Hi Tech at SXSW — From Electronic Tattoos to Robot Delivery
The recent South By South West Festival is showcased the world’s latest technologies – some in development and others already on the market. VOA’s Arturo Martinez was there and brings us highlights from the Interactive Innovation Awards.
…
Genetically Modified Larvae Could Replace Lab Animals
Animal testing has become problematic in the past few decades. Animal rights activists have uncovered numerous instances of animal cruelty, and it’s also expensive to keep animal test subjects, especially if they’re treated humanely. But how else can pharmaceutical companies test the effectiveness, and safety of their products, some of which could save thousands of lives? The answer to that problem may be wriggling in a laboratory petri dish. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
New Hospital to Serve 50,000 Impoverished Haitians
Fifty thousand Haitians will have access to quality health care for the first time after a modern new hospital opened Monday in the isolated and impoverished Cotes-de-Fer region.
The Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan Center for Health will serve those who, until now, had to travel for hours on rough roads for treatment.
The new hospital is a project of the nonprofit charity Catholic Medical Mission Board. The U.S.- based group Mercy Health contributed $2 million for construction costs.
“With active involvement of the community and an emphasis on training and knowledge sharing, the health center will strengthen the local health system in a long-term and sustainable way,” said CMMB’s director in Haiti, Dr. Dianne Jean-Francois.
Along with an emergency room and pharmacy, the new hospital will give pregnant women a place to deliver their babies, along with postnatal and pediatric care.
The hospital also has plans for expansion for dental and ophthalmology clinics.
…
Newest Technologies Becoming Weapons in Fight for Land Rights
Cutting-edge technologies — from drones to data collected by taxi drivers — are becoming key weapons in the global battle to improve land rights and fight poverty, experts said Monday.
Advances in earth observation, digital connectivity and computing power provide an array of information, from detailed topographical maps to transportation use, that was previously unimaginable, geospatial experts said at a World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty.
The information collected can be instrumental to helping establish property records and land titling systems in countries where there is no formal ownership or land-use documentation.
Drones help map Africa
Survey-mapping drones may look like toys but are powerful machines having a huge impact on land-use planning in Africa, said Edward Anderson, a senior World Bank disaster management expert.
High-quality, high-resolution images taken by drones in Zanzibar identified nearly 2,000 new buildings in one 12-month period alone, he said.
The mapping exercise, budgeted at $2 million in 2005, was completed at a tenth of the price by local university students operating the small, light, unmanned drones, Anderson said.
“Coastal zones are developing and urbanizing so quickly, waterside areas are being developed into hotels, residential properties,” he said.
“Until now, there was no way of quantifying this change and making comparisons,” Anderson said.
Massive growth exposed
While more than 87 percent of the land mass of Europe is mapped at a local level, such maps exist for only about 3 percent of the entire African continent, he said.
A project using drones in Mauritania, a country twice the size of France but with a population of less than four million, has allowed authorities to document the massive growth of cities such as its capital, Nouakchott, said University of Arizona professor Mamadou Baro.
Originally established in 1959 with fewer than 5,000 residents, Nouakchott is the largest city in the Sahara and home to more than 1.5 million people.
“This is placing huge pressure on social infrastructure and chaos in the development of the city,” Baro said. “Drones are very helpful in attempting to manage and track this kind of enormous growth.”
Private companies that collect data as part of their businesses are being encouraged to share with state planning authorities as well, said Holly Krambeck, a World Bank transport planning expert.
Taxi drivers track roads
GPS data collected by taxi drivers is helping to design plans for infrastructure and roads in countries such as Brazil and in North Africa, she said.
The shared data comes through agreements with technology companies such as Grab that operates ride-hailing and logistics services apps in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Using technology can also help identify new sources of tax revenue, experts said.
In Tanzania, improved mapping data revealed that up to two-thirds of properties in secondary cities were not on the tax rolls, they said.
…
Experimental Vaccine Protects Against Two Strains of Malaria
An experimental anti-malaria vaccine has been developed that protects against more than one strain of the malaria parasite that causes the mosquito-borne illness.
The vaccine, tested by principal investigator Kirsten Lyke and colleagues, is called PfSPZ and uses whole, live weakened early versions of the most common form of malaria Plasmodium falciparum (P. Falciparum), called sporozoites.
This early form of the parasite is what’s first injected into humans by an infected mosquito.
By using the entire sporozoite in the vaccine, the immune system responds to more of the parasite, according to Lyke.
15 healthy adults tested
A study of the vaccine conducted by Lyke and colleagues, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, enrolled 15 healthy adults who were assigned to receive three doses of the vaccine over several months.
Nineteen weeks after receiving the final dose, the volunteers were exposed to bites of mosquitoes carrying one strain of parasite from Africa.
A second group of six controls that was not vaccinated also got exposed to the mosquitoes. They showed signs of malaria and were promptly treated.
Nine of 14 vaccinated participants, or 64 percent, showed no signs of infection after exposure.
