Miley Cyrus, Beyonce Join Harvey Storm Relief Effort
Pop star Miley Cyrus and Oscar-winning actors Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio pledged funds to help victims of storm Harvey, while Beyonce on Thursday said she was sending a team to her Houston, Texas hometown to help with relief efforts.
A donation drive organized by Houston Texans NFL star J.J. Watt had reached $10 million in pledges from celebrities and ordinary people by Thursday, and singer Solange Knowles, Beyonce’s sister, announced benefit concerts in Boston and New York for September and October.
A tearful Cyrus, 24, announced a $500,000 contribution in an emotional appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
“It just really makes me just really upset… I go home to my seven dogs and if I didn’t have that anymore, it would just be really hard. So I am really happy to help in any way I can. And I hope people understand and can put themselves in those people’s shoes,” Cyrus said.
Some 779,000 Texans have been ordered to evacuate their homes and another 980,000 fled voluntarily amid concerns on Thursday that swollen reservoirs and rivers could bring new flooding. Harvey roared ashore late last week as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in a half-century but has now been downgraded to a tropical depression.
“Gravity” star Bullock, and DiCaprio’s foundation said this week they will each contribute $1 million to organizations helping people recover from the devastating floods.
Beyonce, one of Houston’s best-known celebrities, launched BeyGOOD Houston on her website. A statement said a team from her BeyGOOD philanthropic foundation was headed to the city to help with relief efforts, and the website asked fans to make donations to two local groups working there.
The “Lemonade” singer, who now lives in Los Angeles, has not said whether she is making a personal donation, but her pastor Rudy Rasmus said she tends to keep her charitable efforts quiet.
“Beyonce is extremely private and has done a lot that she has requested we don’t announce and publicize over the years, Rasmus told celebrity website TMZ.com in an interview this week. “She has really stepped up and it has been a big blessing for us,” added Rasmus, who launched the non-profit Bread for Life in Houston in 1992 to feed homeless people.
…
Like Destiny’s Child, Fifth Harmony Bounces Back After Drama
It’s been a year of transition for Fifth Harmony: The pop stars parted ways with member Camila Cabello, switched management teams, negotiated a new contract with their label and won greater creative control of their brand.
Luckily the newly-minted quartet, who released their third album last week, had the fairy godmother of girl groups to guide them through the tumultuous times: Destiny’s Child alum Kelly Rowland.
“We were advised by THE Kelly Rowland,” Dinah Jane, 20, said with reverence. “She just told us to, like, let the music speak for itself … and just know your worth, believe in yourself and just be there for each other. So we’ve definitely honed into that. And for her to advise that, like, that says a lot because, you know, she’s gone through the same things.”
“And she said that she was really proud of us,” beamed Normani Kordei, 21.
Destiny’s Child went through similar changes before settling on the final and most famous formation, the trio of Rowland, Beyonce Knowles and Michelle Williams.
Fifth Harmony said they looked to the “Bootylicious” hitmakers when deciding to fill the spot left by Cabello, who exited in December to pursue a solo career.
“We kept referencing that while we were in the moments of that whole thing happening. … Like people, teams or whatever, suggesting, ‘Oh maybe we get a fifth member?”’ Lauren Jauregui, 21, recalled. “Like no, dude. If we’re going to do this, it’s the four of us. Period.”
“It’s been us. It will be us,” echoed Kordei.
The group doubled down on that decision during Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, where a stand-in fifth member was quickly tossed from the stage as they began to perform. The dance-heavy performance, which came two days after the release of their new album, was well-received and boosted sales of the single “Down.” The girls also won best pop video for the song’s video, which features rapper Gucci Mane.
Naming their third album after the group drives the point home — though they’ve downsized, they feel stronger than ever.
“[The album] is more edgy and mature, of course, but the most harmonious we’ve ever been,” Jane said.
They say they are most comfortable now because they’re in the driver’s seat. They pushed for more creative control with their labels, Epic Records and Simon Cowell’s Syco imprint, and sought legal counsel to gain ownership of the Fifth Harmony trademark.
“When we hired our lawyer, Dina LaPolt, that’s when our real transformation began because she really informed us about our business and informed us about our rights as artists,” Jauregui said. “And we really, I feel, gained this sort of inner power that we didn’t have before and this control and ownership of our music, of our brand, of our business.”
Fifth Harmony was formed on the U.S. version of “The X Factor” in 2012. In 2015 they released their full-length debut, “Reflection,” finding chart success with the upbeat hit, “Worth It.” They reached greater heights with the slick and sexy song “Work from Home” — the lead single from last year’s “7/27” — peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
But behind closed doors, the girls were struggling.
“There are just so many crazy things that happen behind-the-scenes. So many honestly horrific situations that happen and we had to step up and say, ‘You know what? We demand the respect that we deserve,”’ recalled Ally Brooke, 24. “We need to write on this album. We need to be part of that process and that’s exactly what we did.”
“Fifth Harmony” delivers more of the group’s signature provocative pop/R&B sound along with an eclectic mix of messages. The women writhe on motel beds and showcase saucy parking lot dance sequences in the video for “Down.” They touch on politics and encourage inclusivity in the uplifting album-closer “Bridges.” And they issue a stern warning to those who misjudge them in the darker, F-bomb-fueled “Angel,” produced by Justin Bieber collaborator Poo Bear and grungy EDM star Skrillex.
“Honestly it’s a breath of fresh air,” said Kordei of the group’s new dynamic. “We’re just so grateful and we thank God, like, literally every single day.”
“Even in those times where the storm was really, really heavy and we didn’t know if it was going to end … now I recognize what goodness actually feels like,” she added.
…
Tesla Starts Production of Solar Cells in Buffalo, New York
Tesla Inc. is starting production of the cells for its solar roof tiles at its factory in Buffalo, New York.
The company has already begun installing its solar roofs, which look like regular roofs but are made of glass tiles. But until now, it has been making them on a small scale near its vehicle factory in Fremont, California.
