US Supreme Court Divided Over How Google Settled Privacy Case
U.S. Supreme Court justices, in an internet privacy case involving Google, disagreed on Wednesday over whether to rein in a form of settlement in class action lawsuits that awards money to charities and other third parties instead of to people affected by the alleged wrongdoing.
The $8.5 million Google settlement was challenged by an official at a Washington-based conservative think tank, and some of the court’s conservative justices during an hour of arguments in the case shared his concerns about potential abuses in these awards, including excessive fees going to plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Some of the liberal justices emphasized that such settlements can funnel money to good use in instances in which dividing the money among large numbers of plaintiffs would result in negligible per-person payments. Conservatives hold a 5-4 majority on the high court.
The case began when a California resident named Paloma Gaos filed a proposed class action lawsuit in 2010 in San Jose federal court claiming Google’s search protocols violated federal privacy law by disclosing users’ search terms to other websites. Google is part of Alphabet Inc.
A lower court upheld the settlement the company agreed to pay in 2013 to resolve the claims.
Critics have said the settlements, known as “cy pres” [pronounced “see pray”] awards, are unfair and encourage frivolous lawsuits, conflicts of interest and collusion between both sides to minimize damages for defendants while maximizing fees for plaintiffs’ lawyers. Supporters have said these settlements can benefit causes important to victims and support underfunded entities, such as legal aid.
During the arguments, several justices, both liberal and conservative, wondered whether the plaintiffs had suffered harm through the disclosure of their internet searches, sufficient to justify suing in federal court, signaling they may dismiss the case rather than deciding the fate of cy pres settlements.
Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer seemed doubtful that simple searches, of one’s own name for instance, would be enough to sustain a privacy lawsuit.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to disagree.
“I don’t think anyone would want … everything they searched for disclosed to other people,” Kavanaugh said. “That seems a harm.”
Google agreed in the settlement to disclose on its website how users’ search terms are shared but was not required to change its behavior. The three main plaintiffs received $5,000 each for representing the class. Their attorneys received about $2.1 million.
Under the settlement, the rest of the money would go to organizations or projects that promote internet privacy, including at Stanford University and AARP, a lobbying group for older Americans, but nothing to the millions of Google users who the plaintiffs were to have represented in the class action.
Cy pres awards, which remain rare, give money that cannot feasibly be distributed to participants in a class action suit to unrelated entities as long as it would be in the plaintiffs’ interests.
‘A sensible system’
While wrestling over the privacy aspects of Google searches, the justices also disagreed about the settlement both sides reached. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito raised concerns that the money would go to groups that some plaintiffs might not like but have no say in opposing.
“How can such a system be regarded as a sensible system?” Alito asked.
Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, noted that AARP engages in political activity, an issue that the Google deal’s opponents, led by Ted Frank, director of litigation for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, had raised.
Google has called Frank a “professional objector.”
Roberts also said it was “fishy” that settlement money could be directed to institutions to which Google already was a donor. Some beneficiary institutions also were the alma mater of lawyers involved in the case, Kavanaugh noted.
Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Frank, who argued the case on Wednesday, that at least the plaintiffs get an “indirect benefit” from the settlement.
“It seems like the system is working,” added Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another liberal.
In endorsing the Google settlement last year, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said each of the 129 million U.S. Google users who theoretically could have claimed part of it would have received “a paltry 4 cents in recovery.”
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Thai Junta’s Rap Headache Beats On
The director of a viral rap video that has racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube with lyrics flaying Thailand’s military junta says the artists behind it have no intention of hiding from police.
Since the junta, led by Prayut Chan-o-cha, seized power in a coup four years ago and banned political gatherings, it has harshly punished any form of dissent, jailing scores of critics and opponents.
That’s why it was something of a surprise when director Teerawat Rujintham and the collective Rap Against Dictatorship launched a broadside against the military by releasing a profanity laced video called My Country Has It on Oct. 22.
Teerawat told VOA the public response to the video, which has been viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube, had vastly surpassed the group’s expectations.
Waiting for reaction
“The project served its purpose, and for now each of the members of the group and I are just waiting for the reaction from those in power and the government to contact us,” he said in an interview conducted partially through a translator.
He said he and the group were “not going to hide from the police. We’re going to confront them, because I don’t feel that [we] did anything wrong.”
Teerawat said the video had tapped into brooding resentment that many Thais felt toward the junta “under the surface” but could not express.
“The country that points a gun at your throat. Claims to have freedom but no right to choose. You can’t say [stuff] even though your mouth is full of it. Whatever you do the leader will see you,” one artist raps in the video.
Police initially threatened to arrest group members after the song’s release, but as online views of the video quickly shot up, they backed down.
Local media reported Deputy National Police Chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul had filed a defamation suit against the group and stressed that its members remained under investigation. Police have not answered VOA requests for comment.
Prayut reportedly weighed in Tuesday, warning anyone who “shows appreciation for the song must accept responsibility for what happens to the country in future,” according to the Bangkok Post.
“I do not care if they attack me. But if they do so against the country, I do not think it is appropriate,” he reportedly said.
Undeterred, anti-junta punk rockers plan to hold a concert Saturday in Bangkok at the site of a notorious 1976 massacre of student protesters opposing military rule.
The massacre is regarded as a highly sensitive topic for the junta and is graphically depicted in Teerawat’s video when the camera pans to an effigy of a corpse hanging from a tree, representing the lynchings that took place. Teerawat said he chose to use the cover-up of the massacre as a metaphor for the present.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an associate professor of international political economy at Chulalongkorn University, said the artists are helping vent pent-up public frustration as long-delayed elections, expected now by mid-2019, draw closer.
More expected
“It strikes a chord because they feel that they themselves are fed up and frustrated with no way out, no voices to be heard. So these guys are speaking up for them, and I think we will see more of it going forward,” he said.
