Month: June 2019

Google Cloud Gaming Service to Launch in 14 Countries This Year

Google on Thursday released new details about its video game streaming service Stadia, which will be available in 14 countries starting in November.

For the launch, Google will sell its “founders edition bundle” hardware pack for $129, with a monthly subscription price of $9.99. In Europe, the price will be 129 euros and 9.99 euros per month.

The new gaming platform aims for a Netflix-style subscription that enables players to access games on any device, powered by the internet cloud.

This could disrupt the huge gaming industry by allowing users to avoid consoles and game software on disc or download.

Subscribers will have access to free games and will be able to purchase some blockbuster titles as well.

The first free title will be the shooter game Destiny 2 from game developer Bungie.

Users may also purchase hit titles such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

Stadia will launch in the United States, Britain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

Announcing the game platform earlier this year, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said the initiative is “to build a game platform for everyone.”

Google’s hope is that Stadia could become for games what Netflix or Spotify are to television or music, by making console-quality play widely available.

Yet it remains unclear how much Google can grab of the nascent, but potentially massive, industry.

As it produces its own games, Google will also be courting other studios to move to its cloud-based model.

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R. Kelly Pleads Not Guilty to 11 More Sex-Related Charges

R&B singer R. Kelly pleaded not guilty to 11 additional sex-related charges Thursday, including four counts that carry a maximum prison term of 30 years in prison.

Prosecutors did not ask the judge to raise the bond amount for Kelly during the brief hearing in Cook County court.

Kelly stood with his hands folded in front of him and listened to Judge Lawrence Flood describe the charges to him. When Flood asked if he understood, Kelly, responded, “Yes, sir.” The Grammy award-winning singer, who has denied any wrongdoing, left without speaking to reporters. A status hearing was scheduled for June 26.

Among the 11 new counts are four counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, which carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. That is more than four times as long as the maximum term for each of the 10 counts Kelly was originally charged with in February.

Kelly’s defense attorney, Steve Greenberg, said after the hearing that he couldn’t speculate as to why prosecutors brought the new charges, which pertain to one of the four women he was charged in February with sexually abusing years ago, three of whom were minors when the alleged abuse occurred.

“It’s the same case. It’s just that they’ve just changed what they’ve charged him with,” Greenberg said. “It’s the same facts … the same bond, the same evidence. We expect the same result.”

Asked how Kelly is coping, Greenberg said, “It’s tough. Everything is against him.”

Kelly’s spokesman, Darryll Johnson, told reporters that Kelly is “upbeat.” 

 

“Initially, he was a little depressed,” Johnson said. “But I mean, with anything, if someone accuses you of something, you’ll be depressed. He knows the truth.”

New felony counts

According to the new indictment, the first eight counts are from encounters that allegedly occurred between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31, 2010. Three others pertain to alleged encounters between May 1, 2009, and Jan. 31, 2010.

Among other things, prosecutors allege that Kelly used force or threatened to do so to pressure the accuser into sex or to perform oral sex on him. Since she was underage at the time, the statute of limitations for bringing charges was extended to 20 years from her 18th birthday, they wrote.

A woman has come forward to say publicly that 11 new felony counts stem from allegations she made about the R&B singer. 

 

Jerhonda Pace wrote on her Facebook page that she’s the accuser identified as “J.P.” in court documents. Anticipating an angry reaction by Kelly’s fans, Pace — one of four women Kelly is charged with sexually abusing — wrote that “no matter how “wrong” you think I am, the law is on my side, a MINOR at the time.” 

 

The Associated Press doesn’t usually name alleged victims of sexual assault, but Pace has gone public with her allegations.

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IMF: US Trade Wars Are Risk to America’s Economy

The U.S. economy could be weakened by escalating trade wars or a sudden downturn in global financial markets, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns.

In an annual review of the U.S. economy, the IMF said it was on a 2.6 percent growth track this year, greater than the 2.3 percent growth rate forecast in April.

But the report also said the U.S. economy appears to be increasingly vulnerable amid investor concern over America’s trade wars, noting they could trigger worsening global financial conditions.

The IMF criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for efforts to remake global trade relationships through higher tariffs and said it was “especially important” to resolve the trade dispute with China.

The report said the U.S. economy has recovered from the financial crisis that began in 2008, but millions of Americans did not benefit from the recovery. Household income increased a meager 2.2 percent from the end of the last century, the report said, while the U.S. economy expanded 23 percent per capita during the same period.

“The poorest 40 percent of households have a level of net wealth that is lower today than it was in 1983,” the report said.

The report called on the Trump administration to avert an economic slowdown by adopting measures to cut public and corporate debt and address inequality.

On Wednesday, the IMF warned the U.S.-China trade war could cut world economic growth next year.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Trump’s threat to tax all trade between the two countries would shrink the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by one-half-of-one percent.

“This amounts to a loss of about about $455 billion, larger than the size of South Africa’s economy,” Lagarde said in a briefing note for the Group of Twenty (G-20), a collection of the world’s largest advanced and emerging economies. “These are self-inflicted wounds that must be avoided… by removing the recently implemented trade barriers and by avoiding further barriers in whatever form,” she added.

The warning came as G-20 finance ministers and central bankers prepare to meet in Japan later this month. They will gather just weeks after U.S.-China talks collapsed amid claims of broken promises and another round of punishing tariffs.

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Vietnam Businesses Push for Green Economy

Liz Hung supports a lot of the imaginative concepts being discussed to make Vietnam “greener” economically and in terms of urban planning.

 

Consider traffic lights. Hung described how government authorities could collect smartphone data to see which streets are crowded, and then calibrate the stoplights to optimize traffic flow.

 

Hung and others in the private sector are giving Vietnamese officials their wish list for a green economy, from more renewable energy to buildings that collect rain water for use.

