Month: September 2017

Exhibit Explores Polish Links of Artists Kahlo, Rivera

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A new art exhibition that explores the little-known connections Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera had to Poland is bringing works inspired by Mexico’s indigenous cultures to a European audience which rarely has the chance to see them.

 

“Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera. Polish Context” features iconic Kahlo self-portraits and paintings by Rivera alongside works by two Polish-born artists.

 

The show also tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of a Kahlo painting titled “The Wounded Table” after it was displayed in Poland in 1955.

 

Organizers hope the exhibit might even lead to the mystery of the lost painting being solved. They are asking for tips from anyone who has information.

 

The exhibit opens Thursday at the ZAMEK Culture Center in Poznan and will run until January 21.

 

It features 29 works by Kahlo, most of them from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection that was bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There are 10 paintings by Rivera, who was best known for large murals that do not travel. Video screens showing his murals convey a fuller spectrum of his work.

The show also includes works by two Polish-born artists linked to the couple.

 

One is the photographer Bernice Kolko, who took photos of Kahlo during the last years of her life, even intimate images of the artist on her death bed and at her funeral. The other is Fanny Rabel, who was a student of Kahlo’s and an apprentice to Rivera, becoming one of the first female muralists in Mexico.

 

“This is an exhibition which has a lot of contrasts, including very well-known works and unknown works,” curator Helga Prignitz-Poda said.

 

The organizers included a photo of the lost “The Wounded Table,” a surrealistic work that last was on public display in 1955 in Warsaw. Poland was a Soviet satellite state at the time.

 

Kahlo, a Communist, donated it to the Soviet Union, which “was not was not pleased with the gift” given that the Soviet authorities at the time favored Socialist realism, Prignitz-Poda said.

 

Nobody knows what happened to it. One theory is that the Soviets disliked it so much they destroyed it.

 

The paintings on display include several of Kahlo’s key works, including “Self-portrait with Monkeys” and “Self-portrait as Tehuana,” also known as “Diego in My Thoughts.” The painting shows Kahlo stuck in a web and with a small portrait of Rivera on her forehead, an apparent reference to her long obsession with the husband who betrayed her with other women.

 

A large portrait by Rivera of Natasha Gelman, the art collector, is also on display.
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Irma’s Destruction of Trailers Challenges Keys’ Lifestyle

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Architect Kobi Karp has a vision for affordable housing in the Florida Keys: residences set at coconut-tree height to keep them dry, atop concrete columns holding them in place.

 

Key West clients sought out his designs before Hurricane Irma struck the island chain this month, and he thinks the two projects will continue despite Irma’s damage and debris. “It’s a more cost-efficient way of life,” the Miami-based architect said.

 

Such modern, planned development hasn’t always appealed to the independent spirits living in the Keys — but Irma may force the laid-back landscape to change.

 

Mobile homes and recreational vehicles didn’t survive the storm’s 130 mph winds and storm surge. The losses hit people crucial to Keys tourism: service industry and blue collar workers priced out of expensive Key West homes or newer structures meeting Florida’s stringent building codes.

Local officials are racing to find those workers housing to keep them in the Keys but still free up hotel rooms by Oct. 20, the opening day of the decadent Fantasy Fest and one of the biggest events on the Key West tourism calendar.

 

The housing crunch affects all sectors of the community: About 50 city employees may need to relocate, Key West city spokeswoman Alyson Crean said. Keys firefighters who lost everything have moved into fire stations or the homes of friends and relatives. On Duval Street, bar and tour company owners said some shell-shocked employees just quit because of the damage.

 

“When housing is eliminated, as it was in this storm, there’s literally no place for these people to move to. There’s no suburbs, there’s no driving for an hour and a half to find someplace to live. That’s just not possible here,” said Ed Swift, president of Key West-based Historic Tours of America, where at least a handful of employees have decided not to rebuild their lives here.

The Keys don’t function like other places: There’s only one narrow road in and out, and the isolation fosters a small-town, mom-and-pop atmosphere that has persevered amid booming numbers of tourists seeking Mardi Gras-style revelry and luxury accommodations.

 

As Key West rents rose over the last 20 years to $2,000 a month or more for two-bedroom units, Swift and other business owners started building housing, including dormitory-style accommodations, to keep local employees. Low-cost trailers and RVs helped fill housing gaps, but there’s already talk about replacing them altogether.

 

That worries people like U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who sounded wistful on the Senate floor last week about a paradise potentially lost.

