peddle food, water, fans, umbrellas and souvenirs and rent out parking slots and toilets. A leading cellphone company provided tents for shade with its name embossed on them.

Archbishop Socrates Villegas said it’s best for Catholics to mark Lent in prayers and acts of love and charity.

“Instead of spilling your blood on the streets, why not walk into a Red Cross office and donate blood? Choose to share life. Share your blood,” Villegas said in remarks posted in a Catholic church website.

Before the crucifixions, dozens of male penitents walked several kilometers through village streets, beating their bare backs with sharp bamboo sticks and pieces of wood. Some of them had their backs cut to keep them bloody.
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Vietnam Stands to See Modest Wins if China, U.S. Start Trade War

Posted on by Coeco

A wider Sino-U.S. trade dispute would help export-reliant Vietnam compete against Chinese companies but put the country at risk of any global fallout, analysts say.

The numerous exporters in Vietnam that ship manufactured goods to the United States would save money compared with Chinese peers if not subject to American tariffs, said Dustin Daugherty, senior associate with business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.

The U.S. government said this month it would develop a list of tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports. China has threatened to impose its own in response.

“Let’s say (the United States) went the more traditional route, tensions kept escalating and more tariffs are slapped on Chinese products,” Daugherty said. “In that case Vietnam’s export sector definitely benefits. We’re already seeing the U.S. being very warm to Vietnam and U.S. businesses keen on doing business with Vietnam.”

But Chinese firms hit by tariffs might flood Vietnam with raw materials for local manufacturing, while overall world market volatility caused by a Sino-U.S. trade dispute could hamper the country’s trade, said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

​A tariff-free Vietnam scenario

Vietnamese exporters would save money compared to their Chinese peers if the U.S. government placed tariffs on Chinese firms alone without touching their cross-border supply chains, Daugherty said.

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump calls China unfair in its trade practices, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says on its website. China enjoys a $375 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Vietnam counts the United States as its top single-country export destination and it shipped $46.484 billion worth of goods to that market last year.

Vietnamese officials have carved out an investment environment since the 1980s that hinges on low costs for manufacturers. American-invested factories such as a Ford Motor plant and an Intel chip factory are among those active in Vietnam today.

Foreign investment contributed to exports worth $155.24 billion in 2017, financial services firm SSI Research in Hanoi says. Vietnam’s economy grew about 7 percent in the first quarter this year, it says.

Attractive investment

Vietnam would be a more attractive investment compared with China under higher U.S. tariffs, analysts say.

Some new investors might be formerly China-based firms hoping to flee the tariffs, said Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

China itself might offer Vietnam, along with other countries, preferential trade policies or infrastructure help to shore up trade ties, some believe. Stronger trade relations outside the United States would help China offset any tariff damage, Daugherty said.

This week China’s commerce minister pledged to relax trade rules affecting India.

​Specter of a broader trade war

U.S. import tariffs that hit China’s extensive cross-border supply chain would hurt Vietnam as a place that finishes Chinese goods for final export, Thayer said. It’s unclear whether Washington would tax Chinese firms alone or their wider supply networks.

Chinese firms already co-invest with Vietnamese partners, Song said, and supply chains for goods such as consumer electronics can net multiple countries, not just China.

More co-investment might follow if Vietnam can offer shelter from tariffs. But Sino-Vietnamese political tension over a maritime dispute risks giving Vietnamese firms a bad name at home if they work too extensively with Chinese partners.

“I would say there will be all kinds of repercussions and implications just because of the very integrated supply chain in the world these days,” Song said. “Take an Apple phone as an example. Parts from here and there are assembled in China.”

Steel, aluminum tariffs

U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs that took effect last week cover much of the world including China and Vietnam. Vietnam exported 380,000 tons of steel, worth $303 million, to the United States in 2017, domestic news website VnExpress International says.

Chinese firms hit by the range of tariffs being mulled now in Washington might boost sales to Vietnam, Thayer said. Chinese sellers of raw materials for Vietnamese exports could dump goods into Vietnam to keep up their own balance sheets as U.S. tariffs hurt them, he added.

Chinese sellers often have an economy of scale that lets them sell for less in Vietnam than local vendors do. Vietnam counts China as its top trading partner.

An escalation of Sino-U.S. trade tensions could also chill global markets or trade as a whole, some analysts fear. That fallout could slow global growth, he said.

