The most beautiful art is born where there is pain. This idea became the moving force behind the success of Iranian-born twin sisters Bahareh and Farzaneh Safarani. They moved to Boston from Tehran in order to advance their art and show it to the world, and they never regretted the decision. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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Month: September 2018
Scientists Fear Non-Pest Insects are Declining
Scientists are noticing that the numbers of beneficial flying insects like bees, ladybugs, fireflies and butterflies seem to be declining. They can’t be certain about what’s happening, but possible reasons include habitat loss, insecticide use, the killing of native weeds, single-crop agriculture, invasive species, light pollution, highway traffic and climate change. As Faith Lapidus reports, the potential causes seem to lead back to what humans are doing to the environment.
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Path Partially Clears for Russia’s Return to International Sports
Russia cautiously celebrated a move by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to reinstate its own laboratory for testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs, a decision that has divided the sports world by clearing a path for Russian athletes to return to international competition following a three-year suspension over allegations of state-sponsored doping.
The decision by WADA marks the latest chapter in the long-running saga that has divided Russia and the West in recent years, including the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, meddling in the 2016 elections in the U.S., and intervention in Syria’s civil war.
In Russia, the move was heralded as largely overdue recognition of its progress on an issue Russian sports officials say goes beyond Russia.
“The most important thing is that during this time we managed to make big strides forward in the anti-doping culture in the country,” said Pavel Kolobkov, Russia’s Minister of Sport, in reaction to the decision.
Yet, from President Vladimir Putin on down, Russian officials have vehemently denied WADA’s charges of direct state involvement, saying the suspension is a politically-driven campaign to outlaw Russian athletes collectively for the sins of a few.
Roadmap to return
The vote by WADA’s board — in a split 9-2 to ruling with one abstention — amounts to a partial walk back of key demands of Russia’s so-called “roadmap to return” to competition.
The roadmap’s key provision: Russia formally acknowledge two WADA-triggered investigations that found widespread cheating by hundreds of Russian athletes in what the reports alleges was a massive state-sponsored doping program between 2011 and 2015. A related demand requires that RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency, offer complete access to its store of past urine samples of Russia’s athletes.
Critics argue Russia has done neither.
Yet a majority of WADA officials said they were satisfied by Russian progress and promises by Kolobkov for future compliance, with the caveat of possible future suspensions, should policies not be implemented.
“Today, the great majority of the WADA Executive Committee (EXCO) decided to reinstate RUSADA as compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, subject to strict conditions,” said WADA’s President Craig Reedie said in a statement released to the media.
Fair play?
The decision was widely condemned by sporting federations in the U.S. and Europe, who suggested the decision cast WADA’s role as an arbiter for fair competition in doubt.
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of RUSADA-turned-whistleblower whose testimony provided key details about the doping effort, argued reinstatement amounted to a “catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.”
Richard McClaren, the Canadian lawyer whose initial report prompted the WADA ban, also condemned the move.
“Politics is dictating this decision,” McClaren said. “The Russians didn’t accept the conditions, so why will they accept the new ones?”
Yet independent Russian sports commentators noted that despite suggestions of a Russian diplomatic victory, not much had in fact changed for Russian athletes themselves.
Russia could now certify its own athletes for competition and host international events once again. They could also certify so-called “therapeutic use exemptions” granted — too often, Russian officials argue — to Western athletes.
Yet some observers noted that Russia’s banned track and field association must still be cleared independently by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which signaled it would set its own criteria for reinstatement.
The return of Russia’s Paralympic squad, banned from the last two Olympic Games, faces similar hurdles.
“Unfortunately, the return of RUSADA automatically doesn’t give them the flag to compete,” wrote Natalya Maryanchik in the daily Sport-Express newspaper.
“For top sportsman from Russia almost nothing has changed,” agreed Alexei Advokhin in sports.ru, a popular Russian sports fan website. “Yes, their doping samples will again be tested in Russia.”
“If that’s a case for joy,” he added, “it means for three years we’ve understood nothing.”
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Rising Oil Prices Haven’t Hurt US Economy
America’s rediscovered prowess in oil production is shaking up old notions about the impact of higher crude prices on the U.S. economy.
It has long been conventional wisdom that rising oil prices hurt the economy by forcing consumers to spend more on gasoline and heating their homes, leaving less for other things.
Presumably that kind of run-up would slow the U.S. economy. Instead, the economy grew at its fastest rate in nearly four years during the April-through-June quarter.
President Donald Trump appears plainly worried about rising oil prices just a few weeks before mid-term elections that will decide which party controls the House and Senate.
“We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices!” Trump tweeted Thursday. “We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!”
Members of The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, who account for about one-third of global oil supplies, are scheduled to meet this weekend with non-members including Russia.
The gathering isn’t expected to yield any big decisions — those typically come at major OPEC meetings like the one set for December. Oil markets, however, were roiled Friday by a report that attendees were considering a significant increase in production to offset declining output from Iran, where exports have fallen ahead of Trump’s re-imposition of sanctions.
OPEC and Russia have capped production since January 2017 to bolster prices. Output fell even below those targets this year, and in June the same countries agreed to boost the oil supply, although they didn’t give numbers.
Rising oil prices
Oil prices are up roughly 40 percent in the past year. On Friday, benchmark U.S. crude was trading around $71 a barrel, and the international standard, Brent, was closing in on $80.
The national average price for gasoline stood at $2.85 per gallon, up 10 percent from a year ago, according to auto club AAA. That increase likely would be greater were it not for a slump in gasoline demand that is typical for this time of year, when summer vacations are over.
The United States still imports about 6 million barrels of oil a day on average, but that is down from more than 10 million a decade ago. In the same period, U.S. production has doubled to more than 10 million barrels a day, according to government figures.
“Because the U.S. now is producing so much more than it used to, [the rise in oil prices] is not as big an impact as it would have been 20 years ago or 10 years ago,” said Michael Maher, an energy researcher at Rice University and a former Exxon Mobil economist.