Of the nine, six participants were selected and exposed to a different strain, 33 weeks after the final immunization.
This time, five of the six were protected against this second strain, according to Lyke.
‘Great’ is not good enough
“Which is great, but not good enough,” said Lyke. “I mean, you don’t want to take a vaccine that’s going to give you a two out of three chance of being protected. So we have to improve on that and get it up to as close to 100 percent as we can. But at least we’ve established that we can get very high protection in six months and we’re seeing cross-strain protection.”
The agent would offer broader protection against a disease that kills mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the World Health Organization, 212 million people were infected with the mosquito-carrying parasite in 2015, and 429,000 died.
There are four types of malaria parasite that typically infect people. The most common and deadly is Plasmodium falciparum, which goes through a number of life-cycle stages during which the parasite evolves into a different form.
That is what makes it difficult to develop a vaccine.
Multiple strains a problem
The problem is further complicated by the fact that P. falciparum can mutate and develop into multiple strains.
Lyke said this is particularly true in Africa, in places where the disease is common.
“The falciparum malaria that is so endemic, there’s a lot of genetic change that occurs because it’s so prevalent in the population. And that contributes to different strains of the falciparum malaria so that you know any vaccine that we’d want to introduce we would want to make sure that it broadly covers multiple different strains of falciparum malaria,” Lyke said.
Clinical trials of the early vaccine, produced by the company Sanaria, also are going on in Africa, including in Burkina Faso, Kenya and Bioko Island off of Africa’s west coast.
…
Minimum-wage Increases Could Deepen Shortage of Health Aides
Only 17 snowy miles from the Canadian border, Katie Bushey’s most basic needs are met by traveling health aides who come into her home to change her diapers, track her seizures, spoon-feed her fettucine Alfredo and load her wheelchair into the shower.
But that’s only if someone shows up.
Bushey, 32, who lost her vocal and motor skills shortly after birth, is one of more than 180,000 Medicaid patients in New York who are authorized to receive long-term, in-home care, the most in the state’s history. But there are increasingly too few aides to go around, especially in remote, rural areas.
When there aren’t enough aides for Bushey — over a recent two-day stretch there were workers for only four of the 26 hours of care for which she is authorized — her mother must stay home from her job at an elementary school, forgoing a day’s wages and scraping her savings to pay the bills.
Minimum wage
It’s a national problem advocates say could get worse in New York because of a phased-in, $15-an-hour minimum wage that will be statewide by 2021, pushing notoriously poorly paid health aides into other jobs, in retail or fast food, that don’t involve hours of training and the pressure of keeping someone else alive.
“These should not be low-wage jobs,” said Bruce Darling, executive director at the Center for Disability Rights. “We’re paying someone who gives you a burger the same as the person who operates your relative’s ventilator or feeding tubes.”
There are currently 2.2 million home health aides and personal care aides in the U.S., with another 630,000 needed by 2024 as the Baby Boomer generation ages, according to the nonprofit research and consulting group PHI. New York state employs about 326,000 home health workers but is predicted to need another 125,000 by 2024.
For now, home health aides in New York state earn an average of about $11 an hour, though wages are lower in upstate regions. Advocates say the system needs a complete overhaul that focuses on higher pay, worker retention and finding methods of compensation beyond what is provided through Medicaid.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has committed nearly $6 billion in funding for home health care reimbursements in coming years as the agencies transition to the $15 minimum wage.
Statewide initiative
The state’s health department has said it is developing an initiative to attract, recruit and retain home health workers.
New York lawmakers have held hearings on the issue, and both the Senate and Assembly have so far included language in their budgets that would review and restructure how the state transfers Medicaid dollars to the providers, agencies and workers with the aim of providing workers and hours where they are needed most.
Other states are grappling with how to address the dwindling workforce as their minimum wages climb.
In Maine, legislation in 2015 attempted to make personal care worker wages more competitive with specific reimbursements for worker compensation. But a popular initiative will raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2020, minimizing those differences.
In Arizona, minimum wage increases have been accompanied by increased reimbursement rates, and in Washington state, workers negotiated a $15 wage for some home-care workers for when the state minimum increases to $13.50 in 2020.
New York advocates say a higher state minimum wage won’t attract any extra workers in rural regions such as Clinton County, where Bushey lives.
A single agency, North Country Home Services, hires and trains about 300 home health aides and personal care aides for about 1,000 people throughout a mountainous region the size of Connecticut. In any given week, the agency says, it leaves 400 hours of state-authorized care unfilled due to staffing shortages.
Special type of worker
The aides who continue despite the wages are a special breed, said Erica Stranahan, of Plattsburgh, who has worked as a home health aide with North Country for nine years and earns about $12 an hour. Stranahan said several of her co-workers have recently left home care for less-intensive professions that will soon have similar wages.
Stranahan acknowledged she makes it work only by sharing rent and living expenses with her boyfriend. She said she feels a responsibility to those she cares for, and would rather find a second job than quit caring for others.
