As Attack Drones Multiply, Israeli Firms Develop Defenses

09/26/2019 IT business 0

Israel, one of the pioneers of drone warfare, is now on the front lines of an arms race to protect against attacks by the unmanned aircraft.A host of Israeli companies have developed defense systems they say can detect or destroy incoming drones. But obstacles remain, particularly when operating in crowded urban airspaces.“Fighting these systems is really hard … not just because you need to detect them, but you also need to detect them everywhere and all the time,” said Ulrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations.Drones present unique challenges that set them apart from traditional airborne threats, such as missiles or warplanes.They can fly below standard military radar systems and use GPS technology to execute pinpoint attacks on sensitive targets for a fraction of the price of a fighter jet. They can also be deployed in “swarms,” which can trick or elude conventional defense systems. Even small off-the-shelf drones can be turned into weapons by rigging them with explosives or simply crashing them in crowded areas.A series of drone strikes across the Middle East, including an attack on a Saudi oil field and processing plant that jolted international markets earlier this month, have underscored the devastating effectiveness of small unmanned attack aircraft.The drone attack on Saudi energy infrastructure knocked out about half of the kingdom’s oil supplies.FILE – Ariel Gomez, a systems engineer works on the Popstar system that can track and identify flying objects day or night without being detected, at Israel Aerospace Industries, in the town of Yehud near Tel Aviv, Sept. 9, 2019.Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels claimed the attack, but the U.S. has blamed Iran itself, which is a leading developer of drone technology and is locked in a bitter rivalry with both Saudi Arabia and Israel.Similar drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry by the Houthis a month earlier caused a “limited fire.”Elsewhere in the region, Israeli warplanes last month struck what Israel said was an Iranian-trained Hezbollah squad that was preparing to launch a group of drones toward Israel from Syria. A day later, Hezbollah said two Israeli drones crashed outside the group’s offices in Beirut. Israeli media said the drone strike had destroyed valuable equipment used to make guided missiles.Earlier this month, the Israeli military said an unmanned aircraft crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip and dropped explosives on a military vehicle, causing minimal damage and no casualties. It was the second such attack from Gaza in the past year.These threats are not confined to the battlefield. London’s Gatwick Airport shut for parts of three days, stranding over 100,000 travelers ahead of Christmas last year, after drone sightings.Israel has long been a dominant player in the military drone export business, developing small attack aircraft as well as long-range spy planes. Now, Israeli firms are at the forefront of a global industry developing means to protect against the drone threat.“There is a lot of knowledge that was adapted from the area of unmanned aerial vehicles, which is something that the military had to deal with for a long, long time,” said Ben Nassi, a researcher at Israel’s Ben Gurion University specializing in drone threats.In a laboratory near Israel’s main international airport, Israel Aerospace Industries offered a glance at its new optical detection system: a black cube resembling a souped-up subwoofer that it says can spot a standard commercial drone from several miles (kilometers) away.The state-owned company says the Popstar system can track and identify flying objects day or night without being detected. Developers say the system, which has already been field tested by the Israeli military, can differentiate threats from standard civilian aircraft with an advanced algorithm.“On a daily basis we see these small-scale threats, such as drones, that can tie up a whole airport and shut down the entire air traffic,” said Ariel Gomez, a systems engineer at IAI who worked on the new drone detection platform.“Our system can discern from several kilometers away any threat that approaches,” he said.Popstar focuses on protecting fixed, high-value targets like airports or energy infrastructure. Experts say it is much more difficult to use the technology in crowded urban environments, where heavy air traffic and high-rise buildings can create confusion and obstacles.“Most of the industry is actually targeting the threats in a no-fly area,” said Nassi. “When it comes to populated areas, law enforcement has much more difficulties to understand whether a drone is being used maliciously or not.”Israeli company Vorpal says it has found a partial solution to these challenges by developing a system that can detect and track virtually all commercial UAVs in urban airspaces.Avner Turniansky, Vorpal’s vice president of strategy, said the company has compiled a database of signals — what it calls the “signature” — emitted by 95% of drones on the market.With these signatures, it says it can identify a drone — and locate its operator — within two seconds. Customers can track these aircraft and determine whether they pose a threat.He said the system has a range of several kilometers, but still has some limitations. If an operator is flying a commercial drone whose signal hasn’t been previously collected, it won’t be identified. The system would also struggle to identify sophisticated drones built by hostile governments, since those signatures are likely unknown.Still, he said the system can track “the vast majority” of popular drones on the market.He said the firm has conducted several successful tests with the New York Police Department and counts Israel’s national police force and the Defense Ministry as customers. During this year’s Eurovision song contest in Tel Aviv, he said police caught more than 20 operators who were flying drones in no-fly zones.According to Israel’s Economy Ministry, UAV exports topped $4.6 billion between 2005 and 2013, around 10% of the country’s defense exports.Over a dozen Israeli firms presented cutting-edge anti-drone technologies at London’s DSEI exhibition this month, from defense heavyweights Elbit Systems, Raphael and Israel Aerospace Industries, to smaller start-ups like Vorpal. They are part of a booming global industry with competitors from the U.S., Europe, Singapore, and China.Anti-drone defenses fall into several categories. Detection systems usually rely on either radio or optical technology to spot incoming drones.Other systems can stop the aircraft with jammers that down aircraft by scrambling communications, kinetic systems that try to knock the craft out of the sky or systems that allow authorities to seize control of an aircraft.But for now, none of these systems can provide full protection.“It’s a nasty target. It’s a problem,” said Turniansky. “It’s going to be cat and mouse for a while.” 

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McDonald’s Takes a Nibble of the Plant-based Burger

09/26/2019 Science 0

McDonald’s is finally taking a nibble of the plant-based burger.In a very limited test in Canada, McDonald’s said Thursday that it’s introducing the PLT, or the plant, lettuce and tomato burger. It will be available for 12 weeks in 28 restaurants in Southwestern Ontario by the end of the month.The limited test is rolling out about six months after rival Burger King began testing the plant-based Impossible burger, which no surprise, is a rival to Beyond Meat. It’s now selling those burgers nationwide.Meat alternatives are being introduced across the fast food sector. KFC last month said it’s testing plant-based chicken nuggets and boneless wings at an Atlanta restaurant in partnership with Beyond Meat.Before the opening bell Thursday, shares of Beyond Meat Inc. soared 11%.

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Scientists Enlist Bacteria to Help Fight Dengue Virus

09/26/2019 Science 0

It’s been a bad year for dengue fever, a painful, debilitating virus that is surging in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Vietnam and other nations.  There is no cure for dengue, which is spread by mosquitos. However, scientists are enlisting a bacteria in the fight against dengue because they think will make it harder for mosquitos to spread the often deadly dengue virus. VOA’s Jim Randle has our story.
 