The weakening link between oil and the overall economy was seen — in reverse — three years ago. Then, plunging oil prices were expected to boost the economy by leaving more money in consumers’ pocket, yet GDP growth slowed at the same time that lower oil prices took hold during 2015.
Other economists caution against minimizing the disruption caused by energy prices.
“Higher oil prices are unambiguously bad for the U.S. economy,” said Philip Verleger, an economist who has studied energy markets. “They force consumers to divert their income from spending on other items to spending on fuels.”
Since energy amounts to only about 3 percent of consumer spending, a cutback in that other 97 percent “causes losses for those who sell autos, restaurants, airlines, resorts and all parts of the economy,” Verleger said.
Pack leader
The federal Energy Information Administration said this month that the U.S. likely reclaimed the title of world’s biggest oil producer earlier this year by surpassing the output of Saudi Arabia in February and Russia over the summer. If the agency’s estimates are correct, it would mark the first time since 1973 that the U.S. has led the oil-pumping pack.
And that has made the impact of oil prices on the economy a more complicated calculation.
When oil prices tumbled starting in mid-2014, U.S. energy producers cut back on drilling. They cut thousands of jobs and they spent less on rigs, steel pipes and railcars to ship crude to refineries. That softened the bounce that economists expected to see from cheaper oil.
Now, with oil prices rising, energy companies are boosting production, creating an economic stimulus that offsets some of the blow from higher prices on consumers. Oil- and gas-related investment accounted for about 40 percent of the growth in business investment in the April-June quarter this year.
Moody’s Analytics estimates that every penny increase at the pump reduces consumer spending by $1 billion over a year, and gasoline has jumped 24 cents in the past year, according to AAA. That is “a clear-cut negative,” but not deeply damaging, said Ryan Sweet, director of real-time economics at Moody’s.
“Usually with gasoline prices, speed kills — a gradual increase [like the current one], consumers can absorb that,” Sweet said. Consumers have other factors in their favor, he added, including a tight job market, wage growth, better household balance sheets, and the recent tax cut.
Sweet said the boon that higher prices represent to the growing energy sector, which can invest in more wells, equipment and hiring, means that the run-up in crude has probably been “a small but net positive” for the economy.
“That could change if we get up to $3.50, $4,” he said.
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China Cancels Trade Talks with US After New Tariffs
China has canceled trade talks with the United States following Washington’s imposition of new tariffs on Chinese goods.
The Wall Street Journal reports that China had planned to send Vice Premier Liu He to Washington next week for the talks, but has now canceled his trip along with that of a midlevel delegation that was to precede him.
US was optimistic
Earlier Friday, a senior White House official said the U.S. was optimistic about finding a way forward in trade talks with China.
The official told reporters at the White House that China “must come to the table in a meaningful way” for there to be progress on the trade dispute.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said while there was no confirmed meeting between the United States and China, the two countries “remain in touch.”
“The president’s team is all on the same page as to what’s required from China,” according to the official.
Trade imbalance
The Trump administration has argued that tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States.
It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cybertheft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus.
Earlier this week, the United States ordered duties on another $200 billion of Chinese goods to go into effect Sept. 24. China responded by adding $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list.
The United States has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount of U.S. goods.
Tariffs on all China imports?
Earlier this month, President Trump threatened even more tariffs on Chinese goods — another $267 billion worth of duties that would cover virtually all the goods China imports to the United States.
“That changes the equation,” he told reporters.
China has threatened to retaliate against any potential new tariffs. However, China’s imports from the United States are $200 billion a year less than American imports from China, so it would run out of room to match U.S. sanctions.
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Anti-Doping Agency Is Compromised, Group Contends
A leading anti-doping group hinted at changing the structure of the World Anti-Doping Agency, saying the decision to reinstate Russia’s drug-fighting operation was a sign that WADA leaders were saddled with “conflicting priorities.”
The Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations (INADO) said in a statement Friday that members of the WADA executive committee had pressures surrounding the decision that went beyond doping.
The committee voted 9-2 on Thursday to end RUSADA’s suspension after weakening the standards originally agreed upon for reinstatement.
The committee is headed by Craig Reedie, whose status as a member of the International Olympic Committee has long been viewed by people in the anti-doping community as a conflict of interest.
The other spots on the committee are divided among sports and government leaders.
Linda Helleland, the minister of children and equality in Norway, was among those voting “no,” and after the vote said, “Today, we failed the clean athletes of the world.”
The institute said WADA “surrendered to pressure from the IOC and the Russian government to substantially weaken the terms” for reinstatement.
“This is not good governance, nor does it reflect a good governance model,” the statement said. “WADA must be an effective and resolute global anti-doping regulator and governor — exclusively.”
The comments from a body that represents 67 anti-doping agencies around the world largely echoed what U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said in the hours following the decision, when he called for revamping WADA.
“It starts by removing the inherent conflict of interest that comes about from the IOC fox guarding the WADA henhouse,” Tygart said.
Recommendation on Russians rejected
Before the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, WADA had recommended that the IOC not allow Russian athletes to participate in the wake of the McLaren Report, which documented a state-sponsored doping scheme designed to help win medals at the Winter Games in Russia.
The IOC ignored that recommendation and allowed in Russian athletes.
After that decision, Reedie issued a statement saying: “The McLaren Report exposed, beyond a reasonable doubt, a state-run doping program in Russia that seriously undermines the principles of clean sport embodied within the World Anti-Doping Code.”
It was a rare rebuke of the IOC by one of its own members, and one that Reedie hasn’t repeated.
Among the conditions WADA originally set for RUSADA’s reinstatement was that Russia accept the findings of the McLaren Report. That was changed to a requirement that Russia accept the IOC’s Schmid Report, which put less emphasis on the Russian government’s role in the cheating.
The other change allows Russia until Dec. 31 to turn over lab samples and data, instead of demanding possession before reinstatement.