Political figures ranging from former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the young billionaire leader of the progressive new Future Forward party, have come out in support of the rappers’ right to speak out.
Their support and the huge popularity of the artists means silencing them outright has become a precarious proposition, Thitinan said.
“The military government will be in a dilemma now because on the one hand they want to suppress it, there’s no doubt. But if they do suppress it they have less chance of winning the election, because these groups are popular,” he said.
“On the other hand, if they allow it to go on, to take place, then they would invite other groups, other movements to come to the fore against the military government,” he said.
Meanwhile, street graffiti artist Headache Stencil has gained notice for skewering senior regime leaders, including Prayut, in his satirical works.
Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics and lecturer at Naresuan University, said Rap Against Dictatorship’s video has gained strong popularity among urban voters, many of whom had originally supported the military coup.
“Thus the writing is on the wall: More and more former junta supporters want the military to return to the barracks,” he wrote in an email. “The surprise is that more and more urban Thais, who tended to remain supportive or apathetic to the junta, have now jumped on the bandwagon of demanding a return to democracy now.”
Prayut repeatedly has delayed promised elections since staging the 2014 coup, Thailand’s 12th since 1932. He also passed a new constitution that grants him extraordinary power and the military virtually total control of parliament.
Some steps have been taken to loosen the bans on political activities he implemented after seizing power, though many remain.
Rangsiya Ratanachai contributed to this report.
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Appendix Removal Linked to Lower Risk of Parkinson’s
Scientists have found a new clue that Parkinson’s disease may get its start not in the brain but in the gut – maybe in the appendix.
People who had their appendix removed early in life had a lower risk of getting the tremor-inducing brain disease decades later, researchers reported Wednesday.
Why? A peek at surgically removed appendix tissue shows this tiny organ, often considered useless, seems to be a storage depot for an abnormal protein – one that, if it somehow makes its way into the brain, becomes a hallmark of Parkinson’s.
The big surprise, according to studies published in the journal Science Translational Medicine: Lots of people may harbor clumps of that worrisome protein in their appendix – young and old, people with healthy brains and those with Parkinson’s.
But don’t look for a surgeon just yet.
“We’re not saying to go out and get an appendectomy,” stressed Viviane Labrie of Michigan’s Van Andel Research Institute, a neuroscientist and geneticist who led the research team.
After all, there are plenty of people who have no appendix yet still develop Parkinson’s. And plenty of others harbor the culprit protein but never get sick, according to her research.
The gut connection
Doctors and patients have long known there’s some connection between the gastrointestinal tract and Parkinson’s. Constipation and other GI troubles are very common years before patients experience tremors and movement difficulty that lead to a Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Wednesday’s research promises to re-energize work to find out why, and learn who’s really at risk.
“This is a great piece of the puzzle. It’s a fundamental clue,” said Dr. Allison Willis, a Parkinson’s specialist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn’t involved in the new studies but says her patients regularly ask about the gut link.
Parkinson’s Foundation chief scientific officer James Beck, who also wasn’t involved, agreed that “there’s a lot of tantalizing potential connections.”
He noted that despite its reputation, the appendix appears to play a role in immunity that may influence gut inflammation. The type of bacteria that live in the gut also may affect Parkinson’s.
But if it really is common to harbor that Parkinson’s-linked protein, “what we don’t know is what starts it, what gets this whole ball rolling,” Beck said.
For years, scientists have hypothesized about what might cause the gut-Parkinson’s connection. One main theory: Maybe bad “alpha-synuclein” protein can travel from nerve fibers in the GI tract up the vagus nerve, which connects the body’s major organs to the brain. Abnormal alpha-synuclein is toxic to brain cells involved with movement.
There have been prior clues. People who decades ago had the vagus nerve cut as part of a now-abandoned therapy had a reduced risk of Parkinson’s. Some smaller studies have suggested appendectomies, too, might be protective – but the results were conflicting.
Labrie’s team set out to find stronger evidence.
First, the researchers analyzed Sweden’s huge national health database, examining medical records of nearly 1.7 million people tracked since 1964. The risk of developing Parkinson’s was 19 percent lower among those who had their appendix surgically removed decades earlier.
One puzzling caveat: People living in rural areas appeared to get the benefit. Labrie said it’s possible that the appendix plays a role in environmental risk factors for Parkinson’s, such as pesticide exposure.
Further analysis suggested people who developed Parkinson’s despite an early-in-life appendectomy tended to have symptoms appear a few years later than similarly aged patients.
A common protein
That kind of study doesn’t prove that removing the appendix is what reduces the risk, cautioned Dr. Andrew Feigin, executive director of the Parkinson’s institute at NYU Langone Health, who wasn’t involved in Wednesday’s research.
So next, Labrie’s team examined appendix tissue from 48 Parkinson’s-free people. In 46 of them, the appendix harbored the abnormal Parkinson’s-linked protein. So did some Parkinson’s patients. Whether the appendix was inflamed or not also didn’t matter.
That’s a crucial finding because it means merely harboring the protein in the gut isn’t enough to trigger Parkinson’s, Labrie said. There has to be another step that makes it dangerous only for certain people.
“The difference we think is how you manage this pathology,” she said – how the body handles the buildup.
Her team plans additional studies to try to tell.
The reservoir finding is compelling, Feigin said, but another key question is if the abnormal protein also collects in healthy people’s intestines.
And Penn’s Willis adds another caution: There are other unrelated risks for Parkinson’s disease, such as suffering a traumatic brain injury.
“This could be one of many avenues that lead to Parkinson’s disease, but it’s a very exciting one,” she said.