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Source: US Justice Department to Open Facebook Antitrust Investigation

09/26/2019 IT business 0

The U.S. Justice Department will open an antitrust investigation of Facebook Inc., a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday.It will mark the fourth recent investigation of the social media company, which also faces probes by the Federal Trade Commission, a group of state attorneys general led by New York and the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.Reuters and others reported in June the agencies had divided up the companies being investigated, with Justice taking Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc., while the FTC looked at Facebook and Amazon.com Inc.The Justice Department later said it was opening a probe of online platforms without saying which ones. This led some industry observers to question whether the two federal investigations would overlap.Lawmakers, in particular Sen. Mike Lee, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, criticized the appearance of an overlap in a hearing last week.The agencies generally have a practice of meeting to decide who will investigate which matter but the FTC cannot probe certain matters, for example price-fixing.

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After NYC Visit, Looted Coffin of Ancient Egyptian Priest Goes Home

09/26/2019 Arts 0

The gilded coffin of a high-ranking ancient Egyptian priest, which had been buried, looted and illegally sold before going on public display at a New York museum, was returned Wednesday to Egyptian authorities. The coffin of Nedjemankh, which dates to the first century B.C., came to New York two years ago by way of a global art underground network before being sold to an unwitting Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4 million, authorities said. “Thus far our investigation has determined that this coffin is just one of hundreds of antiquities stolen by the same multinational trafficking ring,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said at a repatriation ceremony. “So, you may well see a few more significant seizures,” he added. Vance credited his office’s two-year-old Antiquities Trafficking Unit with untangling a web of forged documents to track down the coffin’s true origin. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. greet each other during a news conference to announce the return of the gold coffin of Nedjemankh to the people of Egypt, in New York City, Sept. 25, 2019.The unit focuses on the high-powered New York art world, with its museums, galleries and auction houses, much the same as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team does on a national scale. The highly ornamented coffin had been buried in Egypt for 2,000 years before it was stolen from the country’s Minya region after the political upheaval of October 2011, authorities said. From there, it went on an underworld odyssey through the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France and New York, they said. After it had been on display for six months, agents for the district attorney’s office presented the Metropolitan Museum of Art with evidence early this year that its ownership history documents, including one that suggested the coffin had been exported from Egypt in 1971, were forgeries. The museum announced last February that it had been defrauded when it bought the coffin and was cooperating with the district attorney’s investigation. The coffin, which is inscribed with the name Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef of Herakleopolis, will now go back to Egypt, where it will be put on display next year, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Hassan Shoukry said. “This is not only for Egyptians but this is for our common human heritage and our sense that we all share in the values and we all are one of the same international family,” Shoukry said at the repatriation ceremony. 

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Amazon Unveils New Alexa Gadgets

09/25/2019 IT business 0

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a cornucopia of new gadgets as it extended the reach of Alexa from automobiles and homes essentially into people’s heads. 
 
Amazon digital aide Alexa vies with Google Assistant software to be at the heart of smart homes where lights, security systems, televisions and more are controlled with spoken commands. 
 
While the Seattle-based technology titan has worked with partners to get Alexa built into 85,000 devices, it also expanded the lineup of hardware it creates itself:Echo Frames are eyeglass frames with microphones built in to listen for commands, plus speakers that channel audio directly into the ears for just wearers to hear. The frames, which can be used for prescription lenses, have no camera or display capabilities. 
 
Echo Frames are available on an invitation-only basis and are priced at $180. The Echo Loop is a ring worn on a finger that can be used to interact with Alexa digital assistant using taps or swipes. The smart ring is available by invitation only and priced at $130. Echo Buds are wireless earbuds infused with Alexa digital assistant smarts but that synch to smartphones, where they can work with Google Assistant or Apple Siri software. Echo Buds are priced at $130. Echo Studio is a smart speaker with five directional speakers and sophisticated software for premium sound quality and Alexa digital assistant controls built in. It’s priced at $200. Additions to the Echo smart speaker lineup included an improved basic model for $100, a plug-in Echo Flex device for $25, and an Echo Dot with an illuminated clock for $60 because users so often ask the time. An Echo Show 8 will offer a smart display with an eight-inch screen for $130. 

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17 States Sue Trump Administration Over Changes to Endangered Species Act  

09/25/2019 Science 0

The attorneys general from 17 U.S. states have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over rule changes that weakened the Endangered Species Act.Led by California, Maryland, and Massachusetts, the coalition of states filed the suit Wednesday in a federal court in San Francisco.  It follows a lawsuit filed last month by seven environmental and animal rights groups.California Attorney General Xavier Becerra responds to a lawmakers question during during his confirmation hearing, Jan. 10, 2017.”As we face the unprecedented threat of a climate emergency, now is the time to strengthen our planet’s biodiversity, not to destroy it,”  California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “The only thing we want to see extinct are the beastly policies of the Trump administration putting our ecosystems in critical danger.”The changes introduced by the Trump administration include requiring consideration of economic cost when deciding whether to save a species from extinction. The law currently says the cost to logging or oil interests will have no bearing on whether an animal or other species deserves protection.The revised regulations would also end blanket protection for a species listed as threatened — a designation that is one step away from declaring it endangered — and reduce some wildlife habitat.Conservation and wildlife groups call the changes U.S. President Donald Trump’s gift to logging, ranching, and oil industries, saying they take a bulldozer through protections for America’s most vulnerable wildlife.FILE – US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross listens during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 16, 2019, in Washington.But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has defended the changes as fitting “within the president’s mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public without sacrificing our species’ protection and recovery goals.”Environmentalists credit the 1973 Endangered Species Act with saving numerous animals, plants, and other species from extinction.About 1,600 species are currently protected by the act and the administration says streamlining regulations is the best way to ensure they will stay protected.Republican President Richard Nixon signed the act into law in 1973 as part of the response to the new environmental awareness sweeping the country in the early 1970s, which included Earth Day and the Clear Water and Air acts.

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Juul Labs to Stop Advertising E-Cigarettes Amid Backlash

