Month: July 2018

Japan Scientists to Use ‘Reprogrammed’ Stem Cells to Fight Parkinson’s

Posted on by Cosc

Japanese scientists said Monday they will start clinical trials next month on a treatment for Parkinson’s disease, transplanting “reprogrammed” stem cells into brains, seeking a breakthrough in treating the neurodegenerative disorder.

Parkinson’s is caused by a lack of dopamine made by brain cells, and researchers have long hoped to use stem cells to restore normal production of the neurotransmitter chemical.

The clinical trials come after researchers at Japan’s Kyoto University successfully used human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to restore functioning brain cells in monkeys last year.

So-called iPS cells are made by removing mature cells from an individual — often from the skin or blood — and reprogramming them to behave like embryonic stem cells. They can then be coaxed into dopamine-producing brain cells.

“This will be the world’s first clinical trial using iPS cells on Parkinson’s disease,” Jun Takahashi, professor at Kyoto University’s Centre for iPS Cell Research and Application, told a news conference.

The center is headed by Shinya Yamanaka, who in 2012 shared a Nobel Prize for medicine with a British scientist, John Gurdon, for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like cells.

“We intend to carry on conducting our research carefully, yet expeditiously, in coordination with Kyoto University Hospital, so that new treatment using iPS cells will be brought to patients as soon as possible,” Yamanaka said in a statement.

The fact that the clinical trial uses iPS cells rather than human embryonic cells means the treatment would be acceptable in countries such as Ireland and much of Latin America, where embryonic cells are banned.
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Pompeo to Announce US Economic Initiatives in ‘Indo-Pacific’

Posted on by Coeco

Building on President Donald Trump’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy,   U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will announce a series of investment initiatives in Asia on Monday focusing on digital economy, energy and infrastructure.

The announcement, to be made at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce forum in Washington, comes at a time when trade frictions with China have given U.S. trade diplomacy a sharper edge.

“The Indo-Pacific is an absolute priority of U.S. policymakers in the executive branch and in Congress,” Brian Hook, Pompeo’s senior policy advisor, told journalists in a conference call.

Countries in the region have been worried by Trump’s “America first” policy, withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, and pursuit of a trade conflict with China that threatens to disrupt regional supply chains.

The United States’ first outlined its strategy to develop the Indo-Pacific economy at an Asia-Pacific summit last year.

“Indo-Pacific” has become known in diplomatic circles as shorthand for a broader and democratic-led region in place of “Asia-Pacific,” which from some perspectives had authoritarian China too firmly at its center.

The Chamber of Commerce said on its website that the Indo-Pacific could account for half the world’s economy within decades, but needed investment of nearly $26 trillion in order to fulfill its potential.

The new U.S. initiatives and funding would be focused on digital economy, energy and infrastructure, Hook said, without giving any figures on investment amounts.

Aside from Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will also attend the forum, along with officials from Japan, Australia, Singapore, India and Indonesia.

China’s way, US way

Hook said the United States approach to development of the region was not aiming to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises of mostly state-led infrastructure projects linking Asia, parts of Africa and Europe.

“It is a made in China, made for China initiative,” he said.

“Our way of doing things is to keep the government’s role very modest and it’s focused on helping businesses do what they do best.”

Critics of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to recreate the ancient Silk Road, say it is more about spreading Chinese influence and hooking countries on massive debts.

Beijing says it is simply a development project that any country is welcome to join.

Hook said Washington “welcomed” Chinese contributions to regional development, but it wanted China to adhere to international standards on transparency, the rule of law and sustainable financing.

“We know that America’s model of economic engagement is the healthiest for nations in the region. It’s high-quality, it’s transparent and it is financially sustainable,” Hook said.
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Can Soundwaves Crack the Brain’s Barrier to Alzheimer’s Meds?

Posted on by Cosc

The so-called blood-brain barrier around our brains prevents germs and other damaging substances from leaching in through the bloodstream. But it also blocks drugs for Alzheimer’s, brain tumors and other neurological diseases from getting to where they’re needed. Faith Lapidus has details about how researchers are trying to find a way through the barrier.
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NASA Marks 60 Years Since Legal Inception

Posted on by Cobiz

America’s dream of space exploration took its first official step 60 years ago Sunday when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law authorizing the formation of NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Although humanity had been staring at the stars and wondering since they were living in caves, it took the Cold War to fire man into space.

The world was stunned when the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, launched Sputnik — the first man-made object to orbit the Earth.

The United States was humiliated at being caught short — not just technologically, but militarily.