 

“Road congestion costs us at least 2 to 5% of our [gross domestic product] growth every year because of the time we lost or the high transportation cost, so that is why being smart [in] mobility is very crucial,” said Hung, who is CBRE associate director of Asia Pacific Research.

 

Hung’s comment highlights the link between good city planning and economic benefits.

Emulating China, Australia

 

There is also a larger debate about whether the economic benefits outweigh the costs of going green.

 

There is a financial cost of technology to make Vietnam more efficient. But there also is a security cost, as “smart devices,” like lights connected to the internet, have looser security settings that make them easier to hack.

 

In looking for inspiration for Vietnam’s future, Hung looked at places from Hangzhou, China, where she heard about the traffic data, to Adelaide, Australia, where authorities installed smart sensors in trash bins, which alert garbage collectors when the bins are nearly full.

 

If the idea is to increase efficiency, Vietnam should think about energy use, said Tomaso Andreatta, vice chair at the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam.

 

Last month, the chamber held a forum on sustainable cities. In addition to rooftop solar panels and wind turbines, some cities are exploring ways to create energy from things that would otherwise be tossed out.

 

Trash can be burned, for example, to boil water for steam generators that produce electricity, a process known as waste-to-energy. This does risk increasing carbon emissions or decreasing incentives for recycling, however.

Aiming for zero waste

 

“More and more we realize that resources are limited, and producing waste destroys the quality of life,” Andreatta said. “Therefore, there’s been a movement worldwide to reducing waste to an absolute minimum, ideally zero.”

 

He went on to say, “The rapid development of the middle class and its lifestyle, which includes intensive air conditioning use, accounts for a considerable proportion of energy consumption growth.”

 

It may be the middle class that benefits most from a greener Vietnam, where the private sector steps in to create greater efficiencies, when the government is not involved.

 

Property developers are building enclosed communities where sustainability is part of the design, whether it’s motion-detecting lights, or insulation that keeps indoor temperatures manageable. One developer introduced pollution warnings. Another made a transportation app just for its residents.

 

But what about those who are not lucky enough to live in a gated community?

 

Government officials say they are listening to proposals across all sectors. They say that as Vietnam faces a major threat from climate change, it needs to make greater efforts at green planning.

 

“Climate change will have a big impact on the region,” said Huynh Xuan Thu, deputy chief officer of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Architecture and Urban Planning.

 

Some of the ideas, such as a country full of electric cars, may be a pipe dream or years down the road. But Vietnam is getting started on some of the proposals.

 

In Ho Chi Minh City, officials are looking at traffic sensors and gathering data on congestion, which they hope to reduce through technology in the near future.

 

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Russian Band to Stage Planned Parenthood Benefit in Alabama

The Russian protest band Pussy Riot is planning a concert in Alabama to benefit Planned Parenthood after the state passed the nation’s toughest anti-abortion law.

Al.com reports that the feminist band is set to perform July 11 at a music venue in Birmingham.

A tweet by the band says the show will benefit both Planned Parenthood and the Yellowhammer Fund, which says it provides funding for anyone seeking care at one of the state’s three abortion clinics.

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union are suing to block the Alabama law, which would ban all abortions except ones when the women’s health is at serious risk.

Backers of the law say they hope court challenges will lead to a Supreme Court decision outlawing abortions nationwide.

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US Productivity Grew at Solid 3.4% Rate in First Quarter

U.S. productivity grew at a strong 3.4% rate in the January-March quarter, the best showing in more than four years, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was an encouraging sign that productivity may finally be improving after a long stretch of weakness.

 

The first quarter gain was more than double the 1.3% increase in the fourth quarter, although it was slightly lower than an initial estimate of 3.6% made a month ago. Labor costs fell during the first quarter, declining by 1.6% following a 0.4% drop in the fourth quarter.

 

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is a key factor determining an economy’s growth potential. If the current rebound continues, it would provide support for President Donald Trump’s efforts to achieve sustained 3% growth rates.

 

The slight downward revision in productivity reflected the fact that overall output, as measured by gross domestic product, was revised down from an initial estimate of 3.2% growth to 3.1% growth in the first quarter.

 

The 3.4% advance in productivity was the strongest increase since a 3.7% rise in the third quarter of 2014. Productivity has risen 2.4% over the past four quarters, the best performance since a 2.7% four-quarter gain in 2010.

 

Productivity gains over the past decade have been lackluster, averaging just 1.3% annually from 2007 through 2018. That was less than half the 2.7% gains seen from 2000 to 2007, a period when the economy was benefiting from technology improvements in computers and the internet. From 1947 through 2018, annual productivity gains averaged 2.1%.

 

Economists see the slowdown in productivity over the past decade as one of the country’s biggest economic challenges. But recent signs indicate that may be turning around. The economy’s potential to grow is governed by two major factors, growth of the labor force and growth in productivity.

 

For all of 2018, GDP growth was 2.9%. The Trump administration has projected sustained GDP gains of 3% or better over the next decade, well above the 2.2% average GDP gains seen since the current expansion began in June 2009.

 

In a separate report Thursday, the Labor Department said that applications for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, held steady at 218,000 last week. That is a low level that indicates a strong job market. The government will release its May jobs report on Friday.

 

 

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Poll: Some Younger US Workers Not Happy With Graying Workforce

A rising share of older Americans is forgoing the concept of a traditional retirement at the age of 65, a trend that some younger workers aren’t particularly thrilled to see.

A recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that workers under the age of 50 were significantly more likely to view America’s aging workforce as a negative development when compared with their older counterparts. About 4 in 10 respondents ages 18 to 49 and 44% of the youngest respondents ages 18 to 29 said they consider the trend to be a bad thing for American workers. Just 14% of those age 60 and over said the same.

“I don’t think in things like IT and medicine you’re as effective a worker (at 65 years old) as you are at 50,” says Katie Otting, a 29-year-old living in Southern California. “If some 65-year-old is in a position that he’s not ready to quit because he wants a better pension and there’s someone else ready to take that job, they’re not going to replace him.”