09/25/2019 Science 0

The nation’s largest e-cigarette maker will stop advertising its devices in the U.S. and replace its chief executive as mysterious breathing illnesses and an explosion in teen vaping have triggered efforts to crack down on the largely unregulated industry.Juul Labs and other e-cigarette makers are fighting to survive as they face backlash from two public health debacles. Federal and state officials have seized on the recent outbreak of lung illnesses — including nine reported deaths — to push through restrictions designed to curb underage vaping.No major e-cigarette brand has been tied to the ailments, including Juul, which said it won’t fight a Trump administration proposal for a sweeping ban on e-cigarette flavors that can appeal to teens.Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, left, speaks as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo listens during a press conference, Sept. 25, 2019, in Hartford, Conn.Governors in Michigan and New York moved to outlaw vaping flavors this month, while Massachusetts said Tuesday that it will ban all vaping products for four months, the first such step in the country.“I think this rush to judgment is extraordinary, and we might be looking at the demise of vaping,” said Kenneth Warner, professor emeritus at University of Michigan’s school of public health.Warner and some other experts believe vaping has the potential to dramatically reduce the deadly toll of traditional cigarettes among adult smokers. But he said Juul made “enormous mistakes” in its early advertising campaigns, which featured young models, bright colors and youth-oriented catchphrases.E-cigarettes have been largely unregulated since arriving in the U.S. in 2007. The Food and Drug Administration has set next May as a deadline for manufacturers to submit their products for review.Exempt from restrictions on traditional tobacco marketing, Juul until now has advertised its e-cigarettes in print, TV, radio and online. It’s also replacing its CEO with a senior executive from Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes that paid $13 billion for a 35% stake in Juul in December.The new chief, K.C. Crosthwaite, said in a statement that Juul has long focused on providing adult smokers with alternatives but recognized that there’s “unacceptable levels of youth usage and eroding public confidence in our industry.”Health experts generally consider e-cigarettes less harmful than traditional cigarettes because they don’t contain all the cancer-causing byproducts of burning tobacco. But there’s virtually no long-term research on the health effects of the vapor produced when e-cigarettes heat a liquid with nicotine.File – In this June 17, 2019, file photo, a cashier displays a packet of tobacco-flavored Juul pods at a store in San Francisco.Health officials are investigating hundreds of recent cases of the lung illness. Many patients said they vaped THC, marijuana’s intoxicating chemical, with bootleg devices, but officials have not yet implicated any common product or ingredient.Meanwhile, underage vaping has reached epidemic levels, health officials say. In a government survey, more than 1 in 4 high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month despite federal law banning sales to those under 18.Former FDA commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, cautioned that the illnesses and teen vaping are separate problems that will likely require unique solutions.“I think conflating the two is risky because it might force us down the wrong path,” said Gottlieb, who stepped down in April.He said banning legal e-cigarettes could push users toward riskier, illicit vapes.Vaping opponents met Juul’s changes with skepticism.“Juul’s announcement today is aimed at repairing its image and protecting its profits, not at solving this crisis,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “Policymakers must stand up to Juul and protect our kids by banning flavored e-cigarettes.”Juul devices went on sale in 2015, and the company quickly propelled itself to the top of the market with a combination of high-nicotine pods, dessert and fruit flavors, and viral marketing. The San Francisco company now controls roughly 70% of the U.S. e-cigarette market.In the last year, Juul tried to reposition itself as a brand for middle-age smokers looking to wean themselves off cigarettes. But the FDA warned the company this month that its product hasn’t yet been approved to help smokers quit.Juul has tried to head off a crackdown with a series of voluntary steps, including halting retail sales of several flavors and shutting down its social media presence. But political pressure has only increased.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Sept. 16, 2019.The company faces multiple investigations from Congress, several federal agencies and state attorneys general. President Donald Trump said this month that the government will move to ban thousands of flavors.“We must strive to work with regulators, policymakers and other stakeholders, and earn the trust of the societies in which we operate,” Crosthwaite said in a statement.He was chief growth officer for tobacco giant Altria and replaces Juul’s CEO, Kevin Burns.Altria and Philip Morris International said Wednesday that they were calling off merger talks a month after floating a deal that would have created the world’s largest tobacco company.Altria’s stake in Juul was considered a key factor in the deal, which would have given the e-cigarette maker access to Philip Morris’ global network and resources.Tim Hubbard of University of Notre Dame said Juul has “failed spectacularly” in managing the public perception of its e-cigarettes.“Bringing in a traditional tobacco executive who knows how to market and manage government relationships with deadly products matches the firm’s needs,” Hubbard said in an email.                   

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Literature, Short Films Created for Mobile Devices Hooks 50 Million Subscribers

09/25/2019 IT business 0

A tech company is offering literature and short films created specifically for mobile devices. They already have 50 million monthly subscribers. Deana Mitchell tunes in.

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Former US College Football Player Home From Prison in China

09/25/2019 Arts 0

Former college football player and American citizen Wendell Brown says he is enjoying his “freedom” at home in Michigan after being imprisoned in China for his involvement in a bar fight.Brown told The Associated Press on Wednesday at his family’s Detroit home that people “don’t really understand that word to its fullest extent” until they’re without it or “in a cage.”Brown, who played for Ball State University in Indiana, was teaching English and American football in southwest China when he was arrested in September 2016 and charged with intentional assault. The Detroit native denied hitting a man and said he was defending himself after being attacked.Brown was sentenced to four years in prison, but that was reduced to three years by a Chinese court. He returned to Detroit on Wednesday.
 

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UN Report Warns Much of Humanity Threatened by Global Warming

09/25/2019 Science 0

A United Nations special report warns much of humanity is threatened by global warming’s devastating impact on oceans and frozen regions of Earth.The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that climate change is accelerating ocean warming, rising sea levels, melting ice sheets and glaciers and causing other related environmental problems.
 
The report, released Wednesday, further warns if global warming does not slow down sea levels will rise by nearly a meter by the end of the century. Such an occurrence would result in fewer fish, less snow and ice and more powerful hurricanes and El Nino systems.The report looks at the impact of human-driven climate change on glaciers, tundra, and on our oceans.”It documents the ways in which the ocean has been acting as a sponge, absorbing carbon dioxide and heat to regulate the temperature. But it can’t keep up,” said IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barrett “Taken together, these changes show the world’s ocean and cryosphere have been taking the heat for climate change for decades.  The consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe.”This is the third major IPCC report in a year on the impact of climate change. Its release comes after millions of people worldwide staged a climate strike last week, demanding urgent action, and after a U.N. climate summit in New York, which critics claim was more words than deeds.Climatologist Hans-Otto Porter, one of the report’s authors, says some tipping points have already been crossed.“Just think about the warm water and the coral reefs, which are already in decline and which are surpassing their tolerance threshold with every exposure to a heatwave,”  he said.But the bigger message is more hopeful: it’s still possible to turn things around. .“There are many regions of the world, cities, countries, where action is being taken. It shows you can build development, improve the well-being of people, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” French climate scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte said.But the scientists say action must be swift and on a global level to be effective, and only if the global temperature rise stays well below 2 degrees Celsius 

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New Climate report: Oceans Rising Faster, Ice Melting More

09/25/2019 Science 0

Due to climate change, the world’s oceans are getting warmer, rising higher, losing oxygen and becoming more acidic at an ever-faster pace and melting even more ice and snow, a grim international science assessment concludes.But that’s nothing compared to what Wednesday’s special United Nations-affiliated oceans and ice report says is coming if global warming doesn’t slow down: three feet of sea rise by the end of the century, many fewer fish, weakening ocean currents, even less snow and ice, stronger and wetter hurricanes and nastier El Nino weather systems.“The oceans and the icy parts of the world are in big trouble and that means we’re all in big trouble too,” said one of the report’s lead authors, Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “The changes are accelerating.”Even if warming is limited to just another couple of tenths of a degree, the world’s warm water coral reefs will go extinct in some places and be dramatically different in others, the report said.“We are already seeing the demise of the warm water coral reefs,” Portner said. “That is one of the strongest warning signals that we have available.”The report gives projections based on different scenarios for emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. One is a world that dramatically decreases carbon pollution — and the worst case is where little has been done. We are closer to the worst-case situation, scientists said.Outside scientists praised the work but were disturbed by it.“It is alarming to read such a thorough cataloging of all of the serious changes in the planet that we’re driving,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who wasn’t part of the report. “What’s particularly disturbing as a scientist is that virtually all of these changes were predicted years or decades ago.”The report’s authors emphasized that it doesn’t doom Earth to this gloomy outlook.“We indicate we have a choice. Whether we go into a grim future depends on the decisions that are being made,” Portner said. “We have a better future ahead of us once we make the right choice.”“These far-reaching consequences can only be brought under control by acute emissions reductions,” Portner said.