Eisenhower ordered government scientists to not only match the Soviets in space, but beat them.

NASA and its various projects — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — became part of the language.

Just 11 years after Eisenhower authorized NASA, American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Six year later, an Apollo spacecraft linked with a Soviet Soyuz in orbit, turning rivalry into friendship and cooperation.

NASA followed that triumph with the space shuttle, Mars landers and contributions to the International Space Station. A manned mission to Mars is part of NASA’s future plans.

Last month, President Donald Trump called for the formation of a “space force” to be the sixth U.S. military branch.

NASA officially celebrates its 60th anniversary on October 1 – the day the agency formally opened for business.

 
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White House Economic Adviser Sees Sustainable US Growth

Posted on by Coeco

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he believes the 4.1 percent growth the U.S. recorded in the last three months is sustainable in the coming months despite skepticism expressed by independent economists.

“There’s just a lot of good things going on,” Kudlow told CNN.  He said President Donald Trump “deserves a victory lap,” with “low tax rates, rolling back regulations, opening up energy, for example. Trade reform I think is already paying off. The fundamentals of the economy look really good.”

He said “business investment spending is really booming. That’s a productivity creator. That’s a job creator. That’s a wage creator for ordinary mainstream folks, terribly important.”

Kudlow said the five calendar quarters occurring fully during Trump’s 18-month presidency have now been recorded with average economic growth of 2.9 percent for the world’s largest economy.

“I don’t see why we can’t run this for several quarters,” Kudlow said.

As the 4.1 percent growth rate for the April-to-June period was announced Friday, Trump boasted that the U.S. was on track to hit its highest annual growth rate in its gross domestic product in 13 years and predicted that as the country reaches new trade deals with other countries, the U.S. would exceed its second quarter advance.

“These numbers are very, very sustainable,” he said. “This isn’t a one-time shot.”

On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “The biggest and best results coming out of the good GDP report was that the quarterly Trade Deficit has been reduced by $52 Billion and, of course, the historically low unemployment numbers, especially for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Women.”

Skeptics less upbeat

Some independent economists, however, voiced skepticism that the $18.6 trillion annual U.S. economy would continue to advance at the same pace as the last three months.

Some forecasters said the gains in recent months were mostly, although not totally, the result of temporary factors, such as the initial boost from tax cuts Trump supported that took effect earlier this year. Most analysts say that for all of 2018 the U.S. could reach 3 percent growth, which would be the best since a 3.5 percent gain in 2005, but not again hit the annual 4.1 percent growth rate recorded last quarter.

“We believe quarter two will represent a growth peak as the boost from tax cuts fades, global growth moderates, inflation rises, the Fed tightens monetary policy and trade protectionism looms over the economy,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said, “The second quarter was a strong quarter, but it was juiced up by the tax cuts and higher government spending.”

In the U.S., consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, with Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, saying that such spending accounted for the robust second quarter.

“Consumers were really on a tear,” he said. “So to grow at 4 [percent] probably tells you people were spending the tax cuts that they enjoyed back in January, but that’s extremely unlikely to happen again.”

 
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Chile Art Initiative Eye Opener for Blind

Posted on by Corts

A new initiative in the Chilean capital of Santiago is making some of the city’s dramatic street murals more accessible to visually disabled people by offering them a tactile representation of the artwork. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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G-20 Ag Ministers Slam Protectionism, Pledge WTO Reforms

Posted on by Coeco

Agriculture ministers from the G-20 countries criticized protectionism in a joint statement Saturday and vowed to reform World Trade Organization (WTO)

rules, but did not detail what steps they would take to improve the food trade system.

In the statement, they said they were “concerned about the increasing use of protectionist nontariff trade measures, inconsistently with WTO rules.”

The ministers from countries including the United States and China, in Buenos Aires for the G-20 meeting of agriculture ministers, said in the statement they had affirmed their commitment not to adopt “unnecessary obstacles” to trade, and affirmed their rights and obligations under WTO agreements.

The meeting came amid rising trade tensions that have rocked agricultural markets. China and other top U.S. trade partners have placed retaliatory tariffs on American farmers after the Trump administration put duties on Chinese goods as well as steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

U.S. growers are expected to take an estimated $11 billion hit due to China’s retaliatory tariffs. Last week, the Trump administration said it would pay up to $12 billion to help farmers weather the trade war.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting that Trump’s plan would include between $7 billion and $8 billion in direct cash relief that U.S. farmers could see as early as late September.