“Disruption to trade shouldn’t affect Vietnam overall, but it’s the way the entire globe is reacting to this that I think could affect Vietnam,” he said. “Vietnam is overall heavily committed to global integration with a number of partners, so disruption along that way would have an effect.”
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Italian Market Offers Array of Items to Help Celebrate Easter

Posted on by Corts

Easter, also known as Resurrection Sunday, commemorates Jesus’ resurrection, three days after his crucifixion. It’s preceded by Lent, 40 days of fasting, prayer and repentance. While Easter is a solemn holiday for Christians, it’s also a time for families to get together around the festival holiday table, one that has been influenced by the many cultures that make up American society. VOA’s Mariama Diallo visited an Italian market owned by Suzy and Bill Menard and filed this report.
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Rivers and Tides Can Provide Affordable Power

Posted on by Cobiz

While wind turbines and solar cells generate power only when there is wind and sun, most rivers always flow and most ocean shores always experience tidal currents. At a recent energy summit organized by the U.S. Energy Department, a company from Maine displayed an innovative submersible generator that effectively harvests power from shallow rivers and tidal currents. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Despite Setbacks, Automakers Move Forward with Electric and Self-Driving Cars

Posted on by Cobiz

A recent fatality involving one of Uber’s self-driving cars may have created uncertainty and doubt regarding the future of autonomous vehicles, but it’s not stopping automakers who say autonomous and self-driving vehicles are here to stay. At the New York International Auto Show this week, autonomous vehicles and electric cars were increasingly front and center as VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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Tech Giants Tackle Online Wildlife Trafficking

Posted on by Cobiz

A new coalition of tech giants and conservationists is looking to drastically reduce the amount of wild, and often endangered, animals that are trafficked via online services. As Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, they hope to cut 80 percent of the illegal trade by the end of the decade.
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Cosby Judge Won’t Step Aside as Attorneys Target Accuser

Posted on by Corts

The judge in Bill Cosby’s retrial rejected demands Thursday from the comedian’s attorneys to step aside during a hearing in which they made clear they plan to attack his accuser as a greedy liar who falsely accused the comedian of sexually assaulting her to collect a payoff. 

Judge Steven O’Neill shot down what amounted to a last-ditch effort to postpone the trial by attorneys who lost their bid to overturn his ruling allowing up to five additional accusers to testify against Cosby.

Lawyers argued he should remove himself because his wife is a social worker and advocate for assault victims, pointing to a $100 donation made in her name to an organization that gave money to a group planning a protest outside the retrial.

O’Neill said that was made 13 months ago by the department where his wife works at the University of Pennsylvania and that he’s “not biased or prejudiced” by her work.

Jury selection starts April 2

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday as the 80-year-old Cosby faces charges that he drugged and molested former Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. 

While they sparred with the judge in court Thursday, Cosby’s attorneys are also counting on him to make critical rulings to bolster their defense that Constand is a money-grubbing liar.

They want O’Neill to let them call Marguerite Jackson, a woman who says Constand spoke of framing a celebrity before she went to police with allegations that Cosby drugged and molested her in 2004. They also want to let jurors know how much Cosby paid her in a 2006 civil settlement.

“Those are the bookends: I have a motive and I have a payoff,” attorney Kathleen Bliss argued. “The jury should be allowed to view the full context of that.”

Assistant District Attorney Kristen Fedden said that they doubted the discussion with Jackson happened.

O’Neill blocked Jackson from testifying at the first trial because he said her testimony would be hearsay. Prosecutors want him to do the same for the retrial.

Prosecutors say the theory that Constand wanted to set up Cosby is undermined by the comedian’s testimony in a 2005 deposition that she only visited his home when invited and that he gave her pills without her asking for them.

Prosecutors also argued the settlement is irrelevant to the criminal case, but that if it is allowed in, jurors should also hear about negotiations that led to the settlement.

Assistant District Attorney Stewart Ryan contended that Cosby’s negotiators initially asked that he be released from any criminal liability and tried to bar Constand from cooperating with law enforcement. He said that amounted to obstruction of justice.

“Those things are inconsistent with a person who believes he’s innocent,” Ryan said.

Judge’s wife

Thursday’s hearing started with arguments over the judge’s wife, Deborah O’Neill, a psychotherapist who coordinates a team that cares and advocates for student sexual assault victims. 

O’Neill said that the donation cited by Cosby’s lawyers didn’t involve her money or their joint assets.

“How are my wife’s independent views of an independent woman connected to me?” O’Neill said. “She’s an independent woman and has the right to be involved in anything that she believes in.”

O’Neill said Thursday that Cosby’s former attorneys raised the prospect of having him step aside in December 2016, but never followed through. He added that he could have rejected the recusal request simply because Cosby’s attorneys waited too long to ask.