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Rafael Nadal Pulls Out of Paris Masters with Abdominal Pain
Rafael Nadal pulled out of his second-round match at the Paris Masters on Wednesday because of an abdominal problem, meaning Novak Djokovic will reclaim the No. 1 ranking next week.
Nadal was returning from a right knee injury which forced him to retire from the U.S. Open semifinals, but took medical advice not to play against Fernando Verdasco.
“The last few days I start to feel a little bit the abdominal, especially when I was serving,” Nadal said. “I was checking with the doctor and the doctor says that is recommended to not play, because if I continue the abdominal maybe can break and can be a major thing, and I really don’t want that.”
At last year’s tournament, Nadal reached the quarterfinals but then pulled out against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic. Nadal has dealt with off-and-on knee problems for years and, given his injury record, the 32-year-old Spaniard prefers to be cautious.
At the U.S. Open in early September, he dropped the opening two sets against Juan Martin del Potro before retiring. He then skipped the Asia swing to recover, missing tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai.
“It has been a tough year for me in terms of injuries so I want to avoid drastic things,” Nadal said. “Maybe I can play today, but the doctor says if I want to play the tournament, I want to try to win the tournament, the abdominal with break for sure.”
Nadal did not say whether he will play at the season-ending ATP Finals in London, beginning Nov. 11.
“I cannot answer. I just go day by day, as I did all my tennis career,” the 17-time Grand Slam champion said. “I would love to be in London of course. But the most important thing for me is to be healthy, be healthy and have the chance to compete weeks in a row. Something that I was not able to do this year, playing only nine events and retiring in two.”
Nadal is optimistic his latest injury will pass, providing he does not rush back.
“It would not be fair to say it’s a real injury today but what is sure, if I continue it will be a real injury,” he said. “When you come back after injuries, and you push a little bit, the body at the beginning some issues can happen.”
Djokovic, who faces Damir Dzumhur in the third round, will reclaim the top ranking for the first time in two years on Monday.
Also, Roger Federer advanced to the third round after big-serving Milos Raonic retired with a right elbow injury.
Raonic injured himself during a three-set win against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Tuesday.
“In the middle of second set, I overextended my elbow and it did some kind of pain,” he said. “I went and I did an ultrasound and MRI, and they found some kind of a lesion in the tricep.”
Federer, who won his 99th career title at the Swiss Indoors last Sunday, will face 13th-seeded Fabio Fognini.
Defending champion Jack Sock of the United States and fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev reached the third round in straight sets.
The 16th-seeded Sock saved all four break points he faced in a 6-3, 6-3 win against Frenchman Richard Gasquet, while Zverev advanced 6-4, 6-4 over American Francis Tiafoe.
Seventh-seeded Kevin Anderson, the Wimbledon runner-up, got past Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (3).
No. 8 John Isner, No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 10 Kei Nishikori also won.
Dimitrov had 13 aces in a 7-6 (10), 6-4 win against Roberto Bautista Agut and Nishikori beat Adrian Mannarino of France 7-5, 6-4. Isner had 33 aces in a 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6 (1) against Mikhail Kukushkin, with the big-serving American saving a break point in the 11th game of the third set.
Isner and Nishikori are competing with No. 5 Marin Cilic and No. 6 Dominic Thiem for the last two spots for the ATP finals. Thiem was facing Frenchman Gilles Simon later Wednesday, while No. 11 Borna Coric was playing Daniil Medvedev.
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Birthday Blues for Bitcoin as Investors Face Year-on-Year Loss
Bitcoin was heading towards a year-on-year loss on Wednesday, its 10th birthday, the first loss since last year’s bull market, when the original and biggest digital coin muscled its way to worldwide attention with months of frenzied buying.
By 1300 GMT, bitcoin was trading at $6,263 on the BitStamp exchange, leaving investors who had bought it on Halloween 2017 facing yearly losses of nearly 3 percent.
A year ago, bitcoin closed at $6,443.22 as it tore towards a record high of near $20,000, hit in December.
That run, fueled by frenzied buying by retail investors from South Korea to the United States, pushed bitcoin to calendar-year gains of over 1,300 percent.
Ten years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s still-unidentified founder, released a white paper detailing the need for an online currency that could be used for payments without the involvement of a third party, such as a bank.
Traders and market participants said the Halloween milestone was inevitable, given losses of around 70 percent from bitcoin’s peak and the continuing but incomplete shift towards investment by mainstream financial firms.
“The value mechanisms of crypto and bitcoin today are based more on underlying tech than hype and FOMO (fear of missing out),” said Josh Bramley, head trader at crypto wealth management firm Blockstars.
Growing use of blockchain – the distributed ledger technology that underpins bitcoin – is now powering valuations of the digital currency, he said, cautioning that some expectations for widespread use have not yet materialized.
Others said improvements to infrastructure such as custody services may allow mainstream investors who are wary of buying bitcoin to take positions.
“We see behind closed doors financial and non-financial institutions beavering away to create the infrastructure,” said Ben Sebley, head of brokerage at NKB Group, a blockchain advisory and investment firm.
Bitcoin has endured year-on-year losses before, according to data from CryptoCompare, most recently in 2015.
Retail investors still account for a strong proportion of trading, market players said.
Investors who bet early on bitcoin and have stuck with it have faced a roller-coaster ride in its first decade. Many told Reuters they are optimistic that they are still onto a winner.
your ad hereKanye West Distancing Himself from Politics
Three weeks after a bizarre White House meeting with U.S.
President Donald Trump, rapper Kanye West said on Tuesday he was
distancing himself from politics.
West, Trump’s biggest celebrity supporter, also sought to distance himself from a new campaign that encourages black Americans to quit the Democratic
Party.
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Hidden Secrets of America’s Ghost Towns
Clues to America’s past can be found in its ghost towns, once bustling communities that have been abandoned.