“I enjoy helping people,” she said. “We’re with them for so many hours. It’s almost like we’re a second family for them,” Stranahan said.
But Rosalie Kline, a personal care aide in Canandaigua for nearly 13 years who also struggles to make ends meet, said that if worse came to worst, she would find another job that paid more.
“I wouldn’t want to. I love my job,” she said. “But I might need to.”
…
Report: Norway Unseats Denmark as World’s Happiest Country
Norway displaced Denmark as the world’s happiest country in a new report released on Monday that called on nations to build social trust and equality to improve the well-being of their citizens.
The Nordic nations are the most content, according to the World Happiness Report 2017 produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a global initiative launched by the United Nations in 2012.
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa, along with Syria and Yemen, are the least happy of the 155 countries ranked in the fifth annual report released at the United Nations.
“Happy countries are the ones that have a healthy balance of prosperity, as conventionally measured, and social capital, meaning a high degree of trust in a society, low inequality and confidence in government,” Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the SDSN and a special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General, said in an interview.
The aim of the report, he added, is to provide another tool for governments, business and civil society to help their countries find a better way to wellbeing.
Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden rounded out the top ten countries.
South Sudan, Liberia, Guinea, Togo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Central African Republic were at the bottom.
Germany was ranked 16, followed by the United Kingdom (19) and France (31). The United States dropped one spot to 14.
Sachs said the United States is falling in the ranking due to inequality, distrust and corruption. Economic measures that the administration of President Donald Trump is trying to pursue, he added, will make things worse.
“They are all aimed at increasing inequality – tax cuts at the top, throwing people off the healthcare rolls, cutting Meals on Wheels in order to raise military spending. I think everything that has been proposed goes in the wrong direction,” he explained.
The rankings are based on six factors — per capita gross domestic product, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, social support and absence of corruption in government or business.
“The lowest countries are typically marked by low values in all six variables,” said the report, produced with the support of the Ernesto Illy Foundation.
Sachs would like nations to follow United Arab Emirates and other countries that have appointed Ministers of Happiness.
“I want governments to measure this, discuss it, analyze it and understand when they have been off on the wrong direction,” he said.
…
Robot Is the Star in New Play
Robots are becoming commonplace in many areas of society — from manufacturing to medicine to our homes. But now, a robot has taken to the stage, in a British play called Spillikin, where a humanoid robot plays the male companion of a woman with Alzheimer’s disease.
The “Robothespian,” as the droid is being called, plays the lead in an unconventional play.
“It’s a story about a robot maker. All of his life he builds robots, and he develops degenerative illness in mid-life,” Jon Welch, the writer and director, said. “And realizes he’s not going to live to remain a companion to his wife. His wife, by now, is developing early Alzheimer’s, so he builds his final creation, his final robot be a companion to his wife.”
British actress Judy Norman plays the woman with Alzheimer’s. During the performance, she mostly talks to the robot but also shares a kiss.
“When he looks at me, I know this going to sound weird, but he is very affectionate and I like him, I really like him,” Norman said.
Welch said the concept for the play came from a real robot maker.
“The idea for the play started with the robot maker approaching us and offering us the use of one of his incredible robot creations to use in a play,” he said. “He’s seen one of our plays before, he liked us as a local theatre company, and he’s been making robots for ten years. And you find him in science museums all over the world, but he’s never really had one of his robots as a character in a play.”
Norman has found the experience interesting.
“This show has proven to me that really working with a robot is seriously not that different than working with a normal actor,” she said.
What is not so normal is the time it takes to make sure the Robothespian is in sync during the one and a half hour play. The robot is connected to a cord that goes to a control room with a laptop.
“We have pre-programmed every single thing the robot says and every single thing the robot does — all the moves,” Welch said. “There’s about nearly 400 separate queues but they are made up of other files, all stuck together so there’s probably a couple of thousand cues in reality.
“So the robot will always say the same thing and move the same way, depending on what queue is been triggered at what particular time,” he said.
Spillikin is on now tour in Britain.
…
Robot Is the Star in a New Play
Robots are becoming commonplace in many areas of society — from manufacturing to medicine to our homes. Now, a robot has taken to the stage, in a British play called “Spillikin.” A humanoid robot plays the male companion of a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about it.
…
Film Looks at Plastics in the Oceans
Eight million metric tons of plastic wind up each year in the oceans, harming marine life and entering the food chain. Mike O’Sullivan reports a new documentary film called “A Plastic Ocean” looks at the problem, and its solutions.
…
‘Sesame Street’ to Add Julia, Muppet With Autism
Folks on Sesame Street have a way of making everyone feel accepted.
That certainly goes for Julia, a Muppet youngster with blazing red hair, bright green eyes — and autism. Rather than being treated like an outsider, which too often is the plight of kids on the spectrum, Julia is one of the gang.
Look: On this friendliest of streets (actually Studio J at New York’s Kaufman Astoria Studios, where Sesame Street lives) Julia is about to play a game with Oscar, Abby and Grover. In this scene being taped for airing next season, these Muppet chums have been challenged to spot objects shaped like squares or circles or triangles.