He said they were aware of Deborah O’Neill’s work as far back as December 2016, but that they waited until getting several adverse rulings just before retrial to raise it as an issue.

O’Neill spoke glowingly about his wife and said it was difficult to have her accomplishments “trivialized” in a legal motion. He said Cosby’s attorneys had presented an antiquated view of marriage in which spouses must agree on everything.

Cosby’s attorneys could still appeal O’Neill’s decision to allow the other accusers to testify to the state’s Supreme Court.

Constand phone call

The pretrial hearing will continue Friday, including for arguments over whether jurors can hear about a 2005 phone call in which Constand says she told her mother about the alleged assault for the first time.

O’Neill agreed Thursday that the trial wouldn’t start until at least April 9 and that the jury chosen from suburban Montgomery County would be sequestered in a local hotel.

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
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Social Media Use in Tween Girls Tied to Well-Being in Teen Years

Posted on by Cosc

Girls who spend the most time on social media at age 10 may be unhappier in their early teens than peers who use social media less during the tween years, a U.K. study suggests.

Researchers looked at social media use and scores on tests of happiness and other aspects of well-being among boys and girls at age 10 and each year until age 15. Overall, well-being decreased with age for boys and girls, but more so for girls. And high social media use early on predicted sharper increases in unhappiness for girls later.

For boys, social media use at 10 had no association with well-being in the midteens, which suggests that other factors are more important influences on well-being changes in boys, the authors note in BMC Public Health.

A pattern for girls

“Our findings suggest that young girls, those aged 10, who are more interactive with social media have lower levels of well-being by age 15 than their peers who interact with social media less at age 10. We did not find any similar patterns for boys, suggesting that any changes in their well-being may not be due to social media,” said lead author Cara Booker, a researcher at the University of Essex.

Booker’s research group had done a previous study of social media use and well-being in adolescents, but wanted to explore how it changes over time, she said in an email. They had also noticed gender differences and wanted to look more closely at them, she added.

The study team analyzed data on nearly 10,000 teens from a large national survey of U.K. households conducted annually from 2009 to 2015. The researchers focused on how much time young participants spent chatting on social media on a typical school day.

The survey also contained questions about “strengths and difficulties” that assessed emotional and behavioral problems, and researchers generated a happiness score based on responses to other questions about school, family and home life.

Social media use

The researchers found that adolescent girls used social media more than boys, though social media interaction increased with age for both boys and girls.

At age 13, about half of girls were interacting on social media for more than one hour a day, compared to just one-third of boys.

By age 15, girls continued to use social media more than boys, with about 60 percent of girls and just less than half of the boys interacting on social media for one or more hours per day.

Social and emotional difficulties declined with age for boys, but rose for girls.

It’s possible that girls are more sensitive than boys to social comparisons and interactions that impact self-esteem, the authors write. Or that the sedentary time spent on social media impacts health and happiness in other ways.

“Many hours of daily use may not be ideal,” Booker said.

Digitally literacy needed

The study cannot prove whether or how social media interactions affect young people’s well-being. The authors note that compared to girls, boys may spend more time gaming than chatting online, yet gaming has become increasingly social so it’s possible that it also has an effect that they did not examine in this study.

Parents should become more digitally literate as well as teach their children how to positively interact with social media, Booker said. Dealing with filtered posts and mostly positive posts may lead to incorrect conclusions about others’ lives that lead to lower levels of well-being, she noted.

“I don’t want people to come away with the idea that social media is bad, just that increased use at a young age may be detrimental for girls,” she said.

More research needs to be done on why and whether this persists into adulthood, Booker added.
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Under Armour: 150 Million Fitness App Accounts Breached

Posted on by Cobiz

Under Armour Inc. said Thursday that data from 150 million MyFitnessPal diet and fitness app accounts were compromised in February, in one of the biggest hacks in history, sending shares of the athletic apparel maker down 3 percent in after-hours trade.

The stolen data include account user names, email addresses and scrambled passwords for the popular MyFitnessPal mobile app and website, Under Armour said in a statement. Social Security numbers, driver license numbers and payment card data were not compromised, it said.

It is the largest data breach this year and one of the top five to date, based on the number of records compromised, according to SecurityScorecard, a cybersecurity rating and remediation company.

Larger hacks include 3 billion Yahoo accounts compromised in a 2013 incident and credentials for more than 412 million users of adult websites run by California-based FriendFinder Networks Inc. in 2016, according to breach notification website LeakedSource.com.

Under Armour said it was working with data security firms and law enforcement, but it did not provide details of how the hackers got into its network or pulled out the data without getting caught.