The deserted communities show us how the Industrial Revolution and two World Wars shaped the history of the United States, according to Geotab, a telematics company (think global positioning and vehicle tracking), which developed an interactive map showcasing more than 3,000 abandoned towns across America.
Ghost towns are often associated with the Wild West and Texas does have the most ghost towns with 511 abandoned communities. California follows with 346, and Kansas with 308.
Most of the Texas towns were established during the frontier era, from the early to mid-1800s. Mining towns sprang up around rich mineral deposits while the Mexican government’s favorable terms — a promised 4,000 acres per family for a small fee — attracted settlers.
“In the end, some Texas towns were destroyed by natural disasters and droughts, while others failed once the railroad and highway system reshaped transportation routes,” Geotab’s Kelly Hall told us via email.
Towns founded around particular mineral resources were abandoned when demand dried up.
“Once the need declined or resources were scarce, it caused the population or entire town to vanish,” said Hall. “Others were economically overpowered by neighboring towns, the Great Depression or frontier settlements that simply died down.”
Sixty structures still survive in Bannack, Montana, which was founded in 1862. The town flourished when thousands descended on the area with hopes of making their fortune in gold. By 1860, the gold was harder to reach and, despite a brief resurgence in the 1890s, the town was abandoned by the 1940s.
Natural disasters could also wipe out a town. That’s what happened to Fort Jefferson in Monroe County, Florida.
Built starting in 1846, the fort once helped defend the state against pirates, became a prison during the Civil War, was once used as a quarantine station, and then a refueling station for the U.S. Navy. But Fort Jefferson was abandoned in 1906 after it was damaged by a hurricane.
“With limited access to technology and without today’s emergency management advancements, a hurricane, a tornado or an earthquake could mean the total devastation of an entire community,” Hall said.
But some of these ghost towns, such as Fort Jefferson, have gotten a second life as tourist attractions. The residents are long gone, but the buildings, and the unique history of each town, remain.
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S. Korean Voting Machines at Center of DRC Election Dispute
As elections approach in the central African nation the Democratic Republic of Congo, concerns have been raised over the integrity of electronic voting machines being used in the national poll that were made by South Korea’s Miryu Systems. VOA’s Steve Miller reports from Seoul on the risks.
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Google Spinoff to Test Truly Driverless Cars in California
The robotic car company created by Google is poised to attempt a major technological leap in California, where its vehicles will hit the roads without a human on hand to take control in emergencies.
The regulatory approval announced Tuesday allows Waymo’s driverless cars to cruise through California at speeds up to 65 miles per hour.
The self-driving cars have traveled millions of miles on the state’s roads since Waymo began as a secretive project within Google nearly a decade ago. But a backup driver had been required to be behind the wheel until new regulations in April set the stage for the transition to true autonomy.
Waymo is the first among dozens of companies testing self-driving cars in California to persuade state regulators its technology is safe enough to permit them on the roads without a safety driver in them. An engineer still must monitor the fully autonomous cars from a remote location and be able to steer and stop the vehicles if something goes wrong.
Free rides in Arizona
California, however, won’t be the first state to have Waymo’s fully autonomous cars on its streets. Waymo has been giving rides to a group of volunteer passengers in Arizona in driverless cars since last year. It has pledged to deploy its fleet of fully autonomous vans in Arizona in a ride-hailing service open to all comers in the Phoenix area by the end of this year.
But California has a much larger population and far more congestion than Arizona, making it even more challenging place for robotic cars to get around.
Waymo is moving into its next phase in California cautiously. To start, the fully autonomous cars will only give rides to Waymo’s employees and confine their routes to roads in its home town of Mountain View, California, and four neighboring Silicon Valley cities — Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto.
If all goes well, Waymo will then seek volunteers who want to be transported in fully autonomous vehicles, similar to its early rider program in Arizona . That then could lead to a ride-hailing service like the one Waymo envisions in Arizona.
Can Waymo cars be trusted?
But Waymo’s critics are not convinced there is enough evidence that the fully autonomous cars can be trusted to be driving through neighborhoods without humans behind the wheel.
“This will allow Waymo to test its robotic cars using people as human guinea pigs,” said John Simpson, privacy and technology project director for Consumer Watchdog, a group that has repeatedly raised doubts about the safety of self-driving cars.
Those concerns escalated in March after fatal collision involving a self-driving car being tested by the leading ride-hailing service, Uber. In that incident, an Uber self-driving car with a human safety driver struck and killed a pedestrian crossing a darkened street in a Phoenix suburb.
Waymo’s cars with safety drivers have been involved in dozens of accidents in California, but those have mostly been minor fender benders at low speeds.
All told, Waymo says its self-driving cars have collectively logged more than 10 million miles in 25 cities in a handful of states while in autonomous mode, although most of those trips have occurred with safety drivers.
Will Waymo save lives?
Waymo contends its robotic vehicles will save lives because so many crashes are caused by human motorists who are intoxicated, distracted or just bad drivers.
“If a Waymo vehicle comes across a situation it doesn’t understand, it does what any good driver would do: comes to a safe stop until it does understand how to proceed,” the company said Tuesday.
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Pistol Annies Tackle Divorce, Complicated Women with Humor
The Pistol Annies’ sassy new song about reclaiming singlehood called “Got My Name Changed Back” has raised some eyebrows for its lyrics about a husband who cheats while on the road and prompted speculation about who might have inspired it.
The trio of Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe won’t say, but Presley notes that there are two divorces and two ex-husbands between them.
“It was a feel-good divorce song that was needed,” Presley said. “You’re welcome.”
“We can say whatever we want together a little more bravely than we ever would alone,” Lambert added. “Our whole catalog has been about celebrating things that weren’t so positive and putting them in a humorous light.”