While others have suggested WADA caved to pressure from the IOC, Reedie has portrayed WADA’s moves as nothing more than a pragmatic and realistic approach to bringing RUSADA back into the fold.
INADO took exception to that thinking.
“As the global regulator, WADA should have been objectively enforcing the agreed sanctions and requirements, not compromising them,” the group said.
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Kenya Lifts Ban on Lesbian Love Tale, in Time for Oscar Nominations
A Kenyan court on Friday temporarily lifted a ban on the movie Rafiki. Justice Wilfrida Okwany said that during a seven-day period, the film, a lesbian love story produced in Kenya, can be screened to willing adults. The ruling means that Rafiki will be eligible for Oscar consideration as the best foreign-language film.
Kenya’s Film and Classification Board banned Rafiki in April, just hours before it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, it was the first Kenyan film ever chosen to be screened at the festival.
Rafiki, the Swahili word for “friend,” is a film about two girls who fall in love and as a result become outcasts in their community.
The Kenyan film board banned it for its homosexual theme. Board CEO Ezekiel Mutua said the film had “a clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya.”
Kahiu filed a suit against the board on September 10, leading to Friday’s ruling.
Carol Liam, a lesbian activist in Nairobi, was elated over the judgment.
“Today is a victory not just for members of the LGBTI community, but a victory for everyone who upholds human rights. The old colonial laws have caused us a lot of grief, we are glad that the cords are being broken slowly by slowly,” Liam said.
After the ruling, Kahihu tweeted “Our constitution is STRONG! Give thanks to freedom of expression!!!! WE DID IT! We will be posting about Nairobi screening soon.”
Timing issue
Time is of the essence. For the film to be eligible for Oscar consideration as best foreign-language film, it must be screened in its country of origin for seven days before the Sept. 30 deadline.
Mutua, the head of the film board, expressed outrage over the court’s decision in a series of tweets.
One read, “It would be a tragedy and a shame to have homosexual films defining the Kenyan culture.”
In a press release, Mutua said the ruling “was a sad moment and a great insult, not only to the film industry but to all Kenyans who stand for morality.”
He also warned the board is watching to see which theater will show the film without the board’s approval.
Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
On Thursday, a Kenyan court is set to rule on another landmark case that seeks to repeal sections of the penal code that criminalizes gay sex in Kenya.
The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission argues that sections 162, 163 and 165 of the code are in breach of the constitution and basic rights of Kenyan citizens.
The laws were introduced in Kenya in 1897, when the country was under British rule.
In April, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she “deeply regretted” Britain’s legacy of anti-gay laws in its former colonies and urged those countries to overhaul what she called “outdated” legislation.
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Questions Raised About US Museum’s Abraham Lincoln Hat
It has been a question plaguing the museum dedicated to one of America’s greatest presidents: Is the hat real?
The hat in question is of the stovepipe variety that adorned the head of Abraham Lincoln — recognized for his fashion sense and lauded for ending slavery.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Illinois had displayed the chocolate brown, beaver fur hat as one that had in fact been on the 16th U.S. president’s head.
It is a prized possession, a big visitor draw, and valued at $6.5 million — one of only three such Lincoln hats displayed at an American museum.
But it may not be Lincoln’s hat after all.
FBI analysts and curators at the national Smithsonian Institution have analyzed the hat at the unpublicized request of the Illinois museum’s foundation, an independent organization responsible for fundraising and acquiring objects.
Even DNA testing was done — comparing samples taken from the hat to Lincoln’s blood recovered from the night of his assassination in 1865.
The result: inconclusive.
Historians wrote a report telling the museum it “might want to soften its claim about the hat” given the fact that its origins cannot be definitively authenticated.
The results were not shared with the public until Chicago radio station WBEZ uncovered them this week.
Museum chief Alan Lowe expressed frustration over the foundation’s secrecy, but downplayed the DNA test results, saying it would be hard to get a perfect match from a 180-year-old item handled by many people.
“It is important to understand that neither of these initiatives produced new evidence about the hat’s origins,” Lowe said in a statement.
Thanks to the publicity, the museum will begin a new search for evidence about the hat’s past, he added.
“What we learn, no matter what it says about the hat’s origins, will be shared with the public.”
For now, the hat is stowed away.
The museum will decide how to present it to visitors once the additional research is completed.
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‘Star Wars’ Fans Applaud Movie Release Slowdown
Plans by Disney to slow down the release of future “Star Wars” projects are getting a thumbs up from fans, who also hope that new movies in the multi-billion dollar sci-fi franchise will be more creative.
In an unexpected admission that the slew of “Star Wars” films and spinoff projects may be causing fan fatigue, Walt Disney CO. Chief Executive Bob Iger said it had been a mistake to release a new movie every year.
“I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast,” Iger told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on Thursday. “You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to make films.”
“I think we’re going to be a little more careful about volume and timing,” Iger added.
Scott Collura, executive editor of entertainment website IGN, called the slowdown “a win for fans,” recalling the anticipation in the past when there were long gaps between movies.
“It won’t kill us to not have a new ‘Star Wars’ film in 2020,” Collura wrote in an opinion piece.
Since 2015, Disney has released two of three planned movies based around characters originated by director George Lucas in 1977, and two standalone films.
Iger’s comment followed a disappointing reception for May release “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” an origin story about smuggler Han Solo. The film took $400 million at the global box office, well below the $2 billion haul for 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and $1.3 billion for 2017’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
In the past year, Disney has also announced a live-action series for its planned streaming service, a series of feature films written by the creators of television show “Game of Thrones,” and another film trilogy bringing in new characters.
Many fans have failed to embrace the younger generation of characters, like Daisy Ridley’s feisty Rey and John Boyega’s rebel stormtrooper Finn in “The Force Awakens.”
“No one gives a flip about Rey, Poe or Finn,” commented user CMO175 on the Hollywood Reporter comments page, complaining about the fate of Luke Skywalker in “The Last Jedi.”
Others said the movies had become too politically correct, with more women and ethnic characters, while some complained that the plots had become stale.