Despite the payments, the measures are “not going to make farmers whole,” Perdue said.

Citing the Trump administration’s relief measures, German Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner said farmers “don’t need aid, [they] need trade.”

“We had a very frank discussion about the fact that we don’t want unilateral protectionist measures,” Kloeckner said in a news conference after the meeting.

The ministers, whose countries represent 60 percent of the world’s agricultural land and 80 percent of food and agricultural commodities trade, did not specify which measures they were referring to in the statement. Asked for details, Kloeckner said the ministers did not want to “criticize a single

country.”

“We all know what happens if a single person or country doesn’t adhere to WTO rules, trying to get a benefit for themselves through protectionism,” she said. “This will usually lead to retaliatory tariffs.”

In the statement, the ministers said they agreed to continue reforming the WTO’s agricultural trade rules.

“Independent of all the news there was surrounding [the meeting], we managed to reach a unanimous consensus,” Argentine Agriculture Minister Luis Miguel Etchevehere said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker struck a surprise deal on Wednesday that ended the risk of further escalating trade tensions between the two powers.

After the meeting, Trump said the European Union would buy “a lot” of U.S. soybeans.

Earlier, Kloeckner told Reuters that the trade relationship between the United States and the European Union was improving, but that there was no guarantee the bloc would import the quantity of soybeans that Washington expects.
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UK Lawmakers Urge Tougher Facebook Rules

Posted on by Cobiz

The U.K. government should increase oversight of social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, a parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia.

The interim report by the House of Commons’ media committee, to be released Sunday, said democracy is facing a crisis because the combination of data analysis and social media allows campaigns to target voters with messages of hate without their consent.

Tech giants like Facebook, which operate in a largely unregulated environment, are complicit because they haven’t done enough to protect personal information and remove harmful content, the committee said.

“The light of transparency must be allowed to shine on their operations and they must be made responsible, and liable, for the way in which harmful and misleading content is shared on their sites,” committee Chairman Damian Collins said in a statement.

The copy of the study was leaked Friday by Dominic Cummings, director of the official campaign group backing Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Social media companies are under scrutiny worldwide following allegations that political consultant Cambridge Analytica used data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts to profile voters and help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. The committee is also investigating the impact of fake news distributed via social media sites.

Collins ripped Facebook for allowing Russian agencies to use its platform to spread disinformation and influence elections.

“I believe what we have discovered so far is the tip of the iceberg,” he said, adding that more work needed to be done to expose how fake accounts target people during elections. “The ever-increasing sophistication of these campaigns, which will soon be helped by developments in augmented reality technology, make this an urgent necessity.”

The committee recommended that the British government increase the power of the Information Commissioner’s Office to regulate social media sites, update electoral laws to reflect modern campaign techniques and increase the transparency of political advertising on social media.

Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to address the issue in a so-called White Paper to be released in the fall. She signaled her unease last year, accusing Russia of meddling in elections and planting fake news to sow discord in the West.

The committee began its work in January 2017, interviewing 61 witnesses during 20 hearings that took on an investigatory tone not normally found in such forums in the House of Commons.

The report criticized Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for failing to appear before the panel and said his stand-ins were “unwilling or unable to give full answers to the committee’s questions.”

One of the committee’s recommendations is that the era of light-touch regulation for social media must end.

Social media companies can no longer avoid oversight by describing themselves as platforms, because they use technology to filter and shape the information users see. Nor are they publishers, since that model traditionally commissions and pays for content.

“We recommend that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher,” the report said. “We anticipate that the government will put forward these proposals in its White Paper later this year.”

The committee also said that the Information Commissioner’s Office needed more money so it could hire technical experts to be the “sheriff in the Wild West of the internet.” The funds would come from a levy on the tech companies, much in the same way as the banks pay for the upkeep of the Financial Conduct Authority.

“Our democracy is at risk, and now is the time to act, to protect our shared values and the integrity of our democratic institutions,” the committee said.
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AP Fact Check: Trump Falsely Claims Historic Turnaround

Posted on by Coeco

President Donald Trump falsely claimed he’s pulled off “an economic turnaround of historic proportions.”

Speaking at the White House Friday after the government reported that the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter, Trump declared that the gains were sustainable and would only accelerate. Few economists outside the administration agree with this claim.

His remarks followed events Thursday in Iowa and Illinois, where Trump falsely repeated a claim that the U.S. economy is the best “we’ve ever had” and incorrectly asserted that Canada’s trade market is “totally closed.”