The women tackle failed marriages, desperate wives, female friendships and complicated women with a lot of wry humor and just the right amount of sadness on their first album in five years called “Interstate Gospel,” out on Friday.
They wrote the record together without any outside writers, which has mostly been their pattern. “We haven’t written any songs with other writers,” Lambert said, but then the other two correct her, noting there was one song on their first album that her ex-husband Blake Shelton co-wrote with them.
“Oh well, he’s gone,” Lambert said with a laugh.
It was another divorce song that prompted them to start writing again after years of each working individually on their solo albums.
Lambert came up with a verse and chorus for the regretful tune, “When I Was His Wife,” and sent it to Presley and Monroe in a voice note. Soon after they were hanging out at Lambert’s house churning out songs.
“We don’t do per se writing sessions,” Presley said.
“We do slumber parties with guitars,” Lambert said.
The break between records has been productive for all three singers. Lambert released a critically-acclaimed double album, “The Weight of These Wings,” while Monroe and Presley each released two solo albums over the past five years.
“It’s like we have so much life to talk about, we have enough for solo projects and as a band,” Lambert said.
The song they will admit is about themselves is “Stop Drop and Roll One,” a country rocker in which they celebrate their differences and similarities. As the song goes, “One’s got the matches, one’s got the lashes, one’s running her mouth again.”
“If we all dumped our purses out on the table, it would be ‘Stop Drop and Roll One,'” Presley said.
A song like “Best Years of My Life” showcases their ability to craft emotionally complex female characters longing for escape from their monotonous lives through a recreational drug or a trashy TV show. “Masterpiece” acknowledges the public fascination with the glossy image of a perfect relationship, even if it’s not real.
“There’s a lot of stuff that you have to go through (as a woman),” said Monroe. “This album touches on a lot of that and there’s some humor and twists in there that make it a little less hard.”
The trio isn’t doing a tour to promote the album, just three shows in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles, mostly because Presley is pregnant, although they will be performing at the Country Music Association Awards on Nov. 14.
“This record feels very special and I feel like when we do an intimate couple of shows, it gives people a chance to live with it on tape and live with it in person and go from there,” Lambert said.
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Washington Residents Celebrate Halloween With Healthy Run Through Cemetery
Kids – and a lot of adults – around the country are counting the hours left until they can celebrate the spookiest night of the year – Halloween. But some folks prefer not to wait – celebrations, parties and events dedicated to All Hallows’ Eve are in full swing. Maxim Moskalkov caught up with some Washingtonians who celebrate the day in a healthy way – with a Dead Man’s Run through the historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
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New Report Documents Rapid Wildlife Population Loss
A just-released report from the World Wildlife Fund details a rapid decline in the world’s biodiversity. In general, the percentage of all kinds of animals in the land, sea and air have declined rapidly since 1970. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Electronics Flexes Into the Future
Advancements in digital printing are leading to more sophisticated, flexible electronics capable of changing the way we live and the way we use technology. Reporter Deana Mitchell takes a look at the latest technological innovations at a research center in San Jose, California.
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Ocean Shock: The Climate Crisis Beneath the Waves
This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.
To stand at the edge of an ocean is to face an eternity of waves and water, a shroud covering seven-tenths of the Earth.
Hidden below are mountain ranges and canyons that rival anything on land. There you will find the Earth’s largest habitat, home to billions of plants and animals — the vast majority of the living things on the planet.
In this little-seen world, swirling super-highway currents move warm water thousands of miles north and south from the tropics to cooler latitudes, while cold water pumps from the poles to warmer climes.
It is a system that we take for granted as much as we do the circulation of our own blood. It substantially regulates the Earth’s temperature, and it has been mitigating the recent spike in atmospheric temperatures, soaking up much of human-generated heat and carbon dioxide. Without these ocean gyres to moderate temperatures, the Earth would be uninhabitable.
In the last few decades, however, the oceans have undergone unprecedented warming. Currents have shifted. These changes are for the most part invisible from land, but this hidden climate change has had a disturbing impact on marine life — in effect, creating an epic underwater refugee crisis.
Reuters has discovered that from the waters off the East Coast of the United States to the coasts of West Africa, marine creatures are fleeing for their lives, and the communities that depend on them are facing disruption as a result.
As waters warm, fish and other sea life are migrating poleward, seeking to maintain the even temperatures they need to thrive and breed. The number of creatures involved in this massive diaspora may well dwarf any climate impacts yet seen on land.
In the U.S. North Atlantic, for example, fisheries data show that in recent years, at least 85 percent of the nearly 70 federally tracked species have shifted north or deeper, or both, when compared to the norm over the past half-century. And the most dramatic of species shifts have occurred in the last 10 or 15 years.
Fish have always followed changing conditions, sometimes with devastating effects for people, as the starvation that beset Norwegian fishing villages in past centuries when the herring failed to appear one season will attest. But what is happening today is different: The accelerating rise in sea temperatures, which scientists primarily attribute to the burning of fossil fuels, is causing a lasting shift in fisheries.
The changes below the surface are not an academic matter.
Globally, fishing is a $140 billion to $150 billion business annually, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, and in some parts of the world, seafood accounts for half of the average person’s diet. But the effects of this mass migration in the world’s oceans are also much more intimate than that.
From lobstermen in Maine to fishermen in North Carolina, livelihoods are at stake. For sardine-eating Portuguese and seafood-loving Japanese, cultural heritages are at risk. And a burgeoning aquaculture industry, fueled in part by the effects of climate change, is decimating traditional fishing in West Africa and destroying coastal mangrove swamps in Southeast Asia.
Reuters journalists have spent more than a year collecting their stories and little-reported data to bring you this series revealing the natural disaster unfolding beneath the whitecaps.
VOA will be featuring stories from the Ocean Shock series over the few months.