“You’re lucky,” says Abby to Grover. “You have Julia on your team, and she is really good at finding shapes!”
Group skedaddles
With that, they skedaddle, an exit that calls for the six Muppeteers squatted out of sight below them to scramble accordingly. Joining her pals, Julia (performed by Stacey Gordon) takes off hunting.
For more than a year, Julia has existed in print and digital illustrations as the centerpiece of a multifaceted initiative by Sesame Workshop called Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in All Children.
She has been the subject of a storybook released along with videos, e-books, an app and website. The goal is to promote a better understanding of what the Autism Speaks advocacy group describes as “a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, as well as by unique strengths and differences.”
But now Julia has been brought to life in fine Muppet fettle. She makes her TV debut on Sesame Street in the Meet Julia episode airing April 10 on both PBS and HBO. Additional videos featuring Julia will be available online.
Years of consultation
Developing Julia and all the other components of this campaign has required years of consultation with organizations, experts and families within the autism community, according to Jeanette Betancourt, Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president of U.S. Social Impact.
“In the U.S., one in 68 children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder,” she says. “We wanted to promote a better understanding and reduce the stigma often found around these children. We’re modeling the way both children and adults can look at autism from a strength-based perspective: finding things that all children share.”
Julia is at the heart of this effort. But while she represents the full range of children on the spectrum, she isn’t meant to typify each one of them: “Just as we look at all children as being unique, we should do the same thing when we’re looking at children with autism,” Betancourt says.
It was with keen interest that Stacey Gordon first learned of Julia more than a year ago. “I said, ‘If she’s ever a puppet, I want to BE Julia!’ ”
No wonder. Gordon is a Phoenix-based puppeteer who performs, conducts classes and workshops, and creates whimsical puppets for sale to the public.
She also has a son with autism, and, before she started her family, was a therapist to youngsters on the spectrum.
Although she figured her chances of landing the dream role of Julia were nil, her contacts in the puppet world paid off: Two friends who worked as Muppeteers on Sesame Street dropped her name to the producers. After submitting tapes, then coming to New York for an audition, she was hired.
In the introductory segment, Julia is having fun with Abby and Elmo when Big Bird walks up. He wants to be her new friend, but she doesn’t speak to him. He thinks she doesn’t like him.
“She does things just a little differently, in a Julia sort of way,” Abby informs him.
Different-but-fun way
Julia, chuckling, then displays a different-but-fun way of playing tag, and everyone joins in. But when a siren wails, she covers her ears and looks stricken.
“She needs to take a break,” Big Bird’s human friend Alan calmly explains. Soon, all is well and play resumes.
“The Meet Julia episode is something that I wish my son’s friends had been able to see when they were small,” says Gordon. “I remember him having meltdowns and his classmates not understanding how to react.”
Gordon says her son, now 13, isn’t drawn to puppetry. “He’s more interested in math and science, and plays the piano brilliantly,” she says with pride.
But she’s having a blast being part of the show that helped hook her, as a child, on puppeteering.
“It is so much fun to be on set with everyone, and get to play up all the positive things I’ve seen with the kids that I’ve worked with,” Gordon says. “At the same time, I come at this with a reverence. I don’t want to let the autism community down.”
…
Philadelphia Cancels Cinco de Mayo Festivities
The eastern U.S. city of Philadelphia has canceled this year’s celebration of Cinco de Mayo, an event that attracts as many as 15,000 people.
Edgar Ramirez, one of the event’s organizers, said the unanimous decision by the planners was “sad,” but it was the “responsible” thing to do because of “the severe conditions affecting the immigrant community.”
Ramirez said the organizers were afraid federal immigration officers would stage a raid on the annual festival in Philadelphia — the country’s fifth-largest city.
U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to step up the arrests and deportations of people living illegally in the U.S.
Cinco de Mayo — or the Fifth of May — commemorates the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican-American populations.
your ad hereMeteorite a Catalyst to Store Renewable Energy
A huge meteorite slammed into the southern African country of Namibia during prehistoric times. Now, pieces from that meteorite could be used as a natural catalyst to store energy from renewable sources. Scientists at a technology institute in Switzerland found that the meteorite’s composition is key to its effectiveness as a catalyst. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
…
A Simple, New Way to Spin Spider Silk in the Lab
In textiles, nothing has the impact of spider silk. These protein strands are stretchy and in some ways as strong as steel but without the weight. Scientists have been making artificial spider silk for years, with varying degree of success. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports some Swedish researchers have found a new way to spin the miracle fiber, and they make it look easy.
…
Gyllenhaal and Reynolds Forge a Friendship Filming ‘Life’
There’s a bromance brewing between actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds.
The Hollywood stars say they hit it off so well during the filming of their new sci-fi thriller called Life that a genuine friendship has blossomed. The movie, about a team of scientists aboard the International Space Station who find an alien life form from Mars, premiered Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin.