“This storm threatens to fundamentally alter the character of Monroe County if we do not help the Florida Keys, because those trailer parks are on valuable land, and the owners of that land are going to be tempted to build on them — not mobile homes again, but build on them structures designed for visitors or people that can pay more money,” Rubio said. “That means you’re going to lose your housing stock, but it ultimately means you’re going to lose the character of the place.”

 

Irma destroyed or severely damaged up to 15,000 residential units, including vacation homes  amounting to more than a quarter of the 55,000 total homes in the Keys, according to Monroe County estimates.

 

That also includes nearly all the 7,500 mobile homes outside Key West, said Christine Hurley, assistant county administrator.

 

The county has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for 7,500 temporary mobile homes, as well as at least 1,700 travel trailers to park outside individual homes being repaired or rebuilt. It could be months before those units reach everyone who needs them, because of low inventory after Hurricane Harvey in Texas and other disasters, county and FEMA officials say.

 

About two dozen families have been approved so far for temporary trailers from vendors, FEMA Federal Coordinating Officer Willie Nunn said in a county statement released Monday.

 

Local officials also have asked FEMA to allow vacation homes typically listed on home-sharing websites to be used as temporary housing, Hurley said. Federal officials also are exploring ways to repair or improve existing multi-family homes for temporary housing.

 

The county also is asking mobile home park owners to allow FEMA to set up temporary housing on their properties, once cleared of debris and reconnected to power and water lines. Those mobiles homes would eventually need permanent replacements. It would be safer to build houses or apartment buildings, but that would change the lifestyle that appeals to many Keys residents, Hurley said.

 

Nine of Hurley’s employees were made homeless by Irma, but even those who faced significant financial challenges before the hurricane are making their way home, she said.

 

“I haven’t heard yet of people that don’t want to come back,” she said.

 

At Sunshine Key RV Resort and Marina on Big Pine Key, Richard Lessig said he wouldn’t mind new neighbors, even in government-issued trailers. He currently doesn’t have any, not since Irma flipped or crushed all the other trailers in the park.

 

Lessig’s own trailer home isn’t quite level, its air conditioning runs off a rumbling generator, and there was still no running water last week.

 

He’s gotten by in the Keys for nine months each year with his benefits and whatever money he makes in seasonal jobs as a boat captain and a magician for children’s birthday parties. He applied for disaster aid, wondering if he would have to spend more time living with his sister in New Jersey than in the Keys. He worried some friends won’t return for the potluck lunches and happy hours that made the park a vibrant community.

 

“Hopefully most of them will come back, but I’m sure there’s some that won’t,” Lessig said. “I figured, worst case, I’d have to borrow money and buy another trailer, because this is where I want to be.”

 

 
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Twitter Will Allow Some Users to Post Super Size Tweets

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Twitter is going to allow some users to super size their tweets.

The company just announced it’s doubling the length of a tweet from 140 characters to 280 characters for “a small group” of users.

Twitter did not say whether President Trump (@realDonaldTrump), an avid tweeter, will be one of those allowed to post longer tweets, but said the feature is going out to a “random sample,” so it’s certainly possible.

Japanese, Korean and Chinese users are excluded from the expanded tweets because the characters allow people to say a lot more with fewer characters.
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NASA to Partner with Russia on Deep Space Gateway Exploration

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The United States space agency NASA says it will partner with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, to build a “deep space gateway” in the vicinity of the moon.

The lunar space station, which is still in conceptual stage, is part of a long-term project aimed at putting humans on Mars.

Acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said Wednesday, “NASA is pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration.” He added the gateway concept would serve as “an enabler to the kind of exploration architecture that is affordable and sustainable.”

The idea behind the gateway project is to build a spaceport that orbits the moon and would serve as a stopping point for explorations deeper into space.

NASA said it would work with Russians and other countries currently involved with the International Space Station to “identify common exploration objectives and possible missions for the 2020s.”

NASA also said it has been working with U.S. industry to create habitation concepts for the space gateway and it has awarded several contracts to researchers to study risks related to the deep space missions. Five prototypes of habitation systems are expected to be completed by 2018.
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Bombardier Tariff by US Is ‘Attack’ on Canada, Quebec Premier Says

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The 220 percent tariff imposed by the United States on Bombardier Inc’s CSeries jet is an “attack” on Quebec and Canada, the province’s Premier Philippe Couillard said on Wednesday.

“Quebec has been attacked. And Quebec will resist. And Quebec will unite. All together, we will protect our workers. All together, we will be proud of our engineering,” he told reporters at a news conference.

The government of Quebec has taken a $1 billion stake in Bombardier’s CSeries jet. But Couillard said Wednesday the company had received “not a cent” in government subsidies.