“Maybe having film releases spaced out a little more will give authors and artists some creative breathing room,” wrote Darth Nobunaga on the starwarsnet.com fan forum.
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WHO: Progress Made Containing Ebola in Eastern DRC
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports substantial progress is being made in containing the spread of the Ebola virus in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It warns, however, that new hotspots are appearing. The WHO says the number of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in the DRC stands at 143, including 97 deaths.
WHO officials say they are pleased with the progress being made in limiting the spread of the Ebola virus, but that the outbreak of this fatal disease in Congo’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces remains active and vigilance must be maintained.
WHO reports the situation in Mangina, the initial epicenter of the epidemic in North Kivu, is stabilizing. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told VOA there are no security problems there, so health workers are able to safely access the area and treat those affected by the disease. But there are exceptions.
“Immediately to the east is an inaccessible area. This region is in a security level four, which is one of the highest in the U.N. security phasing system. For example, the road from Beni to Oicha is in the ‘red zone’… So, in some places, we are really able to move to work. In some other places, it is more difficult,” she said.
Chaib said the cities of Beni and Butembo have become the new hotspots, noting that Butembo is in the red zone.
The WHO spokeswoman said there is significant risk that Ebola could spread there, and health workers have to remain on top of the many challenges facing them.
Among the challenges is a growing resistance in some communities to measures used to contain the virus.
For example, Chaib said, some people are reluctant to go to treatment centers for care. Others are unwilling to change traditional burial practices, such as touching the bodies of those who have died from Ebola. WHO warns this is one of the surest ways of spreading the infection. The outbreak in the DRC is the 10th since Ebola was first identified in 1976.
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WHO: Alcohol Responsible for One in 20 Deaths Worldwide
Alcohol kills three million people worldwide each year — more than AIDS, violence and road accidents combined, the World Health Organization said Friday, adding that men are particularly at risk.
The UN health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health pointed out that alcohol causes more than one in 20 deaths globally each year, including drink driving, alcohol-induced violence and abuse and a multitude of diseases and disorders.
Men account for more than three quarters of alcohol-related deaths, the nearly 500-page report found.
“Far too many people, their families and communities suffer the consequences of the harmful use of alcohol through violence, injuries, mental health problems and diseases like cancer and stroke,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
“It’s time to step up action to prevent this serious threat to the development of healthy societies,” he added.
Drinking is linked to more than 200 health conditions, including liver cirrhosis and some cancers.
Alcohol abuse also makes people more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia, the report found.
The some three million alcohol-related deaths registered globally in 2016 — the latest available statistics — account for 5.3 percent of all deaths that year.
In comparison, HIV/AIDS was responsible for 1.8 percent of global deaths that year, road injuries for 2.5 percent and violence for 0.8 percent, the study showed.
The latest numbers are lower than those in WHO’s last report on global alcohol consumption, published in 2014.
There are “some positive global trends,” the agency said, pointing to shrinking prevalence of heavy episodic drinking and of alcohol-related deaths since 2010.
But it warned that “the overall burden of disease and injuries caused by the harmful use of alcohol is unacceptably high,” especially in Europe and the Americas.
Globally, an estimated 237 million men and 46 million women suffer from alcohol use disorders, WHO said.
Alcohol abuse affects nearly 15 percent of men and 3.5 percent of women in Europe, and 11.5 percent of men and 5.1 percent of women in the Americas, it pointed out.
Alcohol consumption overall is unevenly distributed around the globe, with well over half of the world’s population over the age of 15 abstaining completely.
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Refugees Get Turn on Big Screen in Kenyan Film Festival
A film festival in Kenya this month highlighted a group not often seen on the big screen: refugees. The festival, organized by the nonprofit group FilmAid in collaboration with Amnesty International, screened a selection of short films about exile and identity, some produced by refugees themselves.
One of the films showcased is “The Other Dadaab,” a five-minute documentary by Abdirisack Jama Shire on realities of the Dadaab refugee camp in northwestern Kenya.
The camp, near the Kenya-Somalia border, is the world’s largest refugee settlement with a population of close to 500,000 refugees.
The documentary showcases Dadaab as a virtual city with its own socio-economic dynamics as opposed to a transient settlement.
Mark Maina, the creator of another showcased film, “Neophobia,” was present for the screening of “The Other Dadaab.”
“I am really glad for FilmAid that they have closely shown us how it is, for those in the camps, the kind of lives they live, the suffering that they go through,” Maina said.
Understanding through film
FilmAid International is a nonprofit humanitarian group that uses movies and media to raise awareness of social issues.
It holds annual film festivals in Kenya to empower, inform and inspire refugees and other marginalized populations. This year’s screenings took place in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in addition to Nairobi.
Stella Suge is FilmAid’s country director.
“There are various things that we hope to achieve,” she said. One is that people can actually see the faces of refugees, which is largely presented as a statistic, so to encounter those faces and get a sense of who they are, their faces and their humanity and to share that. Secondly, we want to start to be in dialogue with Kenyan nationals who have actually been hosting refugees for a long time without a clear understanding of what it means … and basically take a journey of starting to include refugees in our day-to-day life to give them a more humane, more normal and dignified life.”
‘We are all human’
Wambui Mumbi attended the screening at IMAX Cinema in Nairobi.
“The main lesson that I have picked [up] is that we should not segregate refugees,” Mumbi said. “We should not treat them like they are a different species because at the end of the day we are all humans. The struggles they go through are the same that we go through, are like the same things we go through.”
Pereshian Beth also attended the screening.
“It was educative, we got to learn more on how the refugees are living in Kakuma and in Daadab. They are doing something good for themselves … we need to empower them … their story is their voice,” Beth said.
More films like “The Other Dadaab” may be on the way, as FilmAid programs train more than 50 refugees annually on filmmaking.