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With Green Mosques and Schools, Amman Pushes for Zero Emissions
Poking above the bright pink bougainvillea that spills into the street, the lone minaret of the Ta’la Al-Ali mosque towers over the Khalda neighborhood of Amman.
Aside from its colorful stain-glassed windows and ornate calligraphy, this mosque stands out for another reason: its roof is covered with shining solar panels that make the building’s carbon emissions close to zero.
The structure is part of a wider effort by mosques – and many other buildings in the city – to capitalize on Jordan’s plentiful sunshine and shift towards renewable energy, in a bid to achieve Amman’s goal of becoming a carbon neutral city by 2050.
“Almost all the mosques here in Jordan now cover 100 percent of their energy needs” with renewable power, said Yazan Ismail, an energy auditor at ETA-max Energy and Environmental Solutions, a green consultancy in Jordan.
Amman is one of more than 70 cities worldwide that are aiming to become “carbon neutral” by 2050, meaning they will produce no more climate-changing emissions than they can offset, such as by planting carbon-absorbing trees.
Each is going about achieving the goal in its own way. But because cities account for about three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations, and consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy, whether they succeed or fail will have a huge impact on if the world’s climate goals are met.
Feeding the Grid
In Amman, the push to make mosques greener – which began in 2014, with backing from the Ministry of Religious Affairs – has been so successful that many are now selling excess energy back to the national grid, Ismail said.
For the Ta’la Al-Ali mosque’s imam, who speaks to the faithful in his Friday sermons about protecting the climate, the decision to adopt clean energy coincides with wider religious values.
“The main reason for the use of solar energy is religious duty,” said Ahmad Al Rawashdeh. Islam urges conservation of nature’s resources, he said, and “warns against extravagance.”
But the use of solar energy, and power-saving LED lightbulbs, also is helping the mosque financially, he admitted.
Amman, where temperatures already soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the summer, has clear incentives to try to hold the line on global warming.
But renewables are far from the norm in most of the country.
Jordan still imports close to 96 percent of its energy, most of it polluting fossil fuels, from its Middle Eastern neighbors, according to the World Bank.
Government officials say they are going to change that.
“We are committed to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030,” Minister of Environment Nayef Hmeidi Al-Fayez told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The country aims to generate 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2022, Al-Fayez said. It’s a target he thinks will be met early, in part as solar panels go up on the city’s homes, businesses and government buildings.
Earlier this year the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) put in place $188 million in financing to develop Jordan’s largest solar power plant for the state National Electric Power Company.
The project is scheduled to go online in the first half of 2020, and will supply power to about 110,000 homes while displacing 360,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, a statement from Masdar said.
Green Schools
On the other side of the city, the Al-Hoffaz international academy – one of the first schools to go solar in Amman, in 2013 – now gets almost 95 percent of its energy from renewable sources, said Khaled Al Salaymah, assistant general manager of the school.
At Al Hoffaz, children in orange and black uniforms chant their times-tables as they file down the stairs of the academy, one of about 100 schools in Amman seeking to lower carbon emissions.
“Based on our community and public responsibilities we want to reduce our emissions and carbon contribution urgently,” said Al Salaymah. “Also, there’s an economic dimension: we’ve reduced our energy consumption costs too,” he said.
Along with glimmering solar electrical panels covering the basketball court, the teachers’ car park and much of the roof, the school uses solar water heaters and recycles its waste while also prioritizing environmental education, he said.
“We hold awareness sessions for students, parents and teachers here to ensure they know the benefits of going green and using renewable energy,” Al Salaymah told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It’s not just installing solar panels. We want to be green in every way.”
He said he had noticed a rise in social awareness of the risks of climate change, particularly among young Jordanians.
“The mentality has changed,” he said.
Jordan is also trying to cut emissions from tourism. The country hopes to market itself as a haven for ecotourists keen to stay in zero-carbon resorts along the salty Dead Sea or near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra.
The Feynan Ecolodge sits on the edge of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, on the road to the ancient crimson carved city of Petra.
With solar appliances serving its 26 rooms and candle-lit corridors, the lodge is entirely off grid, and offers visitors the chance to feast on vegetarian food, stargaze or learn to bake bread beneath the hot sand.
Manager Nabil Tarazi said the lodge’s daily energy consumption was less than that of a two-bedroom apartment in Amman.
The lodge is part of a string of buildings backed by Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), including a similar resort north of Amman in the protected forest reserve of Ajloun.
Nestled among evergreen oaks, that lodge harvests rainwater and uses geothermal heating and cooling to keep its emissions at net zero.
Future Pressures
Despite Jordan’s efforts to cut carbon emissions, Amman faces big challenges, including a booming population, swollen by the arrival of more than half a million refugees fleeing conflict in neighboring Syria.
Arid Amman is also among the most water-stressed cities in the world – enough that Jordan is now looking into desalination plants to keep the taps running.
But the push for solar power may also help.
A May report by the World Resources Institute found that thirsty Middle Eastern and North African countries, including Jordan, could cut water demand by switching to solar power, which uses less water to produce than fossil fuel electricity generation.
Jordan’s Environment Minister Al-Fayez said he has confidence Amman – and the country – will continue pushing to meet their ambitious carbon-cutting goals.
“We’re always optimistic in Jordan. That’s the way that we survive,” he said.
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NFL to Schedule 4 London Games in 2019
London will play host to four NFL games in the 2019 season, the league’s United Kingdom office announced Tuesday.
The league did not say which teams would play and did not disclose the game dates.
Two of the games will be played at Wembley Stadium, with the others at the stadium being built for Premier League team Tottenham.
Three NFL games were played in London this year.
There have been 24 regular-season games played in London since the league began scheduling games there in 2007. All but three of the NFL’s 32 teams have made at least one London trip.