An aging population, elevated health care costs and lingering financial uncertainty following the Great Recession all are believed to be contributing to America’s steadily graying workforce. Nearly 20% of Americans over the age of 65 were employed or actively looking for work last year, up from less than 12% two decades prior, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the increased prevalence of older workers has led some to believe seniors are holding back the country’s economic momentum by remaining in the workforce. Men were slightly more likely than women to cite the aging workforce as a problem for U.S. workers (32% to 27%). And about a third (34%) of more affluent respondents earning more than $100,000 annually said the same, slightly more than the 24% of those earning less than $30,000 who said so.

By contrast, about 6 in 10 Americans age 60 and over say the trend has actually been a good thing for the economy, compared with 3 in 10 Americans under 30 who think that.

About a third of Americans under 50 who have noticed the trend in their own workplace believe the aging workforce has negative implications for their own careers.

“One of the myths that’s out there causing younger and older people to butt heads is the idea that `Oh, it’s because these older people are on the job preventing me from getting the job I want,”’ says Steve Burghardt, a 74-year-old professor of social work at the City University of New York who thinks Americans are “looking for someone younger or someone older to blame” for inequality, job displacement and other economic problems.

Research is mixed on the aging workforce’s overall impact on the U.S. economy. Adam Ozimek, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, says his prior research efforts have suggested a growing population of older workers can slow productivity and ultimately hamper wage growth for the rest of the labor market.

But he says there’s little evidence to suggest that the presence of older workers is “crowding younger workers out of promotions,” noting that many of the workers who would naturally move up and replace positions currently held by baby boomers are not millennials but rather middle-aged members of Generation X.

“In anxious times, we look for scapegoats. And old people are a ready scapegoat, especially if you are forced out of having a public presence or are forced (out of a job),” says Ashton Applewhite, a New York-based writer and ageism activist.

The idea that older workers are keeping jobs away from younger Americans, preventing them from moving up the corporate ladder into higher-ranking, higher-paying positions, is not a new one. But economists say it doesn’t have much basis in economic reality.

“The more of those seniors continue to work, that means they’re also spending. And that spending helps build a rich economy that gives you jobs and lots of opportunities,” says Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at employment hub Glassdoor.

But Chamberlain and Ozimek say it might be easier to believe older workers are holding back their younger counterparts when looking at the economy on a smaller scale. One particular company, for example, may only employ one chief of marketing. Should that person choose to remain in the workforce until he or she is 80 years old, lower ranking employees may perceive a lack of upward mobility.

A comparable job may be ripe for the taking elsewhere, Chamberlain says, but it may be at another company or in another city that would require a move that many employees may be unwilling to make.

“They feel like their opportunities are only within that firm,” Chamberlain says. “I think it’s just simple confusion. I think people are mixing up (opportunities) just inside one company versus the overall job market.”

Meanwhile, many older workers are coming to terms with the fact that they’ll need to remain in the workforce to keep their heads above water or maintain their current lifestyles. Mitch Rothschild, 61, lives and works in New York City and says he expects he is “probably going to have to work until I die.”

He says the aging workforce is less of an economic problem and more of a financial reality to which workers of all ages need to adapt.

“Hey, look, I wished I’d been skiing in the Alps since I was 40,” he says. “But you think I’m going to stop working a year from now and rely on Social Security for the next 20 years? No.”

 

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Carrie Underwood Wins at CMT Awards, Tanya Tucker Performs

Carrie Underwood extended her run as the most decorated act in the history of the CMT Music Awards with her 20th win Wednesday night.

 

Underwood won two prizes at the fan-voted show, including video of the year for “Cry Pretty” and female video of the year for “Love Wins.”

 

“Fans, thank you so much. I saw you guys doing the Twitter parties and getting together and doing your thing and voting,” she said. “None of us would be able to do any of what we do if not for you guys. You guys put us here. You guys keep us going. You guys let us live out our dreams.”

 

When she won the first televised award of the night, Underwood acknowledged her husband’s birthday (she is married to former hockey player Mike Fisher, who sat in the audience).

 

“It is my husband’s birthday today — look what they got you,” she said.

 

The Grammy-winning country star also performed at the show honoring the year’s best country music videos, which took place at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Thomas Rhett, Little Big Town and Trombone Shorty kicked off the event with a performance of “Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time.” More collaborative performances followed: Brett Young sang “Here Tonight” with Boyz II Men, even blending in some of the R&B group’s “Water Runs Dry” for the performance. Sheryl Crow and Maren Morris teamed up onstage, while Tanya Tucker — whose new album will be produced by Brandi Carlile — sang “Delta Dawn” with the Grammy-winning Americana singer, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Lauren Alaina and more acts.

 

Little Big Town, who also performed and returned for a second year as hosts of the show, talked about the lack of female singers on country radio ahead of the strong female performance. On this week’s Billboard country airplay chart — which tracks radio airplay — only 10 of the 60 slots belong to women or songs co-starring a woman.

 

“Back in December it was even worse — there were none,” Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild said. “Here’s my question, ladies in the house: ‘What do we have to do to get some airplay around here?'”

 

Little Big Town told jokes at the top of the show and even sang some of “Old Town Road,” the No. 1 country-rap hit from newcomer Lil Nas X that was booted from the Billboard country songs chart when the tune was deemed not country enough.

 

Dan + Shay — who won a Grammy this year as well as honors at the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards — kept their year of winning alive by taking home duo video of the year for “Speechless.”

 

Shay Mooney thanked “the real stars of the video” — their wives — when they accepted the award.

 

Zac Brown Band won group video of the year for “Someone I Used to Know” and its frontman was passionate as he read his speech from a paper.

