Robots can see well enough to drive a car. Computers can hear our voices and respond to commands. VOA’s Arturo Martinez and Steve Baragona report that engineers are breaking through the next sensation frontier for robots: touch. Steve Baragona narrates.
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Month: May 2017
Floating Barge on New York River Grows Crops
In New York, where buildings outnumber green spaces, some people have small gardens to grow some of their own food. Now, another garden is growing in New York in a very unusual location. On a barge, floating on a river, a variety of crops are being nurtured. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about this unique, self-sustaining garden project.
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Award Recipient Charts New Path in Human Spaceflight
Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses, who received the Adler Planetarium’s “Women in Space Science Award” this year, views the opportunity for widely available space flight as a unifying endeavor for humanity. As Kane Farabaugh reports from Chicago, Moses is telling students about space flight as a way to motivate them to pursue careers like hers.
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Eurozone Bounces Back as Growth Beats US, Britain
After years of stagnation and high unemployment, the eurozone countries appear to be bouncing back, with growth in the shared currency bloc soaring higher than the United States and Britain. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Europe’s politicians hope economic growth could help stop the march of anti-EU populism that saw Britain vote to leave the European Union.
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Baquiat’s ‘Untitled’ Sells for Record $110.5 Million
Nearly 30 years after his death, the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is breaking records.
Basquiat’s “Untitled” canvas was sold Thursday at Sotheby’s for $110.5 million. The auction house said the price tag was a record for the artist and also set a record price for an American artist at auction.
Japanese billionaire Yosaku Maezawa, who bought the artwork in a 10-minute bidding war, said he plans to loan the Basquiat to museums and exhibitions before it is housed in a museum in Maezawa’s hometown of Chiba, Japan.
“I hope it brings as much joy to others as it does to me, and that this masterpiece by the 21-year-old Basquiat inspires our future generations,” Maezawa said.
The “Untitled” multimillion-dollar masterpiece depicts a skulllike head and was created with oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint on a giant canvas.
It had been part of a private collection since 1984 when it was sold for just $19,000.
“I’ve never seen so much emotions in such a painting,” said Gregorie Billault, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. “He’s bringing something never seen before.”
Another Basquiat work, also labeled “Untitled,” sold last year of $57.3 million. Maezawa also purchased that piece.
Basquiat, who was black, was born in Brooklyn to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother.
He died in 1988 from a drug overdose at the age of 27.
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Greek Parliament Approves More Economic Austerity
The Greek Parliament approved another round of tough economic cuts and austerity measures Thursday to assure itself another installment payment of European bailout funds.
Greece may have again faced bankruptcy in July without the payment.
More cuts for pensioners
All 153 lawmakers in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist coalition voted for the cuts; all 128 opposition members voted no.
More than 10,000 Greeks weary of the nation’s economic problems, including elderly pensioners facing more cuts, marched outside Parliament against the measures.
Several dozen young marchers wearing masks broke away from the crowd to throw gasoline bombs at police, who responded with tear gas.
Greece desperately needs about $8 billion of bailout money from its eurozone lenders in order to make a scheduled debt payment.
Tax hikes part of deal
In exchange, the government agreed to EU demands for more austerity measures, including tax hikes and programs aimed at easing poverty.
With Thursday’s vote, Greek officials hope they can renegotiate payment terms on the nation’s massive debt payment — nearly 180 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product. The International Monetary Fund calls this number unsustainable.
Greece has been relying on international bailouts since 2010, when the outgoing conservative government badly underreported the country’s debt.
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Scientists Discover Human Antibodies to Fight Ebola Virus
Scientists have discovered a possible cure for all five known Ebola viruses, one of which ravaged West Africa in recent years.
The so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies were discovered in the blood of a survivor of the West African epidemic, which ran from late 2013 to mid-2016. The deadly virus killed more than 11,000 people of the nearly 29,000 who became infected in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Ebola got its name from the first documented outbreak, which occurred along the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, in 1976. Since then, there have been two dozen outbreaks of Ebola in Africa, including a current one that has infected nine people in the DRC. Three people have died.
Kartik Chandran, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, helped identify the antibodies, which were described online in the journal Cell. He is optimistic that the antibodies can be used as a single therapy to treat all Ebola viruses.