Tesla’s Chief Technical Officer, JB Straubel, says the company now has several hundred workers and machinery installed in its 1.2 million-square-foot factory in Buffalo.
“By the end of this year we will have the ramp-up of solar roof modules started in a substantial way,” Straubel told The Associated Press Thursday. “This is an interim milestone that we’re pretty proud of.”
The Buffalo plant was originally begun by Silevo, a solar panel startup, on the site of an old steel mill. Solar panel maker SolarCity Corp. bought Silevo in 2014. Then Tesla acquired SolarCity for around $2 billion late last year.
SolarCity was run by cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who sat on SolarCity’s board.
“This factory, and the opportunity to build solar modules and cells in the U.S., was part of why this project made sense,” Straubel said.
Tesla’s partner, Panasonic Corp., will make the photovoltaic cells, which look similar to computer chips. Tesla workers will combine the cells into modules that fit into the roof tiles. The tiles will eventually be made in Buffalo as well, along with more traditional solar panels. Panasonic is also working with Tesla at its Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada.
Straubel says Tesla eventually hopes to reach 2 gigawatts of cell production annually at the Buffalo plant. That’s higher than its initial target of 1 gigawatt by 2019. Straubel said Tesla has been working on making the factory more efficient.
One gigawatt is equivalent to the annual output of a large nuclear or coal-fired power plant, Straubel said, “so it’s like we’re eliminating one of those every single year.”
Straubel wouldn’t say how many customers have ordered solar roof tiles, but said demand is strong and it will take Tesla through the end of next year to meet its current orders. Both he and Musk have had the tiles installed on their roofs.
Tesla shares were up less than 1 percent to $355.65 in afternoon trading.
…
Del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ Makes Waves in Venice
Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is an aquatic Beauty and the Beast, a transgressive fairy tale about a young woman’s love for a scaly creature from the Amazonian depths.
Like the best fables, it’s also rooted in the real world: the story of a migrant from the south facing a hostile reception in a security-obsessed United States.
“I think that fantasy is a very political genre,” del Toro said Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where The Shape of Water had its red-carpet world premiere. It’s one of 21 films competing for the coveted Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize.
“Fairy tales were born in times of great trouble. They were born in times of famine, pestilence and war,” he added.
Part monster movie, part noir thriller, part Hollywood musical, the film defies categorization, though Del Toro took a stab, suggesting it’s “like Douglas Sirk rewriting Pasolini’s Theorem with a fish.”
Some critics are calling it del Toro’s best film since Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. The Daily Telegraph summed it up as “an honest-to-God B-movie blood-curdler that’s also, somehow, a shimmeringly earnest and boundlessly beautiful melodrama.” Screen International called it “exquisite … del Toro at his most poignant and sweet.”
Set in early-1960s Baltimore, the film stars Sally Hawkins as Elisa, a mute orphan who works as a cleaner at a high-security lab. She forges a bond with a captured creature who is at the center of a Cold War tug-of-war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
“It’s a movie set in 1962, but it’s a movie about today,” del Toro told reporters at a Venice news conference. “It’s about the issues we have today. When America talks about America being great again, I think they are dreaming of an America that was in gestation in `62 — an America that was futuristic, full of promise … but at the same time there was racism, sexism, classism.”
Del Toro said the creature — played with fittingly fluid movements by Doug Jones — is the only character in the film without a name, because he represents “many things to many people.”
For lonely Elisa, “it’s the first time somebody, something is looking at her, looking back the way you look back at the person you love.” For Michael Shannon’s ruthless U.S. government agent Strickland, the creature is “a dark, dirty thing that comes from the south” and must be eliminated.
“I am Mexican, and I know what it is to be looked at as `the other’ no matter what circumstances you’re in,” the director said — and the character of the creature embodied that otherness.
The film features warm performances from Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins as Elisa’s friends — and a mesmerizing turn from Hawkins, who creates a character of depth, passion and compassion without saying a word.
Hawkins said that when del Toro first told her about the movie, she was working on her own project about “a woman who doesn’t know she’s a mermaid.” Some of those ideas fed into the character of Elisa.
“It was just synchronistic,” she said. “It was very odd. Those things rarely happen and when they do you know it’s something special.”
The Shape of Water features del Toro’s usual rich mix of ingredients: everything from Russian spies to musical interludes. Its overriding message, the director says, is “to choose love over fear.”
“We live in times where fear and cynicism are used in a way that is very pervasive and persuasive,” del Toro said. “Our first duty when we wake up is to believe in love.
“It’s the strongest force in the universe,” he said. “The Beatles and Jesus can’t be wrong — not both of them at the same time.”
…
Studying Black Holes in a Bathtub
Mysterious black holes, thought to reside in the center of every galaxy, are difficult to study because even the closest one, in the center of our own Milky Way, is still some 27,000 light years away. But researchers at the University of Nottingham’s Quantum Gravity Laboratory have found that some of the physical phenomena linked to black holes can be studied in an ordinary bathtub. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…
Record-setting NASA Astronaut Ready to Come Home
Records are made for breaking, and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is breaking them in droves. When she returns to Earth on Sept, 2, she’ll have earned a place among the nation’s greatest space explorers. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
‘Reprogrammed’ Stem Cells Fight Parkinson’s Disease in Monkeys
Scientists have successfully used “reprogrammed” stem cells to restore functioning brain cells in monkeys, raising hopes the technique could be used in the future to help patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Since Parkinson’s is caused by a lack of dopamine made by brain cells, researchers have long hoped to use stem cells to restore normal production of the neurotransmitter chemical.
Now, for the first time, Japanese researchers have shown that human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) can be administered safely and effectively to treat primates with symptoms of the debilitating disease.
So-called iPS cells are made by removing mature cells from an individual — often from the skin — and reprogramming them to behave like embryonic stem cells. They can then be coaxed into dopamine-producing brain cells.