 

“For you young artists, have courage to stand up against the machine, be yourself, work hard and one day you can stand up here and tell all the haters to ‘[expletive] off,'” Zac Brown said.

 

When Ashley McBryde won breakthrough video of the year, she took a drink from Luke Combs as she walked to the stage.

 

“I’m always awkward and I usually bring my drink with me, but I didn’t have a drink so I took Luke Combs’ drink,” said McBryde, who scored Grammy and Emmy nominations this year.

 

Keith Urban and Julia Michaels — the pop singer who has co-written hits for Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and herself — won collaborative video of the year for “Coming Home,” while Kane Brown won male video of the year for “Lose It.”

 

Luke Combs and R&B singer Leon Bridges — who won his first Grammy this year — won CMT performance of the year for “Beautiful Crazy” from the series “CMT Crossroads.”

 

“First off, my beautiful fiance Nicole — thank you for inspiring this song,” Combs said.

 

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Algae Curtains Turn Buildings Into Carbon Eating Forests

They’re called biocurtains, and for one small firm they lie somewhere between environmental engineering and art. These unique installations are filled with algae that suck up carbon and emit oxygen, and could be one small element involved with engineering our way out of catastrophic climate change. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.

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Ali’s Hometown Names its Airport After the Late Champion Boxer

Muhammad Ali amazed the world as a champion boxer and political activist. After his death in 2016, Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Ky., is memorializing him by officially naming its airport after him on June 6. The move also highlights one of Ali’s most famous quirks. VOA’s Alam Burhanan reports from Louisville, Kentucky.

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Ai-Da, Humanoid Robot Artist, Gears Up for First Solo Exhibition

Wearing a white blouse and her dark hair hanging loose, Ai-Da looks like any artist at work as she studies her subject and puts pencil to paper. But the beeping from her bionic arm gives her away – Ai-Da is a robot.

Described as “the world’s first ultra-realistic AI humanoid robot artist,” Ai-Da opens her first solo exhibition of eight drawings, 20 paintings, four sculptures and two video works next week, bringing “a new voice” to the art world, her British inventor and gallery owner Aidan Meller says.

“The technological voice is the important one to focus on because it affects everybody,” he told Reuters at a preview.

“We’ve got a very clear message we want to explore: the uses and abuses of A.I. today, because this next decade is coming in dramatically and we’re concerned about that and we want to have ethical considerations in all of that.”

Named after British mathematician and computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, Ai-Da can draw from sight thanks to cameras in her eyeballs and AI algorithms created by scientists at the University of Oxford that help produce coordinates for her arm to create art.

She uses a pencil or pen for sketches, but the plan is for Ai-Da to paint and create pottery. Her paint works now are printed onto canvas with a human painting over.

“From those coordinates from the drawing we’ve been able to take that into a algorithm that is then able to output it through a Cartesian graph that then produces a final image,” Meller said.

“It’s a really exciting process never been done before in the way that we’ve done it…We don’t know exactly how the drawings are going to turn out and that’s really important.”

On show at the “Unsecured Futures” exhibition are drawings paying tribute to Lovelace and mathematician Alan Turing, abstract paintings of trees, sculptures based on Ai-Da’s drawings of a bee and video works, one of which, “Privacy” pays homage to Yoko Ono’s 1965 “Cut Piece.”

Ai-Da, whose construction was completed in April, has already seen her art snapped up.

“It’s a sold out show with over a million pounds worth of artworks sold,” Meller said.

The exhibition, which opens on June 12 at the Barn Gallery at St John’s College, looks at the boundaries between technology, AI and organic life.

Asked by Meller about “all the AI going on at the moment,” Ai-Da, who has pre-programmed speech, replied: “New technologies bring the potential for good and evil. It is a great responsibility to try to curb excesses of negative use, something that we all must consider.”

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In Double Whammy, Fitch Downgrades Mexico and Moody’s Lowers Outlook

In a double blow for Mexico, credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the nation’s sovereign debt rating on Wednesday, citing risks posed by heavily indebted oil company Pemex and trade tensions, while Moody’s lowered its outlook to negative.

The Mexican peso weakened as much as 1.3% on the news.

Cutting Mexico’s rating to BBB, nearing junk status, Fitch said the financial woes of state oil company Pemex were taking a toll on the nation’s prospects.

Fitch said mounting trade tensions influenced its view, according to a statement issued shortly after the end of a meeting in the White House in which Mexican officials tried to stave off tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to impose next week.

Following a surge in mostly Central American migrants arriving at the U.S. border, Trump threatened blanket tariffs on Mexican imports if it did not do more to stem the flow.

“Growth continues to underperform, and downside risks are magnified by threats by U.S. President Trump,” Fitch said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in December with ambitious plans to build a $8 billion refinery, a decision ratings agencies and investors warned would divert funds from its more profitable production and exploration business.

“Further evidence that medium-term growth is in decline, whether as a result of policies that actively undermine growth or because of continued policy unpredictability, would put downward pressure,” Moody’s said in a statement.

Mexico’s finance ministry declined to comment.

Lopez Obrador has said the ratings agencies were punishing Mexico for the “neo-liberal” policies of previous administrations.

A Reuters analysis of Pemex accounts from the past decade shows debt increased by 75% during the term of Lopez Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, amid a landmark energy reform.

Pemex

Moody’s highlighted the risks posed by Pemex, formally known as Petroleos Mexicanos, the world’s most indebted oil company.

“The impact of the contingent liability represented by Pemex weighs increasingly heavily on the sovereign credit profile,” Fitch said in a statement.

The latest moves by the ratings agencies on Mexico’s sovereign rating could also ratchet up pressure on the oil company’s own rating, which is teetering on the brink being downgraded from investment grade.

In March, S&P cut its stand-alone assessment of Pemex by three notches, following Fitch’s move to downgrade its credit in January. S&P pegs the rating of Pemex to that of the sovereign rating and the stand-alone assessment does not equal a rating.