“Based on the nonhuman primate studies that are ongoing, and given the fact that they are pretty predictive, I would be optimistic that they could be used to protect people and reverse disease,” Chandran said.
350 antibodies isolated
Researchers isolated about 350 antibodies from the human blood sample, two of which showed promise in neutralizing three viruses in tissue culture. The antibodies work by interfering with a process that the pathogen uses to infect and multiply inside cells.
The drug company Mapp Pharmaceutical Inc. is now testing the antibodies in monkeys to make sure they are safe and effective.
A forerunner of the experimental drug, called Zmapp, was in the experimental stages when it was pressed into service during the last epidemic. Zmapp is a combination of cloned antibodies discovered in mice that enlist the body’s natural immune system to fight infection. If given up to five days after symptoms appear, it can cure the disease.
The problem, Chandran said, is Zmapp is not terribly specific and works to neutralize only Ebola Zaire, one of the five known viruses. He said the broadly neutralizing human antibodies attack and destroy all of the viruses.
It took scientists just six months to discover the antibodies, according to Chandran, “so this is really incredibly fast and incredibly gratifying. And we are hoping that things will continue at this pace and that in very short order we will be in a position to be able to test these things in people.”
While the broadly neutralizing antibodies are being developed as a treatment, Chandran envisions using them in a vaccine that can be given ahead of an Ebola outbreak to guard against infection.
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Heavy Rain May Have Once Fallen on Mars
Heavy rain shaped the Martian landscape billions of years ago, according to a new study.
According to researchers at the Smithsonian Institution and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, rain on Mars once carved river beds and created valleys much like rain on Earth has, and does. It no longer rains on the Red Planet, and the water that remains is mostly in the form of ice.
The rain appears to have slowly changed over time, researchers said, noting that changes in the Martian atmosphere influenced how heavy the rain was, particularly the size of the raindrops.
When Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago, it had a much thicker atmosphere and higher atmospheric pressure. Pressure, researchers say, influences the size of raindrops.
They say that early in the planet’s history, the rain would have actually been more like fog, so it would unlikely have made much of an impact on the terrain. But as the atmosphere thinned over time, larger raindrops could form and were heavy enough to “cut into the soil” changing the shape of craters and leading to running water that could have carved valleys.
Specifically, researcher say the atmospheric pressure on the Red Planet was about four bars, compared to one bar on Earth today. This means the raindrops could not have been bigger than three millimeters across. Over time the pressure dropped to 1.5 bars allowing for larger drops measuring about 7.3 millimeters across.
“By using basic physical principles to understand the relationship between the atmosphere, raindrop size and rainfall intensity, we have shown that Mars would have seen some pretty big raindrops that would have been able to make more drastic changes to the surface than the earlier fog-like droplets,” said Ralph Lorenz of John Hopkins APL.
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From ‘Leviathan’ Director Another Damning Portrait of Russia
After his Oscar-nominated film “Leviathan” was deemed “anti-Russian” by Russia’s Minister of Culture, director Andrey Zvyagintsev returned to the Cannes Film Festival with an equally bleak critique of Russian society.
Zvyagintsev was to premiere his fourth film, “Loveless,” on Thursday in Cannes, where “Leviathan” won best screenplay three years ago. That film, which also won a Golden Globe, was made with Russian state funding and prompted Russia’s culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, to refuse any further state financing for what he called Zvyagintsev’s mix of “hopelessness and existential meaninglessness.”
“Loveless” was instead made as an international co-production. The film is ostensibly about a bitterly divorcing couple (Mariana Spivak and Alexey Rozin), whose young son (Matvey Novikov) goes missing. But “Loveless” is also filled with state news reports and other sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant references that – as in “Leviathan” – suggest Russia’s politics has bankrupted its society.
“The Ministry of Culture went to great pains to emphasize how much they disliked ‘Leviathan’ and their desire to avoid the repetition of this kind of mistake in the future,” said producer Alexander Rodnyansky. “After the uproar that ‘Leviathan’ caused in Russia, I made a conscious decision to do this without any state involvement. I decided we didn’t need to embarrass them again and to do the film on our own.”