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Technology Enhances Food Delivery Experiences
Self-driving technology is making online shopping a more convenient, more cost-effective experience. One new startup in San Jose, California, is launching a fully driverless delivery service, which many predict is something customers will be seeing a lot more of in the future. Faiza Elmasry takes a look at how these driverless cars are making people’s lives easier, in this report narrated by Faith Lapidus.
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Hurricane Scale Ignores Rain Dangers, Experts Say
Communities along the U.S. southeast coast are drying out after Hurricane Florence. The storm poured more than 80 centimeters of rain in parts of the Southeastern United States, causing catastrophic flooding. Hurricanes are categorized by their wind speeds. But that’s not always what does the most damage. Some experts say we should reconsider the scale. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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NASA Telescope Discovers Two New Planets Five Months after Launch
A planet-hunting orbital telescope designed to detect worlds beyond our solar system discovered two distant planets this week five months after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, officials said on Thursday.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS, made an early discovery of “super-Earth” and “hot Earth” planets in solar systems at least 49 light-years away, marking the satellite’s first discovery since its April launch.
TESS is on a two-year, $337 million mission to expand astronomers’ known catalog of so-called exoplanets, worlds circling distant stars.
While the two planets are too hot to support life, TESS Deputy Science Director Sara Seager expects many more such discoveries.
“We will have to wait and see what else TESS discovers,” Seager told Reuters. “We do know that planets are out there, littering the night sky, just waiting to be found.”
TESS is designed to build on the work of its predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, which discovered the bulk of some 3,700 exoplanets documented during the past 20 years and is running out of fuel.
NASA expects to pinpoint 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.
Those are believed the most likely to feature rocky surfaces or oceans and are thus considered the best candidates for life to evolve. Scientists have said they hope TESS will ultimately help catalog at least 100 more rocky exoplanets for further study in what has become one of astronomy’s newest fields of exploration.
MIT researchers on Wednesday announced the discovery of Pi Mensae c, a “super-earth” planet 60 light-years away orbiting its sun every 6.3 days. The discovery of LHS 3844 b, a “hot-earth” planet 49 light-years away that orbits its sun every 11 hours, was announced on Thursday.
Pi Mensae c could have a solid surface or be a waterworld as the composition of such planets is a mixed bag, Martin Spill, NASA’s program scientist for TESS, said in a phone interview.
The two newest planets, which still need to be reviewed by other researchers, offer the chance for follow-up study, officials said.
“That, of course, is TESS’ entire purpose — to find those planets around those brightest nearby stars to do this really detailed characterization,” Spill said.
With four special cameras, TESS uses a detection method called transit photometry, which looks for periodic dips in the visible light of stars caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of them.
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Facebook to Drop On-site Support for Political Campaigns
Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it would no longer dispatch employees to the offices of political campaigns to offer support ahead of elections, as it did with U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2016 race.
The company and other major online ad sellers, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc., have long offered free dedicated assistance to strengthen relationships with top advertisers such as presidential campaigns.
Brad Parscale, who was Trump’s online ads chief in 2016, last year called on-site “embeds” from Facebook crucial to the candidate’s victory. Facebook has said that Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton was offered identical help, but she accepted a different level than Trump.
Google and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests to comment on whether they also would pull back support.
Facebook said it could offer assistance to more candidates globally by focusing on offering support through an online portal instead of in person. It said that political organizations still would be able to contact employees to
receive basic training on using Facebook or for assistance on getting ads approved.
Bloomberg first reported the new approach.
Shaping communications
Facebook, Twitter, and Google served as “quasi-digital consultants” to U.S. election campaigns in 2016, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Utah found in a paper published a year ago.
The companies helped campaigns navigate their services’ ad systems and “actively” shaped campaign communication by suggesting what types of messages to direct to whom, the researchers stated.
Facebook’s involvement with Trump’s campaign drew scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers after the company found its user data had separately been misused by political data firm Cambridge Analytica, which consulted for the Trump campaign.
In written testimony to U.S. lawmakers in June, Facebook said its employees had not spotted any misuse “in the course of their interactions with Cambridge Analytica” during the election.
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One in Three Gun-owning US Veterans Don’t Store Weapons Safely
A substantial percentage of U.S. military vets store guns loaded and ready to use, according to an American study that could have implications for suicide prevention.
“American veterans have a higher suicide risk than demographically matched U.S. adults and most of their suicides are actually related to firearm injury,” said lead author Dr. Joseph Simonetti of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Colorado.
“On average, about 20 veterans die every day by suicide and about two-thirds of those suicides are firearm-related,” he told Reuters Health.
Simonetti and colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2015, including 1,044 who had served in the military.
About 45 percent of veterans said they owned firearms and one in three of those gun owners reported storing at least one weapon loaded and unlocked.
Only about one in five gun-owning veterans kept all their guns locked and unloaded.
Storing weapons loaded and unlocked was reported by 34 percent of male veterans who own firearms and by 13 percent of female vets who were gun owners, according to the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Personal beliefs an influence
Respondents’ personal beliefs tended to influence their storage decisions, the authors found. For example, storing a firearm loaded and unlocked was more common among people who said guns were not useful for protection if someone had to take the time to load or unlock them. This group also felt having a gun at home increased safety.
“One of the more interesting findings was that we asked veterans whether or not they agreed having a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide for household members and only 6 percent agreed that a firearm in the home was a suicide risk factor,” Simonetti said.
“But … we also asked veteran firearm owners … ‘If somebody in your household is at risk for suicide, what would you do?’ Eighty-two percent reported they would do something to limit firearm access for that household member. In fact, 25 percent said they would remove the gun from the home in that case.”
‘Really great study’
The results “are confirming what I suspected would be the case,” said Rajeev Ramchand, who studies firearm suicide prevention at research firm RAND Corporation in Washington, DC.
“It is now incumbent upon us to develop communication campaigns and strategies to help shift people’s internal perceptions of risks.”
“It’s a really great study because it really gives us a target for focusing on our suicide prevention campaigns,” Ramchand, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health.