 

WATCH: Trump Says Economy Numbers Sustainable, But Experts Doubtful

A look at the claims:

Historic turnaround

TRUMP: “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” — remarks Friday at the White House.

THE FACTS: Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy.

The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.

While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.

The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past.

Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control.

Trade deficit

TRUMP: “One of the biggest wins in the report, and it is, indeed a big one, is that the trade deficit — very dear to my heart because we’ve been ripped off by the world — has dropped.”

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that a lower trade deficit helped growth in the April-June quarter, but it’s not necessarily for a positive reason.

The president has been floating plans to slap import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign goods, which has led to the risk of retaliatory tariffs by foreign companies on U.S. goods.

This threat of an escalating trade war has led many companies to increase their levels of trade before any tariffs hit, causing the temporary boost in exports being celebrated by Trump.

Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial, said the result is that the gains from trade in the second quarter will not be repeated.

​Best economy ever

TRUMP: “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.” — remarks in Granite City, Illinois.

THE FACTS: Even allowing for Trump’s tendency to exaggerate, this overstates things.

The unemployment rate is near a 40-year low and growth is solid, but by many measures the current economy trails other periods in U.S. history. Average hourly pay, before adjusting for inflation, is rising around a 2.5 percent annual rate, below the 4 percent level reached in the late 1990s when the unemployment rate was as low as it is now.

Pay was growing even faster in the late 1960s, when the jobless rate remained below 4 percent for nearly four years. And economic growth topped 4 percent for three full years from 1998 through 2000, an annual rate it hasn’t touched since.

Canada market closed

TRUMP: “The Canadians, you have a totally closed market … they have a 375 percent tax on dairy products, other than that it’s wonderful to deal. And we have a very big deficit with Canada, a trade deficit.” — remarks in Peosta, Iowa.

THE FACTS: No, it’s not totally closed. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s market is almost totally open to the United States. Each country has a few products that are still largely protected, such as dairy in Canada and sugar in the United States.

Trump also repeated his claim that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, but that is true only in goods. When services are included, such as insurance, tourism, and engineering, the U.S. had a $2.8 billion surplus with Canada last year.
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CBS Investigates Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against CEO 

Posted on by Corts

CBS said Friday it is investigating sexual misconduct allegations against Les Moonves, the company’s 68-year-old chairman and CEO.

The claims were detailed Friday on the website of The New Yorker magazine in an article written by Ronan Farrow.

Farrow won a Pulitzer Prize last year for an article in the same magazine about the sexual allegations against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In his latest article, Farrow said that he interviewed six women who said they had been sexually harassed by Moonves between the 1980s and the late 2000s.

“Four described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings,” he wrote. “Two told me that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers.”

All of them, Farrow said, continue to fear “speaking out would lead to retaliation from Moonves, who is known in the industry for his ability to make or break careers.”

Janet Jones, a writer, told Farrow that Moonves “has gotten away with it for decades.” She said she had to push Moonves off of her after he “forcibly kissed” her at a work meeting.

Moonves said in a statement published in The New Yorker: “I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely. … I have never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone’s career…”

Farrow said 30 current and former CBS employees told him that the sexual misconduct allegations at CBS include not only Moonves, but also extend “to important parts of the corporation, including CBS News and 60 Minutes, one of the network’s most esteemed programs.”

Under Moonves, Farrow wrote, “men at CBS News who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.”

Last year, Moonves was one of the founders of Hollywood’s Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, chaired by Anita Hill.

Moonves’ wife, a CBS TV producer and personality, Julie Chen, said on Twitter:

​
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New Speed Record at SpaceX Pod Competition

Posted on by Cobiz

A sleek futuristic train that travels through a special tunnel and covers the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes. This was the dream of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX in 2013. And every year he’s getting closer to making that dream a reality. Late July was marked by the third annual Hyperloop pod competition in Los Angeles; a competition that has once again set a new speed record. Genia Dulot has the story.
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Robotic Tools Could Revolutionize Cancer Screening

Posted on by Cosc

Not counting certain types of skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women in the U.S. and worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Now researchers in Europe have come up with a robotic device that may speed detection of cancer tumors, potentially saving thousands of lives. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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Trump Says Economy Numbers Sustainable, But Experts Doubtful

Posted on by Coeco

Friday’s positive numbers on the U.S. economic growth are “very, very sustainable,” according to U.S. President Donald Trump. His comments came after figures showed U.S. GDP growth hit 4.1 percent in the second quarter. The question is whether that growth is sustainable, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from the White House.
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Lunar Eclipse, Blood Moon Delight Skywatchers in Cairo

Posted on by Cosc

Astronomers and local residents gathered to gaze in awe at the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century: 1 hour, 43 minutes. During eclipses, the moon turns a red or brownish color because the light that reaches it passes through the earth’s atmosphere. In Cairo, astronomers with their telescopes volunteered to wow stargazers
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Next ‘Star Wars’ Film to Use Unreleased Fisher Footage

Posted on by Corts

Carrie Fisher is not done with Star Wars after all. Lucasfilm says unreleased footage of the actress will be used in the next installment of the science fiction saga to draw her character’s story to an end.