The Brokeback Mountain and Deadpool stars were mostly all jokes during rounds of press interviews before the film’s premier, answering most questions with a back-and-forth comedy shtick. But they turned serious when asked about the connection formed on set.
‘A lucky thing’
“You do these films and get to work with really amazing people, really talented people and you think ‘oh I’m going to hang out with these people afterward and see them again,’” said Reynolds. “You don’t most of the time because you go on living your life. But with this guy, we’ve stayed friends. That’s a lucky thing. It doesn’t always happen.”
Some of the first signs of the newly forged bond came earlier this week when Reynolds gave high praise to Gyllenhaal on Good Morning America, calling him one of the most interesting actors currently working in Hollywood. Reynolds said Saturday that his co-star is “one the greatest actors of this generation.”
“I loved working with this guy,” he said. “I loved spending time with this guy. It’s not often you get this experience.”
Gyllenhaal was equally complimentary, saying Reynolds’s role last year as a foul-mouthed superhero is exactly what he strives for: a performance so authentic that it would be nearly impossible for another actor to duplicate.
“We sort of grew up in this business together without knowing each other until very recently,” Gyllenhaal said. “It’s hard in a business where … a lot of times we’re pretending to get closer to the truth and to find somebody who you feel is genuine. I feel that way about him, so we’re friends.”
Parallels classic thriller
The movie plot draws some notable parallels to Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien, tracking a team of scientists on a spaceship who encounter an alien life form that wreaks havoc. Their discovery — the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars — turns out to be a threat not only to the crew but to all life on Earth.
But even with the backdrop of a sci-fi heart pounder, Gyllenhaal says he and Reynolds found some levity throughout the filming.
“This experience of what’s happening right now was consistent to what it felt like while we were shooting,” Gyllenhaal said in between puns served as answers to questions. “We had really scary situations in the movie and scenes that were really tense, but we were laughing constantly and it was so much fun.”
…
Tributes Pour in for Late Rock ‘N’ Roll Icon Chuck Berry
Musicians have been paying tribute to American rock n’ roll icon Chuck Berry, who died Saturday at the age of 90.
In a series of tweets, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger thanked Berry for “all the inspirational music he gave to us.”
Legendary American singer Bruce Springstein said Berry was “rock’s greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock ‘n’ roll writer who ever lived.”
British rock singer Rod Stewart said Berry “inspired us all” while American singer Huey Lewis said his “music and influence will last forever.”
The legendary African-American musician, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, gave his first performance in high school. Since then, he forged a life that included three years in reform school, 20 months in prison, and decades in the spotlight, pioneering a musical form that has become synonymous with American music.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry, who went by the nickname Chuck, was famous for such 1950s hits as Maybellene, Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little Sixteen, and Johnny B. Goode. The singles — revolutionary combinations of pop, country music and blues — were dance hits in high school gymnasiums and music clubs across the United States. His musical style helped give birth to the age of the American teenager, all hormones and energy and optimism.
Influence for many musicians
Berry’s hit Maybellene was a rock ’n’ roll treatment of a country song known as Ida Red. Berry wrote in a memoir that his music label, Chess, “couldn’t believe that a … hillbilly song could be written and sung by a black guy.”
His music influenced most of the popular musicians that came after him, including such well-known music legends as the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and the Grateful Dead. Referring to Berry in the mid-1980s, Rolling Stone’s Keith Richards famously quipped, “I’ve stolen every lick (guitar improvisation) he ever played.”
Born in the Midwest
Berry was born into a middle-class family in Missouri and gave his first performance at Sumner High School, historic in its own right as the first African-American high school west of the Mississippi River, a dividing line that separates the eastern third of the country from the West.
Berry is credited with originating many quirks exclusively associated with the rock ’n’ roll genre, including a rollicking, danceable beat, his famous “duck walk” and a heavy, rhythmic guitar style that he may well have been described in the song Johnny B. Goode: “just like he’s ringin’ a bell.” Legend has it that he developed his duck walk as a means of hiding the wrinkles in the one good suit he had brought on tour.
As for Johnny B. Goode — originally meant to be about a black boy, but changed to “country boy” for wider appeal — countless bands covered it, among them the Beatles, country star Buck Owens and heavy metal band Judas Priest.
Run-ins with the law
Berry’s brushes with the law came early and late. In high school, he was arrested for armed robbery and spent three years in a reformatory, between 1944 and 1947. He emerged to go to work in an automobile factory, but he was playing music publicly with the Johnnie Johnson Trio by 1953. A meeting in Chicago with famed blues musician Muddy Waters led to the release of Maybellene, national fame and a string of hits.
In 1961, Berry got in trouble for transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines and served 20 months in prison, a period in his life that friends said changed him forever. In 1979, he served 120 days in prison for tax evasion.
Berry’s music evolved at a time when racism was running high; blacks and whites were segregated into different schools, businesses, churches and public facilities. But his music attracted fans of all ethnicities.