The study was funded in part by the department of Veterans Affairs. VA efforts to prevent suicide among former service members include training health care providers to discuss firearm safety and distributing firearm “cable locks,” which can be attached to a gun to block its barrel or the use of ammunition.
Contentious subject
Gun control of any sort is a contentious topic in the U.S. But Simonetti believes both sides of the debate are likely to support safe storage practices.
“Nearly every gun advocacy organization out there including the NRA actually does promote the idea that guns should be stored safely when not in use,” he said. “I (just) don’t think most organizations have outlined exactly what that means.”
Ramchand is optimistic. “For so long we had a dearth of information about firearm storage. So this was a really great study to help us come up with data-driven policies and recommendations,” he said.
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Prince Vaults Open Up with Jazzy ‘Piano & A Microphone’
A nine-track album from Prince’s vast vault of unreleased material goes on sale Friday, along with a new video highlighting gun violence.
“Piano & A Microphone” is compiled from a 1983 home studio cassette of the late musician playing jazz piano versions of some of his own songs and those of others, record company Warner Bros. said Thursday.
Prince, 57, died of an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl in 2016, leaving behind thousands of recordings and videos in the vaults of his home studio in suburban Minneapolis.
The new video, shot recently in New York City, accompanies the album track “Mary Don’t You Weep,” a 19th century spiritual.
It is intended to pay tribute to the hundreds of people who are killed or wounded by gun violence in the United States, the record company and the singer’s estate said in a statement.
Prince in 2015 performed at a Rally 4 Peace concert in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray from injuries suffered in police custody. The “Mary Don’t You Weep” video begins with a quote the musician made at that rally, “The system is broke. It’s going to take young people to fix it.”
“Piano & A Microphone” hears Prince working through his songs “Purple Rain” and “17 Days,” as well as a version of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.”
It is one of a handful of recordings released posthumously by Prince’s estate, including an expanded edition of his “Purple Rain” album and “Anthology: 1995-2010,” a selection of 37 of his biggest hits.
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Suge Knight Pleads to Manslaughter Over Fatal Confrontation
Former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight pleaded no contest Thursday to voluntary manslaughter for running over and killing a Compton businessman nearly four years ago and agreed to serve nearly 30 years in prison.
The Death Row Records co-founder entered the plea in Los Angeles Superior Court and has agreed to serve 28 years in prison. The plea came days before jury selection was scheduled to begin in the long-delayed case.
Knight was charged with murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run after fleeing the scene of an altercation in January 2015 outside a Compton burger stand. Knight and Cle “Bone” Sloan, a consultant on the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, were involved in a fistfight that ended with Knight clipping the man with his pickup truck and running over businessman Terry Carter, who died from his injuries.
Knight’s attorneys have said he was acting in self-defense and was fleeing armed attackers when he ran over Carter and Sloan. Sloan has denied he was carrying a gun during the confrontation.
During Thursday’s hearing, Knight answered Judge Ronald Coen’s questions, loudly and quickly saying “no contest” when the judge asked for his plea. He will be formally sentenced Oct. 4.
The plea deal calls for Knight to serve 22 years in prison on the voluntary manslaughter count, and another six years because it is a third strike violation.
Carter’s daughter, Crystal, sat in the front row of the courtroom and displayed no visible reaction to the proceedings. “I’m surprised he pleaded out,” Crystal Carter said outside court. “Normally he likes the cameras to be on him 24-7.”
Courtroom drama
Delays, detours and drama marked the runup to Knight’s trial, which was expected to begin Oct. 1 under tight security and secrecy. Court officials had said that no witness list would be released ahead of the trial, and that some witnesses might not be identified by name during the case.
Knight collapsed during one court hearing, two of his former attorneys were indicted on witness-tampering charges, and his fiancee pleaded no contest to selling video of Knight hitting the two men with his truck.
His attorney Albert DeBlanc Jr., appointed by the court five months ago, was his 16th, and Knight tried to fire him and get yet another lawyer just a day before the deal was reached. DeBlanc declined comment Thursday.
While awaiting trial, Knight was also accused of threatening Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray.
Knight would frequently, against the advice of Coen and his attorneys, speak extensively during hearings, complaining about jail conditions, his attorneys and his health issues.
While Coen read legal language about the plea and told Knight he was subject to deportation if he was not a citizen, Knight said “ICE is coming to get me?” to a smattering of laughs.
Prior convictions
The 53-year-old was a key player in the gangster rap scene that flourished in the 1990s, and his label once listed Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg among its artists. Knight lost control of the company after it was forced into bankruptcy. He has prior felony convictions for armed robbery and assault with a gun. He pleaded no contest in 1995 and was sentenced to five years’ probation for assaulting two rap entertainers at a Hollywood recording studio in 1992.
He was sentenced in February 1997 to prison for violating terms of that probation by taking part in a fight at a Las Vegas hotel hours before Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by attack as he rode in Knight’s car just east of the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur’s slaying remains unsolved.
Knight had faced life in prison if convicted of murder for killing Carter.
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NAFTA Deal Not Yet in Sight, Canada Stands Firm on Auto Tariffs
Canada and the United States showed scant sign on Thursday of closing a deal to revamp NAFTA, and Canadian officials made clear Washington needed to withdraw a threat of possible autos tariffs, sources said.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump wants to be able to agree on a text of the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement by the end of September, but major differences remain.
“We discussed some tough issues today,” Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters after meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Freeland, who has visited Washington four weeks in a row to discuss NAFTA, gave no further details.
Market fears over the future of the 1994 pact, which underscores $1.2 trillion in trade, have been regularly hitting stocks in all three nations, whose economies are now highly integrated.
While multiple deadlines have passed during the more than year-long negotiations to renew NAFTA, pressure on Canada to agree to a deal is growing, partly to push it through the U.S. Congress before Mexico’s new government takes office on Dec. 1.
Canada says it does not feel bound by the latest deadline.
Asked whether time was running out, Freeland said her focus was getting a deal that was good for Canadians.