The scientists from Kyoto University, a world-leader in iPS technology, said their experiment indicated that this approach could potentially be used for the clinical treatment of human patients with Parkinson’s.
In addition to boosting dopamine production, the tests showed improved movement in affected monkeys and no tumors in their brains for at least two years.
The human iPS cells used in the experiment worked whether they came from healthy individuals or Parkinson’s disease patients, the Japanese team reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
“This is extremely promising research demonstrating that a safe and highly effective cell therapy for Parkinson’s can be produced in the lab,” said Tilo Kunath of the MRC Center for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the research.
The next step will be to test the treatment in a first-in-human clinical trial, which Jun Takahashi of Kyoto University told Reuters he hoped to start by the end of 2018.
Any widespread use of the new therapy is still many years away, but the research has significantly reduced previous uncertainties about iPS-derived cell grafts.
The fact that this research uses iPS cells rather human embryonic stem cells means the treatment would be acceptable in countries such as Ireland and much of Latin America, where embryonic cells are banned.
Excitement about the promise of stem cells has led to hundreds of medical centers springing up around the world claiming to be able to repair damaged tissue in conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.
While some treatments for cancer and skin grafts have been approved by regulators, many other potential therapies are only in early-stage development, prompting a warning last month by health experts about the dangers of “stem-cell tourism.”
…
Dream Chaser Spacecraft in Captive-carry Test Over Desert
A test version of a spacecraft resembling a mini space shuttle was carried aloft over the Mojave Desert by a helicopter Wednesday in a precursor to a free flight in which it will be released to autonomously land on a runway as it would in a return from orbit.
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser craft was lifted off the ground at 7:21 a.m., at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, California, and was carried to the same altitude and flight conditions it will experience before release in a free flight.
A control team sent commands to the wingless vehicle and collected data before the helicopter brought it down at 9:02 a.m., the company said.
“Everything we have seen points to a successful test with useful data for the next round of testing,” director of flight operations Lee “Bru” Archambault said in a statement.
A second captive-carry test is scheduled this year and if it is successful, a free flight test will follow.
The Dream Chaser is being developed to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station without a crew aboard. The version flown Wednesday is for tests in the atmosphere. The version that will be launched into space is still in development.
With the addition of life-support equipment, a Dream Chaser could transport a crew of seven.
Last month, Sierra Nevada selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket to launch the first two Dream Chaser cargo missions, which are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2020 and 2021. Those missions will land at Kennedy Space Center.
The Dream Chaser is a type of craft known as a “lifting body” in which aerodynamic lift is generated by its shape rather than wings like those of a conventional aircraft. Tail fins angling upward at the rear of the craft provide control.
NASA proved the lifting body concept by flying a series of wingless aircraft at Edwards in the 1960s and ’70s.
The Dream Chaser is 30 feet (9 meters) long, about one quarter the length of a space shuttle.
Sierra Nevada is headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, and the Dream Chaser is being developed by the company’s Louisville, Colorado-based Space Systems business.
…
Matt Damon Goes Mini in Venice Opener ‘Downsizing’
Downsizing has generated jumbo-sized buzz at the Venice Film Festival — not least as viewers debate how to describe it.
Is it a science fiction film, a romantic comedy, a political parable, an apocalyptic thriller? Alexander Payne’s movie mixes all those elements in its story of a man, played by Matt Damon, who tries to solve his problems by shrinking himself.
Damon and co-stars Kristen Wiig and Hong Chau joined Payne on the red carpet for the film’s Venice premiere Wednesday — the first of 11 days of galas that will bring stars including George Clooney and Jennifer Lawrence to the canal-crossed Italian city.
The Venice opening-night slot has become coveted by filmmakers hoping to make a splash come awards season. Several recent Venice openers, including Gravity and La La Land, have gone on to win multiple Academy Awards.
Downsizing has ingredients that could help it strike a similar chord with audiences and awards voters: a likable, bankable star in Damon; a strong supporting cast that includes Wiig and Christophe Waltz; and an imaginative story laced with compassion and humor.
Payne says despite its sci-fi premise and international canvas, Downsizing is not so different to the films he’s best known for — funny-sad stories of middle-aged or Midwestern strugglers such as About Schmidt, Sideways and Nebraska.
“It has the same sense of humor and basically the same tone,” Payne told reporters in Venice on Wednesday.
The movie applies Payne’s wry eye for human foibles to a plot that explores the power and limits of science and the threat of environmental catastrophe.
The script by Payne and Jim Taylor opens with a Norwegian scientist making a breakthrough he thinks will save humanity: a technique that can shrink people to 5 inches (12 centimeters) tall. That means they use a tiny fraction of the resources they once did — and need to pay less, allowing people of modest means to grow instantly rich by becoming small.
The movie has fun imagining what the miniaturized world would be like, as Damon goes to live in a luxury micro-city, a sort of retirement community for the tiny.
Then it takes a serious turn to ask whether science could be humanity’s salvation, or whether stubbornly fallible human nature is likely to be our species’ undoing.
Along the way, a movie that started in the familiar Payne territory of Omaha, Nebraska, takes viewers all the way to an underground bunker in a Norwegian fjord.
Many will find the journey unexpected, but reviewers in Venice were mostly happy to be swept along for the ride. The Guardian called the film a “spry, nuanced, winningly digressive movie,” while the Hollywood Reporter said it was “captivating, funny” and “deeply humane.”
Ultimately, the film rests on Payne’s knack for depicting human relationships. Damon’s Paul becomes friends with a louche European neighbor, played by Waltz, and develops feelings for Ngoc Lan, a former Vietnamese political prisoner working as a house cleaner.
Actress Hong Chau (Treme, Inherent Vice) is already being talked of as a potential awards nominee for her performance as the spirited, complex character.
“This is a character that is normally in the background, that is low-status character in the culture, and not one that you typically see in the forefront of a story,” she said.