Music for everyone
“I made records for people who would buy them,” he said once. “No color, no ethnic, no political — I don’t want that, never did.”
Despite his troubles with the law and the conditions of the times, Berry rose to the top of his profession.
He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, became one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and was given a Kennedy Center Honors Award in Washington in 2000 for his lifetime of contributions to American cultural life.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced March 16 that Berry’s work will be featured in a new exhibit alongside that of Elvis Presley and other rock ’n’ roll greats, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the music magazine Rolling Stone.
Berry said the musical genres that inspired him were swing and big band, the music of the 1940s. In an appearance on The Tonight Show in 1987, Berry said he originally wanted to play the more traditional musical styles.
“The main guy was Louis Jordan. I wanted to sing like Nat Cole, with lyrics like Louis Jordan, with the swing of Benny Goodman, with Charlie Christian on guitar playing Carl Hogan’s riffs with the soul of Muddy Waters,” he said.
But Berry knew a good thing when he saw it. Married to his wife, Themetta Suggs, since 1948 and with four children to support, Berry embraced the musical style that made his career. In the 1957 hit Rock and Roll Music, Berry sang, “It’s gotta be rock ’n’ roll music, if you wanna dance with me.”
Berry’s final original album, titled Chuck, is expected to be released by Dualtone Music Group later this year.
…
Chuck Berry, Rock ‘N’ Roll Icon, Dies at Age 90
Police in St. Louis, Missouri, say rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry has died at age 90.
Berry was an American music legend, a pioneer of the rock ‘n’ roll style, which blended rhythm and blues with pop music in a blend that became synonymous with the developing culture of American teenagers in the 1950s.
Police in St. Charles County, Missouri, announced in a Facebook post Saturday that they had responded to a medical emergency at a local home. After unsuccessfully trying to revive him, officials pronounced Berry dead.
Berry’s death was announced using his full name Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr.
Police say the family has requested privacy.
…
‘Match Day’ for Foreign Medical Students Runs Into US Travel Ban
For some medical students, getting a yes or no Friday was more important than finding the right life partner.
Friday was “Match Day,” the annual day when medical students find out which U.S. medical institution has accepted them for a residency program. It is a competition, of sorts: 32,000 training slots are available for 42,000 applicants, according to this year’s data.
A residency, three to five years of practical experience and training in a student’s chosen medical specialty, is the next step after medical school, which in the United States generally means four years of postgraduate university studies.
Of those 42,000 applicants vying for residencies, all but about 6,000 are foreign nationals. And that is where their aspirations could collide with President Donald Trump’s latest executive order regulating immigration to the United States.
‘Extensive upheaval’
The National Residency Match Program (NRMP), a nonprofit group that organizes the matches between students and hospitals, said the new immigration order has had a substantial impact on its program. In its current revised form, the order bans citizens from six Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S., at least temporarily.
“The consequences of the [January 27] executive order are far-reaching for match applicants, and the upheaval it is causing is extensive,” NRMP’s chair, Dr. Maria Savoia, and CEO Mona Signer said in a joint statement.
“The affected applicants have worked hard for many years to achieve their goal of becoming physicians,” the two medical-education experts said, “and they should not be denied that opportunity because of a blanket policy that does not consider the individual.”
U.S. courts have issued a restraining order preventing enforcement of the travel ban, pending further legal arguments, but NRMP says it is concerned that some immigrants or foreign medical students with valid visas will nevertheless be delayed or rejected at U.S. borders.
Holidays at home are not care-free
In addition, foreign medical students who travel to their home countries during holidays or breaks in their university studies fear they may not be able to return in time to take up their new residencies in the U.S. Such medical programs typically begin each year on July 1.
“U.S. training programs should be able to select applicants based on their excellent character and qualifications, without regard to nationality. Both applicants and programs benefit from an orderly process for entry into graduate medical education,” said Signer, who is a public health specialist, and Savoia. “The executive order disrupts that process very considerably.”
Hospitals and other medical institutions that offer residencies worry that foreign students they choose for the multiyear training programs will be unable to begin their studies on schedule, Signer said.
Medical residencies are sometimes known as internships, or first-year post-graduate studies, because they occur during a fledgling doctor’s first year of practical training alongside or under direct supervision of a fully qualified physician in one of 21 recognized medical specialties.
Is US becoming less welcoming?
Those who administer medical residency programs do not directly choose the candidates they would like to attract. Instead they rank applicants in order of preference. Under those conditions, Signer said, “It seems likely that residency program directors will be reluctant to rank J-1 visa applicants because they may not be able to enter the country to begin training.”
The U.S. State Department’s J-1 visa program offers foreign nationals an opportunity to come to the United States “to teach, study, conduct research, demonstrate special skills or receive on-the-job training for periods ranging from a few weeks to several years,” according to Cultural Vistas, a nonprofit American group that has been organizing international exchange programs since 1963.
The perception that the United States is becoming less welcoming to foreign nationals in the medical professions appears to be having an effect.