Trump came to power last year vowing to tear up NAFTA unless major changes were made to a pact he blames for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Trump struck a side-deal on NAFTA with Mexico last month and has threatened to exclude Canada if necessary. He also said he might impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian autos exports, which would badly hurt the economy.
Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, who was briefed on the talks by Canada’s negotiating team, said Ottawa insisted that the tariff threat be withdrawn.
“Why would Canada sign a trade agreement with the United States … and then have Donald Trump impose a 25 percent tariff on automobiles?” Dias told reporters.
“That for us is a deal breaker. It doesn’t make a stitch of sense. … We are a small nation, we’re not a stupid nation,” added Dias.
Freeland said she would return to Canada on Thursday ahead of a two-day meeting of female foreign ministers she is co-hosting in Montreal. Early next week she will be in New York for a United Nations session.
Ottawa is under pressure from some sectors to abandon its insistence that a bad NAFTA is worse than no NAFTA.
Jim Wilson, the trade minister of Ontario — Canada’s most populous province and heart of the country’s auto industry — met federal negotiators on Wednesday and tweeted on Thursday, “It is imperative that the feds reach a deal.”
The Globe and Mail newspaper on Thursday reported that U.S. negotiators want Ottawa to agree to capping its auto exports to the United States at 1.7 million vehicles a year, something that Canadian industry sources dismissed as unacceptable.
Separately, a Canadian source directly familiar with the negotiations said, “We have not discussed a cap.”
Reuters and other outlets reported in August that a side letter with Mexico would cap tariff-free or nearly duty-free Mexican imports to the United States at 2.4 million vehicles.
U.S. automakers privately question why the United States would seek to cap Canadian exports to the United States, given that companies are unlikely to expand production in Canada compared with lower-cost Mexico.
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Analysts: Poor Economy, Unemployment Lure Tunisians to Extremism
Seven years after the Arab Spring, little has been done to address youth unemployment in Tunisia, a key factor in extremist groups’ ability to recruit marginalized youth, rights groups and experts warn.
“Someone who is marginalized with nothing to lose, no stability in life, no vision of the future, no hope for change, can become a very easy target for terrorist groups,” Amna Guellali, director of Human Rights Watch’s Tunisia office, told VOA.
The Arab Spring was ignited in Tunisia, in part because of deteriorating economic conditions. A frustrated street vendor set himself on fire outside a local municipal office in Sidi Bouzid to protest repeated harassment from authorities, who often confiscated his goods or fined him for selling without a permit.
Although economic conditions that force people to eke out a living on society’s margins play a big role in the unrest, Guellali said that unemployment is the central issue in Tunisia.
“Unemployment stands at 15 percent, rising to 36 percent for Tunisians under 24 years old. Unemployed youths with diplomas are 25 percent, according to the last statistic of 2017,” Guellali added.
The World Bank, which has been helping Tunisia in its development, has also warned that unemployment among young people is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
Economic growth
The World Bank says Tunisia has made progress in its transition to democracy and good governance practices, compared with other countries in the Middle East, but still grapples with growing its economy and providing economic opportunities.
Tunisia’s economic growth in the post-Arab Spring era remains weak despite a modest increase in 2017. According to World Bank data, the economy grew by 1.9 percent in 2017 compared with 1.0 percent in 2016. Since the revolution, the economy has been growing by an average 1.5 percent annually, lower than previous years.
“Tunisian youth don’t see improvement; they actually see that the economic conditions have worsened more than the previous regime,” Darine El Hage, a regional program manager at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), told VOA.
El Hage added that the institute’s field research indicates that Tunisian youth are both frustrated and feel hopeless, with some appreciating the previous government of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali for its relative stability.
Mohamed Malouche, founder of the Tunisian American Young Professionals organization, agrees. He believes that ordinary Tunisians feel betrayed by the country’s politicians.
“The Tunisian public has been very patient, but they are not seeing that democracy is paying off. They all feel that they have been cheated by politicians,” Malouche said.
Ripe for extremism
Terror groups such as the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have large numbers of Tunisians among their ranks and are active in various countries in the region.
Youssef Cherif, an independent Tunisian analyst, believes that when young people join militant groups, it is not due to ideological or religious preferences.
“Tunisian youth are trying to find a space where they can feel that they are important and feel a sense of identity and sense of belonging,” Cherif said.
Malouche agrees. “The lack of economic opportunities, the feeling of injustice and the lack of trust in the government institutions force Tunisian youth to take the extremism route,” he said.
“Tunisia is becoming a fertile ground to extremism recruiters who are taking advantage of vulnerable young men by offering them money and promises,” he added.
Malouche said lack of political representation is also a factor.
“The Tunisian youth are not [seeing] themselves in the political process. They don’t feel that they are truly represented by the current people in power,” he said.
Root causes
Since the toppling of autocrat Ben Ali in 2011, nine Cabinets have been elected, none of which fully addressed high inflation and unemployment.
“The government has not addressed the root causes of the situation. They haven’t adopted comprehensive policies. They only adopted some cosmetic measures,” Human Rights Watch’s Guellali said.
The government is trying to encourage foreign investment, but continued instability has deterred investors, she said.
Political division
Political differences between President Beji Caid Essebsi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed further complicate efforts to bring about reforms.
In July, Essebsi urged the prime minister to step down, citing the country’s political and economic problems. Chahed ignored the call.
“A change of government will shake the confidence of Tunisia’s international partners … as economic data will begin to improve by the end of this year [2018],” Chahed told state news agency TAP, responding to the president’s call for his resignation.
The Tunisian government has taken a number of steps to try to address inflation and unemployment, including efforts to strengthen small businesses in the country and exemption of foreign companies from taxation to encourage more foreign investment. But analysts, like USIP’s El Hage, believe that these solutions are at best easy fixes.
“There are some mobilizations at the level of the government. However, these mobilizations are short-lived and don’t reflect long-term and comprehensive economic reform policy,” El Hage said.
Some of the information in this report came from Reuters.