While the breach did not include financial data, large troves of stolen email addresses can be valuable to cybercriminals.

Email addresses retrieved in a 2014 attack that compromised data on 83 million JPMorgan Chase customers were later used in schemes to boost stock prices, according to U.S. federal indictments in the case in 2015.

Under Armor said in an alert on its website that it would require MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords, and it urged users to do so immediately.

“We continue to monitor for suspicious activity and to coordinate with law enforcement authorities,” the company said, adding that it was bolstering systems that detect and prevent unauthorized access to user information.

Under Armour said it started notifying users of the breach Thursday, four days after it learned of the incident.

Under Armour bought MyFitnessPal in 2015 for $475 million.

It is part of the company’s connected fitness division, whose revenue last year accounted for 1.8 percent of Under Armour’s $5 billion in total sales. 
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg Disavows Memo Saying All User Growth Is Good

Posted on by Cobiz

A Facebook Inc. executive said in an internal memo in 2016 that the social media company needed to pursue adding users above all else, BuzzFeed

News reported Thursday, prompting disavowals from the executive and Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

The memo from Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook vice president, had not been previously reported as Facebook faces inquiries over how it handles personal information and the tactics the social media company has used to grow to 2.1 billion users.

Zuckerberg stood by Bosworth, who goes by the nickname “Boz,” while distancing himself from the memo’s contents.

Bosworth confirmed the memo’s authenticity but in a statement he disavowed its message, saying its goal had been to encourage debate.

Facebook users, advertisers and investors have been in an uproar for months over a series of scandals, most recently privacy practices that allowed political consultancy Cambridge Analytica to obtain personal information on 50 million Facebook members. Zuckerberg is expected to testify at a hearing with U.S. lawmakers as soon as April.

​’Provocative’ statements

“Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly. We’ve never believed the ends justify the means,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Bosworth wrote in the June 2016 memo that some “questionable” practices were all right if the result was connecting people.

“That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends,” he wrote in the memo, which BuzzFeed published on its website.

He also urged fellow employees not to let potential negatives slow them down.

“Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people,” he wrote.

Bosworth said Thursday that he did not agree with the post today “and I didn’t agree with it even when I wrote it.

“Having a debate around hard topics like these is a critical part of our process and to do that effectively we have to be able to consider even bad ideas, if only to eliminate them,” Bosworth’s statement said.
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UN: US on Track to Meet Climate Accord Targets

Posted on by Cosc

The United States is on track to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement despite President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the accord, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

Guterres said emissions-cutting plans put in motion by American businesses, regional governments and cities meant that the goals set by the former U.S. administration, which signed the deal in 2016 were within reach.

“We have seen in the cities, and we have seen in many states, a very strong commitment to the Paris agreement, to the extent that some indicators are moving even better than in the recent past,” Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

“There are expectations that, independently of the position of the administration, the U.S. might be able to meet the commitments made in Paris as a country.”

Greenhouse gas emissions

Under the deal, the administration of former president Barack Obama pledged to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

Nearly 200 countries and parties have signed the landmark agreement after intense negotiations in Paris, where all nations made voluntary carbon-cutting pledges running to 2030.

The agreement is aimed at limiting global warming to within two degrees Celsius, but Guterres warned that more action was needed by 2020 to reach that goal.

Withdrawal notice due in 2019

Trump faced condemnation when he announced in June 2017 that the United States was pulling out, painting the accord as a “bad deal” for the U.S. economy.

Under the agreement, the United States can formally give notice that it plans to withdraw in 2019, three years after the accord came into force, and the withdrawal would become effective in 2020.

Describing climate change as “the most systemic threat to humankind,” Guterres said recent data on extreme weather events showed that “2017 was filled with climate chaos.”

“2018 has already brought more of the same,” he said. “Food security, health, stability itself all hang in the balance.”

Guterres is planning to host a major summit next year to take stock of progress in implementing the climate deal, but it remains unlikely that Trump would attend.

Plan to loosen emissions, fuel standards

Though Guterres said the U.S. is on track to meet Paris climate agreement targets, the Trump administration still has the ability to change current regulations.

The New York Times reported Thursday, citing an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman, that the White House was expected to push a plan to loosen standards on emissions and vehicle fuel economy standards, undercutting the previous administration’s bid to fight climate change.

Such a move would represent a win for automakers, potentially paving the way to lower the bar for standards globally.
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Judge Orders Coffee Sellers in California to Put Cancer Warning on Products

Posted on by Cosc

A Los Angeles judge Thursday ordered coffee companies to abide by California state law and put cancer warning labels on their products.

