Pope Pays to Rent Beach Space for Disabled Youths
The papal almsgiver has made a donation, in the name of Pope Francis, to cover the annual rent for a beach area near Rome used by disabled youths.
The Madonnina, an association that runs the beach establishment near Rome without barriers for the disabled, in a statement Tuesday announced the donation for the area just outside the town of Fiumicino. No money figure was cited.
Past charity initiatives by Pope Francis have included day-trips to the beach for homeless people.
your ad hereEgypt’s Tourism Officials Insist Popular Sites Are Safe
Egypt’s tourism levels are still around a third of what they once were and, despite security concerns, Egypt’s tourism minister on Monday insisted the country’s popular Red Sea resorts and Ancient Egyptian sites are a safe choice for travelers.
“We are saying that the tourism sector is safe, the airports are secure, the hotels are secure,” Mohamed Yehia Rashed said, adding that there have not been security breaches at tourist sites.
He said Germany represents the largest visitor market, particularly to Red Sea diving spots around Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, followed by travelers from Saudi Arabia.
While he declined to give tourism figures for the first quarter of 2017, the ministry says that tourism from Arab countries represented around 36 percent of total traffic to Egypt last year. More than half-a-million tourists from Saudi Arabia visited Egypt in 2016, followed by Jordan with 180,000 visitors.
Before Egypt’s 2011 uprising, Italy, the UK and Russia were Egypt’s top markets, in addition to Germany. The uprising, however, decimated Egypt’s multibillion dollar tourism industry, which is a vital pillar of the country’s economy and employs millions of people.
The year before the upheaval, nearly 15 million tourists visited Egypt. Last year, the figure was 5.3 million tourists, according to Chairman of Egypt’s Tourism Authority Hicham al-Demairi.
Both officials spoke to The Associated Press at the Arabian Travel Market convention in Dubai, where Egypt had a large booth advertising its many destinations, hotels and attractions.
Russia, however, continues to ban all flights to Egypt and Egypt’s national carrier is still barred from flying to Russia following the downing of a Russian passenger jetliner in the Sinai Peninsula in 2015 that killed all 224 aboard. A Sinai-based Islamic Stage group affiliate claimed it was behind the incident and Russia says an explosive device was the cause, though the investigation has not yet formally concluded.
Egypt’s currency has also plunged from around 5 pounds to the dollar before the uprising to 18 pounds to the dollar. This, however, has made travel to Egypt more affordable for many tourists, al-Demairi said.
He said Egypt is aiming to draw between 7 and 10 million tourists in 2017. Rather than rely on traditional Western European markets, which comprise the bulk of all tourists to Egypt, al-Demairi said the country is working on new strategies that target Latin American, Eastern European and Asian travelers.
“We don’t want to only depend on coastal and cultural tourism,” he said, referring to tourists who visit Egypt’s pristine beaches and Ancient Egyptian sites in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan.
your ad hereArtifacts Preserve Holocaust Stories for Future Generations
The small wicker doll chair was a modest toy, but it meant the world to Louise Lawrence-Israels. A gift for her second birthday, it was the only toy she possessed during the approximately three years she spent hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam, just five blocks from the house where Anne Frank wrote in her diary.
The chair is one of thousands of artifacts housed in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s new conservation and research center, which opened Monday on the annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
“It was a big thing for me to actually give the chair, because it was a significant thing,” said Lawrence-Israels, 75, one of about two dozen Holocaust survivors who attended the center’s opening. “A lot of people can look at it and see how it was for a little child in hiding.”
The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center, located in the suburbs of the nation’s capital, is a state-of-the-art facility with 103,000 square feet (9,570 sq. meters) for documents and artifacts, with room for expansion.
The center houses thousands of items in eight climate-controlled vaults in a building designed to withstand tornadoes and hurricanes. Its collection includes everyday objects, from children’s toys and clothes to sewing machines used in concentration camps.
Travis Roxlau, director of collections services, said center officials have spent 25 years gathering the items.
“We collect stories, and all of the objects that go along with those stories, because as the surviving generation passes on, these are going to be the objects that are left to help us tell the history of the Holocaust,” Roxlau said.
Survivors say the center’s holdings are critical to preserving the reality of the Holocaust.
“I think the most important thing is to make sure that the memory of the Holocaust isn’t forgotten,” said Alfred Munzer, 75, who donated a silver teething ring that went with him at the age of nine months when he was put into hiding with a Dutch-Indonesian family in the Netherlands in 1942. He also donated two small photographs of him that his mother kept hidden while she was confined in concentration camps.
Munzer, of Washington, D.C., said the center and its artifacts will serve “as a lesson to the world as to where hate can lead to.”