The studio and writer-director J.J. Abrams announced Friday that footage of Fisher shot for 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be used in the ninth film in the space opera’s core trilogies about the Skywalker family that includes Fisher’s character, Leia. 

Filming is scheduled to begin Wednesday at London’s Pinewood Studios.

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, will also appear in the film, which for the moment is simply called Episode IX. It is scheduled to be released in December 2019.

Fisher died in December 2016 after she finished work on the middle installment in the trilogy, The Last Jedi. Director Rian Johnson opted not to alter her storyline, leaving Leia’s fate to be handled by Abrams.

“We desperately loved Carrie Fisher,” Abrams said in a statement. “Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us.”

He said recasting Fisher or re-creating her using computer graphics, as was done in a spinoff film, Rogue One, was not an option.

“With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII,” Abrams said.

Friday’s announcement also confirmed that Billy Dee Williams will be returning to the franchise as Lando Calrissian, a hero of the rebellion who hasn’t been seen in the latest trilogy.
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Twitter Reports Drop in Active Users; Share Price Sinks

Posted on by Cobiz

Twitter’s share price fell more than 20 percent Friday after the social media giant reported a drop in active users. 

Twitter said it had 335 million monthly users in the second quarter of the year, which was down a million from the amount of monthly users in the first quarter of the year, and below the 339 million users Wall Street was expecting.

Twitter said that the number of monthly users could continue to fall next quarter as the company continues to ban accounts that violate its terms of service and as it makes other accounts less visible.

The company says it is putting the long-term stability of its platform above user growth. However, the move has made it more difficult for investors to value the company, as they rely on data pertaining to the platform’s potential user reach.

Shares in Twitter tumbled 20.5 percent to close at $34.12 Friday. The fall in the share price came despite Twitter’s report of higher than expected revenue. During the last quarter, Twitter posted a profit of $100 million, marking the company’s third consecutive profitable quarter.

The drop in Twitter’s share price came a day after Facebook lost 19 percent of its value. Facebook said Thursday that slower user growth in big markets and increased spending to improve privacy would hit margins for years, leading to the company’s worst trading day since it went public in 2012.

Both Twitter and Facebook have been under pressure from regulators in several countries to protect user data as well as stamp out hate speech and misinformation.
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New Baby for Brigitte Nielsen, Age 54, Opens Debate on Older Mothers

Posted on by Cosc

How late is too late to become a mother? Actress Brigitte Nielsen has had her fifth child at 54, reopening debate on the growing number of women using IVF to have babies later in life.

Fertility experts say the average age of mothers is steadily rising across the world, with women increasingly turning to fertility treatments to extend their childbearing years.

Some have renewed calls for women to prioritize having children in their younger and more fertile years, but others said health providers needed to take into account the pressures that led women to put off starting a family.

“We should trust women to make this decision for themselves,” Katherine O’Brien, head of policy research at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a charity.

“What we need is a health care service that supports their decisions rather than trying to cajole women into children at a time that’s not right for them,” she told Reuters.

Nielsen said she conceived using eggs she had frozen in her 40s, an increasingly popular choice among women seeking to extend their fertile years.

Given that the quantity and quality of eggs declines with age, most women trying to conceive in their mid-40s or above would be advised to consider using donor eggs taken from a younger woman.

A recent analysis of fertility treatments in 1,279 institutions across Europe found almost a third of births through egg donation in 2014 were to women aged 40 or older.

One Indian woman thought to be in her 70s gave birth last year using a donor egg, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a case that promoted debate over the ethics of older women using treatment to conceive.

“There is a global trend for women choosing to have their children later in life,” said Richard Kennedy, the president of the International Federation of Fertility Societies.

“Certainly, in the UK and western Europe it’s personal choices: It’s lifestyle, it’s women pursuing their professions and [they] are making lifestyle choices to delay having families to until their late 30s or early 40s,” he said.