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Bye Bye Bugs? Scientists Fear Non-Pest Insects Are Declining
A staple of summer — swarms of bugs — seems to be a thing of the past. And that’s got scientists worried.
Pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids and cockroaches are doing just fine. But the more beneficial flying insects of summer — native bees, moths, butterflies, ladybugs, lovebugs, mayflies and fireflies — appear to be less abundant.
Scientists think something is amiss, but they can’t be certain: In the past, they didn’t systematically count the population of flying insects, so they can’t make a proper comparison to today. Nevertheless, they’re pretty sure across the globe there are fewer insects that are crucial to as much as 80 percent of what we eat.
Yes, some insects are pests. But they also pollinate plants, are a key link in the food chain and help decompose life.
“You have total ecosystem collapse if you lose your insects. How much worse can it get than that?” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. If they disappeared, “the world would start to rot.”
He noted Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once called bugs: “The little things that run the world.”
The 89-year-old Wilson recalled that he once frolicked in a “Washington alive with insects, especially butterflies.” Now, “the flying insects are virtually gone.”
It hit home last year when he drove from suburban Boston to Vermont and decided to count how many bugs hit his windshield. The result: A single moth.
Windshield test
The un-scientific experiment is called the windshield test. Wilson recommends everyday people do it themselves to see. Baby Boomers will probably notice the difference, Tallamy said.
Several scientists have conducted their own tests with windshields, car grilles and headlights, and most notice few squashed bugs. Researchers are quick to point out that such exercises aren’t good scientific experiments, since they don’t include control groups or make comparisons with past results. (Today’s cars also are more aerodynamic, so bugs are more likely to slip past them and live to buzz about it.)
Still, there are signs of decline. Research has shown dwindling individual species in specific places, including lightning bugs, moths and bumblebees. One study estimated a 14 percent decline in ladybugs in the United States and Canada from 1987 to 2006. University of Florida urban entomologist Philip Koehler said he’s seen a recent decrease in lovebugs — insects that fly connected and coated Florida’s windshields in the 1970s and 1980s. This year, he said, “was kind of disappointing, I thought.”
University of Nevada, Reno, researcher Lee Dyer and his colleagues have been looking at insects at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica since 1991. There’s a big insect trap sheet under black light that decades ago would be covered with bugs. Now, “there’s no insects on that sheet,” he said.
But there’s not much research looking at all flying insects in big areas.
The evidence
Last year, a study that found an 82 percent mid-summer decline in the number and weight of bugs captured in traps in 63 nature preserves in Germany compared with 27 years earlier. It was one of the few, if only, broad studies. Scientists say similar comparisons can’t be done elsewhere because similar bug counts weren’t done decades ago.
“We don’t know how much we’re losing if we don’t know how much we have,” said University of Hawaii entomologist Helen Spafford.
The lack of older data makes it “unclear to what degree we’re experiencing an arthropocalypse,” said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum. Individual studies aren’t convincing in themselves, “but the sheer accumulated weight of evidence seems to be shifting” to show a problem, she said.
After the German study, countries started asking if they have similar problems, said ecologist Toke Thomas Hoye of Aarhus University in Denmark. He studied flies in a few spots in remote Greenland and noticed an 80 percent drop in numbers since 1996.
“It’s clearly not a German thing,” said University of Connecticut entomologist David Wagner, who has chronicled declines in moth populations in the northeastern United States. “We just need to find out how widespread the phenomenon is.”
The suspects
Most scientists say lots of factors, not just one, caused the apparent decline in flying insects.
Suspects include habitat loss, insecticide use, the killing of native weeds, single-crop agriculture, invasive species, light pollution, highway traffic and climate change.
“It’s death by a thousand cuts, and that’s really bad news,” Wagner said.
To Tallamy, two causes stand out: Humans’ war on weeds and vast farmland planted with the same few crops.
Weeds and native plants are what bugs eat and where they live, Tallamy said. Milkweeds, crucial to the beautiful monarch butterfly, are dwindling fast. Manicured lawns in the United States are so prevalent that, added together, they are as big as New England, he said.
Those landscapes are “essentially dead zones,” he said.
Light pollution is another big problem for species such as moths and fireflies, bug experts said. Insects are attracted to brightness, where they become easy prey and expend energy they should be using to get food, Tallamy said.
Jesse Barber of Boise State is in the middle of a study of fireflies and other insects at Grand Teton National Park. He said he notices a distinct connection between light pollution and dwindling populations.
“We’re hitting insects during the day, we’re hitting them at night,” Tallamy said. “We’re hitting them just about everywhere.”
Lawns, light pollution and bug-massacring highway traffic are associated where people congregate. But Danish scientist Hoye found a noticeable drop in muscid flies in Greenland 300 miles (500 kilometers) from civilization. His studies linked declines to warmer temperatures.
Other scientists say human-caused climate change may play a role, albeit small.
Restoring habitat
Governments are trying to improve the situation. Maryland is in a three-year experiment to see if planting bee-friendly native wildflowers helps.
University of Maryland entomology researcher Lisa Kuder says the usual close-crop “turf is basically like a desert” that doesn’t attract flying insects. She found an improvement — 70 different species and records for bees — in the areas where flowers are allowed to grow wild and natural alongside roads.
The trouble is that it is so close to roadways that Tallamy fears that the plants become “ecological traps where you’re drawing insects in and they’re all squashed by cars.”
Still, Tallamy remains hopeful. In 2000, he moved into this rural area between Philadelphia and Baltimore and made his 10-acre patch all native plants, creating a playground for bugs. Now he has 861 species of moths and 54 species of breeding birds that feed on insects.
Wagner, of the University of Connecticut, spends his summers teaching middle schoolers in a camp to look for insects, like he did decades ago. They have a hard time finding the cocoons he used to see regularly.
“The kids I’m teaching right now are going to think that scarce insects are the rule,” Wagner said. “They’re not realizing that there could be an ecological disaster on the horizon.”
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