Lawrence-Israels, of Bethesda, Maryland, noted that she and other Holocaust survivors are “not going to be here forever, and once we’re not here anymore the museum and this institution will speak for us.”
“This is the only evidence that we leave behind, and with the climate today it’s important that people see that this was real,” Lawrence-Israels said.
Scholars and researchers will have access to materials in the facility. A reading room is scheduled to open in the next year. The museum also is in the process of making documents and images available online.
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Dental Students Play Doctor in Virtual Reality
There’s a big difference between practicing dentistry, and finding a way to practice being a dentist. But thanks to the world of virtual reality, dentists-in-training have a new way to practice their craft through the relatively new technology of mixed reality (MR), where the virtual world meets the real world. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Kenya, Ghana, Malawi Chosen For Breakthrough Malaria Vaccine Trial
The World Health Organization has announced that trials of a new malaria vaccine will take place in three African countries – Kenya, Ghana and Malawi. They have been selected for their high prevalence of malaria and strong existing immunization programs for other diseases. The announcement was made ahead of the U.N.’s World Malaria Day Tuesday. And as Henry Ridgwell reports, the chosen theme for this year is “a push for prevention.”
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Technology: Robot Fighting Invasive Species
In many parts of the world invasive species contribute to destruction of local ecosystems, already threatened by climate change. One of the most pervasive is the lionfish, a voracious predator from Asia that is depleting native coral reef fish in the Caribbean. Now, a new underwater robot is showing off a way that technology can help on the front line fight against invasive species. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Chile Rocked by 6.9 quake; No Major Damage Reported
A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck off the west coast of Chile on Monday, rocking the capital Santiago and briefly causing alarm along the Pacific Coast but sparing the quake-prone nation of any serious damage.
The quake was centered about 85 miles (137 km) from Santiago, and some 22 miles (35 km) west of the coastal city of Valparaiso. The U.S. Geological Survey twice revised the magnitude before settling on 6.9, a strength usually capable of causing severe damage.
The epicenter’s shallow depth of 15.5 miles (25 km) below the sea allowed it to be felt hundreds of miles (km) away.
Santiago office buildings swayed for about 30 seconds at the end of the workday.
‘Short, but very powerful’
Closer to the epicenter, residents scrambled for higher ground, remembering the lessons of the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2010.
“It was short but very powerful,” said Paloma Salamo, a 26-year-old nurse, who was in a clinic in Viña del Mar, just north of Valparaiso, when the quake struck.
People ran from the facility carrying children and some headed for the hills when the tsunami alarm sounded, she said, but calm was soon restored.
“So far there has been no human loss nor significant damage,” President Michelle Bachelet said, praising people for evacuating in an orderly fashion in the immediate aftermath.
Cellphone networks down
Officials canceled a tsunami warning that had been issued in Valparaiso. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported small tsunami waves of half a foot (15 cm).
There were no reports of structural damage in Valparaiso, but cellphone networks were down in some places, a spokesman with the local government said.
Videos from the Valparaiso area showed objects falling from store shelves, rocks falling onto roads and lights flickering.
Felt beyond the Andes
The quake was felt as far away as Argentina, on the other side of the Andes.
Interior Minister Mario Fernandez said there had been some landslides but “in general the situation is pretty normal bearing in mind the quake’s intensity.”
Strict construction codes in Chile limit damage to buildings.
Copper mining was unaffected, according to Chile’s state-run Codelco, one of the largest copper mining companies in the world, and Anglo American, which has copper operations in central Chile.
But interruptions in the electricity supply led the Aconcagua oil refinery to temporarily suspend operations for safety reasons, state-run oil firm ENAP said. There was no damage to either of Chile’s two refineries, ENAP said.
Several aftershocks including two of magnitudes 5.0 and 5.4 were recorded in the same spot and could be felt in Santiago, part of a cluster of tremors from that area in recent days.
‘Ring of Fire’
Chile, located on the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” has a long history of deadly quakes, including a 8.8 magnitude quake in 2010 off the south-central coast, which also triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal towns. More than 500 people died.
That was the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded, according to the USGS. The largest recorded temblor in history was also in Chile, a 9.5-magnitude quake in 1960.
The long, slender country runs along the border of two tectonic plates, with the Nazca Plate beneath the South Pacific Ocean pushing into the South America Plate, a phenomenon that also formed the Andes Mountains.
your ad hereExperimental Blood Test Distinguishes Malaria from Other Infections
An experimental blood test can quickly and accurately diagnose malaria from other infections, so treatment of the mosquito-borne illness can be started promptly.
The symptoms of malaria, which strikes an estimated 200 million people around the globe every year, are non-specific. That means the fever, aches, pains and chills in the early stages could be mistaken for any number of infections.