Downsizing is the latest ordinary-Joe role for Damon, who exudes a likable everyman-under-duress quality whether he’s action hero Jason Bourne or a stranded astronaut in The Martian.
Damon said he thinks movies “are the greatest tool for empathy that we have.”
“What I love about this — what I love about a lot of these stories that I get to help tell — is it shows a relatable character whose life is different from our own but who we find common cause with,” he said. “This is a beautiful and optimistic movie. A journalist said to me, which I thought was really great: `This is Alexander’s most optimistic movie and it has the apocalypse in it.”‘
The film has been in the works for a decade, but in an AP interview, Damon said its environmental theme felt “torn from the headlines.”
“Though the [U.S.] administration wouldn’t say that,” he added. “They’re not acknowledging climate change as a reality.”
…
Famed T. rex ‘Sue’ Will Get New Look at Chicago’s Field Museum
The world’s biggest T. rex is getting ready for a cutting-edge makeover.
The Field Museum in Chicago said Wednesday that it would take down and remount the 40½-foot-long (12.3-meter) Tyrannosaurus nicknamed Sue, perhaps the world’s most famous dinosaur fossil, in a way that embodies the latest understanding of this ferocious Cretaceous Period predator.
The big T. rex will move to a new exhibition space in the museum, while a cast of the skeleton of the largest-known dinosaur, Patagotitan mayorum, will take the spot Sue now occupies in the museum’s Stanley Field Hall.
Patagotitan, a long-necked, four-legged plant-eater that was 122 feet (37.2 meters) long and weighed 70 tons, lived in Argentina 100 million years ago, more than 30 million years before T. rex stalked western North America. The biggest land animal on record, it was a member of a dinosaur group called titanosaurs.
The museum next spring will unveil the fiberglass Patagotitan skeleton, which is being cast from fossils of seven Patagotitan individuals, and for two years will display some of the genuine fossils, including an 8-foot (2.4-meter) thighbone.
Named for the woman who discovered the fossils in South Dakota in 1990, Sue is the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed. The museum bought the fossils at auction for $8.4 million.
Sue will be taken down in February and put up again with noteworthy changes in anatomy and stance in its new exhibition hall in spring 2019, museum scientists said.
“We are making several adjustments to the skeleton to reflect new and improved knowledge,” said paleontologist Pete Makovicky, the museum’s associate curator of dinosaurs.
The most striking change, Makovicky said, will be the addition of gastralia, bones resembling an additional set of ribs spanning the belly that may have provided structural support to help the dinosaur breathe. Adding these bones will illustrate just how massive Sue was and that it boasted a bulging belly, he added.
The scientists concluded that the bone mounted as Sue’s wishbone was misidentified in 2000, and they will replace it with the dinosaur’s actual wishbone, or furcula, the fused collarbones typical of meat-eating dinosaurs and their evolutionary descendants, the birds.
They also will adjust the ribs to produce a slimmer, less barrel-shaped chest and arrange the right leg so Sue is not crouching as much.
“Often when you do something as expensive as mounting a vertebrate fossil skeleton for display, you only get one shot at it. I’m happy we’re going to fix and update this incredible fossil,” said paleontologist Bill Simpson, who heads the museum’s geological collections.
Lifespan and bite force
Makovicky noted the accumulation of knowledge about T. rex and its cousins since 2000.
“We now know more about tyrannosaur lifespans — around 30 years; how they grew — very fast as teenagers; and using computer models of Sue, we revised their body mass upward to 9 or more tons, from 5 to 7 tons,” Makovicky said.
Ongoing research is examining the molecular composition of cartilage preserved in T. rex bones, and recent studies have shown it possessed the most powerful bite of any land animal ever, Makovicky added.
When the Patagotitan skeleton is mounted, visitors will be able to walk underneath it and touch it. Its head will reach the museum’s second-floor balcony nearly 30 feet (9 meters) up.
Another Patagotitan skeleton is displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The museum said a $16.5 million gift from the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, established by the founder and chief executive of hedge fund firm Citadel LLC, enabled it to carry out Sue’s makeover and add the Patagotitan. The changes coincide with the museum’s 125th anniversary in 2018.
…
Alexa, Cortana Talk to Each Other in Amazon-Microsoft Deal
Microsoft and Amazon are pairing their voice assistants together in a collaboration announced Wednesday.
Both companies say later this fall, users will be able to access Alexa using Cortana on Windows 10 computers and on Android and Apple devices. They’ll also be able to access Cortana on Alexa-enabled devices such as the Amazon Echo.
Microsoft says the tie-up will allow Alexa customers to get access to Cortana features such as for booking meetings or accessing work calendars. Cortana users, in turn, can ask Alexa to switch on smart home devices or shop on Amazon’s website.
The use of voice assistants is growing. Google and Amazon already have smart speakers on the market. Apple has HomePod coming with its Siri assistant, while Samsung plans one with Microsoft’s Cortana.
Amazon has little to lose from the partnership, and Microsoft’s Cortana — which has been largely limited to laptops — might get discovered by more users because of it, said Carolina Milanesi, a mobile technology analyst at Creative Strategies.
“Cortana might get a little bit more out of it because it gets Cortana out of the PC,” she said. “For Cortana to really get to be more important, it needs to be consistently used every day for different tasks.”
Milanesi said that for Amazon especially, which wants more people to consider Alexa as their first choice, the partnership also might be designed to send a message to customers and rivals.
“They both get something out of it, which is mainly showing Apple and Google that they’re willing to work together to get stronger,” Milanesi said.
…
US Hosts World Cup Qualifier in New York Area for 1st Time
The U.S. is playing a World Cup qualifier in the New York metropolitan area for the first time, a critical match against Costa Rica on Friday night at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.