Grim and controlled, “Loveless” is initially focused on the relationships of its central characters. But Zvyagintsev steadily builds political subtext into the tale that, by the end, moves to the film’s center. State propaganda on Ukraine is heard on the radio and on TV. In one pivotal scene, the mother wears a jogging suit emblazed with “Russia” and the national colors.
Though it didn’t immediately earn the same widespread praise as “Leviathan,” London’s Daily Telegraph praised “Loveless” as “an opaque but pitiless critique on the director’s native Russia.”
Variety wrote: “Zvyagintsev can’t come right out and declare, in bright sharp colors, the full corruption of his society, but he can make a movie like ‘Leviathan,’ which took the spiritual temperature of a middle-class Russia lost in booze and betrayal, and he can make one like ‘Loveless,’ which takes an ominous, reverberating look not at the politics of Russia but at the crisis of empathy at the culture’s core.”
In one unusual exchange Wednesday, a reporter accused Zvyagintsev of proffering his own propaganda.
“Certainly not,” said Zvyagintsev. “If you saw ‘Leviathan’ then you know where I stand vis-a-vis the powers that be. It’s not supposed to be propaganda at all in this episode. You do see these scenes on TV. It’s Russian life, Russian society, Russian anguish at the end of the day. But it’s also universal, not just Russian.”
“Loveless” will be released in Russia by a unit of Sony Pictures and the Walt Disney Co. on June 1. “Leviathan” made $1.5 million at the Russian box office in 2015. Millions, however, watched a copy that leaked online.
On Wednesday, Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film for U.S. distribution.
Aging US Celebrities Discuss Living Well After 90
Mel Brooks made it clear that he was not paid to appear at the premiere of the new HBO documentary “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.”
“They never pay, they never pay,” he joked. “How funny I was tonight and I don’t get a penny.”
Brooks stole the show from fellow Hollywood legends Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke and Norman Lear, with whom he shared the stage after the screening Wednesday. The four longtime friends star in the film, which explores what makes for a vibrant, active life after age 90. Non-famous nonagenarians and centenarians are also featured, including a 101-year-old competitive runner, a 100-year-old pianist and a 98-year-old yoga teacher.
Producer George Shapiro (“Seinfeld”) said the cast is “truly sending a love letter to the human race.”
Reiner, 95, serves as host of the film, interviewing his friends Brooks and Lear, along with 95-year-old Betty White and 100-year-old Kirk Douglas.
All the active elders say the key is keeping yourself healthy and staying engaged with life by doing what you love. The film and its subjects are vivacious and inspiring.
Van Dyke is still singing and dancing – onscreen in the new “Mary Poppins,” in theaters next year, and off-screen with his wife, who’s more than four decades his junior. His advice is to “keep moving,” which is also the title of his book on aging published in 2015. Lear is working on a reboot of his 1975 series “One Day at a Time.” Reiner said writing every day gives his life purpose, adding that he just finished a book called “Too Busy to Die.”
“I just say eat bran,” Brooks quipped.
Tom Bergeron moderated the post-screening discussion with the stars. Once they got going, Brooks declared, “Tom, you’re superfluous, really. Everybody here is a self-starter.”
The conversation was actually one of mutual admiration. Reiner called Brooks “the funniest human being in the world” and Van Dyke “the single most talented man that ever lived.” Van Dyke described his stage-mates as “creative giants” and said Reiner has been his mentor and idol since they met.
When Bergeron asked if any of the men had ever considered retirement, Brooks said, “I thought of retiring Carl, but he won’t.”
They also talked about Donald Trump, the “2000 Year Old Man” and who had the nicest shoes (Brooks).
“Well, I have the most money here, except for Norman,” Brooks said. “Norman, you should dress better.”
“If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast” is set to debut June 5.
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Poll Says Blacks Less Likely to Have Enough for Retirement
Older white Americans are nearly twice as likely as African-Americans to say they’ve saved enough for retirement, a new poll found.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey also found that African- Americans and Latinos have less financial security than whites and will rely on fewer sources of income during retirement. The retirement savings gap between white and other minority groups extends beyond pensions, 401(k)s or other retirement accounts.
The survey shows older white Americans are also more likely to collect Social Security benefits, inherit money from their families or receive income from the sale of a home or other physical assets.