Identifying and treating malaria promptly not only increases a patient’s chances of survival, but also helps prevent the disease from spreading to more people.
The blood test, developed by researchers at Stanford University in California, looks for patterns of immune system activation to determine whether a person is infected with the malaria parasite, and not a bacterium or virus. It is reportedly 96 percent accurate.
Purvesh Khatri, a professor of medicine at Stanford, helped develop the biomarker test, which looks at which genes are switched on or off, depending on the infection.
A simple blood test measuring these immune markers could be helpful in resource-poor settings, according to Khatri.
“So a test like ours is useful,” he said, “You could take a blood test that would not require an expert technician, and they are more sensitive than the rapid diagnostic test than we have now.”
Khatri notes the current test is not very accurate because it looks for a molecule, called an antigen, that activates an immune response in a malaria infection.
“And the problem with those are there are not enough antigen,” said Khatri. “So treatment then [could] be inappropriate and then it could awhile before malaria is diagnosed.”
Khatri and his team drew upon data from 40 studies involving more than 3,000 blood samples from patients with various infections. Some were known to have malaria. But there were also other tropical illnesses observed in the studies, including dengue, typhoid and leishmaniasis.
From those blood studies, investigators analyzed the activation of 2,100 different genes, looking at which genes switched on and off with parasitic, viral and bacterial infections.
They found a group of seven genes that were expressed in malaria compared to healthy people and those with other infectious illnesses.
To confirm their discovery, the researchers whittled the samples down to 900, in which they were able to discern the pattern of gene activation unique to malaria with near 100 percent accuracy.
While the experimental blood test is accurate in diagnosing malaria, Khatri says it might also detect other parasitic diseases that researchers have not yet studied.
But he said the blood test could be reliably used in cases where malaria is strongly suspected and confirmation of the disease is needed.
Khatri presented his findings at a meeting of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases before World Malaria Day this week.
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Loved and Lost, Heath Ledger Shows Carefree Side in New Documentary
Nine years after his death at age 28, audiences are seeing a different side of Australian actor Heath Ledger through the lens of his own camera.
Documentary “I Am Heath Ledger” uses thousands of hours of self video shot by Ledger, as well as his art work and music videos, to paint a portrait of the young actor who took Hollywood by storm in roles like “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Dark Knight.”
The film also seeks to counteract the lingering perception that Ledger was severely depressed when he accidentally overdosed on painkillers, anxiety and insomnia medication.
“He was super happy and he was loving life. He struggled with some demons, but he wasn’t one to go anywhere but forward,” Ledger’s Hollywood agent Steve Alexander says in the film, which was launched at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.
Rather than dwell on his January 2008 death in New York, the film uses Ledger’s video archives and interviews with his family and closest friends to “celebrate Heath’s life and to tell the story of this multi-faceted artist,” director and producer Derik Murray told Reuters Television.
It portrays Ledger as a force of nature who longed for adventure, was generous with his friends, and whose passions ranged from chess to making music videos. His non-stop energy also meant he rarely slept a full night.
While Ledger’s friends including Naomi Watts and director Ang Lee were interviewed for the film, Michelle Williams’ – Ledger’s former fiance and mother of his daughter Matilda – chose not to take part, said her spokeswoman.
Murray said Williams’ support was integral to the film “but she really didn’t feel she wanted to be in front of the camera.”
Ledger was found dead a few months after the couple split up and shortly after filming his role as the manic Joker in “The Dark Knight,” for which he won a posthumous Oscar.
“There was a lot of conversation and chatter around the fact that his passing was a byproduct of his role as the Joker and that he spiraled down this path and couldn’t pull himself out of it,” said Murray.
But Murray said everyone the filmmakers spoke to said this was untrue. “He had the best time making it… The Joker was a role. He was enthralled by it. He was proud of it.”
“I Am Heath Ledger” will get a one-night showing in 300 U.S. movie theaters on May 3 and premiere on Spike TV on May 17.
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Elton John Recovering from ‘Potentially Deadly’ Bacterial Infection
Elton John spent two nights in intensive care with a potentially deadly bacterial infection and has canceled all his concerts for the rest of April and May, his publicist said on Monday.
The British musician, 70, became “violently ill” on a flight home from his recent South American tour, spokeswoman Fran Curtis said in a statement.
The “Rocket Man” singer spent two nights in intensive care in the U.K. and is resting at home after being released on Saturday, the statement said.
The infection was not identified, but the statement said John contracted the “harmful and unusual bacterial infection” during his South American tour, which ended in Chile on April 10.
“Infections of this nature are rare and potentially deadly,” the statement said, adding that his time in intensive care was followed by an “extended stay in hospital.”