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Hooked: New App Offers Literature, Short Films Created for Mobile Devices

09/25/2019 IT business 0

A tech company is offering literature and short films created specifically for mobile devices. They already have 50 million monthly subscribers. Deana Mitchell tunes in.

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Experts Say No Reason to Fear AI Will Cut Jobs

09/25/2019 IT business 0

The growing use of artificial intelligence and automation in work places is creating challenges as well as benefits for businesses, institutions and the government.  A congressional panel on Tuesday discussed the impact of artificial intelligence on American workers and the future of their jobs. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

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Zimbabwe’s Capital Runs Dry as Taps Cut Off for 2M People

09/25/2019 Science 0

Tempers flared on Tuesday as more than 2 million residents of Zimbabwe’s capital and surrounding towns found themselves without water after authorities shut down the main treatment plant, raising new fears about disease after a cholera outbreak while the economy crumbles even more.Officials in Harare have struggled to raise foreign currency to import water treatment chemicals; about $2.7 million is needed per month. Meanwhile, water levels in polluted reservoirs are dropping because of drought.For residents who have seen shortages of everything from medicines to bread to petrol in recent months, the latest indignity brought weariness and disgust.”The toilets at school are just too filthy, people continue using them yet there is no water,” said 12-year-old Dylan Kaitano, who was among many uniformed school children waiting in line at wells, some shoving in impatience. “I didn’t go to school today because I have to be here.”Everyone living in Harare is affected, City Council spokesman Michael Chideme said, as residents turned to other options such as bottled water. He called it a dangerous situation because of the risk of water-borne diseases. “It is a desperate situation,” Deputy Mayor Enock Mupamaonde told The Associated Press outside the closed treatment plant. And more people are affected than thought, he said, estimating that another 2 million non-residents enter the city each day to use its services and conduct business. At the Chivero reservoir, the city’s main water supply, plastic bottles, vehicle tires and algae floated in the shallow water which was green and emitted a choking, foul smell.Zimbabwe’s capital now frequently records cases of diseases such as typhoid due to water shortages and dilapidated sewer infrastructure. Some residents for months have been forced to get water from shallow, unsafe wells and defecate in the open, while children pick their way across fetid yards. The AP earlier this month watched some residents pump water then wait a half-hour for enough water to seep into a well to pump again.”We are suffering,” said Gladys Mupemhi, a resident of the low-income Kuwadzana suburb who said some people woke up at 4 a.m. on Tuesday to wait for hours in line. “We are only allowed a maximum of 20 liters of water per person, what can I do with 20 liters?”Claudius Madondo, chairman of the residents association controlling the line, said nearby wells were no longer functioning, forcing the rationing. Some of the people waiting heckled him.”Nothing is working in this country, how do we survive?” Hatineyi Kamwanda, another resident, said. “We can’t even use the toilets, the children are not going to school because of this and now we fear cholera is going to hit us again.””The president should treat us as human beings, we voted for him,” Kamwanda added.Twenty-six people died last year in a cholera outbreak, leading President Emmerson Mnangagwa to express dismay that Zimbabweans were suffering from a “medieval” disease.The economic and social pressures follow Mnangagwa as he attends the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders this week.Zimbabwe once was a bright spot in southern Africa and a regional breadbasket but the economy has collapsed in recent years, and foreign currency is hard to come by. Prices for many basic items continue to rise, and the public health care system falters as some doctors and others say they can hardly afford the commute to work.As services largely collapse, many Harare residents in recent months have found themselves lining up at wells in the middle of the night for water or lighting their homes by candle or mobile phone. The deepening frustrations have exploded more than once into protests that have swiftly been followed by sometimes violent government crackdowns. More than 50 government critics and activists have been abducted in Zimbabwe this year, at times tortured and warned by suspected state security agents to back off from anti-government actions. The government over the weekend warned against what it calls “fake” abductions it asserts are meant to make it look bad.One abducted woman was forced to drink raw sewage, Human Rights Watch said – a rare example of something that exasperated Harare residents now have in surplus.

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Ethiopian Photographer Spotlights Impact of Water Scarcity on Women

09/25/2019 Arts 0

A collection of striking photographs set in the arid landscapes of northern Ethiopia aims to spotlight the harsh reality of water scarcity and how it impacts the lives of women across Africa, said artist Star shine, moon glow from Water Life collection by Aida Muluneh commissioned by WaterAid and supported by H&M Foundation. (Courtesy: Aida Muluneh/WaterAid)”Through art and creativity, we can also advocate by working on projects such as ‘Water Life’ which address societal issues, but do not perpetuate negative stereotypes of the continent,” she said.”We’re bombarded with images of suffering and strife from Africa. So for me, it was just about using a different way to engage an audience in issue of water scarcity and the strength of the women that deal with this issue daily.”Muluneh said working on the project, which involved four days of shooting in Afar’s Dallol region – one of the hottest and driest places on earth – had been an exhausting, yet rewarding experience.”The landscapes – deserts and volcanic mountains – are greatly inspirational, and are a photographer’s dream. But the conditions are not exactly comfortable. It’s really hot,” she said.”But to me, if we’re talking about issues of water, I wanted to go to a place that was quite dry and also meet with communities there because the resilience of these communities who live in these conditions is quite amazing.”The exhibition, which is also supported by the H&M Foundation, will be on display at Somerset House in London until Oct. 20. 

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A Spoonful Less Sugar, Tad More Fat: US Diets Still Lacking

09/25/2019 Science 0

Americans’ diets are a little less sweet and a little crunchier but there’s still too much sugar, white bread and artery-clogging fat, a study suggests.Overall, the authors estimated there was a modest improvement over 16 years on the government’s healthy eating index, from estimated scores of 56 to 58. That’s hardly cause for celebration – 100 is the top score.Diets are still too heavy on foods that can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other prevalent U.S. health problems, said co-author Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University near Boston.The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The results are from an analysis of U.S. government health surveys from 1999 to 2016 involving nearly 44,000 adults.”Despite observed improvements,” the authors wrote, “important dietary challenges” remain. Among them: Getting Americans to cut down on snack foods, hot dogs, fatty beef, butter and other foods containing saturated fats. The study found these unhealthy fats increased from 11.5% to almost 12% of daily calories, above the recommended 10% limit.And while the biggest change was a small drop in added sugars, from about 16% to roughly 14%, that’s still too high. The government says less than 10% of daily calories should come from added sugars. Researchers think fewer sweetened sodas contributed to the decline, but Zhang noted added sugars are often found in foods that don’t even seem sweet, including some yogurts and tomato sauce.Fruits, nuts, oatmeal and other whole grains are among the types of foods adults ate slightly more of. Still, each of those contributed to less than 5% of daily calories in 2016, the study found.Salt intake dipped slightly and a small decline in fruit juice contributed to a drop in low-quality carbs. But these still amount to 42% of daily calories, including many likely from highly processed white bread and other refined grains, Zhang said.The study is based on in-person health surveys conducted every two years that ask adults to recall what foods they ate in the previous 24 hours. Starting in 2003, adults were asked that question twice several days apart.The study lists food groups rather than individual foods; for example “whole grains,” not oatmeal, and “refined grains,” not white bread but Zhang said those two foods are among the most common grains in the U.S. diet.U.S. dietary guidelines recommend a “healthy eating pattern” to reduce chances of developing chronic disease. The focus should be on nutrient-dense foods including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy products; plus varied proteins sources including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs nuts and seeds, the recommendations say.   During the study years, U.S. diabetes rates almost doubled, to more than 7%; obesity rates increased during many of those years, with about 70% of U.S. adults now overweight or obese. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death.Besides continued public health efforts, “Cooperation from the food industry” is key, a journal editorial said, including by reducing sugar, salt and saturated fats in foods.