A nonprofit group called the Council for Education and Research on Toxics is suing such popular coffee roasters and retailers as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s. They say the companies fail to warn consumers that roasting coffee naturally produces a carcinogen called acrylamide.

In the first part of the three-phase trial, Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled the coffee companies failed to prove their assertion that there is no significant risk from acrylamide.

In Thursday’s ruling after the second phase, Berle said the companies failed to adequately show coffee is a healthy drink.

“Defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health,” he wrote.

An upcoming third phase would decide what civil penalties the coffee companies would have to pay.

Company officials have not yet responded to the judge’s ruling.

Acrylamide forms naturally when such foods as coffee, hot wheat cereals and potatoes are cooked or deep fried.

Most medical studies show no increased risk of cancer from eating such foods.

Some recent studies have shown possible benefits from drinking coffee, including protection against liver disease, some diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
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Ads Pulled from Ingraham Show After She Mocked Parkland Survivor

Posted on by Corts

At least three companies said Thursday they were pulling advertisements from a Fox News show hosted by conservative pundit Laura Ingraham, heeding a call from a teenage survivor of the Florida school massacre whom Ingraham mocked on Twitter.

Parkland student David Hogg, 17, tweeted a list of a dozen companies that advertise on The Ingraham Angle and urged his supporters to demand that they cancel their ads.

Hogg is a survivor of the Feb. 14 mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Parkland suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Since then, he and other classmates have become the faces of a new youth-led movement calling for tighter restrictions on firearms.

Hogg took aim at Ingraham’s advertisers after she taunted him Wednesday on Twitter, accusing him of whining about being rejected by four colleges to which he had applied.

On Thursday, Ingraham tweeted an apology “in the spirit of Holy Week,” saying she was sorry for any hurt or upset she had caused Hogg or any of the “brave victims” of Parkland.

“For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David … immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how ‘poised’ he was given the tragedy,” Ingraham tweeted, adding that Hogg was welcome back for another interview.

But her apology did not stop at least three companies from parting ways with her show. U.S. celebrity chef Rachael Ray’s pet food line Nutrish, travel website TripAdvisor and online home furnishings seller Wayfair Inc all said they were canceling their advertisements.

Wayfair

Wayfair said it supports open dialogue and debate, but “the decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values,” it said in a statement.

Nutrish

Replying to Hogg’s boycott call, Nutrish tweeted: “We are in the process of removing our ads from Laura Ingraham’s program.”

A representative for the pet food line did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

TripAdvisor

CNBC cited a TripAdvisor spokesman as saying the company does not condone “inappropriate comments” made by Ingraham that in its view “cross the line of decency.”

TripAdvisor representatives did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Ingraham’s show runs on Fox News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.
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NASA Intensifying Search for Planets Orbiting Stars Beyond Solar System

Posted on by Cosc

The search for worlds circling star  far beyond our solar system will intensify in the coming weeks with NASA’s launch of a spacecraft scientists hope will enlarge the known catalog of so-called exoplanets believed capable of supporting life.

NASA plans to send the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set for blast-off on April 16 on a two-year, $337-million mission.

The latest NASA astrophysics endeavor is designed to build on the work of its predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, which discovered the bulk of some 3,500 exoplanets documented during the past 20 years, revolutionizing one of the newest fields in space science.

NASA expects TESS to detect thousands more previously unknown worlds, perhaps hundreds of them Earth-sized or “super-Earth”-sized — no larger than twice as big as our home planet.

One of a kind orbit

Such worlds are believed to stand the greatest chance of having rocky surfaces or oceans, and are thus considered the most promising candidates for the evolution of life, as opposed to gas giants similar to Jupiter or Neptune.

Astronomers said they hope to end up with about 100 more rocky exoplanets for further study.

The new probe will take about 60 days to attain its highly elliptical, first-of-a-kind orbit that will loop TESS between Earth and the moon every two and a half weeks.

Kepler’s positioning system broke down in 2013 about four years after its launch, and though scientists found a way to keep it operational it has nearly run out of fuel.

“So it’s perfect timing that we’ll be launching TESS to continue the great activity of looking for planets around stars other than our sun and thinking about what it might mean for life in the universe,” Paul Hertz, NASA’s director of astrophysics, told reporters at a news briefing in Washington on Wednesday.

Size of refrigerator

TESS, roughly the size of a refrigerator with solar-panel wings, is equipped with four special cameras to survey 200,000 stars that are relatively near the sun and thus among the brightest in the sky, seeking out those with planets of their own.

Like Kepler, TESS will use a detection method called transit photometry, which looks for periodic, repetitive dips in the visible light from stars caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of them.