John is expected to make a full recovery but has canceled all his concerts in Las Vegas for April and May, as well as a gig in Bakersfield, California, on May 6.
John apologized to fans for disappointing them, adding in a statement: “I am extremely grateful to the medical team for their excellence in looking after me so well.”
He is due to resume performances at a concert in Twickenham, England, on June 3.
John, a Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner for his work in film and theater, is working on a score for a Broadway musical adaptation of the comedy-drama “The Devil Wears Prada.”
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Tesla’s Big Model 3 Bet Rides on Risky Assembly Line Strategy
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk took many risks with the technology in his company’s cars on the way to surpassing Ford Motor Co.’s market value.
Now Musk is pushing boundaries in the factory that makes them.
Most automakers test a new model’s production line by building vehicles with relatively cheap, prototype tools designed to be scrapped once they deliver doors that fit, body panels with the right shape and dashboards that don’t have gaps or seams.
Tesla, however, is skipping that preliminary step and ordering permanent, more expensive equipment as it races to launch its Model 3 sedan by a self-imposed volume production deadline of September, Musk told investors last month.
Musk’s decision underscores his high-risk tolerance and willingness to forego long-held industry norms that has helped Tesla upend the traditional auto industry.
While Tesla is not the first automaker to try to accelerate production on the factory floor, no other rival is putting this much faith in the production strategy succeeding.
Musk expects the Model 3 rollout to help Telsa deliver five times its current annual sales volume, a key target in the automaker’s efforts to stop burning cash.
“He’s pushing the envelope to see how much time and cost he can take out of the process,” said Ron Harbour, a manufacturing consultant at Oliver Wyman.
Investors are already counting on Tesla’s factory floor success, with shares soaring 39 percent since January as it makes the leap from niche producer to mass producer in far less time than rivals.
There are caution signs, however. The production equipment designed to produce millions of cars is expensive to fix or replace if it doesn’t work, industry experts say. Tesla has encountered quality problems on its existing low-volume cars, and the Model 3 is designed to sell in numbers as high as 500,000 vehicles a year, raising the potential cost of recalls or warranty repairs.
“It’s an experiment, certainly,” said Consumer Reports’ Jake Fisher, who has done extensive testing of Tesla’s previous Models S and X. Tesla could possibly fix errors quicker, speeding up the process, “or it could be they have unsuspected problems they’ll have a hard time dealing with.”
Musk discussed the decision to skip what he referred to as “beta” production testing during a call last month with an invited group of investors. Details were published on Reddit by an investor on the call.
He also said that “advanced analytical techniques” — code word for computer simulations – would help Tesla in advancing straight to production tooling.
Tesla declined to confirm details of the call or comment on its production strategy.
The auto industry’s incumbents have not been standing still.
Volkswagen AG’s Audi division launched production of a new plant in Mexico using computer simulations of production tools — and indeed the entire assembly line and factory – that Audi said it
believed to be an industry first. That process allowed the plant to launch production 30 percent faster than usual, Audi said.
An Audi executive involved in the Mexican plant launch, Peter Hochholdinger, is now Tesla’s vice president of production.
Making Tools Faster
Typically, automakers test their design with limited production using lower grade equipment that can be modified slightly to address problems. When most of the kinks are worked out, they order the final equipment.
Tesla’s decision to move directly to the final tools is in part because lower grade, disposable equipment known as “soft tooling” ended up complicating the debut of the problem-plagued Model X SUV in 2015, according to a person familiar with the decision and Tesla’s assembly line planning.
Working on a tight deadline, Tesla had no time to incorporate lessons learned from soft tooling before having to order the permanent production tooling, making the former’s value negligible, the source said.
“Soft tooling did very little for the program and arguably hurt things,” said the person.
In addition, Tesla has learned to better modify final production tools, and its 2015 purchase of a Michigan tooling company means it can make major equipment 30 percent faster than before, and more cheaply as well, the source said.
Financial pressure is partly driving Tesla’s haste. The quicker Tesla can deliver the Model 3 with its estimated $35,000 base price to the 373,000 customers who have put down a $1,000 deposit, the closer it can log $13 billion.
Tesla has labored under financial pressure since it was founded in 2003. The company has yet to turn an annual profit, and earlier this year Musk said the company was “close to the edge” as it look toward capital spending of $2-2.5 billion in the first half of 2017.
Tesla has since gotten more breathing room by raising $1.2 billion in fresh capital in March and selling a five percent stake to Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings
Ltd.
Musk has spoken to investors about his vision of an “alien dreadnought” factory that uses artificial intelligence and robots to build cars at speeds faster than human assembly workers could manage.