Fewer non-U.S. citizen “international medical school graduates,” or IMGs, submitted program choices for this year: 7,284 in 2017 vs. 7,460 in 2016. However, NRMP said more of these candidates (52.4 percent) were matched with institutions – the highest match rate since 2005.
Foreign physicians benefit all Americans
About 1,800 IMGs already enrolled in accredited residency and fellowship programs in the U.S. are impacted by the travel ban, according to Dr. Thomas J. Nasca, CEO of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
“These physicians are providing much needed medical care to a conservatively estimated 900,000 patients in urban, suburban and rural communities across the country annually. They are a valued and welcomed group of colleagues,” he wrote in a statement.
“Many communities, including rural and low-income areas, often have problems attracting physicians to meet their health care needs. To address these gaps in care, IMGs often fill these openings. These physicians are licensed by the same stringent requirements applied to U.S. medical school graduates,” the chief executive officer of the American Medical Association, Dr. James Madara, wrote last month.
“The medical education community must support all international medical graduates and their families during these difficult times,” NRMP’s statement said.
…
US National Parks Visitor Jazzed by Louisiana
Mention New Orleans and most people will immediately associate it with jazz, a genre of music that originated among African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And that distinctly American music can be heard everywhere throughout the famed city – and in most other areas of the state of Louisiana.
The ‘Big Easy’
National parks traveler Mikah Meyer recently visited New Orleans to soak up some of those sounds and learn about the city’s other cultural highlights.
“There’s the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, which basically celebrates the contribution of the culture of New Orleans, to this music that is authentically and originally American…a relatively new genre that is distinctly American,” he said.
“So it’s a bunch of little sites basically all scattered throughout the French Quarter in the older parts of the city that celebrate this heritage.”
Wild wetlands
Just south of the city is the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, named in honor of a French pirate who helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British in the final battle of the War of 1812.
Meyer spent time in the wetlands paradise that’s home to an impressive variety of plants and wildlife.
“The Preserve was a really good example of a lot of the sites I had seen throughout the whole Gulf Coast,” Meyer observed. “Everything from the Everglades, northwest up through Tampa, through Pensacola, all the way to New Orleans. It was a good example of that ecosystem that lives in between the ocean and easily habitable land.”
The National Park Service describes the six sites of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve as representing “a treasure trove of south Louisiana’s historical and cultural riches. People from nearly every country, ethnic group, language and religion have come to the lower Mississippi River delta and left traces of their passing.”
Ancient culture
Traces of a prehistoric culture that made the lower Mississippi River Delta home are preserved at Poverty Point National Monument. The 3,400-year-old Native American settlement is now a World Heritage site. Meyer noted the unique geometric design that is considered a masterpiece of engineering.
“It has six lines of slightly raised ground, which they believe is where people lived, and then it has a bunch of different mounds – basically like man-made hills with millions of pounds of dirt.”
Poverty Point, once at the center of a huge trade network, is one of North America’s most important archeological sites.
Creole influence
At the Cane River Creole National Historical Park, the fourth of Louisiana’s national parks, Meyer learned that the state’s culture was not just influenced by the French.
“It’s very heavily influenced by all the people and all the countries and cultures that did trade in New Orleans, so Spanish, British, French… and so this Creole culture that developed out of that melting pot in the melting pot of America is a very unique thing,” he said.
Even though they’re part of the U.S., Meyer says the southern states he has visited so far show just how diverse America can be.
“If someone is looking to understand the unique culture and portion of American History, along with topography, whether it’s from the western edge of the Everglades all the way over to Louisiana, the Gulf Coast offers that chance,” he said.
Meyer invites you to learn more about his travels across America by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.
…
How The Wild Things Eat: Fruits, Vegetables on The Menu at Washington’s National Zoo
Washington’s National Zoo hired its first animal nutritionist 30 years ago. Since then the zoo has been preparing specific, well-balanced meals for each animal, provided by volunteers and food preparation teams. For Yahya Barzinji, Elizabeth Cherneff reports.
…
Stanford Doctors Help Ease Emergency Shortage in Nepal
In a medical emergency, an ambulance with a qualified medical team on board can be a lifesaver. But in Nepal, this service is rare if not nonexistent. To help provide the best possible medical emergency services, a team of doctors from Stanford University in California spent 12 weeks training four dozen medical technicians in Kathmandu. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has more. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…
How to Optimize School Bus Networks
Each day in the United States hundreds of thousands of yellow-painted buses carry millions of children to schools and back home. Scientists at the University of Maryland are developing algorithms that can help transport students more efficiently. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…
Depeche Mode Hopes New CD Gets ‘People to Think a Bit’
Depeche Mode’s new album kicks off with a dire warning that we’re going backward as a society. Things go quickly downhill from there.
“Spirit” then tells us we’ve been lied to and advocates revolution, convicts everyone of treason and urges selfish scum to turn their guns on themselves – and that’s just the first four songs.
“First and foremost, we wanted to make a fun album,” deadpans chief songwriter Martin Gore. “That was a joke.”