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Robert Hunter, Grateful Dead’s Poetic Lyricist, Dead at 78

09/25/2019 Arts 0

Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the Grateful Dead’s finest songs, has died at age 78.Hunter died Monday at his Northern California home with his wife, Maureen, at his side, former Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The family did not release a cause of death.FILE – Mickey Hart poses at the premiere of “Long Strange Trip,” a documentary about the Grateful Dead rock group, during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 23, 2017, in Park City, Utah.”We loved Bob Hunter and will miss him unimaginably,” Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart said, adding the lyricist was “a visionary wordsmith extraordinaire.”Although proficient on a number of instruments including guitar, violin, cello and trumpet, Hunter never appeared on stage with the Grateful Dead during the group’s 30-year run that ended with the 1995 death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, his principal songwriting partner.When he did attend the group’s concerts, he was content to either stand to the side of the stage or, better yet, sit anonymously in the audience. It was in the latter location, he told The Associated Press in 2006, that he received his greatest songwriting compliment, from a man who had no idea who he was.”He turned to me during ‘Cumberland Blues’ and said, ‘I wonder what the guy who wrote that song a hundred years ago would think if he knew the Grateful Dead was doing it,'” he recalled, referencing the colorful tale of hardscrabble American miners.Other of Hunter’s most memorable Grateful Dead songs include “It Must Have Been the Roses,” “Terrapin Station,” “The Days Between,” “Brown Eyed Women,” “Jack Straw,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Box of Rain,” “Uncle John’s Band” and “Black Muddy River.”Although the man who spoke to him during “Cumberland Blues” couldn’t know it, he had perfectly captured Hunter’s songwriting brilliance contained in all of those songs: the ability to craft lyrics that sounded so timeless that listeners were certain they had heard them before. It was a skill he matched seamlessly with a boundless knowledge of subjects running the gamut from classic literature to street life, which in turn allowed him to write authoritatively about everyone from card sharks and hustlers to poor dirt farmers and free-spirited lovers.FILE – Bob Dylan performs in Los Angeles, Jan. 12, 2012.All of those stories he seasoned with a poetic skill some would say rivaled even that of Bob Dylan, with whom he sometimes collaborated”He’s got a way with words and I do too,” Dylan told Rolling Stone magazine in 2009. “We both write a different type of song than what passes today for songwriting.””There was nobody like Bob Hunter and there never will be,” Hart said Tuesday. “He explained the unexplainable and the words struck deep.””Truckin’,” arguably Hunter and the group’s best known song (and the one containing the memorable line, “What a long, strange trip it’s been”) was designated a national treasure in 1997 by the Library of Congress.In more than a dozen verses it chronicled the travails of a touring band, among them the Grateful Dead’s 1970 drug bust after a show in New Orleans: “Busted, down on Bourbon Street. Set up, like a bowlin’ pin. Knocked down. It gets to wearin’ thin.”Another song, “Ripple,” which was set to a maddening beautiful melody that Garcia composed on guitar, contains the lines Hunter once said he was most proud of: “Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty. If your cup is full, may it be again. Let it be known there is a fountain. That was not made by the hands of men.”Honoree Robert Hunter performing at the 46th Annual Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis, June 18, 2015, in New York.Once asked by The Associated Press who his influences were, he laughed and replied that, “just to throw people off,” he would often cite both the great 19th century theatrical songwriting team of Gilbert and Sullivan and the American folk music balladeer Woody Guthrie.After a moment’s reflection, he added more seriously, “Actually, that’s pretty close to the truth.”Other influencers included novelists James Joyce, John Steinbeck and Hans Christian Andersen, musician Josh White and the traditional European ballads published by American folklorist Francis James Child.Born Robert Burns on June 23, 1941, Hunter was 7 when his father abandoned him and his mother, resulting in his spending several years in foster homes. It was an experience he said scarred him emotionally and left him feeling forever the outsider.When he was 11, his mother married McGraw-Hill publishing executive Norman Hunter, who gave the boy a new last name and an appreciation for such peerless writers as William Saroyan and T.S. Elliot.Hunter toyed with becoming a novelist himself but music called and by his senior year of high school he was playing trumpet in a fusion Dixieland-rock band. He attended the University of Connecticut for one year where he studied drama, became a Pete Seeger fan and turned his interest to folk music.Jerry Garcia, leader of the legendary group,The Grateful Dead, works with his guitar, May 8, 1979.He met Garcia in 1960 at a production of the musical “Damn Yankees,” introduced by a former girlfriend who by then was Garcia’s first wife. The pair quickly formed a folk music duo called Bob and Jerry.Both homeless for a time, they lived out of their cars, parking them side-by-side in a Palo Alto, California, vacant lot. They survived those days, both would say later, by eating tins of pineapple Hunter had pilfered from a military installation during his brief time in the National Guard.Hunter had moved to New Mexico by the time Garcia, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan had formed the Grateful Dead. Hart would join soon after.When Garcia asked him to send some lyrics along that could be set to music Hunter quickly responded with future Grateful Dead classics “China Cat Sunflower” and “St. Stephen.” Garcia then asked him to return to the San Francisco Bay Area and write for the band.Eventually Hunter would write for all of the group’s members, and when the Grateful Dead was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 he was included as the lyricist.He and Garcia were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.Over the years Hunter also released nearly a dozen albums of his own, published several volumes of poetry and co-wrote songs with Dylan. He also published two books translating the works of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.”Bob was an intellectual and I can’t tell you that there are a lot of intellectuals in the rock and roll business. But Bob was an intellectual,” longtime friend Barry “The Fish” Melton of Country Joe and the Fish said by phone from Paris Tuesday.Hunter’s survivors include his wife and daughter Kate.