The Americans have played plenty of matches in and near the Big Apple, mostly in the CONCACAF Gold Cup and exhibition games. Until now, the closest to New York a qualifier has been played was in 1989, a 2-1 win over Guatemala at Veterans Stadium in New Britain, Connecticut.
“This was a pipe dream, this stadium in Harrison,” said goalkeeper Tim Howard, who played for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars when the team was based at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. “For it to be there and to actually be playing games, you know, there’s no crowd like playing in front of your home crowd for me.”
Howard spoke Tuesday during a news conference in Manhattan, joined by coach Bruce Arena, captain Michael Bradley and teenage star midfielder Christian Pulisic.
After the U.S. opened the final round of the North and Central American and Caribbean region with losses to Mexico and Costa Rica, the U.S. Soccer Federation brought back Arena to replace coach Jurgen Klinsmann. The U.S. has recovered and is in third place with eight points, trailing Mexico (14) and Costa Rica (11). Panama (seven), Honduras (five) and Trinidad and Tobago (three) follow.
The top three nations qualify, and the fourth-place team advances to a playoff against Asia’s No. 5 nation.
Perhaps no one understands the role fan support can play in an outcome more than Arena, a member of the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame. The U.S. had a 16-year home unbeaten streak in qualifying going into a match against Honduras at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 1, 2001. The majority of the sellout crowd of 54,282 backed Honduras, which won 3-2.
“Only in America, I guess, we’re fighting for a home-field advantage,” Arena, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Long Island, said at the time.
Costa Rica played a Gold Cup match at Harrison in July, but Arena expects a different crowd.
“We’re playing at home and I don’t care what anyone says. We have a home-field advantage,” Arena said. “My experiences in the short time that I’ve been here back with the U.S. team is that we have great support and I really believe that we’ll have great support on Friday, and hopefully the fact that Costa Rica played here in the Gold Cup is not going be a factor.”
At a venue with a 25,000 capacity that was built for Major League Soccer, the USSF and Red Bulls can control ticket allocation with pre-sales to Red Bulls season-ticket holders and national team regulars.
“We understand the challenges of playing at home versus going on the road in CONCACAF and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that in five or six weeks’ time we’ve punched our ticket to Russia,” Bradley said. “It’s on us to make sure that we can finish the job and allow ourselves the chance to look forward to playing at a World Cup next summer.”
The U.S. plays Honduras at San Pedro Sula on Sept. 5, and then closes the hexagonal against Panama on Oct. 6 at Orlando, Florida, and at Trinidad four days later.
“All the work that we’ve put in this year was for these next four games, to make sure that we can find the right ways in the biggest moments when the lights come on brightest to make sure that we get the job done,” Bradley said.
Reality check
U.S. players also have their minds on teammates and their families affected by Hurricane Harvey.
“I’ve heard DaMarcus (Beasley) speak of it. I haven’t yet had the chance yet to talk with Clint (Dempsey),” Arena said. “Hopefully his family’s safe. I know they’re in east Texas. I know it’s a tough week for them. I know for DaMarcus in particular it’s been very challenging. For him personally, for his friends and family ties to the Houston area. It’s difficult but all we can do is hope that the conditions improve in the Houston area and that everyone is safe.”
Added Bradley: “Some of the images and videos that have come out of Texas have been heartbreaking, and for all of us now as human beings, as fellow Americans, to find the right ways to show support and help that part of the country as they find the right ways to move on from this. That’s very important and obviously in our own very little way playing and representing the country in a really strong and proud way on Friday night is a little part of that.”
…
New Peptide Could Help Fight Drug-Resistant ‘Superbugs’
Israeli scientists have developed a peptide that could be used in antimicrobial medicines which could help treat infections in a post-antibiotic era. Faith Lapidus reports.
…
Finding Solutions to the World’s New Reality: Water Insecurity
According to the Water Project, more than 700 million people do not have easy access to clean, safe water. Solving the problem is the focus of an annual meeting of NGOs, charities and government leaders. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
Study: Cities and Companies Team Up to Tackle Urban Water Crises
With rising urban populations and ever scarcer water supplies, cities and companies are teaming up to invest billions of dollars in water management projects, a report said on Tuesday.
Around two thirds of cities from London to Los Angeles are working with the private sector to address water and climate change stresses with 80 cities seeking $9.5 billion of investment for water projects, according to a report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a non-profit environmental research group.
Water investment opportunities are greatest in Latin America, with Quito in Ecuador seeking $800 million to manage its water supply, including building three hydropower stations and cleaning up its contaminated rivers and streams.
City in India prepares for future
The cities most concerned about their water supply lie in Asia and the Pacific, the report found, with serious risks also identified in Africa and Latin America.
The key issues for cities include declining water quality, water shortages and flooding.
The Indian city of Chennai faced extreme floods in 2015 which killed hundreds and left survivors without access to clean water, while businesses were also severely disrupted.
The city is now investing in boosting its resilience to future water crises, with water conservation education, building a storm water management system and new infrastructure.
“We are seeing critical shifts in leadership from cities and companies in response to the very real threat of flooding, for example, to local economies,” said Morgan Gillespy, head of CDP’s Water Program.
Climate change is another underlying threat to all cities with an increase in extreme weather events from droughts to floods, with cities in North America more concerned than those in Europe, the report found.
Tropical Storm Harvey, pounding the U.S. Gulf Coast, has killed at least eight people, led to mass evacuations and paralyzed Houston, the fourth most-populous U.S. city.
The storm is most likely linked to climate change, said the U.N. weather agency.
Companies are also concerned about the effects of climate change on water supplies, with $14 billion of water impacts such as loss of production reported by companies last year, the report found.
WATCH: Worrying About Water
UN predicts global water shortfall
The United Nations predicts a 40 percent shortfall in global water supply by 2030, while global demand is set to increase by 55 percent due to growing domestic use, manufacturing and electricity generation.
“From our work with cities around the world, water has consistently come up as a key resilience challenge,” said Claire Bonham-Carter, Principal and City Resilience Lead at AECOM, a global infrastructure firm and partner on the report.