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Apple’s New iPads Embrace Facial Recognition
Apple’s new iPads will resemble its latest iPhones as the company ditches a home button and fingerprint sensor to make room for the screen.
As with the iPhone XR and XS models, the new iPad Pro will use facial-recognition technology to unlock the device and authorize app and Apple Pay purchases.
Apple also unveiled new Mac models at an opera house in New York, where the company emphasized artistic uses for its products such as creating music, video and sketches. New Macs include a MacBook Air laptop with a better screen.
Research firm IDC says tablet sales have been declining overall, though Apple saw a 3 percent increase in iPad sales last year to nearly 44 million, commanding a 27 percent market share.
your ad hereReport: Earth Has Lost 60 Percent of Its Wildlife Since 1970
A new report says the world lost a staggering 60 percent of its wildlife populations over a period of four decades.
In its 2018 Living Planet Report, the World Wildlife Fund cites deforestation, climate change and a rise in pollution for the decline among 16,700 populations between 1970 and 2014.
The report says that half of the world’s shallow-water corals have been wiped out over the last 30 years; ivory poaching has reduced the elephant population in Tanzania by more than 60 percent between 2009 and 2014, and 100,000 orangutans in Borneo died between 1999 and 2015 due to deforestation.
The WWF also predicts the number of polar bears will be reduced by 30 percent by 2050 as climate change melts the Arctic ice.
“It’s mind-blowing,” says WWF Director-General Marco Lambertini, describing the crisis as “unprecedented in its speed, in its scale, and because it is single-handed.” The group is calling for an international treaty to protect wildlife, but says it must be enacted within two years to actually make a difference, due to the fast pace of destruction.
your ad hereDelhi’s ‘Pollution Season’ Dampens India’s Main Festival
It is the time of the year when Indians hit the roads to distribute gifts and sweets to friends and family, visit colorful “Diwali bazars” and party as they gear up to celebrate the main Hindu festival of Diwali on November 7. But in the Indian capital, there is a party spoiler: a deadly haze of pollution that has prompted calls to minimize exposure to the dirty air and is making some pack up and leave the city during the festival.
Grey smog shrouds New Delhi and satellite towns as winter approaches and authorities have advised citizens to avoid strenuous outdoor activity, take only short walks, shut windows, reduce use of private vehicles and wear masks as a precaution.
A range of emergency measures has also been announced to reduce air pollution, such as a temporary ban on construction activity and coal and biomass based industries starting Thursday.
The measures kick in as the level of PM2, the tiny particulate matter that can dangerously clog lungs exceeded by more than six times the safe limit set by the World Health Organization. Earlier this year, WHO named Delhi as the world’s most polluted megacity — the city and its surrounding towns are home to 19 million people.
“There are pollution hotspots in the city where we have seen levels that are hitting serious levels,” says Anumita Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “But at least the action has started and we are hoping the emergency response will help.”
The pollution in the city and surrounding towns is a toxic mix of of dust, fumes from vehicles, burning of waste and polluting industries, and has been exacerbated with explosive growth. It worsens at this time of the year as farmers set fire to thousands of hectares of farmland in neighboring states, Diwali revelers set off firecrackers and still winter air keeps pollutants hovering over the city.
Authorities have launched a campaign to prevent farmers from burning crop residue, which helps them prepare the fields for the next harvest without incurring heavy labor costs. The acrid smoke from the fields billows towards Delhi, becoming one of the major triggers for the city’s deadly smog.
State authorities are optimistic the number of fires has been reduced as the government offers subsidies on equipment that enables farmers to plant the new crop with the stubble still in the fields and imposes fines on those who still light up the residue on their fields. But thousands of resentful farmers continue to burn the stubble, saying it is easier to pick up a matchstick and pay the penalty rather than invest in the equipment.
Others grumble the additional expense is cutting into already slim farm profits and leaving their crop more vulnerable to pests like rats.
“We don’t like scorching mother earth, but only when you work at the ground level you know the challenges you face,” said Vinod Kumar, who has a 16-hectare farm in Karnal in neighboring Haryana state. He does not find it viable to plant the new crop with the stubble still standing in the fields. “The taller stubble has to be set on fire.”
Even as crop fires rage, an ease on a ban on firecrackers by the Supreme Court has intensified New Delhi’s pollution worries. The top court rejected calls for an outright ban and said “green crackers” would be allowed for a two-hour window on Diwali.
But many in the country, including shops selling firecrackers, appeared clueless about what is an environmentally safe firework. They are doing brisk business — many in the city are loath to give up the age-old custom, which they see as an intrinsic part of Diwali celebrations despite several campaigns urging people to stay away from firecrackers.
Doctors are already advising people suffering from respiratory problems to leave the city and those who can afford to heed the warning are taking it seriously.
New Delhi resident, Pradeep Bhargava, who has suffered bouts of asthma, is taking no chances after last year when pollution spiked to its worst-ever level around Diwali and prompted doctors to declare a “medical emergency” and authorities to shut schools. “The pollution is the major factor that we are heading to the hills, but five days out of the city won’t really help,” he said. “We have to breathe the dirty air through the winter.”
Many environmentalists agree and point out that emergency measures taken during the smog season will not fix Delhi’s pollution crisis. “Focus now will really have to shift more towards round-the year plan so that those systemic reforms take place so that by next winter we begin to see more substantial changes,” said Chowdhury from the Center of Science and Environment.
your ad hereAfrican Filmmaker Tells Tales of South African Migrants
In his latest film “Vaya,” Nigerian-born director Akin Omotoso explores the themes of migration and coming of age.
“Vaya” tells the story of three strangers who get on a train, each of them with a mission to fulfill in Johannesburg. They’re coming from Durban to Johannesburg. They never meet, but their stories are intertwined,” Omotoso explained.