But unlike Kepler, which fixed its glare on stars within a tiny fraction of the sky, TESS will scan the majority of the heavens for shorter periods and focus much of its attention on stars called red dwarfs, which are smaller, cooler and longer-lived than our sun.

One reason is red dwarfs have a high propensity for Earth-sized, presumably rocky planets, making them potentially fertile ground for closer examination, said David Latham, TESS science director for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Also because red dwarfs are so small, and their planets orbit more closely than the Earth does to the sun, the dip in light from a planetary transit of a red dwarf is more pronounced compared with a larger star, Latham said.

“It’s easier to find interesting planets around smaller stars,” he said.

Measuring dips in starlight can determine the exoplanet’s size and orbital path. Further observations from ground telescopes can supply its mass and ultimately the planet’s density and composition — whether largely solid, liquid or gas.

Earth-sized planets found

Martin Still, the TESS program scientist for NASA, said more than 50 rocky, Earth- or super-Earth-sized planets have previously been identified, and NASA expects to increase that number through the new mission.

The most favorable discoveries will undergo closer scrutiny by a new generation of larger, more powerful telescopes now under development that will search for telltale signs of water and “the kinds of gases in their atmospheres that on Earth are an indication of life,” Hertz said.

“TESS itself will not be able to find life beyond Earth, but TESS will help us figure out where to point our larger telescopes,” he said.
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Lohan Fails to Convince Court Her Image Is in Video Game

Posted on by Corts

It looks like “Game Over” for actress Lindsay Lohan in her state court fight against a software company for using what she claims is a likeness of her in a video game.

Lohan’s lawyer argued before New York’s top court that Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. violated her right to privacy by incorporating “look-a-like” images of her in the game “Grand Theft Auto V.”

But the state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the satirical representations of “a modern, beach-going” young woman are not identifiable as Lohan. The court affirmed a ruling from a lower state appeals court dismissing her lawsuit.

Similar claims against Take-Two by “Mob Wives” television star Karen Gravano also were dismissed in a separate ruling.

A message left with Lohan’s lawyer wasn’t immediately returned.
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Plaque Honoring Jefferson Davis Removed at Kentucky Capitol

Posted on by Corts

Kentucky has altered a statue of Jefferson Davis in the state Capitol, removing a plaque that declared the only president of the Confederacy to be a patriot and a hero.

The plaque adorned a 15-foot (4.5 meter) marble statue, which sits in a corner of the state’s ornate Capitol rotunda just behind a bronze statue of former President Abraham Lincoln. Both men were born in Kentucky.

Advocates have pushed for the Davis statue to be removed from the Capitol for years. Their protests gained momentum following the racially-motivated 2015 murders of nine people at an African-American church in South Carolina and the violent protests last year at a white supremacist rally in Virginia.

The Historic Properties Advisory Commission, which governs the statues in the rotunda, voted in 2015 to keep the statue in place as a symbol of the state’s divided past. Kentucky never joined the Confederacy, but it had a number of Confederate sympathizers who attempted to set up a Confederate government in the western part of the state during the Civil War.

Last year, the commission voted to alter the statue by removing a plaque that says Davis was a “Patriot-Hero-Statesman.” The commission then delayed that decision so a lawyer from Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration could make sure the commission had authority to remove the plaque.

Officials removed the plaque on March 11, according to Leslie Nigels, director of the Division of Historic Properties. A report from Nigels during the commission’s meeting on Thursday said removing the plaque is consistent with the commission’s obligation to provide “an objective, balanced, and educational display.”

The Lincoln statute was erected in 1911. The Davis statute came in 1936 after a fundraising campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the height of the Jim Crow era, when segregation laws proliferated throughout the South.

The original plan, according to the Kentucky Historical Society, was for the Lincoln statue to face north while the Davis statue faced South. The plan was abandoned because the statues were too heavy to be that close together.

The plaque in question was installed in 1975. It was a gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and former Gov. A.B. “Happy” Chandler was on hand to dedicate it.
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Researchers Study Old Wooden Ship Remains on Florida Beach

Posted on by Cosc

A 48-foot section of an old sailing ship has washed ashore on a Florida beach, thrilling researchers who are rushing to study it before it’s reclaimed by the sea.

The Florida Times-Union reports the well-preserved section of a wooden ship’s hull washed ashore overnight Tuesday on Florida’s northeastern coast.

Researchers with the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum have been documenting the artifact and say it could date back as far as the 1700s.

Museum historian Brendan Burke told the newspaper that evidence suggests the vessel was once sheeted in copper, and that crews found Roman numerals carved on its wooden ribs.