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Amazon Launches Initiative to Bundle Virtual Assistants on Single Device

09/25/2019 IT business 0

Amazon.com has launched an initiative that would allow users to access its Alexa, Microsoft Corp’s Cortana and multiple other voice-controlled virtual assistant services from a single device.The move comes as competition has intensified among global technology companies to dominate the market for voice assistants, which are commonly housed in smart speakers and mobile devices.The notable exclusions from Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative are Alphabet’s Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Samsung Electronics’ Bixby.Google was approached by Amazon but only over the weekend, giving it a very small time frame to evaluate the proposal, a source familiar with the matter said.”We just heard about this initiative and would need to review the details, but in general we’re always interested in participating in efforts that have the broad support of the ecosystem and uphold strong privacy and security practices,” a Google spokesperson said.More than 30 companiesThe initiative, which has been supported by more than 30 companies, also includes Salesforce.com’s Einstein.Chip companies including Intel, Qualcomm , MediaTek and NXP Semiconductors NV will develop the related hardware, Amazon said.Spotify, Tencent, Baidu, BMW, Bose, Harman, Orange, Sonos, Sony Audio Group are also supporting the partnership.Microsoft and Amazon have collaborated in the past. The two companies two years ago announced that their voice assistants will be able to talk to each other, a rare move in itself as most virtual assistants are known to use data from their own ecosystems and not talk to one another.

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Placido Domingo Pulls Out of Met Opera While Disputing Sexual Misconduct Accusations

09/25/2019 Arts 0

Opera singer Placido Domingo on Tuesday dropped out of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York while disputing accusations of sexual misconduct leveled by several women in the classical music world.Domingo, one of the world’s leading tenors, was due to appear in “Macbeth” on Wednesday. He also suggested he would never perform at the Met again.”While I strongly dispute recent allegations made about me, and I am concerned about a climate in which people are condemned without due process, upon reflection, I believe that my appearance in this production of Macbeth would distract from the hard work of my colleagues both on stage and behind the scenes.As a result, I have asked to withdraw and I thank the leadership of the Met for graciously granting my request,” the Spanish singer said in a statement.”I am happy that, at the age of 78, I was able to sing the wonderful title role in the dress rehearsal of Macbeth, which I consider my last performance on the Met stage,” he added.More than three dozen singers, dancers, musicians, voice teachers and backstage staff have said in the past month that they had witnessed or experienced inappropriate behavior by the singer at different opera houses over the last three decades.

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Bill Cosby Hit With $2.75M Legal Bill After Losing Dispute

09/25/2019 Arts 0

Bill Cosby has been hit with a $2.75 million legal bill as he marks the end of his first year in prison.The 82-year-old Cosby had challenged a California arbitration award that upheld nearly $7 million of a $9 million bill submitted by just one firm in the run-up to his first sexual assault trial in Pennsylvania in 2017.A judge sided Friday with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, of Los Angeles, rejecting Cosby’s claim that the bill was “egregious.”Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt isn’t commenting on the fee dispute.But he says the actor is holding up well in a suburban Philadelphia prison, mentoring other inmates as he marks a year in prison Wednesday.Cosby is serving three to 10 years for drugging and molesting a woman in 2004. The Pennsylvania Superior Court is weighing his appeal of the 2018 conviction.

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Coral Gardeners Bring Back Jamaica’s Reefs, Piece by Piece