But there are limits to what technology can do in the heavily regulated car business. For example, Tesla will still have to use real cars in crash tests required by the U.S. government, because federal rules do not allow simulated crash results to substitute for data from a real car.
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Internet Access More Important than Laundry Facilities for Apartment Dwellers
In a sign of just how important internet access is, a new survey suggests rental apartment hunters are more concerned with high-speed internet and wi-fi than they are with in-home laundry facilities.
The survey commissioned by cable television and internet provider Comcast, found 34 percent of the 205 building managers, building owners and real estate developers of multifamily properties surveyed in the United States ranked wi-fi as the most important amenity. After that, 25 percent said high-speed internet was, while a mere 13 percent said in-room laundry facilities.
Furthermore, the survey found that 87 percent of those asked said technology “plays either an extremely or very important role” in renter satisfaction.
Thirty percent of those surveyed said high quality internet service increased property values by 20 percent.
Another 89 percent said technology was an “important factor” in a renter’s choice to sign or renew a lease.
The importance of technology varied by age, with 88 percent saying younger tenants aged 18 to 34 found technological amenities more important than among those 52 and up.
The survey was conducted by researcher firm Precision Sample and was given online between December 7-10, 2016.
Comcast said it provides services to 189,000 properties and 14.7 million units in the United States.
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Trump’s Cabinet Picks Fuel Stage Drama in London, New York
Coming soon to West End and Broadway stages: Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Tom Price and Scott Pruitt
Four key players in President Donald Trump’s new administration are central characters in a “verbatim play,” boiled down from combative U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, that looks to Trump’s Cabinet picks for clues to his government’s direction.
“All the President’s Men?” – the question mark sets it apart from the famous Watergate expose – is being presented as a staged reading Monday at London’s Vaudeville Theatre. It will play New York’s Town Hall theater on May 11 with a U.S. cast reported to include some famous names.
The play is among the first trickle of what will soon be a flood of artistic responses to Trump’s election.
An HBO miniseries about the 2016 election is in the works, while British writer Howard Jacobsen turned his shock at the outcome into a just-published satirical novel. Robert Schenkkan’s play “Building the Wall,” which imagines Trump’s presidency taking a darkly authoritarian turn, is in the midst of an acclaimed run in Los Angeles and next goes to New York for an off-Broadway run in May.
Also planned for Broadway are a pair of starkly political works – a revival of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” about a well-intentioned whistleblower eventually branded a traitor, will be produced during the 2017-18 season, and a stage version of George Orwell’s nightmarish “1984” is scheduled to open in June at the Hudson Theatre.
Nicholas Kent, who has created and directed “All the President’s Men?” said he wanted to understand what Trump, the ultimate outsider politician, actually stands for.
“We’d heard all this rhetoric about “draining the swamp,’” he said. “I thought the best way of finding out about the whole philosophy behind the Trump presidency would be to look at the Senate confirmation hearings. Because the beliefs of the people involved would come out of that, and their backgrounds would come out.”
Kent, former artistic director of London’s Tricycle Theatre, has overseen fact-based plays on subjects including England’s 2011 riots (“The Riots”), the U.S.-led war on terror (“Guantanamo – Honor Bound to Defend Freedom”) and Afghanistan’s history of conflict (“The Great Game”).
For his latest project, Kent watched 50 hours of Senate hearings, and admitted that “to begin with it was a little like watching paint dry.”
But he said he gradually “saw the big issues coming out. The questioners, and the questions asked, were as revealing as the answers in many ways.”
The four candidates were little known to most Americans. There was Tillerson, the ex-oil company boss who is now at the helm of U.S. foreign policy as secretary of state; Sessions, a longtime Republican senator who is now attorney general; Obamacare critic Price, the health secretary; and climate-change skeptic Pruitt, now in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.
“I chose particularly these four people because they represent in many ways the nub of how America will be governed for the next four years,” Kent said.
“I’m trying to look for the central essence of each of the characters. I’m not trying to do a satirical portrait in any way whatsoever. I’m trying to look at their beliefs.”
The play is backed by Britain’s National Theatre and New York’s Public Theater. In London, it is performed by a cast of West End veterans including Peter Davison, Sian Phillips, Phil Davis and Sinead Cusack. For the New York performance, Kent said “they’ve promised me a very starry cast.”
Kent says the president himself appears in the play only through “a few tweets.”
“It’s the administration that’s going to make the man, as we’ve already seen,” Kent said, noting that two of Trump’s flagship promises – to halt travel from countries deemed epicenters of terrorism and to dismantle Obamacare – have been stymied by courts and Congress.
“He can be a figurehead and he can tweet till kingdom come,” Kent said. But “it is actually the machinery of government and the people under him, who are going to carry out his policies, that are the most interesting.”