The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday slapped preliminary anti-subsidy duties on Bombardier’s CSeries jets after rival Boeing Co accused Canada of unfairly subsidizing the aircraft, a move likely to strain trade relations between the neighbors.
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NSA Invites Students to ‘Hack Us!’

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Ever think about hacking into the U.S. government’s data system? Wanna try?

 

If you can develop a network signature for an intrusion detection system (detect hacking), or perform forensic analysis of a compromised endpoint (detect hacking before it collapses the system), the National Security Administration wants you to try.

 

Registration is open for the 2017 Codebreaker Challenge. The contest asks college students to use reverse engineering or the ability to take apart code and fix from scratch a fictional break-in of a government data system. The scenario helps the Department of Homeland Security disarm an improvised explosive device using cybersecurity skills to prevent civilian casualties.

 

“Reverse engineering is a crucial skill for those involved in the fight against malware, advanced persistent threats, and similar malicious cyber activities,” the NSA website says. “As the organization tasked with protecting U.S. government national security information systems, NSA is looking to develop these skills in university students (and prospective future employees).”

 

Each year, undergraduate and grad students who compete to master six tasks will receive a small token of appreciation from the NSA for being among the first 50 finishers, and possible credit from the student’s college or university.

 

Setup a test instance of the system (Task 0)
Analyze suspicious network traffic (Task 1)
Develop a network signature for an intrusion detection system (Task 2)
Analyze critical system components for vulnerabilities (Tasks 3 and 4)
Perform forensic analysis of a compromised endpoint (Task 5)
Craft an exploit for the botnet server and devise a strategy to clean the infected endpoints (Task 6)

Registration for students with a valid email address ending in .edu started September 15 and continues until December 31.

This year, some have gotten close, but no one has completed all six tasks, so far, says the Codebreaker Challenge website. As of September 25, students from 335 colleges and universities have tried.

 

The most participants in 2016 came from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, with 149 students taking the challenge, but only five completing all six tasks, which also ranks first for most successful participants.

 

In addition to Georgia Tech, three students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, completed every task; as well as three from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. one from University of Maryland, College Park, one from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., one from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., and one from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.

 

Last year, 3,325 students from 481 colleges and universities attempted to finish all six tasks; only 15 students were successful. Robert Xiao from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh completed every task in just under 18 hours, which was nearly two and a half days quicker than the next fastest finisher.

 

“I find computer security to be a fascinating subject, and I was really lucky to be accepted at Carnegie Mellon, which has an excellent computer security reputation,” said Xiao, who was born and raised in Canada.

 

Carnegie Mellon ranks in the top 20 for cybersecurity schools in the U.S. and is known nationwide as a pipeline for future computer security experts. Xiao is on the Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP) hacking team at CMU and says the team, “participates in worldwide computer security competitions and does very well.”

 

That’s not an understatement. In fact, the PPP hacking team has won eight straight virtual capture-the-flag competitions at New York University’s Cyber Security Awareness Week and won the World Series of Hacking college competition four of the past five years.

 

The 2017 Codebreaker Challenge “is very challenging and covers a wide range of subjects … but it takes a lot of time and effort at first,” Xiao says. “Don’t get discouraged if it seems too hard, that’s totally normal at first.”

 

Xiao is doing a Ph.D. in what he calls “human-computer interaction,” in which he wants to merge computer security and human interaction.

 

“The subject of ‘usable’ human-friendly security is really important and only a handful of people are thinking really hard about it,” he said. Essentially, Xiao wants to expand the use of computer security for those who might not be the most adept at using computers; in other words, make computer security easier for the everyday user.

 

Instructions and storyline for this year’s challenge can be found on the Codebreaker Challenge website.

 

Can you crack the code?

What do you think about the National Security Administration’s invitation? Please share your suggestion in the Comments here, and visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, thanks!
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Climate Change May Spell Hotter Summers for Southern Europe

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Researchers say the likelihood of scorching summer temperatures in southern Europe is increasing because of man-made climate change.

Hotter-than-usual temperatures in the Mediterranean region – including an August heatwave in Italy and the Balkans dubbed ‘Lucifer’ – resulted in higher hospital admissions, numerous forest fires and widespread economic losses this summer.

The World Weather Attribution team says it combined temperature measurements and computer simulations, concluding that greenhouse gas emissions linked to human activity have increased the chances of such heatwaves four-to-tenfold.

They warned Wednesday that summers like this one could become the norm in the Euro-Mediterranean region by 2050 if emissions continue to rise.