09/24/2019 Science 0

Everton Simpson squints at the Caribbean from his motorboat, scanning the dazzling bands of color for hints of what lies beneath. Emerald green indicates sandy bottoms. Sapphire blue lies above seagrass meadows. And deep indigo marks coral reefs. That’s where he’s headed.He steers the boat to an unmarked spot that he knows as the “coral nursery.” “It’s like a forest under the sea,” he says, strapping on blue flippers and fastening his tank before tipping backward into the azure waters. He swims down 25 feet (7.6 meters) carrying a pair of metal shears, fishing line and a plastic crate.On the ocean floor, small coral fragments dangle from suspended ropes, like socks hung on a laundry line. Simpson and other divers tend to this underwater nursery as gardeners mind a flower bed — slowly and painstakingly plucking off snails and fireworms that feast on immature coral.Diver Everton Simpson plants staghorn coral harvested from a coral nursery inside the White River Fish Sanctuary in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Feb. 12, 2019.When each stub grows to about the size of a human hand, Simpson collects them in his crate to individually “transplant” onto a reef, a process akin to planting each blade of grass in a lawn separately.Even fast-growing coral species add just a few inches a year. And it’s not possible to simply scatter seeds.A few hours later, at a site called Dickie’s Reef, Simpson dives again and uses bits of fishing line to tie clusters of staghorn coral onto rocky outcroppings — a temporary binding until the coral’s limestone skeleton grows and fixes itself onto the rock. The goal is to jumpstart the natural growth of a coral reef. And so far, it’s working.Almost everyone in Jamaica depends on the sea, including Simpson, who lives in a modest house he built himself near the island’s northern coast. The energetic 68-year-old has reinvented himself several times, but always made a living from the ocean.Once a spear fisherman and later a scuba-diving instructor, Simpson started working as a “coral gardener” two years ago — part of grassroots efforts to bring Jamaica’s coral reefs back from the brink.’Rainforests of the sea’Coral reefs are often called “rainforests of the sea” for the astonishing diversity of life they shelter.Just 2% of the ocean floor is filled with coral, but the branching structures — shaped like everything from reindeer antlers to human brains — sustain a quarter of all marine species. Clown fish, parrotfish, groupers and snappers lay eggs and hide from predators in the reef’s nooks and crannies, and their presence draws eels, sea snakes, octopuses and even sharks. In healthy reefs, jellyfish and sea turtles are regular visitors.With fish and coral, it’s a codependent relationship — the fish rely upon the reef structure to evade danger and lay eggs, and they also eat up the coral’s rivals.Life on the ocean floor is like a slow-motion competition for space, or an underwater game of musical chairs. Tropical fish and other marine animals, like black sea urchins, munch on fast-growing algae and seaweed that may otherwise outcompete the slow-growing coral for space. When too many fish disappear, the coral suffers — and vice-versa.After a series of natural and man-made disasters in the 1980s and 1990s, Jamaica lost 85% of its once-bountiful coral reefs. Meanwhile, fish catches declined to a sixth of what they had been in the 1950s, pushing families that depend on seafood closer to poverty. Many scientists thought that most of Jamaica’s coral reef had been permanently replaced by seaweed, like jungle overtaking a ruined cathedral.But today, the corals and tropical fish are slowly reappearing, thanks in part to a series of careful interventions.Restoring reefsThe delicate labor of the coral gardener is only one part of restoring a reef — and for all its intricacy, it’s actually the most straightforward part. Convincing lifelong fishermen to curtail when and where they fish and controlling the surging waste dumped into the ocean are trickier endeavors.Still, slowly, the comeback effort is gaining momentum.”The coral are coming back; the fish are coming back,” says Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “It’s probably some of the most vibrant coral reefs we’ve seen in Jamaica since the 1970s.””When you give nature a chance, she can repair herself,” he adds. “It’s not too late.”Sandin is studying the health of coral reefs around the world as part of a research project called the “100 Island Challenge.” His starting assumption was that the most populated islands would have the most degraded habitats, but what he found instead is that humans can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on how they manage resources.Inilek Wilmont, manager of the Oracabessa Fish Sanctuary, controls an underwater drone while exploring fish swimming under the dock in the sanctuary in Oracabessa Bay, Jamaica, Feb. 13, 2019.In Jamaica, more than a dozen grassroots-run coral nurseries and fish sanctuaries have sprung up in the past decade, supported by small grants from foundations, local businesses such as hotels and scuba clinics, and the Jamaican government.At White River Fish Sanctuary, which is only about 2 years old and where Simpson works, the clearest proof of early success is the return of tropical fish that inhabit the reefs, as well as hungry pelicans, skimming the surface of the water to feed on them.Jamaica’s coral reefs were once among the world’s most celebrated, with their golden branching structures and resident bright-colored fish drawing the attention of travelers from Christopher Columbus to Ian Fleming, who wrote most of his James Bond novels on the island nation’s northern coast in the 1950s and ’60s.In 1965, the country became the site of the first global research hub for coral reefs, the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, now associated with the University of the West Indies. The pathbreaking marine biologist couple Thomas and Nora Goreau completed fundamental research here, including describing the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae and pioneering the use of scuba equipment for marine studies.DisastersThe same lab also provided a vantage point as the coral disappeared.Peter Gayle has been a marine biologist at Discovery Bay since 1985. From the yard outside his office, he points toward the reef crest about 300 meters away — a thin brown line splashed with white waves. “Before 1980, Jamaica had healthy coral,” he notes. Then several disasters struck.The first calamity was 1980’s Hurricane Allen, one of the most powerful cyclones in recorded history. “Its 40-foot waves crashed against the shore and basically chewed up the reef,” Gayle says. Coral can grow back after natural disasters, but only when given a chance to recover — which it never got.That same decade, a mysterious epidemic killed more than 95% of the black sea urchins in the Caribbean, while overfishing ravaged fish populations. And surging waste from the island’s growing human population, which nearly doubled between 1960 and 2010, released chemicals and nutrients into the water that spur faster algae growth. The result: Seaweed and algae took over.”There was a tipping point in the 1980s, when it switched from being a coral-dominated system to being an algae-dominated system,” Gayle says. “Scientists call it a ‘phase shift.'”That seemed like the end of the story, until an unlikely alliance started to tip the ecosystem back in the other direction, with help from residents like Everton Simpson and his fellow fisherman Lipton Bailey.Protecting reefsThe fishing community of White River revolves around a small boat-docking area about a quarter-mile from where the river flows into the Caribbean Sea. One early morning, as purple dawn light filters into the sky, Simpson and Bailey step onto a 28-foot motorboat called the Interceptor.A sign warns against using spear guns in the Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary in Oracabessa Bay, Jamaica, Feb. 13, 2019.Both men have lived and fished their whole lives in the community. Recently, they have come to believe that they need to protect the coral reefs that attract tropical fish, while setting limits on fishing to ensure the sea isn’t emptied too quickly.In the White River area, the solution was to create a protected area — a “fish sanctuary” — for immature fish to grow and reach reproductive age before they are caught.Two years ago, the fishermen joined with local businesses, including hotel owners, to form a marine association and negotiate the boundaries for a no-fishing zone stretching two miles along the coast. A simple line in the water is hardly a deterrent, however; to make the boundary meaningful, it must be enforced. Today, the local fishermen, including Simpson and Bailey, take turns patrolling the boundary in the Interceptor.On this morning, the men steer the boat just outside a row of orange buoys marked “No Fishing.” “We are looking for violators,” Bailey says, his eyes trained on the rocky coast. “Sometimes you find spearmen. They think they’re smart. We try to beat them at their game.”Most of the older and more established fishermen, who own boats and set out lines and wire cages, have come to accept the no-fishing zone. Besides, the risk of having their equipment confiscated is too great. But not everyone is on board. Some younger men hunt with lightweight spearguns, swimming out to sea and firing at close-range. These men — some of them poor and with few options — are the most likely trespassers.The patrols carry no weapons, so they must master the art of persuasion. “Let them understand this. It’s not a you thing or a me thing. This isn’t personal,” Bailey says of past encounters with violators.These are sometimes risky efforts. Two years ago, Jerlene Layne, a manager at nearby Boscobel Fish Sanctuary, landed in the hospital with a bruised leg after being attacked by a man she had reprimanded for fishing illegally in the sanctuary. “He used a stick to hit my leg because I was doing my job, telling him he cannot fish in the protected area,” she says.Layne believes her work would be safer with more formal support from the police, but she isn’t going to stop.”Public mindsets can change,” she says. “If I back down on this, what kind of message does that send? You have to stand for something.”She has pressed charges in court against repeat trespassers, typically resulting in a fine and equipment confiscation.Boundary skepticsOne such violator is Damian Brown, 33, who lives in a coastal neighborhood called Stewart Town. Sitting outside on a concrete staircase near his modest home, Brown says fishing is his only option for work — and he believes the sanctuary boundaries extend too far.Fisherman turned Oracabessa Fish Sanctuary warden and dive master, Ian Dawson, dives while spearfishing outside the sanctuary’s no-take zone in Oracabessa, Jamaica, Feb. 14, 2019.But others who once were skeptical say they’ve come to see limits as a good thing.Back at the White River docking area, Rick Walker, a 35-year-old spearfisherman, is cleaning his motorboat. He remembers the early opposition to the fish sanctuary, with many people saying, “‘No, they’re trying to stop our livelihood.'”Two years later, Walker, who is not involved in running the sanctuary but supports its boundary, says he can see the benefits. “It’s easier to catch snapper and barracuda,” he says. “At least my great grandkids will get to see some fish.”When Columbus landed in Jamaica, he sailed into Oracabessa Bay, today a 20-minute drive from the mouth of the White River.Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary was the first of the grassroots-led efforts to revive Jamaica’s coral reefs. Its sanctuary was legally incorporated in 2010, and its approach of enlisting local fishermen as patrols became a model for other regions.”The fishermen are mostly on board and happy, that’s the distinction. That’s why it’s working,” sanctuary manager Inilek Wilmot says.David Murray, head of the Oracabessa Fishers’ Association, notes that Jamaica’s 60,000 fishermen operate without a safety net. “Fishing is like gambling, it’s a game. Sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don’t,” he says.Fish populationsWhen fish populations began to collapse two decades ago, something had to change.David Murray, right, president of the Oracabessa Fishers Association and warden for the Oracabessa Fish Sanctuary, checks his own pot while patrolling outside the reef’s no-take zone in Oracabessa, Jamaica, Feb. 13, 2019.Murray now works as a warden in the Oracabessa sanctuary, while continuing to fish outside its boundary. He also spends time explaining the concept to neighbors.”It’s people work — it’s a process to get people to agree on a sanctuary boundary,” he says. “It’s a tough job to tell a man who’s been fishing all his life that he can’t fish here.”But once it became clear that a no-fishing zone actually helped nearby fish populations rebound, it became easier to build support. The number of fish in the sanctuary has doubled between 2011 and 2017, and the individual fish have grown larger — nearly tripling in length on average — according to annual surveys by Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency. And that boosts catches in surrounding areas.After word got out about Oracabessa, other regions wanted advice.”We have the data to show success, but even more important than data is word of mouth,” says Wilmot, who oversaw training to help start the fish sanctuary at White River.Belinda Morrow, a lifelong water-sports enthusiast often seen paddle-boarding with her dog Shadow, runs the White River Marine Association. She attends fishers’ meetings and raises small grants from the Jamaican government and other foundations to support equipment purchases and coral replanting campaigns.”We all depend on the ocean,” Morrow says, sitting in a small office decorated with nautical maps in the iconic 70-year-old Jamaica Inn. “If we don’t have a good healthy reef and a good healthy marine environment, we will lose too much. Too much of the country relies on the sea.”