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Elon Musk Steps Out in Australia with Amber Heard
Billionaire Elon Musk is getting close with actress Amber Heard.
The pair is shown in paparazzi photos zip-lining in Australia, where Heard is filming “Aquaman.”
Both Musk and Heard posted pictures to their Instagram accounts Monday showing Musk with lipstick on his cheek left behind from a kiss.
Musk wrote on his post that he and Heard were dining with “Aquaman” director James Wan and producer Rob Cowan on Australia’s Gold Coast.
Musk has been married three times, twice to British actress Talulah Riley. He has five sons from another previous marriage.
Heard and Johnny Depp settled a divorce last year.
your ad hereAstronaut Breaks Record for Most Time in Space by American
U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson on Monday broke the record for most accumulated time spent in orbit by an American.
Commander Whitson, who is aboard the International Space Station, was congratulated by U.S. President Donald Trump, who spoke to space station astronauts via video.
“Five-hundred thirty-four days and counting. That’s an incredible record to break,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “On behalf of our nation, and frankly on behalf of the world, I’d like to congratulate you.”
WATCH: Trump congratulates Whitson
The 57-year-old Whitson is the most experienced U.S. spacewoman. She is scheduled to return to Earth in September, at which time she will have spent 666 days in space over the course of three flights.
“It’s actually a huge honor to break a record like this,” Whitson told Trump.
The two also discussed the potential for further space travel, including to Mars, which NASA has said it wants to accomplish by the 2030s. However, Trump moved that deadline up, telling Whitson that he’d like to see a Mars trip “at worst, during my second term.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the president’s comments were meant to be taken literally.
Whitson also explained to Trump how technology in the space station allows astronauts to convert their urine to drinking water. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds,” she said.
“Well that’s good, I’m glad to hear that,” Trump responded. “Better you than me.”
Trump also spoke with U.S. astronaut Jack Fischer, who arrived at the space station for the first time last week. Asked by Trump how his flight went, Fischer, an Air Force pilot, responded: “Sir, it was awesome. It made even my beloved F-22 feel a bit underpowered.”
Trump, who was speaking alongside his daughter Ivanka Trump, said he was honored to speak with the astronauts.
“I’ve been dealing with politicians so much. I’m so much more impressed with these people, you have no idea,” he said.
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Ghana, Kenya, Malawi to Test First Malaria Vaccine
The World Health Organization has chosen Ghana, Kenya and Malawi as the countries where the world’s first malaria vaccine will be tested next year on young children.
The injectable vaccine, known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix, was developed by the British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline.
The test will be conducted on babies and toddlers, aged 5 to 17 months.
Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female mosquitoes.
WHO said in a statement the pilot program “will assess the feasibility of delivering the required four doses of RTS,S, the vaccine’s potential role in reducing childhood deaths, and its safety in routine use.
“The prospect of a malaria vaccine is great news. Information gathered in the pilot will help us make decisions on the wider use of this vaccine,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “Combined with existing malaria interventions, such a vaccine would have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in Africa.”
Malaria interventions include insecticide-treated nets and spraying indoor walls with insecticides.
In 2015, approximately 429,000 people died from malaria, the majority of them were young children in Africa.
Global efforts between 2000 and 2015, however, have led to a 62 percent reduction in malaria deaths.
According to WHO, “Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria worldwide.” In 2015, sub-Saharan Africa was home to 90 percent of malaria cases and 92 percent of malaria deaths.
Tuesday is World Malaria Day.
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WHO, Medical Workers, Mark Progress in Southeast Asia Malaria Fight
Concerted campaigns in the Greater Mekong Subregion [GMS] to radically reduce the impact of malaria has lifted hopes a vital target to eradicate malaria from the region may be within reach.
Deyer Gobinath, a malaria technical officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Thailand, said the outlook is positive for eliminating severe forms of malaria across the region within the next decade.
The goal is for most of the GMS countries by 2025 to try and eliminate falciparium malaria – the most severe form of malaria – the falciparium malariia – and then by 2030 basically all forms or all species of malaria,” Gobinath said.
In 2015, WHO leaders said there were 14 million malaria cases across Southeast Asia, resulting in 26,000 deaths. Globally, in the same year, the WHO reported 438,000 lives lost, mostly in Africa and warned that 3.2 billion people – almost half the world’s population – face health risks from the disease.
Mortality rates decline; challenges remain
The campaigns in Southeast Asia cover Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, all reporting consistent declines in mortality rates, by as much as 49 percent since 2000.
Populations most vulnerable to the mosquito-borne disease are largely in remote border regions, isolated from infrastructure and immediate medical support.
The key areas of concern lie in regions between Thailand and Myanmar – also known as Burma – and in Cambodia among others.