Researchers rushed to photograph and measure the wreckage. The photos will be used to create a 3-D model.
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Chinese Pill Factories Fuel Opioid Crisis in America’s Heartland

Posted on by Cosc

On a freezing January night, Bailey Henke, 18, of Grand Forks, N.D. died in yet another tragic case of opioid overdose in America. Authorities later traced the pill he swallowed to a fentanyl factory in China – one the world’s top sources of the illegal drug. VOA traveled to America’s Heartland to see how Henke’s family, friends and the community are grappling with the deadly fallout from the Chinese drug supply chain.
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Happiness Class Attracts Record Attendance at Ivy League University

Posted on by Cosc

The pursuit of happiness is among the unalienable rights listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and so it is no wonder that the study of that elusive treasure makes for one of the most popular classes in the country. A record 1,200 students are attending a class that teaches students how to be happier at prestigious Yale University in the U.S. state of Connecticut. As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, many more are enrolled in the Yale happiness course online.
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Distant Galaxy Baffles Astronomers With Its Lack of Dark Matter

Posted on by Cosc

It’s a double cosmic conundrum: Lots of stuff that was already invisible has gone missing.

Astronomers have found a distant galaxy where there is no dark matter.

Dark matter is called “dark” because it can’t be seen. It is the mysterious and invisible skeleton of the universe that scientists figure makes up about 27 percent of the cosmos. Scientists only know dark matter exists because they can observe how it pushes and pulls things they can see, like stars.

It’s supposed to be everywhere.

What you see is what you get

But Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and colleagues spied a vast, old galaxy with relatively few stars where what you see truly is what you get. The galaxy’s stars are speeding around with no apparent influence from dark matter, according to a study published in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

Instead of shaking the very foundations of physics, scientists say this absence of dark matter may help prove the existence of, wait for it, dark matter.

“Not sure what to make of it, but it is definitely intriguing,” wrote Case Western Reserve astronomer Stacy McGaugh, who was not part of the study, in an email. “This is a weird galaxy.”

Van Dokkum studies diffuse galaxies, ones that cover enormous areas but have relatively few stars. To look for them he and colleagues built their own makeshift telescope out of 48 telephoto lenses that he first tested by using a toy flashlight to shine a light on a paper clip. The bug-eyed telescope, called Dragonfly, peers into the sky from New Mexico.

Using Dragonfly, van Dokkum and colleagues found a large, sparse galaxy called NGC1052-DF2 in the northern constellation Cetus, also known as the whale. It’s as big as the Milky Way but with only 1 percent of its stars. Then they used larger telescopes on Hawaii and eventually the Hubble Space Telescope to study the galaxy.

Slow-moving stars

Even though the galaxy is mostly empty, they found clusters of densely grouped stars. With measurements from the telescopes, van Dokkum and colleagues calculated how fast those clusters moved. If there were a normal amount of dark matter those clusters would be speeding around at 67,000 mph (108,000 kilometers per hour). Instead, the clusters were moving at 18,000 mph (28,000 kilometers per hour). That’s about how fast they would move if there were no dark matter at all, van Dokkum said.

The team also calculated the total mass of the galaxy and found the stars account for everything, with little or no room left for dark matter.

“I find this unlikely in all possible contexts,” said McGaugh, who is a proponent of a “modified gravity” theory that excludes the existence of dark matter altogether. “That doesn’t make it wrong, just really weird.”

How could this absence of dark matter help prove that it exists? By potentially disproving modified gravity theories that suggest gravity acts in a way that the cosmos makes sense without dark matter. But those alternative theories require stars in this galaxy to zip at least twice as fast as they were seen moving in this study.

More dark matter, not none

Other outside scientists said the initial look at the calculations appear to be correct, though the results are confounding. A galaxy with so few stars should have more dark matter than others, not none.

“These are very strong scientists and so I take the results very seriously,” said Marc Kamionkowski, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University.

One outsider suggested that perhaps the “galaxy” van Dokkum studied is so diffuse that it may not really be a galaxy. Another suggested that the dark matter might just be outside of the area that van Dokkum measured.

A true surprise

Van Dokkum dismissed both possibilities. 

“It’s sort of non-negotiable. There’s nothing else, just the stars,” he said. The only way this can be explained is if dark matter exists in the universe, just not in that galaxy, he said.

There’s no good explanation for why and how this galaxy has no dark matter, van Dokkum said. He proposed four different possibilities, all unproven. His favorite: That the galaxy formed in the very early universe in a way astronomers have never seen or understood.