The gloomy British electronic trio resurfaced this month with its first new music in four years and the timing seems impeccable. The dozen new dark songs seem the perfect soundtrack to a world rocked by Brexit and Donald Trump.
“It’s a little bit of a heavy listen,” acknowledges lead singer Dave Gahan. “Look, that’s what we do. It’s about creating these atmospheres with this backdrop of the world we’re living in.”
“Spirit” continues the band’s evolution in alternative-rock under the new guidance of producer James Ford, who has worked with Florence and the Machine and the Arctic Monkeys.
Band member Andy Fletcher said Ford, who also played drums on many of the tracks, managed to “freshen us up a bit.” The songs are drenched in dread, slithering synths and strong hooks, exploring everything from trickle-down economics to heartbreak.
Gore, who had a hand in nine of the tracks, said the album might sound like a reaction to recent political and cultural shocks but was actually written in the second half of 2015 and early 2016.
“The world was still in a mess then and it was quite depressing to me. I felt that I couldn’t just ignore it. If I was going to actually write and be honest to myself I had to kind of like face it,” he said.
“I wanted to say that I feel that we’ve lost our way a bit, that mankind has lost its way spiritually. I’m not talking from any denomination here. I just mean in a general sense and by pointing that out, maybe it just gets people to think a bit.”
Depeche Mode will go on the road – their Live Nation-backed, 28-show North American tour starts in Salt Lake City in August – mixing the new songs with their go-to anchors, including “I Feel You” and “Walking In My Shoes.”
“I try and find songs from some other albums that will relate to what we’re doing now,” said Gahan, who mused that “Everything Counts” would sit nicely with the new tracks. “Hopefully, there will be a couple of little surprises.”
Depeche Mode was part of a wave of English pop-synthesizer bands to sweep into America in the 1980s with light-hearted songs like “Just Can’t Get Enough.” They matured with edgier, socially conscious tunes like “People Are People” and “Blasphemous Rumours” before hitting big success with 1990’s “Violator,” which produced the singles “Personal Jesus,” “Enjoy the Silence” and “Policy of Truth.”
The band found itself this year on the list of potential inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but failed to make the cut for the Class of 2017.
“To be honest, we were surprised. We never aimed to be in it. We think, ‘An electronic band in the Rock and Roll Hall?”’ Fletcher said. “To be nominated is quite good, really. I don’t know if we’ll eventually go in. It’s not really on the top list of our wishes. It would be nice if it happened, I suppose.”
If it ever happens, it would be a remarkable crowning for a group of acknowledged misfits from East London that made its reputation making symphonies from smacking pots and pans and wearing eyeliner, nail polish and black leather.
“Definitely, we were not the cool kids in town,” said Gahan. “We were those weirdos, the ones that got chased home from school.” Now their songs have been covered by the likes of Johnny Cash and Susan Boyle, and Depeche Mode’s influences are heard everywhere, from airy Scandinavian pop to EDM.
“I think we’ve been lucky enough to have made some timeless records at certain points. Some of them, not so timeless,” said Gahan, laughing. “I feel like you get led somewhere and you’ve got to take that risk to jump in. I feel like ‘Spirit’ is an album that we’ve been led to.”
…
Filmmaker: To Help Iraq, Western World Must Connect With its Everyday People
War-torn Iraq may never recover unless the Western world learns to connect and identify with the people of the Middle Eastern nation, a Kurdish-Norwegian filmmaker said on Friday.
His documentary film “Nowhere to Hide” could help Westerners to understand and empathize with the suffering of Iraqi families, Zaradasht Ahmed told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
Filmed in northern Iraq over five years, “Nowhere to Hide” recounts the rise of Islamic State that in 2014 took over the town of Jalawla, northeast of Baghdad, through the eyes of a young medic working in a hospital.
Forced to flee, the medic and his family live in a displacement camp and are frightened to return home.
Promoting his film at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London, Ahmed said he would like outsiders to see struggling Iraqis as fellow human beings, not set them apart as refugees.
“There is nothing called the refugee crisis,” he said. “There are humanitarian crises. There are economic crises. There are war crises.”
The film director is pessimistic about the future of Iraq, which he said was permanently scarred by the invasion in 2003 of U.S. and British forces set on ousting its leader Saddam Hussein.
Now, he said, those Western nations do not recognize problems they started and “look at Iraq as a failure state without feeling like they had a hand on it.”
“We have to have more solidarity and try to think of Iraq as also part of this planet,” the filmmaker said.
Film Trailer:
Much of “Nowhere to Hide” was filmed by the medic, Nori Sharif, whom Ahmed taught to use a camera.
Sharif began filming in 2011 and recorded the retreat of the Iraqi Army from Jalawla in 2013 because of growing militant activity.
The director was born and raised in northern Iraq. His film on illegal immigration to Europe, made for SVT, Swedish public television, was screened at a number of film festivals.
IDFA Interview with Zaradasht Ahmed:
…
ePUMB skype chat