Kennedy said pregnancies of women in their 50s or older “is not something that should necessarily be encouraged,” citing the heightened risks of cardiac and other health problems during pregnancy.

“I think that women should be conscious of their fertility,” he added. “A woman should be encouraged to consider that when she is making decisions around her career and personal life.”

O’Brien, however, said much of the debate around fertility “just ignores the reality of women’s lives.”

She pointed to research by BPAS that found women were aware that fertility declined with age, but were often waiting to have children for practical reasons — such as concern over their financial stability or the impact on their careers.

“The fact that women are able to have children at that stage of their life should be celebrated,” she said. “All this finger-wagging is directed solely at women and that ignores that this is largely a decision taken by two people.”
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Facebook Deletes Hundreds of Posts Under German Hate-Speech Law

Posted on by Cobiz

Facebook said it had deleted hundreds of offensive posts since a law banning online hate speech came into force in Germany at the start of the year that foresees fines of up to 50 million euros ($58 million) for failure to comply.

The social network received 1,704 complaints under the law, known in Germany as NetzDG, and removed 262 posts between January and June, Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions said in a blog.

“Hate speech is not allowed on Facebook,” Allan said, adding that the network had removed posts that attacked people who were vulnerable for reasons including ethnicity, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.

Complaints covered a range of alleged offenses under Germany’s criminal code, including insult, defamation, incitement to hatred and incitement to crime, the report said. Of the posts that were blocked, the largest number was for insult.

Facebook is less popular in Germany than other European countries, with only around two in five internet users logging on each month, according to researchers eMarketer.

That’s in part due to collective memories of hate-filled propaganda that date back to Germany’s 20th century history of Nazi and Communist rule that don’t always sit well with Facebook’s broad view on freedom of speech.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced criticism in Germany after saying in a recent interview that Facebook should not delete statements denying that the Holocaust happened — a crime in Germany. He later clarified his remarks.

Facebook has a dedicated team of 65 staff handling complaints under the NetzDG, Allan said, adding that this could be adjusted in line with the number of complaints.

From January to June, Facebook removed a total of around 2.5 million posts that violated its own community standards designed to prevent abusive behavior on the platform.

“We have taken a very careful look at the German law,” Allan wrote in his blog, which was published in German. “That’s why we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of content considered hate speech in Germany, would be removed if it were examined to see whether it violates our community standards.”

A lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Tankred Schipanski, said the NetzDG law — which requires social platforms to remove offensive posts within 24 hours — was doing the job for which it was intended.

($1 = 0.8579 euros)
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The Latest: Facebook Market Value Plunges $119 Billion

Posted on by Cobiz

The Latest on the aftermath of Facebook’s release of user growth and expectations for the company ahead (all times local):

4:50 p.m.

The 19 percent loss in Facebook’s stock chopped $119 billion off its market value.

It was the company’s worst trading day since going public in 2012, and among the biggest one-day losses of market value in U.S. stock market history.

The loss came a day after Facebook revealed that its user base and revenue grew more slowly than expected in the second quarter as it grappled with privacy issues.

Those revelations stunned investors, who believed the company had weathered the recent scandal over users’ privacy and pushed the stock to an all-time high Wednesday of $217.50.

12:45 p.m.

The erosion in the value of Facebook as it is perceived on Wall Street involves some staggering numbers.

In midday trading Thursday, the company’s market value (the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the value of a single stock), fell by more than $122 billion.

That means that in one day, just the decline in Facebook’s market value is roughly the entire market value of McDonald’s or Nike, give or take a few billion. And it far exceeds to total market value of major U.S. multinational corporations such as General Electric, Eli Lilly or Caterpillar.

The company still has a total market value close to $511 billion, which exceeds the annual gross domestic product of countries like Poland, Belgium and Iran.

Facebook was downgraded by a number of industry analysts who were caught off guard by slowing growth in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Company shares fell 19 percent Thursday.

10:40 a.m.

Facebook may be heading for its worst day on the markets in its history a day after the company revealed that user growth, amid swirling questions about how their information is used, has slowed.

The stock plunged 19 percent in early trading Thursday, eradicating well in excess of $100 billion in market value.

The social media company’s financial results, released late Wednesday, fell short of Wall Street expectations as the company continues to grapple with privacy issues. It also warned that revenue would decelerate as it promotes new products

Facebook had 2.23 billion monthly users as of June 30, up 11 percent from a year earlier, but well short of what industry analysts had been expecting.