The disparity in retirement readiness is a sign that the structural inequalities black and Latino workers face during their working years extend into retirement. For example, the unemployment rate among African-Americans is twice that of whites. On top of that, blacks earn less than whites with similar education and experience, research shows.
“Having good saving habits is good but black and Latino workers are just always worse off and it makes every aspect of saving for retirement harder,” said Matthew Rutledge, an economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
About 38 percent of older white Americans said they had sufficient money for retirement compared with 20 percent for African-Americans.
Four in 10 older Americans say they think they’ll outlive their retirement savings.
“Black and Latino families benefit from being close,” Rutledge said, adding that family members help to care for children and the elderly. “But it doesn’t pay off when compared to whites family’s (financial) contributions.”
Families not only pass down money, but also information on how to handle finances.
“They have learned better savings behavior from the previous generation,” he said. “Older Americans who received financial help from family are less likely to have racked up credit card debt or student loans. They can save (for retirement) rather than paying off debt.”
The poll showed whites are significantly more likely, compared to African-Americans and Latinos to say they have a retirement account. They’re also more likely than African-Americans to say they will have income from the sale of physical assets.
But even when it comes to the most basic form of income during retirement, whites are more likely to say they will receive Social Security payments – 82 percent compared to 62 percent for African-Americans and 60 percent for Latinos, the survey found.
The situation is so dire that some older African-Americans and Latinos have no sources of income for retirement -14 percent compared to 4 percent of whites, the survey found.
Maria Villanueva, 69, is one of them. Villanueva doesn’t collect Social Security payments because she didn’t pay into the system. Villanueva immigrated illegally to California in the 70s to work as a farmworker and became a legal resident after the Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed into law. The single mother worked as a domestic worker but was paid in cash.
“I didn’t know I had to pay into Social Security,” she said in Spanish. “All my life I’ve taken care of everyone except myself.”
Villanueva hoped she would be able to work into older age but she can’t because of various chronic illnesses including diabetes and arthritis. She now relies on government assistance and food stamps. She provides for her 15-year-old granddaughter.
“I try not to think about the future because I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “What if I go to sleep tonight and I don’t wake up tomorrow?”
Retired members of minority groups tend to have lower incomes and are more likely to describe their financial situation as “somewhat poor or very poor” compared to white Americans. Black Americans were also more likely to say they sometimes fall behind on bills, the poll found.
John Jackson, 66, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to an Individual Retirement Account when he worked as a manager. Now, two years into retirement, he said he’s not sure if his savings and Social Security will be enough.
Jackson, who is black, says there are many people worse off than him and that’s why he doesn’t like to complain. Worst case scenario, he said, he has a big loving family who could take care of him.
“I know God will take care of me,” he said.
Some white Americans also are fearful about having enough for retirement. For example, Karen Brooks, a 52-year-old university professor living in a suburb outside Seattle, said she’s concerned whether she’s saved enough.
Brooks is, by most standards, better off financially than Jackson. She has a pension from her work as a school teacher. She is also contributing about 15 percent of her current income to a retirement account and she may even receive a small inheritance. But her biggest source of worry is that she didn’t save when she went back to graduate school.
“I’m pretty smart and I’ve done well,” she said. “I’m saving for retirement but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. It’s frightening even talking about it now.”
The survey was conducted Feb. 14 through March 13 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
It involved interviews in English and Spanish with 1,683 people aged 50 and older nationwide who are members of NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. It includes oversamples of 332 African Americans and 308 Hispanics. Results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points.
Donald Trump Jr., Dubai Business Partner Discuss ‘New Ideas’
Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Dubai and met a billionaire business partner in the city-state, discussing “new ideas” as the Emirati’s real estate firm still lists possible plans for future joint projects while Trump’s father is in the White House.
The Trump Organization has said it won’t make new foreign deals while Donald Trump serves as America’s 45th president. That didn’t affect the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai’s opening in February , while a previously planned Trump-branded golf course designed by Tiger Woods is still being built nearby.
Both projects are being built by Dubai’s DAMAC Properties, owned by Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani. His company has paid the Trump Organization’s subsidiaries between $1 million to $5 million for the projects, according to a U.S. Federal Election Committee report submitted in May 2016.