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US Refiners to Trump: Tariffs on Mexico Could Raise Gas Prices

U.S. refiners warned the Trump administration that tariffs on imports from Mexico could deliver a punishing blow to refiners and raise the cost of gasoline just as the U.S. driving season kicks into high gear, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Trump surprised Mexico last week with a threat to impose 5% tariffs on all its exports to the United States unless the Mexican government took measures to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

The United States imports more than 650,000 barrels of crude per day from Mexico, about 10% of total crude imports, according to U.S. government data. Refiners are also worried that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs on its imports of U.S. fuel, a major source of revenue for the U.S. industry.

“If these tariffs take hold, particularly if they’re able to get up to 25%, that could really impact the overall competitiveness of the U.S. refining industry,” said Chet Thompson, chief executive of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association. The group has had discussions with the administration and Congress on the issue, Thompson said.

​Mexico oil complements US oil

Mexico’s oil is heavy and refiners need it to blend with lighter U.S. oil to produce diesel fuel, gasoline and other products. Tariffs would drive up the cost of those imports — and Trump has said he would increase levies by 5% monthly until they reach 25% in October.

Mexico is a prime supplier of heavy crude, which has been harder to come by since the United States imposed sanctions on Venezuela in January.

Gasoline prices have remained subdued as global oil prices have declined because of worries about worldwide economic demand. But without enough heavy crude, U.S. refineries could run plants at lower rates to save money if heavy crude feedstock becomes too costly, lobbyists said.

“The heavy crude market is tight and it’s only Mexico at the moment. The tariff would essentially make the crude uneconomical and we may have no choice but to consider run cuts,” said one Washington-based refinery lobbyist.

Refiners have said that could drive up the price of gasoline at the pump, just as American drivers take to the road in the period of the highest gasoline demand in the United States.

Texas lawmakers alarmed

International crude prices are near a six-month low, so any rise in gasoline prices is unlikely to be prohibitive.

Right now a regular gallon of gasoline in the United States averages $2.80, according to the American Automobile Association, but it tends to rise in the summer months.

“We are trying to educate the administration on what this means for gas prices,” the lobbyist said. The potential for tariffs has alarmed lawmakers of both major U.S. parties, including members of Congress from Texas, a reliably Republican state that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 but depends on the oil industry and cross-border trade with Mexico, which accounts for 39 percent of the state’s exports, according to the Texas-Mexico Trade Coalition.

“We shouldn’t be imposing tariffs on Mexico,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. He told Reuters that Republican senators “had a vigorous and frank discussion” with White House officials on the issue.

Texas has 5.7 million barrels of daily refining capacity, more than any other state.

U.S. refiners are also concerned about retaliatory actions by Mexico, which buys about one-quarter of U.S. refined product exports. In March, Mexico bought about 1.3 million bpd of oil products from the United States, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

“It would be pretty devastating to us,” a second Washington-based lobbyist said.

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Trump’s Cruise Ban Hits Cuba’s Private-Sector Workers

Lazaro Hernandez, who has made a good living showing U.S. cruise ship passengers around Havana in his pink 1950s Chevrolet, says the new U.S. ban on cruises to Cuba will wipe out 90% of his business overnight.

Hernandez is one of thousands of Cubans who benefited from the boom in American visitors to the Caribbean’s largest island following the loosening of travel restrictions under former U.S. President Barack Obama during the short-lived 2014-2016 detente between the Cold War foes.

Obama’s successor, President Donald Trump, aims to punish Cuba’s Communist government, especially for its alliance with Venezuela, by tightening the rules once more. Yet Cubans say those who will really suffer are the people, including the private-sector workers the United States purports to support.

“This is a fatal blow for us,” said Hernandez, 27, who makes $30 an hour — the equivalent of the average monthly state salary — doing tours of Havana. “If there’s no tourism, we don’t have work.”

​Second-biggest group of tourists

U.S. travelers excluding Cuban-Americans became the second-biggest group of tourists on the island in recent years after Canadians, with cruise travelers making up half of those.

Although they typically contributed less to the economy as they stayed on ships rather than in hotels or bed-and-breakfasts, they hired drivers and tour guides and spent at private shops, bars and restaurants.

“We bought T-shirts as souvenirs and bags,” said Sarah Freeman, 42, one of the passengers on the last U.S. cruise ship to sail from Havana, using a handcrafted wooden Cuban fan to fend off the Caribbean heat.

The new restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba also include the elimination of so-called group people-to-people educational travel, one of the most popular exemptions to the overall ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba.

‘Negative perceptions’

William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University in Washington, estimated the measures could reduce the number of non-Cuban-American U.S. visitors by two-thirds or more.

That could cut overall tourist arrivals in Cuba by about 10%, he said. Another expert, John Kavulich, said the drop could be as much as 20%.

“Optically, not having Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean in the marketplace will recreate negative perceptions about Cuba,” said Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc., referring to the three main cruise lines forced to cancel service.

Earlier restrictions cut revenues

Tourism revenues, the country’s second-biggest source of hard currency, already slumped nearly 5% last year, according to official data.

That was partly the result of an earlier round of Trump administration restrictions.

Washington says it is pressuring Cuba to reform and tamp down its support for socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump has been seeking to force out in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is backed by most Western countries.

Critics say Trump is seeking to drum up support from the Cuban-American community in the swing state of Florida ahead of next year’s election.

Starting Thursday, many Cubans will be feeling the sudden absence in revenue from cruise passengers.

“For me, it will have a domino effect,” said Nichdaly Gonzalez, who earns her living posing for photos, dressed up in her colorful colonial garb, adding she expected to have to rein in her spending. As such, it will have a trickle-down impact on the local economy, especially in the ports of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos that received the U.S. cruise ships.