The results are from the first full quarter following the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The company is also contending with European privacy rules that went into effect in May.
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Skywatchers Looking Forward to Complete Lunar Eclipse

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Skywatchers around much of the world are looking forward to a complete lunar eclipse that will be the longest this century.

The so-called “blood moon” Friday, when it turns a deep red, will be visible at different times in Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and South America when the sun, Earth and moon line up perfectly, casting Earth’s shadow on the moon.

The total eclipse will last 1 hour and 43 minutes, with the entire event lasting closer to four hours.

In a special treat, Mars is in opposition on Friday — meaning the planet and the sun will be on exact opposite sides of the Earth and will shine its best. Mars is also at its closest approach to Earth this week since 2003, making it appear bigger and brighter.
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Demand for Diversity in US vs. What Interests Chinese Fans

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Whether it’s in movies, comic books or video games, fans say there is diversity in the superhero universe.

At the international Comic-Con convention that ended July 22, Emmeline Ye, a Chinese-American from San Diego, is dressed up in a Wonder Woman costume. She said her next costume will be of her favorite character in the video game, “Overwatch.”

“I appreciate that they put a Chinese character in that game, and the fact that she’s a scientist and she’s smart. She’s helping save the world,” Ye said.

For many African-American movie fans, the film “Black Panther,” released this year, was a milestone.

“When ‘Black Panther’ came out, I was so excited to see my future children have something to look up to,” said Shanice Souvenir, who also attended Comic-Con dressed as Princess Shuri of Wakanda, a character in the movie.

Diversity in comics

In recent years, superheroes in comic books and American popular culture have become increasingly diverse. But fans and creators say more work needs to be done, especially on the big screen, to fully represent American society.

“Print, I think, tends to be able to get away with that first and kind of test the waters,” said freelance comic book writer Vita Ayala.

University of Oregon director of comics and cartoon studies Ben Saunders agreed that initial risks can be taken with comics, a medium that can be more experimental than big-budget Hollywood films. But he said comic book superheroes have not always been so diverse.

“The initial wave of superheroes of the 1930s and ’40s was predominantly male and always exclusively white,” Saunders said.

Nonwhite characters at the time were stereotypes, said Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, granddaughter of Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founder of DC Comics.

“African-Americans were always drawn with big white lips, which is just horrible. And the Asian characters’ skin tone was usually yellow, which is just weird. And so, they were usually the menace. They were usually the evil bad guy,” she said.

​First nonwhite heroes

The first nonwhite superheroes did not quite look human and took the form of the green Hulk and The Thing, who is orange.

“The Hulk is readily sort of understandable as a kind of complicated allegory for race, as a sort of figure through ideas of monstrosity,” Saunders said.

In 1966, in the midst of the U.S. civil rights movement, Black Panther became the first black superhero in the Marvel universe, which Hollywood has embraced.

“We actually saw ‘Black Panther’ a couple of different times on opening day because it was so good,” said comics and pop culture fan Rosemary Matthew. “And we were really glad to see that something that was related to somebody that we could relate to was done really well.”

“Black Panther” opened strong in China, earning $66.5 million during the first three days in theaters. Reviews in China have been lukewarm.

“A lot of the times, I do hear that China doesn’t want to see black people or other people of color. Hollywood doesn’t think that diverse stories could sell overseas, so they make less of it, and they don’t give chances to diverse stories that could be good,” said Chinese-American Alice Mei Chi Li, who works as a freelance illustrator.

In May, Marvel released its first Chinese superheroes in print.

The Black Panther, the Hulk and other superheroes appear together in the latest Marvel film, “Avengers: Infinity War.” It has become Marvel’s most successful superhero movie in China and was granted a 30-day extended run.
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Tom Cruise Does the Impossible in ‘Mission: Impossible Fallout’

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Tom Cruise’s latest action installment of Mission: Impossible Fallout follows operative Ethan Hunt, the daredevil spy, on an extremely perilous quest to save the world.

Cruise and the rest of the Mission: Impossible cast, along with the powerful visuals and the megastar’s mind-bending stunts, keep audiences on the edge of their seats for almost three hours.

The film starts with a dramatic failed operation in which Hunt, an operative of the fictional independent espionage agency “Impossible Mission Force” — or IMF — loses three plutonium bombs to the enemy. With nuclear devastation looming, Hunt teams again with field agents Benji and Luther, played by Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, to reclaim the missing bombs. They are not alone. The CIA’s deputy director, Erica Sloane, played by Angela Bassett, insists on sending along one of the agency’s own with Hunt’s team.