Sajwani’s Instagram account posted a picture Tuesday night showing him with Trump, who now runs the Trump Organization with his brother Eric, at a table covered in a spread of Middle Eastern food and a plate of French fries.
“It was great having my dear friend and business partner Donald Trump Jr. over for lunch,” a caption with the photo read. “Discussing new ideas and innovation always make our meetings even more interesting.”
DAMAC did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting. However, recent regulatory filings made by the company suggest possible future plans with the Trump Organization.
DAMAC mentioned the Trump Organization in a prospectus for a sukuk, a type of Islamic bond, launched in April on the NASDAQ Dubai exchange. That filing noted DAMAC’s “product expansion also includes branding arrangements with … the Trump Organization.” It also listed plans for a “luxury boutique hotel to be operated by the Trump Organization” at DAMAC Hills, a massive development of villas and apartment buildings in Dubai’s desert that surrounds the newly opened Trump golf course.
Similar language had been included in previous regulatory filings by DAMAC, but its presence in documents after Trump’s election suggests the real estate company is keeping its options open. Days before becoming president, Trump had told journalists that DAMAC had offered the Trump Organization $2 billion in deals after his election, something DAMAC also confirmed.
Meanwhile, a quarterly earnings filing Monday made by DAMAC’s holding company listed a newly created subsidiary called Trump International Golf Club LLC, in which it described as holding a 100 percent legal and economic interest. The UAE-based entity lists its principal activity as being the “golf club,” without elaborating.
The Trump Organization has no new deals in the works in Dubai, company spokeswoman Amanda Miller said Wednesday. The company declined to answer other questions.
DAMAC’s first-quarter net profits of $240 million were down 16 percent compared to last year’s $285 million. The lower profits come as weak global oil prices squeeze Mideast countries, whose citizens form about half of DAMAC’s clientele.
DAMAC’s managing director also resigned Thursday, the company said in a regulatory filing. It offered no reason for his departure.
Experts have raised concerns that existing Trump business abroad could run afoul of the so-called “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution. That clause bars public officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments and companies controlled by them without the consent of Congress. Already, a liberal-funded watchdog group has filed a lawsuit citing the clause.
Others criticize Trump family members for traveling with Secret Service details while on private business trips, something afforded to them as direct relatives of the president.
While in Dubai, Trump also gave a commencement speech Sunday at the American University in Dubai, a private university founded in 1995 that has some 2,700 students. The university did not announce Trump would be making a commencement speech on its website ahead of time.
“When I look back on what my father did in this past election, and the risk he took, to me I’m far more impressed with the fact that he tried than by the fact he actually won,” Trump said in the 14-minute speech.”For a billionaire to step away from an amazing life and spend $75 million to go up against an incredible Republican field and then go up against one of the great political machines ever assembled… to do that was amazing.”
“We believed in his message and not necessarily the contrived message that was put out there in the media,” he added.
The university did not answer repeated emails and telephone calls asking if Trump received any payment for his speech. Security guards turned away an Associated Press journalist at the university’s gate Wednesday.
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European, Asian Stocks Falter Amid Political Worries
Stock markets in Europe and Asia declined Thursday, a day after U.S. stocks, the dollar and U.S. government bonds were down amid investor worries about controversial actions and comments from President Donald Trump.
The major U.S. stock indexes fell 1.8 percent or more on Wednesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 372 points.
The faltering markets follow Trump’s firing of the FBI chief, reportedly sharing secrets with top Russian officials, and allegations that the president may have tried to block an investigation into actions by a top aide who was fired.
The dollar rose, and stocks had risen to a series of record highs after Trump’s election, as investors bet that his promises to cut taxes and regulation would boost economic growth and corporate profits.
Investors may have second thoughts, though, after legislative efforts to repeal and replace a health care law stalled, and the tax cut agenda is tangled in political bickering.
Even Trump’s Republican allies say calls for congressional and other investigations of the administration’s actions are a distraction and a worry for lawmakers trying to move his agenda forward against determined opposition from Democrats.
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WHO: 400 Contacts Being Traced in Congo’s Ebola Outbreak
Health workers are monitoring more than 400 people amid an Ebola outbreak in a remote corner of Congo where already three deaths have been blamed on the virus, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
An experimental vaccine has been developed since the West African epidemic in 2014-2016 that left more than 11,000 people dead, but WHO said it is still awaiting permission from the Congolese government to use it.