“Many of them, regardless of size, from Mexico City, Mexico to Berkeley, California, are addressing both long-term water supply issues as well as chronic urban flooding.”
…
World’s Biggest Drone Drug Deliveries Take Off in Tanzania
Tanzania is set to launch the world’s largest drone delivery network in January, with drones parachuting blood and medicines out of the skies to save lives.
California’s Zipline will make 2,000 deliveries a day to more than 1,000 health facilities across the east African country, including blood, vaccines and malaria and AIDS drugs, following the success of a smaller project in nearby Rwanda.
“It’s the right move,” Lilian Mvule, 51, said by phone, recalling how her granddaughter died from malaria two years ago.
“She needed urgent blood transfusion from a group O, which was not available,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Malaria is a major killer in Tanzania, and children under age 5 often need blood transfusions when they develop malaria-induced anemia. If supplies are out of stock, as is often the case with rare blood types, they can die.
Tanzania is larger than Nigeria and four times the size of the United Kingdom, making it hard for the cash-strapped government to ensure all of its 5,000-plus clinics are fully stocked, particularly in remote rural areas.
The drones fly at 100 kph (62 mph), much faster than traveling by road. Small packages are dropped from the sky using a biodegradable parachute.
The government also hopes to save the lives of thousands of women who die from profuse bleeding after giving birth.
Tanzania has one of the world’s worst maternal mortality rates, with 556 deaths per 100,000 deliveries, government data show.
“It’s a problem we can help solve with on-demand drone delivery,” Zipline’s chief executive, Keller Rinaudo, said in a statement. “African nations are showing the world how it’s done.”
Companies in the United States and elsewhere are keen to use drones to cut delivery times and costs, but there are hurdles ranging from the risk of collisions with airplanes to ensuring battery safety and longevity.
The drones will cut the drug delivery bill for Tanzania’s capital, Dodoma, one of two regions where the project will first roll out, by $58,000 a year, according to Britain’s Department for International Development, one of the project’s backers.
The initiative could also ease tensions between frustrated patients and health workers.
“We always accuse nurses of stealing drugs,” said Angela Kitebi, who lives 40 kilometers east of Dodoma. “We don’t realize that the drugs are not getting here on time due to bad roads.”
…
Tragic Child Deaths Spur Indian Schoolgirl to Raise Funds for Oxygen
A 15-year-old schoolgirl in northern India has launched a charity to provide oxygen to impoverished patients after 63 people, nearly half of them children, died due to a lack of oxygen at the main government hospital in her home town.
The patients died from encephalitis, a disease which causes brain inflammation, after the hospital in Gorakhpur ran out of oxygen due to unpaid bills, triggering outrage over India’s poorly managed state-run healthcare system.
“This tragedy was something that could have been prevented,” said teenager Khushi Chandra, who set up Oxygen Gorakhpur, to raise funds for oxygen in hospitals.
“This is very personal for me as it happened right at my doorstep… No child can be denied the right to life, and in this case the right to breathe,” she said in a statement.
“As an accountable citizen of my city and my country, I feel responsible towards ensuring such tragedies do not happen again,” she added.
Acute Encephalitis Syndrome and Japanese Encephalitis outbreaks are common in India, especially during the monsoon season, and claim hundreds of lives.
Often known as “brain fever,” encephalitis causes high fever, vomiting and, in severe cases, seizures, paralysis and coma. Infants and elderly people are particularly vulnerable.
Outbreaks of the virus tend to occur in poor, flood-hit areas such as Gorakhpur, where monsoons leave pools of stagnant water, allowing mosquitoes to breed and infect villagers.
Television pictures in mid-August — which showed parents holding the bodies of infants and saying they died because they did not have oxygen — led to widespread criticism of authorities in Uttar Pradesh state, where Gorakhpur is located.
The state, which is governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has fired the head of the hospital, as well as the head of the pediatrics department.
But the sacked hospital chief says he had repeatedly written to the administration to release funds to pay oxygen suppliers.
Government expenditure on public health is about one percent of GDP, among the world’s lowest. In recent years, Modi’s government has increased health spending and vowed to make healthcare more affordable.
But Chandra said Indians should help under-resourced hospitals provide basics like oxygen to prevent needless deaths.
“I seek support from other like-minded citizens to join hands to ensure that oxygen never runs out in our hospitals,” she said.
…
Are Consumers Ready to Give Augmented Reality a Try?
You might have gotten a taste of “augmented reality,” the blending of the virtual and physical worlds, as you chased on-screen monsters at real-world landmarks in last year’s gaming sensation, “Pokemon Go.”
Upcoming augmented reality apps will follow that same principle of superimposing virtual images over real-life settings. That could let you see how furniture will look in your real living room before you buy it, for instance.
While “Pokemon Go” didn’t require special hardware or software, more advanced AR apps will. Google and Apple are both developing technology to enable that. Google’s AR technology is already on Android phones from Lenovo and Asus. On Tuesday, Google announced plans to bring AR to even more phones, including Samsung’s popular S8 and Google’s own Pixel, though it didn’t give a timetable beyond promising an update by the end of the year.
As a result, Apple might pull ahead as it extends AR to all recent iPhones and iPads in a software update expected next month, iOS 11. Hundreds of millions of AR-ready devices will suddenly be in the hands of consumers.
But how many are ready to give AR a try?
Early applications
Of the dozen or so apps demoed recently for Android and iPhones, the ones showing the most promise are furniture apps.
From a catalog or a website, it’s hard to tell whether a sofa or a bed will actually fit in your room. Even if it fits, will it be far enough from other pieces of furniture for someone to walk through?
With AR, you can go to your living room or bedroom and add an item you’re thinking of buying. The phone maps out the dimensions of your room and scales the virtual item automatically; there’s no need to pull out a tape measure. The online furnishing store Wayfair has the WayfairView for Android phones, while Ikea is coming out with one for Apple devices. Wayfair says it’s exploring bringing the app to iPhones and iPads, too.