The Cuban government has said it is aiming for tourism income to increase 5.8% this year, but it is hard to see how it can reach that goal now.

“We’ve lived with U.S. hostility now for 60 years, since the revolution, so we’ll get by,” said Abel Amador, 46, selling sketches to tourists on a cobbled street. “But this new move will still affect us.”

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Warren Criticizes Trump’s ‘Dart Throwing’ Mexico Tariff Decision

Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Mexico as “random dart throwing” that lacks a coherent strategy.

Trump unexpectedly told Mexico last week to take a harder line on curbing illegal immigration or face 5% tariffs on all its exports to the United States, rising to as much as 25% later in the year. On Tuesday, Trump said he expected to impose the tariffs as of Monday.

“Trump’s random dart throwing ain’t helping anybody,” Warren, a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, told reporters after a campaign event in Elkhart, Indiana.

Moments earlier, before a crowd of about 600 in the town with a large manufacturing sector, Warren assailed companies that are moving production abroad. While that echoed Trump’s criticism, she faulted his approach.

“Lets be clear — tariff policy by tweet does not work,” Warren said. “Randomly raising tariffs on a handful of goods with no coherent policy and doing it nation by nation makes no sense at all.”

Warren is one of more than 20 Democrats vying for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in the November 2020 election.

Mexican officials will seek to persuade the White House in talks hosted by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday that their government has done enough to stem immigration and avoid looming tariffs. The tariff fight merges two of Trump’s biggest campaign promises, on immigration and fair trade.

“Nobody goes into battle by themselves when they can be stronger by having allies in it,” Warren said, calling for a “coherent trade policy.”

Other Candidates Weigh In

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is also running to be a Democratic presidential nominee, criticized Trump for creating “chaos” by creating the tariffs and promising more.

“That’s the kind of chaos he likes,” Klobuchar said in an appearance on CNN on Tuesday. “And I just think that’s not how you embark on international diplomacy with one of our best allies.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, another Democratic presidential hopeful, had a similar criticism.

“This president has no plan and no ability to have a thoughtful approach towards trade or the economy,” Gillibrand said on Monday in a town hall on Fox News. “Because if he wanted to reduce the trade deficit, he’s only grown it.”

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Scientists Crack Secret of Fish’s Deadly, Transparent Teeth

A deep-sea fish can hide its enormous, jutting teeth from prey because its chompers are virtually invisible – until it’s too late.

What’s the dragonfish’s secret? The teeth are transparent, and now scientists have discovered how the fish accomplished that trick. 

Findings were published Wednesday in the journal Matter.

The dragonfish is a small predator with jagged, needle-like teeth protruding from a jaw that can extend to bite into prey up to half its body size.

“They look like monsters,” said Marc Meyers of the University of California, San Diego. “But they’re mini monsters” – about as long as a pencil.

Despite their short stature, these fish are at the top of the food chain in their deep-ocean realm where it’s almost pitch black. 

To find food or mates, many animals carry bacteria that generate blue or red light. That’s called bioluminescence.

Using microscopes, Meyers and his research team examined the teeth of dragonfish they had dredged up from about a third of a mile (500 meters) underwater off the coast of San Diego. 

Dragonfish teeth are made of the same materials as human teeth – a protective layer of enamel on the surface and a tough, deeper layer of dentin. But the minerals have a much finer microscopic structure that is organized more haphazardly. 

“That was very surprising to us,” Meyers said. 

The result is that light in the environment or from bioluminescence- even from dragonfish themselves – doesn’t reflect off the teeth. Instead, most light passes through the teeth so they’re almost completely concealed. 

This, the researchers believe, makes the dragonfish a stealthier hunter.

Transparent teeth could be a common strategy among deep-sea predators, said Christopher Kenaley, a fish biologist at Boston College who wasn’t part of the study, noting that some other fish share this feature.

Among the most well-known of the others are anglerfish, stubby creatures that wave a glowing rod-like growth from their heads to lure prey.

Nobody has actually seen dragonfish feed in the wild, but the researchers make a good case that these transparent teeth are an evolutionary adaptation for hunting in the deep sea, Kenaley said.

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Kenya Farmers Fight Drought with Biofuel from Cotton Waste

Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it must be a joke when he was told he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, cleanly and efficiently using a pump fueled by cotton waste.

“Who could believe it’s possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn’t!” laughed Mathoka, crouching down to inspect the watermelons on his 10-acre (four-hectare) shared plot in Ituri village in Kenya’s southeast Kitui county.

“But it works,” he said, walking over to a nearby tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. “Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get higher yields, especially during drought periods.”

Mathoka said his earnings had doubled in the two years he has been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more efficient and 20 shillings ($0.20) per liter cheaper than regular diesel.

Good for farmer and planet

The biodiesel he is using is not just good news for him, it is also good news for the planet.

Unlike most biofuels, which are derived from crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybean, rapeseed and jatropha, it is made from a byproduct of the cotton-making process.

That means that as well as being cleaner and cheaper than regular fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels because no extra land is needed to produce it.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has driven forest communities off their land and pushed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more profitable crops-for-fuel, exacerbating food shortages.

“Our biodiesel comes from crushing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning — the process of separating the seeds from raw cotton,” said Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based company producing the biodiesel.

“We started producing and using it to power our cotton ginning factory in 2011. With increased production, we now use it for our trucks, sell it to the United Nations to run some of their buses, and also to local farmers for irrigation.”

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have so far invested in biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative launched by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.

Dry riverbeds

Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and increasingly erratic weather is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rainfall.

The recurring dry spells are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals, pushing millions of people in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme hunger.

The number of Kenyans in need of food aid in March surged by almost 70% over a period of eight months to 1.1 million, largely because of poor rains, according to government figures.

With almost half Kenya’s 47 counties declared to have a serious shortage of rain, humanitarian agencies are warning of increased hunger in the months ahead.