Each traveler has a mission. A young man is promised a job that is not what he expected. Another is sent to reclaim his father’s body — a task that is surprisingly difficult. A young woman escorts a young girl to her family in the city. Each faces rejection, abuse or violence.
The film came from the real-life stories of South Africans in the Homeless Writers Project, a workshop for people living on the streets of Johannesburg.
Vaya means “to go” in the Tsotsitaal dialect used in South African townships.
“It takes on several meanings. So, ‘to go’ — they’re leaving Durban to go to Johannesburg. But when they get there, maybe people don’t want you. They want you to go,” Omotoso said.
The director is a migrant himself. He was born in Nigeria, but his family moved to South Africa, where his father, the writer Kole Omotoso, was a professor at the University of the Western Cape. Akin studied drama at the university, and then worked as an actor and director.
“Vaya” is one of 20 movies by filmmakers of color or female directors distributed by Array, a Los Angeles-based collective and distribution company founded by director Ava DuVernay.
“Our purpose is to make sure that audiences have access to films they otherwise would not see, those independent voices that deserve a platform for stories to be told,” said Mercedes Cooper, Array’s director of marketing.
“Vaya” was released in 2016 and has played at international festivals. It opened in U.S. theaters in late October and will stream on Netflix starting Nov. 1. Omotoso said many can relate to this story.
“I always say everyone has a cousin who’s arriving, or a brother who’s leaving, or somebody who’s coming,” he said. “So, “Vaya” is able to tap into something that doesn’t just happen in Johannesburg.”
The film taps into universal themes, notes Omotoso, such as the search for a better life and the struggle for survival.
“It’s a thrilling ride when you start to put together the mystery of what’s going on.”
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Women Make their Mark at Comicon
Each October, fans of comics, anime, graphic novels and manga…Japanese comics…descend on New York for Comic Con. A highlight of the international pop culture festival is cosplay. Cosplayers dress as characters from their favorite comics, and this year, as reporter Asli Pelit discovered, there were more women in costume. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Scientists Seek Answers to Are We Alone?
The United States Congress has a big question for the National Academy of Sciences or N-A-S. It wants to know “are we alone in the universe” or are there other planets like ours, with intelligent lifeforms out there? NAS has been working with scientists across the country to answer that question. Erika Celeste caught up with one of them at the University of Notre Dame.
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Rock Band Kiss Promises ‘Unapologetic’ Final Tour
Members of the rock band Kiss said they are kicking off a farewell concert tour in January because they wanted to say goodbye while they could still deliver the over-the-top performances that have thrilled audiences over a 45-year career.
Known for their makeup, big hair and outrageous costumes, Kiss was among the biggest acts of the 1970s, coming out of the glam rock era with hits including “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
“How pathetic and sad would it be to see the band, and you’ve seen lots of them, (where) you remember their glory days and they’re out there a little bit too long,” said 69-year-old bassist and singer Gene Simmons.
“We have too much pride and self-respect in us, and too much love for our fans, to not live up to our self-imposed mandate,” he added. “You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world.”
The “End of the Road” tour will start Jan. 31 in Vancouver.
It is expected to last two to three years and extend around the world, Simmons said.
“Earth is a big place and we’re going to go to every corner,” he said.
Kiss has sold more than 100 million albums over its career.
It served as a predecessor to 1980s heavy metal acts such as Motley Crue. Kiss currently includes two original members – Simmons along with singer and guitarist Paul Stanley – plus guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer.
“I guarantee that the people who come that have never seen us before are going to say ‘Why did we wait so long?,'” 66-year-old Stanley said, “because this is going to be bombastic, explosive, unapologetic and a celebration of everything we’ve done.”
“The word ‘bittersweet’ doesn’t really enter into it,” he added. “For us, it’s a celebration. We want to go out on top while we can still do what we do.”
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Frank Underwood is Dead but Looms Large in Final ‘House of Cards’ Season
In the final season of Netflix’s “House of Cards,” Frank Underwood is physically gone, having died unexpectedly in his sleep. But the ghost of the win-at-all-costs politician played by Kevin Spacey haunts his wife and her young presidency.
Writers of the acclaimed drama had to rework the story after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct a year ago and dropped from the show that made Netflix a player in premium television.
The ending of the Underwoods’ story, which the producers called a “season of reckoning,” will be available on Netflix on Nov. 2.
At last season’s conclusion, Frank’s statuesque wife Claire, played by Robin Wright, looked into the camera and declared “my turn” as the power shifted and she became the first female U.S. president.
After Spacey’s departure, executive producers and writers Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson said everyone involved in the show felt they wanted to go ahead with a sixth and final season.
“What would it been like to actually rob her turn?” Pugliese said in an interview. “It seemed like an impossible, unacceptable way to end it that way.”
The eight new episodes do not dance around Frank’s absence.
The first episode reveals early on that he died in bed but makes the cause of his death the subject of an ongoing mystery.
“It would have felt really dishonest to try and erase him essentially as a character,” Gibson said. “I think that wouldn’t have honored the seeds of the show.”
Spacey was nominated for five Emmys for his “House of Cards” role. But last November, Netflix quickly cut ties with the actor after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. He has been accused by more than 20 men and has said nothing publicly about the allegations since an apology to the first accuser in October 2017.
Throughout the final “House of Cards” season, Claire is forced to constantly grapple with her late husband’s deals and the compromises she made with him.
“She is trying to carve out her own path and in doing so she has the opportunity and obligation to really face herself in a profound way,” Gibson said.
Claire also has to figure out who she can trust as the White House is destabilized with Frank out of picture, a scenario that provided the writers with rich story lines, they said.
“The circumstances became opportunities that I hope this season fulfills,” Pugliese said.
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