But Saw Nay Htoo, director of the Burma Medical Association, said collaboration between medics and local communities has had a positive impact in reducing malaria’s impact.
“In the ground level we set up the malaria [clinic] post which we have at least one malaria health worker, according to the population they have, to detect malaria,” he said. “And if there is malaria positive then the patient is given the malaria medicine. So we have been doing this for three years. It seems our program is going very well – there are less malaria cases in the border areas.”
Combination of drugs
The fight against malaria is largely based on a combination of drugs known as Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy, or ACT, as the main line of drug treatment.
The World Health Organization’s Gobinath said Thailand’s medical infrastructure and funding support have all contributed to lowering the numbers of malaria cases.
“For malaria in Thailand here’s been quite a remarkable decrease – a steady decrease, decline in the number of confirmed cases of malaria. In the past 10 years or so something like 30,000 cases in 2012; to 2015 it was 19,000 to 20,000 cases. So it’s been a gradual but persistent decline of confirmed malaria cases,” he told VOA.
But he said for progress to be sustained it will require continued “political will and commitment.”
WHO officials said attention needs to focus on migrant worker populations moving across the region’s borders. Thai health authorities have taken steps to enable medical access to migrant populations at risk of malaria, largely in remote border areas.
The battle far from over
But challenges remain, said Maria Dorina Bustos, a WHO technical officer with responsibilities for monitoring drug resistant strains of malaria across 18 countries in the Asia Pacific.
Dorina Bustos said the region with drug resistant forms of malaria is spreading. “The Thai-Cambodia or the Thai-Myanmar border, you need to think about the Thai-Laos border because the Southern Laos drug resistance is also about evident – is documented, it is also there. And what is actually more alarming is happening in the Cambodia side,” she told VOA.
She said drug resistance becomes evident in the delay in clearance of the parasite from the patient. Dorina Bustos says the use of fake drugs and self-treatment also opens the way to drug resistance.
“What we are seeing in the last five years is that it is really emerging in the most parts of the region – initially just in the Western border of Cambodia and now it has also spread to the east and almost the whole country,” Dorina Bustos said.
She said there is a need for close monitoring of major population centers – especially in India and Africa – to ensure successful treatment and avoiding issues of the use of fake medicines.
A positive note has been ongoing investment and research in new drugs, including commitments by major pharmaceutical industries.
“It’s really here in the Mekong where we really have a problem. Cambodia, the borders of Thailand, the borders of Thai/Laos and Cambodia/Vietnam – it’s very specific in the Mekong region,” she said. “For Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and even India, Bangladesh and Nepal the ACT [Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy] is all working perfectly well.”
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Burt Reynolds Makes Rare Public Appearance at Film Festival
Robert De Niro helped Burt Reynolds onto the red carpet for the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his new movie “Dog Years” Saturday night in New York. It was a rare appearance for the 81-year old actor, who at times struggled to walk.
Reynolds was given a chair on the red carpet, so that he could speak to a limited number of press outlets about the film.
He was overjoyed at the turnout.
“Great to see Mr. De Niro, who I love, and … you know, all the people that I know,” Reynolds said. “It’s very sweet.”
In the film, which is still shopping for distribution, Reynolds portrays an aging movie star who realizes his best days are behind him. The actor sees similarities in the character with his own life.
Reynolds laughed at the obvious parallel with his own life, though he said, “I guess I’m doing all right. I think because it’s a hell of a turnout.”
Written and directed by Adam Rifkin, the film also stars “Modern Family’s” Ariel Winter, Chevy Chase and Nikki Blonsky.
Reynolds joked about working with younger co-stars.
“You don’t learn from young actors,” Reynolds said. “You just tell them how to behave.”
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World Immunization Week – A Time To Take Stock Of What Vaccines Can Do
This year marks the half-way point in an international campaign to provide children and adults the world over with access to life-saving vaccines. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on the progress – and what’s at stake in this campaign.
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Supply Ship Named for John Glenn Arrives at Space Station
A supply ship bearing John Glenn’s name arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday.
Astronauts used the station’s big robot arm to grab the capsule, as the craft flew 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Germany.
NASA’s commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, named the spacecraft the S.S. John Glenn in honor of the first American to orbit Earth. It rocketed from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday with nearly 7,700 pounds of food, experiments and other goods.
Glenn died in December at age 95 and was buried earlier this month at Arlington National Cemetery. His widow, Annie, granted permission for Orbital ATK to use his name for the Cygnus spacecraft. The company, in fact, sent up some memorabilia for the Glenn family.
Glenn made history in 1962 when he soared into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his one-man Mercury capsule. He returned to space in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery, at age 77, right before station construction began in orbit.