As for whimsical, Holo for Android lets you pose next to virtual tigers and cartoon characters. For iPhones and iPads, the Food Network will let you add frosting and sprinkles to virtual cupcakes. You can also add balloons and eyes — who does that? — and share creations on social media.
Games and education are also popular categories. On Apple devices, a companion to AMC’s “The Walking Dead” creates zombies alongside real people for you to shoot. On Android, apps being built for classrooms will let students explore the solar system, volcanoes and more.
Beyond virtual reality
Virtual reality is a technology that immerses you in a different world, rather than trying to supplement the real world with virtual images, as AR does. VR was supposed to be the next big thing, but the appeal has been limited outside of games and industrial applications. You need special headsets, which might make you dizzy if you wear one too long.
And VR isn’t very social. Put on the headset, and you shut out everyone else around you. Part of the appeal of “Pokemon Go” was the ability to run into strangers who were also playing. Augmented reality can be a shared experience, as friends look on the phone screen with you.
Being available vs. Being used
While AR shows more promise than VR, there has yet to be a “killer app” that everyone must have, the way smartphones have become essential for navigation and everyday snapshots.
Rather, people will discover AR over time, perhaps a few years. Someone renovating or moving might discover the furniture apps. New parents might discover educational apps. Those people might then go on to discover more AR apps to try out. But just hearing that AR is available might not be enough for someone to check it out.
Consider mobile payments. Most phones now have the capability, but people still tend to pull out plastic when shopping. There’s no doubt more people are using mobile payments and more retailers are accepting them, but it’s far from commonplace.
Expect augmented reality to also take time to take off.
…
Climate to Push Forest-eating Beetles to Northern US, Canada, Scientists Predict
Forests in the northeastern United States and southern Canada could be ravaged by tree-killing beetles in coming decades as a warming climate expands the pest’s habitat, a study has found.
Over the next 60 years, southern pine beetles could infest forests in new areas of the United States and Canada, disrupting industries and ecosystems alike, it said.
Warmer winter nights allow spread
The red-brown insects, the size of a grain of rice, known to feast on pine-tree bark, has typically only thrived in the hotter climate of Central America and the southeastern United States.
But in recent years warmer than usual winter nights have allowed it to survive the cold months and spread as far north as the U.S. state of New York. The coldest winter night has warmed by 6 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) over the past 50 years in various parts of the United States, the study’s authors said.
Using computer-based climate models, they predicted the beetles should gradually march north along the Atlantic coast, infesting forests including in the U.S. states of Maine and Ohio all the way to Canada’s Nova Scotia.
Pest moves fast
By 2080, the pest should proliferate to red — and jack-pine forests in a 270,000 square miles (700,000 square km) area of the United States and Canada — roughly the size of Afghanistan, the researchers wrote in Nature Climate Change.
That would not only upend ecosystems, but also disrupt several key industries “in already struggling rural areas,” said lead author Corey Lesk, a researcher at Columbia University in New York.
“Residents of these regions could see a direct hit to their pocketbooks,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday in a phone interview.
Infestations costly to timber industry
Where the southern pine beetle has struck in the past, timber industries have been hard hit.
Infestations of pine beetles have cost an estimated $100 million a year in timber losses from 1990 to 2004 in the southeastern United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Thousands of adult beetles can kill a tree in two to four months as the insects carve S-shaped tunnels under the bark, depriving their host of needed nutrients.
The tourism industry would also likely suffer, said Lesk, with the potential destruction of iconic forests including the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and Long Island.
Europe faces same problem
In Europe, previous research has shown that bark beetles have similarly been chewing through pine and spruce trees in forests from the Swiss Alps to Belarus alongside temperature increases.
Land managers have found the best way to fight off bark beetles has been thinning high-density forests and cutting out infested trees, though with limited success, the researchers said.
“The key question is whether those strategies would be able to keep up with rapid advance of the pest into regions with little or no experience managing it,” Lesk said.
your ad hereUS Spacecraft Readies for Fiery Plunge into Saturn After 13-year Mission
The U.S. space agency’s Cassini spacecraft will end its 13-year mission to Saturn in mid-September by transmitting data until the final moment before it plunges into the ringed planet’s atmosphere, officials said Tuesday.
Cassini, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, will make the last of 22 farewell dives between the planet’s rings and surface on Sept. 15. The spacecraft will then burn up as it heads straight into the gas giant’s crushing atmosphere.
Cassini’s final dive will end a mission that provided groundbreaking discoveries that included seasonal changes on Saturn, the moon Titan’s resemblance to a primordial Earth, and a global ocean on the moon Enceladus with ice plumes spouting from its surface.
“The mission has been insanely, wildly, beautifully successful, and it’s coming to an end in about two weeks,” Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist, said on a telephone conference call with reporters from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Cassini’s final photo as it heads into Saturn’s atmosphere will likely be of propellers, or gaps in the rings caused by moonlets, said project scientist Linda Spilker.
The spacecraft will provide near real-time data on the atmosphere until it loses contact with Earth at 4:54 a.m. PDT (1154 GMT) on Sept. 15, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
Spilker said Cassini’s latest data on the rings had shown they had a lighter mass than forecast. That suggests they are younger than expected, at about 120 million years, and thus were created after the birth of the solar system, she said.
During its final orbits between the atmosphere and the rings, Cassini also studied Saturn’s atmosphere and took measurements to determine the size of the planet’s rocky core.
Cassini has been probing Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, and its entourage of 62 known moons since July 2004. It has provided enough data for almost 4,000 scientific papers.
Since the craft is running low on fuel, NASA is crashing it into Saturn to avoid any chance Cassini could someday collide with Titan, Enceladus or any other moon that has the potential to support indigenous microbial life.