Enter CIA assassin August Walker, played by Henry Cavill, of DC Comics Superman fame. He portrays a large, powerfully built fighter and something of a wild card in the movie.

​Strong women

Rebecca Ferguson returns as operative Ilsa Faust, an antagonist and a love interest for Hunt, who more often than not, saves his life.

“Oh, I always save Tom’s life. I’m tired of saving Tom’s life, actually,” she joked during a red carpet event. 

Ferguson, smart and funny, told VOA how happy she’s been to work on the set with the rest of the cast in an action film that respects and elevates women. 

“They brought back incredible women and introduced women, who, all of them, have a character and a reason and a purpose for being in this film, and that’s gender equality,” she said.

Her feelings are echoed by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett.

“What my character brings to the movie is gravitas, her brilliance, her mystique, her strength, her integrity and her ability to play chess very well when she is being underestimated by those around her,” Bassett said. “But she also does not mistake her presence for the be-all and end-all. If she is right, she is right. And if she is wrong, she can admit that, too.”

Jaw-dropping stunts

From Europe to India, the action-packed film offers a tight storyline and a stellar cast, but the franchise’s secret weapon is Cruise himself, who performs his own jaw-dropping stunts — from a skydive 27,000 feet above ground, and a plane flying 167 miles per hour, to a vertical helicopter fall he himself is piloting.

He flashes his trademark smile when VOA asks him about his fearlessness. 

“I don’t know where it comes from,” Cruise said. “I just have a tremendous passion for what I do and I can’t stop unless I know it’s really there and it’s working.”

He describes his two greatest stunts on film. 

“Both of them are very intense,” he said. “On the helicopter, I spent a year and a half training, and I trained with aerobatic helicopter pilots. I’ve trained in airplanes before, I fly aerobatics in airplanes, but the airplanes are very different than helicopters, so I went through grueling training, and I did anything I could to make sure that I was as competent as possible.”

And for a good reason: his life depends on it. Co-star Ferguson recounts her terror when she saw Cruise fall during the helicopter stunts above New Zealand’s mountain peaks. 

“And I scream. I was terrified, absolutely terrified until he says, ‘That’s great, that’s a cut, we got that.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God! This is Mission. Phew!’ I’ve done some of the stunts, but nothing compares to what he does,” she added.

Cruise tells us he saved the most difficult stunt for last. He jumps off a C-17 military transport plane airplane. 

“It took over 106 jumps to get it. One-hundred-and-six jumps, and you know, we planned to be there for a week and ended up being there almost a month trying to get that sequence. It is significantly more challenging than I anticipated. I have to say, it was pretty exciting, too,” Cruise said.

So, how long does Cruise plan to keep going? And how can he keep outdoing his previous exploits? Smiling, he says, “As long as I can.”

Film’s value in story, characters

Mission: Impossible producer Jake Myers says that although it is stressful to watch Cruise do all these impossible feats, “We wouldn’t have the movies without them. But obviously there is a nail biter every time he does a stunt, so that’s what we are here for.”

Since Cruise assumed the role Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies, he has infused the franchise with extremely dangerous stunts that bring audiences to the theater. At this point everyone is wondering about the personal risks he takes. During the shooting of this installment, Cruise broke his ankle jumping out of a window and over a wall.

Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie does not hide his concern.

“Yes, I mean, when you look at what happened in this movie, when he broke his ankle when he was doing the simplest stunt. There are no small stunts. So, when you are doing a helicopter chase or you are jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet, it’s all pretty nerve-wracking,” McQuarrie said.

Stunts aside, the Oscar-winning filmmaker says that the film’s value lies in its unpredictable storyline and its complex and endearing characters. One of them is Pegg, who plays the witty, loyal but often skittish Benji.

“I think he is like the most kind of an audience member, Benji, that is why people relate to him,” Pegg said. “That is why sometimes he can be funny because he says the things we are thinking in these incredible situations, where the cool guys are just getting on with it, Benji is the one who asks ‘why are we doing this?’”

Mission: Impossible FALLOUT offers stellar cinematography, which as filmmaker McQuarrie says, was incredibly sophisticated based on the action he had to tape.

“It is very challenging, especially because you have an actor who is willing to do all those stunts,” he said. “It gives you the freedom to put the camera wherever you want and sometimes it is very challenging to find the right place to put it.”

Especially when his team had to capture the star fall from the sky just as the sun was setting. The efforts have not gone unrewarded. Critics are calling the movie one of this year’s best action films.
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