The Ebola outbreak in the far north near the border with Central African Republic is the eighth in Congo since 1976. Congo has a long track record with the hemorrhagic fever, WHO said.
“However, we cannot underestimate the logistical and practical challenges associated with this response in a very remote, insecure part of the country,” said Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program.
“We’ve also learned never, ever to underestimate the Ebola virus disease.”
Authorities believe three deaths are linked to the outbreak: a 39-year-old man who died before he could reach a hospital, the motorcyclist transporting him and a caregiver traveling with them.
So far just two cases have been confirmed by laboratory testing. There are 18 other suspected cases.
The outbreak in Likati is some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. Helicopters and small aircraft are carrying teams to the remote area, where they are setting up a mobile testing laboratory and making improvements to the local airstrip.
Because the Ebola vaccine is still considered experimental, Congo’s government must give special permission for it to be used. WHO is still awaiting such confirmation, at which point it could take about a week to ship the vaccines to Congo and have teams ready to carry it out.
Report: Rocker Chris Cornell Dies at 52
Rocker Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and later Audioslave, has died at age 52, according to his representative.
Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Soundgarden played a concert at the Detroit’s Fox Theatre on Wednesday as part of a North American tour that had been scheduled to continue Friday in Columbus, Ohio.
Bumbery called the death “sudden and unexpected” and said his wife and family were shocked by it. The statement said the family would be working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause and asked for privacy.
Seattle grunge scene
With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle’s emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.
Formed in 1984 by Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, Soundgarden’s third studio album, Badmotorfinger, in 1991 spawned enormously popular singles Jesus Christ Pose, Rusty Cage and Outshined that received regular play on alternative rock radio stations.
Cornell also collaborated with members of what would become Pearl Jam to form Temple of the Dog, which produced a self-titled album in 1991 in tribute to friend Andrew Wood, former frontman for Mother Love Bone.
Three years later, Soundgarden broke through on mainstream radio with the album Superunknown, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Record in 1995. It included hit singles Spoonman, Fell on Black Days, Black Hole Sun, My Wave and The Day I Tried to Live.
On to Audioslave
Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 because of tensions in the band, and Cornell pursued a solo career. In 2001, he joined Audioslave, a supergroup that included former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford. The band released three albums in six years and also performed at a concert billed as Cuba’s first outdoor rock concert by an American band, though some Cuban artists have disputed that claim.
Audioslave disbanded in 2007, but Cornell and Soundgarden reunited in 2012 and released the band’s sixth studio album, King Animal in 2012.
In addition to his music, Cornell also became involved in philanthropy and started the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation to support children facing challenges, including homelessness, poverty, abuse and neglect.
His contemporaries reacted to his death with shock and surprise on Twitter early Thursday.
Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of the band Bush, called Cornell’s death a “great loss.”
Dave Navarro, best known as a guitarist for Jane’s Addiction, said he was “stunned” by the news.
And Jimmy Page, guitarist for the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin, said of Cornell: “Incredibly talented.Incredibly young.Incredibly missed.”
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Kilometers-Long Barrier Part of Plan to Clean Up Ocean Plastic
We producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is used once, then thrown away. In the United States, we discard more than 33 million tons of plastics, and only a little more than 14 percent is recycled or used as fuel. The rest ends up in landfills or strewn along roadways or washed into the ocean. Getting rid of it will be an enduring challenge, but one man has a plan to start cleaning up our mess. VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports.
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Le Sifflu Pipe Gives Non-Smokers Something to Hold On To
Despite the health warnings, smoking in many places is still the “thing to do.” For those who have quit but still want to hang out with their smoking friends, a French design group has the Sifflu. It lets people act like they are smoking while teaching them how to breathe, but without the worry of cancer and a shortened life span. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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US Campus Uses High-tech Center to Keep Students Safe
When Hurricane Sandy swept over Long Island, New York, in October 2012, power was knocked out and traffic lights were inoperable. While driving in her car, Stony Brook University student Vishwaja Muppa, 21, was struck by a police car and later died. The death of Muppa, from India, was one of 53 that were blamed on the storm.