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Hardy Scientists Trek to Venezuela’s Last Glacier Amid Chaos

09/24/2019 Science 0

Editor’s note: Heroic efforts to revive ecosystems and save species are being waged worldwide, aimed at reversing some of humankind’s most destructive effects on the planet. “What Can Be Saved?,”  a weekly AP series, chronicles the ordinary people and scientists fighting for change against enormous odds — and forging paths that others may follow. MERIDA, Venezuela – Blackouts shut off the refrigerators where the scientists keep their lab samples. Gas shortages mean they sometimes have to work from home. They even reuse sheets of paper to record field data because fresh supplies are so scarce.As their country falls apart, a hardy team of scientists in Venezuela is determined to transcend the political and economic turmoil to record what happens as the country’s last glacier vanishes.Temperatures are warming faster at the Earth’s higher elevations than in lowlands, and scientists predict that the glacier — an ice sheet in the Andes Mountains — could be gone within two decades.“If we left and came back in 20 years, we would have missed it,” says Luis Daniel Llambi, a mountain ecologist at the University of the Andes in Merida.In this May 26, 2019 photo, scientist Cherry Andrea Rojas scales rocks during an expedition to the Humbolt glacier, in Merida, Venezuela.Scientists say Venezuela will be the first country in South America to lose all its glaciers.Throughout history, glaciers have waxed and waned numerous times. But the rapid pace of glacial retreat over the past century and a half, accelerated by human activities and the burning of fossil fuels, creates a new urgency — and opportunity — for scientists to understand how freshly exposed rock forms new soil and eventually new ecosystems.While most of the planet’s ice is stored in the polar regions, there are also glaciers in some mountainous regions of the tropics — primarily in South America.“Practically all of the high-mountain tropical glaciers are in the Andes. There’s still a little bit on Mount Kilimanjaro,” says Robert Hofstede, a tropical ecologist in Ecuador who advises international agencies such as the World Bank and United Nations.Monitoring Venezuela’s Humboldt glacier depends on continuous visits, Llambi notes. And even in the best of circumstances, it’s no easy trek from the small mountain town of Merida to the ice sheet perched within Venezuela’s Sierra Nevada National Park at nearly 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level.In this Feb. 19, 2019 photo, the bones of an animal lie on a rock during a scientific mission in the Andean mountains.When Llambi and three other scientists made the journey this spring to scout out mountain terrain for a new research project, they first rode a cable car, then walked a full day to the base camp, pitching their tents in drizzling rain.Each day, they then had to climb an additional three hours to reach the glacier, at times donning helmets and holding tight to ropes to maneuver up steep boulders. Some of the scientists had waterproofed their worn-out old boots using melted candle wax.Mountain fieldwork always is physically grueling, but the deepening crisis in Venezuela since the death of former president Hugo Chavez in 2013 has transformed even simple tasks into immense hurdles.“Things that you normally take for granted for research — internet, gas, electricity — all become scarce and unpredictable,” Llambi says.Perhaps the hardest toll has been watching many of their colleagues and students leave, joining the more than 4 million people who have fled Venezuela’s political upheaval in recent years.“Every week, someone asks me why I haven’t left,” says Alejandra Melfo, a team member who is a physicist at the University of the Andes.Not now, she tells anyone who asks.“Climate change is real and has to be documented,” she says. “We have to be there.”In this Feb. 18, 2019 photo, from left, scientists Luis Daniel Llambi, Cherry Andrea Rojas, Mariana Cardenas and Alejandra Melfo, prepare to study how temperatures and plant life are changing in the Andean ecosystem known as the paramos.The  Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences at the University of the Andes was founded 50 years ago, in 1969, and the scientists there see themselves as custodians of long-term data monitoring how temperatures and plant life are changing in the region, including in the Andean ecosystem known as the paramos — a mist-covered mountain grassland that lies between the top of the tree line and the bottom of the glacier.While most tundras have sparse vegetation, the paramos is famous for striking plants called frailejones that can be taller than humans and resemble a cross between a cactus and a palm tree. These mountain grasslands also store and release water that sustains the cities and croplands further downslope.It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Andean glaciers in maintaining regional water cycles.“More than 50 million people in South America rely on water provision from the Andes,” says Francisco Cuesta, a tropical ecologist at the University of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador, who marvels at the dogged work the team is doing under such punishing conditions.“To me, it’s incredible that they are still doing research there,” Cuesta says.In this Feb. 19, 2019 photo, scientists hike during a mission to study how temperatures and plant life are changing in the ecosystem known as the paramos.The region is one of the front lines of climate change. Glaciers in the tropical Andes have been retreating faster than most other glaciers since scientists began keeping detailed records in the 1970s, because tropical latitudes get more direct sunlight and radiation.When a glacier melts away, at first only bedrock is left behind _ sometimes rough gravel and sometimes smooth rock, worn down by centuries or millenniums of grinding ice.But within a few years or decades, bacteria and lichen began to colonize the area. As they decompose the minerals of the rock and their bodies then decay into organic matter, the first hints of soil begin to form. And soil is the basis of a new ecosystem, providing a structure to retain water and for plant roots to grow.“The formation of soil is the difference between an ecosystem being able to form quickly and being stalled for hundreds of years,” Llambi says.On the rocks left behind when the glacier retreats, the scientists think that a new ecosystem resembling the paramos may eventually begin to develop. But there are many questions still to answer: Will it take decades to form new soil? Can plant and animal species that thrive at lower elevations also survive further upslope? Will they be able to adapt to continually changing temperatures?Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves, but an economy hitched for decades to global oil demand has proven unstable. Llambi believes he has a special obligation to help inform the public of the impacts of climate change in a country where the boom-and-bust cycle of fossil fuel exploration has shaped nearly everyone’s life.“Our university is in Merida, which has long been called ‘the city of eternal snow,’” he reflects. “We are discovering that ‘eternity’ is not forever, and that’s what we have to get used to in a world with climate change.”

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US Official Expects ‘Hundreds More’ Cases of Vaping Illness

09/24/2019 Science 0

A public health official says the number of vaping-related illnesses in the U.S. could soon climb much higher.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Tuesday she believes “hundreds more” cases have been reported to health authorities since last week. The CDC then put the tally at 530 confirmed and probable cases of the serious lung illness. Nine deaths have been reported.The agency has been updating its count on Thursdays.CDC’s Anne Schuchat made the comment during her testimony before a congressional subcommittee. The panel is holding the first hearing on the vaping illness, which resembles an inhalation injury. Health officials have not yet identified a common electronic cigarette or ingredient in the outbreak, although many cases involve vaping THC from marijuana.

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