“Only light rainfall is forecast through June … and this is not expected to alleviate drought in affected areas of Kenya and Somalia,” said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its latest report. “Well-below-average crop production, poor livestock body conditions, and increased local food prices are anticipated, which will reduce poor households’ access to food.”

In Kitui’s Kyuso area, the signs are already evident.

Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as a result of the prolonged dry spell.

Villagers complain of trekking longer distances, sometimes more than 10 km (6 miles), with their donkeys laden with empty jerry cans in search of water.

Small-scale farmers, most of whom are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, discuss plans to sell their goats to make ends meet if the harvest is poor.

Battling drought with biodiesel

But not all Kitui’s farmers are worried.

A small but growing number are shedding their burden of reliance on the weather and investing in irrigation systems powered by Zaynagro’s cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme launched more than three years ago.

Neighboring farmers band together to invest in the irrigation system, which includes the biodiesel pump, 12 meters of pipes and 10 liters of biodiesel, at costs starting from 32,000 shillings, depending on the size of the pump.

The farmers make an initial payment, then pay interest-free monthly installments until the total is paid off. They buy the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a liter.

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump allowed him to irrigate a larger portion of his 1-acre plot, where he grows a variety of vegetables including maize, tomatoes, spinach and sweet potatoes.

“With a diesel pump, maize yields were lower and I would get 15,000 shillings in three months. With the biodiesel pump, I can earn 45,000 shillings,” said Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo village, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

Circular economy

Other farmers point to the scheme as a major benefit in helping improve their output.

“The installment scheme is good. Most farmers don’t have the money and cannot easily get a loan to buy a pump like this,” said Maurice Kitheka Munyoki, 41, as he stood next to his blue biodiesel pump. “Having a scheme like this helps us a lot. Our yields are good, which means we can pay off the cost of the pump slowly in small amounts, and have money left over to pay the school fees.”

Zaynagro’s initiative is still in its early stages, with few farmers having repaid the full cost of the pumps.

But such biofuel schemes are promising because they create a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for profit, said Sanjoy Sanyal, senior associate for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simplicity of the model — easy-to-use, robust technology, assured supply of biodiesel combined with a pay-as-you-go scheme — could help electrify rural Africa, he said.

“There is a mosaic of sustainable energy options in the world. The key issue is testing ideas and approaches in a collaborative fashion,” Sanyal said.

“Other cotton ginning factories in the region should try and learn from this experiment. Financial institutions should start experimenting with loans to groups of farmers. International donors and investors need to support experimentation.”

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A Sweet Deal? Study Shows Higher Cocoa Prices Could End Child Labor in Ghana

Ghana could end child labor on cocoa farms by increasing the prices it pays impoverished farmers by about 50%, a U.S. study said on Wednesday, as global efforts to end child labor stall.

Paying just 3% more at the farm gate could stop children in Ghana doing the most hazardous tasks, like using machetes, or working more than 42 hours a week, researchers said, as the illegal practice is driven by poverty and rarely prosecuted.

“We figured there has to be some kind of incentive, on top of the laws, to get the farmers to stop using child labor,” said Jeff Luckstead, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas, co-author of the study in the journal PLoS ONE.

“It’s a really difficult issue because these are very poor farmers … They don’t have many options – they can’t just go and hire people,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A PLoS spokeswoman later added that while the underlying conclusions of the report were all accurate, some of the numbers cited in the study were under review with an update to follow shortly. No further details were given.

Ghana is the world’s second largest cocoa grower, with more than 700,000 children producing the crop, often doing dangerous jobs on family farms like carrying heavy loads or using sharp tools, the anti-slavery group Walk Free Foundation says.

Big chocolate makers have been under pressure to clean up their supply chains since reports of child labor on West African cocoa farms emerged in the 1990s, with major names like Mars and Hershey promising to only buy ethical cocoa by 2020.

The International Labor Organization has said the world is unlikely to meet a target of ending child labor by 2025, which is part of 17 global development goals agreed in 2015 at the United Nations.

Researchers came up with the price premiums by analyzing data between 2003 and 2015, including household budgets, cocoa prices and production and children’s education and leisure time.

While recognizing a 50% price increase was “implausible,” the study suggested that Ghana could become more competitive globally if it could certify its cocoa as “child labor-free”.

All cocoa produced in Ghana is sold to the regulator, COCOBOD, which paid farmers 7,600 cedi ($1,435) per ton last year. Ghana exports almost 20% of global cocoa output of some 4.8 million tons a year.

Most cocoa farming families live below the World Bank’s poverty line of $2 a day, according to the charity International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), fueling child labor.

But Genevieve LeBaron of Britain’s Sheffield University, who was not part of the study, said the key to ending poverty among cocoa farmers was not necessarily raising COCOBOD’s prices but fairer distribution of profits within the chocolate sector.

The global chocolate industry was worth about $85 billion in 2018, and is projected to jump to $102 billion by 2022, according to leading research firm Mintel.

“If you look at the annual profits of the largest cocoa and chocolate confectionary companies in the world, there’s plenty of money in that supply chain that could be redistributed downwards along the value chain,” said the politics professor.

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Burning Trash and Factories Belching Smoke Choke Iraqis

As if life was not bad enough for Adnan Kadhim – he lives in a slum where municipal authorities dump Baghdad’s rubbish – now someone is setting the waste on fire, making his children sick.

As the United Nations marks World Environment Day on Wednesday, Iraq is suffering a pollution crisis, with trash piling up across the country and thick clouds of smoke produced by inefficient factories hovering above Baghdad.

“The dirt, our children are sick, our families are sick. My daughter has asthma, and I had to take my family to the hospital last night. We had to go at 2 am to give her oxygen. What have we done wrong to deserve this?” asks the 48-year-old, with mountains of rubbish behind him.