By destroying the spacecraft, NASA will ensure that any hitchhiking Earth microbes still alive on Cassini will not contaminate the moons for future study.
…
Notre-Dame’s Crumbling Gargoyles Need Help
The Archbishop of Paris is on a 100 million-euro ($120 million) fundraising drive to save the crumbling gargoyles and gothic arches of the storied Notre-Dame cathedral.
Every year, 12 million to 14 million people visit the 12th-century Parisian landmark on an island in the Seine river. Groundbreaking for the structure occurred in 1163 and construction was completed in 1345. Pollution and exposure to elements over time have resulted in losses of large chunks of stone.
“If we don’t do these restoration works, we’ll risk seeing parts of the exterior structure begin to fall. This is a very serious risk,” said Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame charity set up by the archbishop.
Church officials, who have created what they are calling a “stone cemetery” from fallen masonry, say the cathedral remains safe to visit.
Entry to the cathedral is free, and the French state, which owns the building, devotes 2 million euros a year to repairs.
But that is not enough to embark on major restoration works, the last of which were carried out during the 1800s, officials at the cathedral and charity said.
Hugo’s book
Notre-Dame has long drawn tourists from around the world.
It is most famous in popular culture as the locale for 19th-century author Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and films of the same name, including the 1939 classic with Charles Laughton and the 1996 Disney musical animation.
The latter in particular raised the cathedral’s profile for modern-day tourists from China to the United States.
“It’s the movie for me. I just think of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and the book as well. After reading that book, I actually really wanted to come see it,” said U.S tourist Claire Huber as she visited the cathedral.
Church authorities hope the cathedral’s worldwide fame will attract donors, particularly from the United States.
“Gargoyles are what people want to see when they come to Paris. If there are no more gargoyles, what will they see?” Notre-Dame communications chief Andre Finot said.
…
Syrian Schools Grow Edible Playgrounds to Boost Diets of Hungry Children
School playgrounds across Syria are being transformed into vegetable gardens where children whose diets have been devastated by six years of war can learn to grow — and then eat — aubergines, lettuces, peppers, cabbages and cucumbers.
Traditional Syrian cuisine is typical of the region, and rich in vegetables. Its mainstays include hummus, minced lamb cooked with pine nuts and spices, varied salads, stews made with green beans, okra or courgettes and tomatoes, stuffed cabbage leaves and artichoke hearts.
But the six-year war has changed that for much of the population, and many now live mainly on bread or food aid.
According to U.N. figures, unemployment now stands at more than 50 percent, and nearly 70 percent of the population is living in extreme poverty, in what was once a relatively wealthy country.
“The ongoing crisis in Syria is having a devastating effect on the health and nutrition of an entire generation of children,” Adam Yao, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) acting representative in Syria, said on Tuesday, ahead of the start of the school year.
FAO is helping some 17 primary schools in both government and opposition-controlled areas to plant up to 500 meter-square fruit and vegetable plots in war-torn areas including Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Idlib and the outskirts of Damascus.
Young children are often the most vulnerable to malnutrition in a crisis, which can have serious and long-lasting effects on their growth and future development.
“Good nutrition is a child’s first defense against common diseases and important for children to be able to lead an active and healthy life,” Yao added.
The primary schools, which began planting in May, have produced 12 tons of fruit and vegetables. Another 35 schools are expected to start transforming their playgrounds soon in Aleppo and in rural areas around Damascus.
Rising prices, falling production
The price of food has risen since the start of the war — agriculture production has plummeted, and the country now relies on food imports to make up the shortfall. Transporting food around the country has also become difficult and costly.
About 13.5 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance. Of those, 7 million are unable to meet their basic food needs.
Some 5 million people receive international food aid, but not everyone in need can be reached, and the World Food Program says it has had to cut the amount of calories in its family food baskets because of funding shortages.
“The donors are generous, but we don’t know how long they can continue to be generous and rely on taxpayers’ money,” the FAO’s Yao told Reuters.
Vulnerable families are receiving help from FAO to grow food at home, so they can become less reliant on food aid.
“Food aid is very important, but … we should combine both, in a way that people grow their own food and move away from food aid gradually,” he said.
In a country where more than half the population has been forced to flee their homes, many moving several times, investing in agriculture helps people to stay put for as long as it is safe, Yao added.
“Agriculture has become a hope for [many] because they can grow their own food and survive — even in the besieged areas.”
…
US Attorney General: Opioid Crisis Is America’s ‘Top Lethal Issue’
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the opioid crisis America’s “top lethal issue” Tuesday, saying that a “comprehensive antidote” was needed to address the crisis.
Speaking from the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children national conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Sessions thanked the audience for their work in making the crisis’ effects on children known.
“Our country, despite the record deaths, I don’t think has fully recognized the damage this addiction nightmare is doing to us,” he said. “And as you understand this epidemic is taking a heavy toll on the most innocent and vulnerable — our children. And yet, in the national conversation about drug abuse, these children are too often forgotten.”
Sessions said that the solution has “three-pillars” — prevention, enforcement, and treatment. Sessions added that the prevention step in particular had been discussed at a meeting with top officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly the day before.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump vowed that the U.S. would “win” the battle against the heroin and opioid plague, but he stopped short of declaring a national emergency as his handpicked commission had recommended.
…
Kardashian Women Give $500,000 to Help Harvey Victims
Kim Kardashian West and her famous siblings are donating $500,000 to help Harvey victims.
A spokeswoman for the reality star says she and her mother and sisters have given $250,000 to the Red Cross and $250,000 to the Salvation Army.
Kardashian West announced the donation on Twitter on Tuesday, saying, “Houston we are praying for you.” She used the hashtag #HoustonStrong.
They are among several stars who’ve said publicly they are helping hurricane victims. Kevin Hart on Monday announced a $25,000 donation to the Red Cross for storm victims and called on other celebrities to do the same.
…
ePUMB skype chat