“It’s not so often you get a true surprise,” van Dokkum said.
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The 5 Other Accusers Chosen to Testify at Cosby’s Retrial

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Prosecutors have selected the five additional accusers they plan to call to the witness stand at Bill Cosby’s April 2 sexual assault retrial.

The accusers, including model Janice Dickinson, were chosen from a group of eight women whose allegations date as far back as the early 1980s.

Prosecutors listed their selections in a letter to Judge Steven O’Neill that was made public on Wednesday.

O’Neill’s March 15 ruling cleared the way for prosecutors to broaden their case beyond the alleged assault of Andrea Constand in 2004 that led to Cosby’s only criminal charges. They want to show that he had a pattern of misconduct over a five-decade span.

At Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a deadlock, O’Neill allowed only one other accuser to take the stand. But that woman is not one of the five who will testify this time in support of Constand’s case.

In the letter to O’Neill and other filings, prosecutors have listed the women only by witness number. The Associated Press was able to identify them by cross-referencing the details of the allegations described in court filings with statements and other accounts they have made publicly.

The AP does not typically name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but those named below have consented.

Attorneys for Cosby, who is now 80, have said the women’s memories are tainted at best and tried to get them barred from testifying, but their request was denied.

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The criminal case

Andrea Constand

Ages then: She was 30; he was 66.

Constand told police in 2005 that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her a year earlier at his suburban Philadelphia estate. The Temple University basketball team manager said he gave her three unlabeled blue pills to “relax” as she discussed a career change. She said she was semi-conscious when he digitally penetrated her. Cosby, a Temple alumnus, booster and former trustee, is charged with sexually assaulting a person unable to give consent, a felony that could bring 10 years in prison upon conviction. The defense says her story has evolved and there were other times they were sexually intimate. Cosby has pleaded not guilty.

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The five other accusers

Janice Dickinson

Ages then: She was 27; he was 45.

Dickinson met Cosby in 1982 and saw him as a trusted friend and mentor as she tried to broaden her career from modeling to music and television. Dickinson said Cosby arranged for her to fly to see him perform in Lake Tahoe and knocked her out with a pill he gave her after she had complained of stomach pain. She said she woke up in pain and found fluids between her legs. She never reported the encounter to authorities and has said she was afraid that if she did, her career would be damaged and Cosby would retaliate. Cosby lawyer Martin Singer said in 2014 that Dickinson’s allegations were a lie and a “glaring contradiction” to what she wrote in her book and what she had previously told the media.

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Janice Baker-Kinney

Ages then: She was 24; he was 45.

Baker-Kinney, then a Harrah’s casino bartender in Reno, Nevada, went to a pizza party at a nearby home where Cosby was staying in 1982. He insisted that she take two pills, she said, before the backgammon game they were playing went blurry. She said she recalls seeing her blouse unbuttoned and his pants unzipped before she awoke naked with signs she had been sexually assaulted. The defense says her story is “nothing like Ms. Constand’s” because she only met Cosby once, “voluntarily” took quaaludes and apologized for passing out.

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Heidi Thomas

Ages then: She was 24; he was 46.

Thomas’ agent sent the aspiring actress to meet Cosby for career advice at a Harrah’s hotel in Reno in 1984, but the limousine he sent instead took her to a private house where she said he gave her a drink so she could play the intoxicated person in a script he gave her. During intermittent bouts of consciousness, she said, she was naked and Cosby forced her to perform oral sex. The defense says she has given three versions of her story.

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Chelan Lasha

Ages then: She was 17; he was 48.

The model and aspiring actress met and befriended Cosby in 1986. Lasha said he invited her to his Las Vegas hotel room to introduce her to a modeling agency representative and gave her a pill he described as an antihistamine and a double shot of almond liqueur to help fight a cold. At Cosby’s behest, Lasha said, she changed into a robe, wet her hair and posed for a few modeling shots. She said Cosby then directed her to the bed, where he pinched her nipple and humped her leg as she lay immobilized and unable to speak. She says she woke up naked.

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Lise-Lotte Lublin

Ages then: She was 23; he was about 52.

Lublin was an aspiring actress when she met Cosby in 1989. She and her mother went for a run with Cosby, and he gave them show tickets before he invited her to the Elvis suite of the Las Vegas Hilton to practice acting improvisation. He prodded her to take two drinks to relax, which she ultimately did. She said she recalls seeing Cosby stroking her hair and walking down a hall before she woke up at home two days later. She said she believes she was sexually assaulted. The defense says Lublin assumes she is a victim based on other media accounts but can only remember Cosby stroking her hair.
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