No one in his unplanned neighborhood within Baghdad’s southeastern Zaafaraniya district knows who is setting the rubbish on fire, and their complaints to government and municipal authorities have fallen on deaf ears because they are technically not supposed to be living in the area.

“For about a week or ten days now we haven’t been able to sleep or work. We just sitting around because of this smoke, said Jabbar, a builder.

“Every day, it starts at sunset and doesn’t stop until the morning. You can see the tractors (shoveling trash) in front of you. We are being destroyed. We implored the government, and no one did anything, we went to the municipality and still nothing,” he added.

Officials say Iraq suffers from the lack of a formal waste management system, but that they are working on introducing one which they hope will alleviate the country’s numerous environmental hazards which also include pollution from oil production – Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest producer of crude oil – and other industries.

“I am sorry to say there are no hygienic official landfills. All what we have are unorganized areas for waste collection,” said Deputy Environment Minister Jassim Humadi. “We are working hard today to issue legislation establishing the National Center for Waste Management.”

Increasing pollution rates and other “environmental challenges” could be linked to rising rates of chronic diseases such as cancer and respiratory issues, as well as birth deformities, he said.

Iraq is working with the international bodies on a plan to help it clean up, he added.

Change is Costly

Business owners say they are doing what they can to operate in a more environmentally-friendly manner but that it is too costly. The government needs to help them do so, they argue.

At a brick factory in Nahrawan, east Baghdad, ovens running on crude oil are releasing thick smoke, making it hard to breath, or see anything.

“Crude oil, if burned in an incorrect way, the way we burn it, of course has emissions. The new ovens which we are upgrading to will reduce these emissions by 60 percent, but that should not be the ceiling of our ambitions,” says Ali Rabeiy, the factory owner.

More environmentally-friendly ovens can fashion bricks and produce only 5 percent of the current harmful emissions, and some even produce none, he said, but they cost anywhere between 4 and 6 billion Iraqi dinars ($3.2-4.8 million), which is not financially feasible for a business like his.

($1 = 1,186.4300 Iraqi dinars)

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Canada Details Plans for 5G Internet Rollout

Canada on Wednesday said it was preparing for the arrival of ultra-fast 5G internet service as it outlined plans to make more 5G spectrum available starting next year.

The federal Innovation Ministry released a paper outlining changes to an auction expected next year, a decision on a higher frequency millimeter wave spectrum in 2021, and a proposal for a new frequency in 2022.

“The next steps in our plan will continue to improve rural internet access and allow for the timely deployment of 5G connectivity while increasing the level of competition to lower prices for Canadians,” Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said in a statement.

The government estimates that 5G wireless technologies could be a C$40 billion ($29.8 billion) industry in Canada by 2026, and it is investing C$199 million over five years to modernize spectrum equipment.

Canada has not yet said whether or not it will use 5G equipment provided by China-based Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.

The United States has accused Huawei of being tied to China’s government, and has effectively banned U.S. firms from doing business with the company for national security reasons.

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Ebola Listening Projects Take Cues from Community to Improve Response

Working in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak in 2015, researcher Katherina Thomas noticed that while experts and aid workers had lots to say, no one was listening to ordinary people affected.

She and a team set about interviewing patients and community members about their experiences, creating an oral history archive which she believes could help responders struggling to gain the trust of Ebola-hit communities in Congo today.

Ebola has been spreading in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since August in the world’s second biggest outbreak, which has killed 1,354 people and surpassed 2,000 cases this week, according to government figures.

Struggling to contain outbreak

Aid workers have said they are struggling to contain the outbreak because of community resistance, with people refusing vaccines, concealing symptoms and attacking treatment centers.

“People are asking why community members don’t trust the responders, but I think we should be asking, why aren’t we trusting them?” said Thomas, currently a writer-in-residence at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the United States.

“They don’t have a seat at the table, but their voices and insights are so crucial,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Reasons for resistance

Community resistance was also a problem during the West Africa outbreak, which hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the reasons were sometimes surprising, said Thomas.

She and her colleagues interviewed the young men who attacked an Ebola quarantine center in Liberia in 2014 and found they believed they were saving their community, she said.

Although the context is different in eastern Congo, an active conflict zone, Thomas said some of the insights are relevant and she hopes to make the archive available for public use.

The Red Cross has been leading efforts to collect community feedback during the current outbreak with over 700 volunteers doing interviews by going door-to-door.

Perceptions are changing

By analyzing which comments are most frequent and where, they have been able to see how perceptions of Ebola are changing and what concerns need to be addressed, said Ombretta Baggio, senior advisor for community engagement at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

“If you start from where they are, they listen to you differently,” Baggio said of the people affected.

Right now, for example, there is a rumor going around that in treatment centers patients are given a pill to make them die, she said.

The West Africa outbreak reached a turning point when communities themselves became engaged in stamping out the disease, rather than just aid workers, she said.

“I think sharing those lessons learned — not by responders but by communities — would be so powerful,” said Baggio.

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Amazon Says Drones Will Be Making Deliveries In Months

Amazon said Wednesday that it plans to use self-driving drones to deliver packages to shoppers’ home in the coming months 

The online shopping giant did not give exact timing or say where the drones will be making deliveries.

Amazon said its new drones use computer vision and machine learning to detect and avoid people or laundry clotheslines in backyards when landing.  

“From paragliders to power lines to a corgi in the backyard, the brain of the drone has safety covered,” said Jeff Wilke, who oversees Amazon’s retail business. 

Wilke said the drones are fully electric, can fly up to 15 miles and carry packages that weigh up to five pounds. 

Amazon has been working on drone delivery for years. Back in December 2013, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos told the “60 Minutes” news show that drones would be flying to customer’s homes within five years. But that deadline passed due to regulatory hurdles.  

The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial use of drones in the U.S., did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. 

In April, a subsidiary of search giant Google won approval from the FAA to make drone deliveries in parts of Virginia. 

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