Space station commander Peggy Whitson — who on Monday will set a U.S. record for most accumulated time in orbit — notified Mission Control when the capsule was captured.
“We’re very proud to welcome on board the S.S. John Glenn,” said French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who took part in the operation. The contents “will be put to good use to continue our mission of research, exploration and discovery.”
Whitson and Pesquet have been living on the space station since November, along with a Russian. They were joined by another American and Russian on Thursday.
Whitson is making her third space station flight. Early Monday, she will surpass the 534-day, two-hour-and-change mark set by astronaut Jeffrey Williams last year. President Donald Trump will call her from the Oval Office to offer congratulations.
The S.S. John Glenn, meanwhile, will remain at the orbiting outpost until July, when it is let go to burn up in the atmosphere.
your ad hereWorld Immunization Week: Vaccines No.1 Public Health Tool
Six years ago, 194 countries signed on to the Global Vaccine Action Plan, an international campaign to provide children and adults around the world with access to life-saving vaccines.
The goal of the program is to prevent millions of people from getting vaccine-preventable diseases by the time it ends in 2020. The idea is to provide universal access to vaccines to protect people of all ages, from the very young to the very old.
Dr. Flavia Bustreo, is the assistant director-general for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization.
“Immunization and vaccines are the most powerful public health tools that we have currently, “ she said.
Millions of children saved
Bustreo says 35 years ago, 13 million children lost their lives from diseases that could be prevented by vaccines.
She says that number has been reduced to 6 million, but 6 million is still too high.
Today, 85 percent of children are vaccinated against measles and other deadly diseases, but Bustreo says more children need these vaccines.
“We need to have vaccination coverage that is about 90 percent, in order to have what we call the ‘herd effect’ … which means you cover the children who are vaccinated, but also, because of the reduction of transmission of infections, you also cover the children that are not vaccinated,” Bustreo said.
Final push on polio
Because of vaccines, polio is on the brink of eradication. Polio exists in two conflict zones: in northern Nigeria and along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last year there were 37 cases. Compare that to the 350,000 cases in 1988 when the eradication campaign began.
There’s a special urgency to vaccinate all children against polio. Dr. David Nabarro has worked on a number of health programs at the World Health Organization and now as a special envoy for the United Nations.
“The last part of eradicating any disease is always the hardest part,” he said. “If you don’t do it, you lose everything. To do it, you’ve got to really bring all the energy and commitment you can to bear, and it requires a special kind of dedication.”
Vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and countless numbers of children from becoming disabled. By 2020, at the conclusion of the Global Vaccine Action Plan, the U.N. wants to see countries strengthen routine immunizations for all children. It wants to complete the effort to end polio and to control other vaccine-preventable diseases. Also, the goal is to be well on the way in developing new vaccines for other diseases that plague our world.
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Scientists March in DC
Marches took place in hundreds of cities around the world Saturday in support of science. Organizers hoped to bring government attention to fact-based decisions on health, the environment, safety and the economy. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti brings us the sights and sounds from these rallies – she starts in Washington.
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Water Bubbles Could Fight Plastic Pollution
Global plastic consumption reached more than 110 million tons in 2009. Plastic can take up to 1,000 years to degrade. When it does degrade, it can end up as tiny bits of poisonous microplastics in the bodies of animals we eat. But an English company has created a new product that might help solve the problem: an edible water bottle called Ooho. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Actress Erin Moran of ‘Happy Days’ Dies at 56
Erin Moran, the former child star who played Joanie Cunningham in the sitcoms Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi, died Saturday at age 56.
A statement from the sheriff’s department in Harrison County, Indiana, said the dispatcher “received a 911 call about an unresponsive female. Upon arrival of first responders, it was determined that Erin Moran Fleischmann was deceased. An autopsy is pending.”
The dispatcher confirmed to The Associated Press that the woman was the actress, who had been married to Steven Fleischmann.
A Burbank, California, native, Moran began acting in TV and movies before she was 10 years old. She had nearly a decade’s worth of experience when she was cast in 1974 in Happy Days as Joanie Cunningham, the kid sister to high school student Richie Cunningham, played by Ron Howard.
Debuting at a time of nostalgia for the seemingly innocent 1950s, the sitcom was set in Milwaukee and soon became a hit. Howard and Henry Winkler, who played tough guy Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli, were the show’s biggest stars, but Moran also became popular. In 1982, she was paired off with fellow Happy Days performer Scott Baio in the short-lived Joanie Loves Chachi.
Her more recent credits included The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote, but she never approached the success of Happy Days and was more often in the news for her numerous personal struggles.
“OH Erin … now you will finally have the peace you wanted so badly here on earth,” Winkler tweeted. “Rest In It serenely now … too soon.”
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