On Stony Brook’s campus, damage was limited and students who sheltered remained safe. But university officials took the hurricane’s visit as a wake-up call and planned a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Stony Brook hired two security technology firms, VCORE Solutions and IntraLogic Solutions, to install equipment and software that would bring separate monitoring and communications systems under one roof.
“All the things we have in different silos, managed by different systems, are imported into one virtual environment,” Larry Zacarese, director of emergency management at Stony Brook, told VOA.
From the command center during Hurricane Sandy, Zacarese had little contact with other parts of the campus or local emergency responders off campus, he said. The new system shows images from cameras throughout campus and projects them on several monitors mounted across a 6½-meter-long wall.
Eyes everywhere
The system is regarded as a model and has been studied by other universities. Among the devices linked electronically are entry codes on hundreds of doors across campus, Global Positioning System units, fire alarms, video cameras and large, flat-screen television sets. The information from cameras and sensors is projected onto a large computer screen that shows the entire campus from above, including each building.
“We have a three-dimensional world overlaid on top of satellite imagery of our campus,” Zacarese said.
Software allows operators in the command center to expand each image and go into a building, checking its characteristics and the status of its sensors and alarms on each floor.
The system also allows the Emergency Operations Center to communicate in 15 ways with students across campus, utilizing social media, text messages, public address speakers and the 175 flat-screen television panels across campus. Operators can use the screens to warn students and faculty of a problem. They can use screens at all locations, or only at one site.
“If there is a fire in a chemistry lab,” Zacarese said, “we could communicate specifically to people in the chemistry building, as well as those in the immediate vicinity outside.”
Violence on campus
Zacarese said Stony Brook’s security system is vital in responding to violence and protecting those on campus. Last year, threatening messages of a “terroristic nature” appeared at a campus bus stop, he said. Using the information from cameras and other devices, police were able to identify the perpetrator and arrest him.
“In less than three hours,” Zacarese said, “we had someone in custody.”
There are more than 25,000 students enrolled at Stony Brook during a normal semester, but adding faculty and staff, campus population swells to about 50,000.
“The population size of this campus is essentially as big or bigger than some small cities,” Zacarese said.
The high-tech Emergency Operations Center can also be useful in police and fire investigations, he said, because investigators can use recorded data to find evidence and trace suspects.
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Report: Apple to Announce Laptop Upgrades
Apple will reportedly announce an update to its lineup of laptops at its annual developer conference, known as WWDC, in June.
The report from Bloomberg suggests Apple is responding to increased competition from rival Microsoft.
According to the report, Apple will announce three new laptops: The MacBook Pro will get a quicker processor, as will the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Air. The processors, according to Bloomberg, will be Intel’s newest, seventh generation chips.
Apple’s laptops account for 11 percent of the company’s annual $216 billion in sales. iPhones make up nearly two thirds of the company’s sales.
Rival Microsoft recently unveiled its own Surface Laptop as a possible competitor to MacBook Air. That device reportedly boots up quickly and has a touchscreen.
According to Bloomberg, the new MacBook Pro would share the same basic external look of the current models.
It has been seven years since Apple redesigned the MacBook Air and more than a year since the company released a new MacBook Pro. The 12-inch MacBook saw its last update last spring.
Apple will also reportedly announce an upgrade to its macOS operating system.
The WWDC will start June 5.
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US Stocks, Dollar and Bonds Falter Amid Political Worries
U.S. stocks, the dollar, and government bonds were down in Wednesday’s midday trading as many analysts said investors have been shaken by a series of controversial actions and comments from President Donald Trump. The major U.S. stock indexes fell 1.1 percent or more.
The faltering markets follow Trump’s firing of the FBI chief, sharing secrets with top Russian officials, and allegations that the president may have tried to block an investigation into actions by a top aide who was fired.
Stocks had risen to a series of record highs after Trump’s election, as investors bet that his promises to cut taxes and regulation would boost economic growth and corporate profits.
Investors may have second thoughts, though, after legislative efforts to repeal and replace a health care law stalled, and the tax cut agenda is tangled in political bickering.
Even Trump’s Republican allies say calls for congressional and other investigations of the administration’s actions are a distraction and a worry for lawmakers trying to move his agenda forward against determined opposition from Democrats.
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