The team’s techniques are widely accepted among scientists as a means of determining whether climate change plays a role in extreme events.
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App Makers Aim to Prove World’s Poorest Children Can Educate Themselves

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Can children who have never been to school teach themselves basic reading, writing and math skills using only a tablet computer?

Elon Musk and XPRIZE are betting $15 million on the idea.

“It’s a little bit out there, it’s a little bit of a crazy idea,” said Matt Keller, senior director of the Global Learning XPRIZE, a competition funded by the XPrize Foundation, a non-profit that spurs inventors to tackle global problems such as climate change and universal healthcare.

The inaugural Global Learning XPRIZE competition awards $10 million dollars to the team or company that develops the best educational app for children who have never set foot in a classroom. According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, approximately 263 million children around the world are not in school.

“Can you develop something that’s so intuitive, so inferential, so dynamic that you give it to a child who is illiterate in a very remote part of the world — she picks it up, she touches it and she begins to learn how to read? That’s the challenge we put out to the world,” said Keller.

The finalists

At least 198 teams were up to the challenge. From that pool, five finalists were recently selected and awarded $1 million dollars each.

The finalists will begin testing their educational apps this November. Nearly 4,000 children from 150 villages in the Tanga region of Tanzania will use tablets donated by Google to access the apps and teach themselves.

A subset of students initially will be tested on literacy and numeracy comprehension using the early grade reading assessment (EGRA) and early grade math assessment (EGMA) models. After 15 months, the same students will be re-tested. The grand prize of $10 million will be awarded to the developer team with the highest proficiency gains among students. 

XPRIZE is working with UNESCO, the World Food Program, and the government of Tanzania to distribute and maintain the tablets.

“Most development organizations and most aid agencies and most governments are focused on building new schools and training new teachers,” Keller told VOA News, “What we’re saying is there are a lot of kids out there who don’t access school and there are a lot of kids out there who access really bad schools. So, can you give technology to a child that’s so good that it doesn’t supplant, but supplements a learning process that she may or may not have?”

Goals for the future

By 2030, the world will need to recruit 68.8 million teachers in order to meet the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of universal primary and secondary education, according to a 2016 report by UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics.

“That’s simply not possible,” said Jamie Stuart, co-founder of educational non-profit Onebillion, which is one of the five Global Learning XPRIZE finalists. “So we have to look for radical alternatives in terms of children’s learning,” said Stuart.

Developers at Onebillion already have field-tested their app, Onecourse, for the past 10 years in Malawi. The app is designed so that children can use it with little or no adult assistance, and teaches children reading and numeracy using a teacher character that speaks their language.

Testing brings many challenges, the least of which involves working with populations that often never have interacted with a tablet before.

“Keeping it simple, keeping it focused on the individual needs of the child, and adapting to how they learn are the key ingredients,” said Stuart.

The other finalists are Curriculum Concepts International (CCI), a lesson-based app that incorporates games, videos and books, Chimple, which focuses on play and discovery-based learning, Kitkit School , which originally was designed for special needs children, and RoboTutor, which was developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“If we can prove that a child needs no instruction other than what’s on that device, then we begin a series of events that will lead inexorably to a device that is designed for that child, in that part of the world, with a teacher on it,” said Keller.
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50 Years Since the Arrival of Birth Control, Many Can’t Get It

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According to U.S. government statistics, nearly 40 percent of all pregnancies around the world are unwanted or unplanned. And yet the means to prevent every unwanted pregnancy in the world exists, and has existed for more than 50 years. VOA’s Kevin Enochs looks at the history of birth control on World Contraception day.
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US Slaps 220 Percent Duty on Canada’s Bombardier Jets

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The Commerce Department slapped duties of nearly 220 percent on Canada’s Bombardier C Series aircraft Tuesday in a victory for Boeing that is likely to raise tensions between the United States and its allies Canada and Britain.

Commerce ruled that Montreal-based Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell jets at artificially low prices in the U.S.

“The U.S. values its relationships with Canada, but even our closest allies must play by the rules,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

Canada ‘strongly disagrees’

Canada responded by saying it “strongly disagrees” with the U.S. move.

“This is clearly aimed at eliminating Bombardier’s C Series aircraft from the U.S. market,” said Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs.

 

Bombardier, meanwhile, called the decision “absurd … U.S. trade laws were never intended to be used in this manner, and Boeing is seeking to use a skewed process to stifle competition.”

In April, Boeing charged that Bombardier had received at least $3 billion in subsidies from the governments of Britain, Canada and the province of Quebec. The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer asked the Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate the alleged “predatory pricing.”

Specifically, Boeing said that Bombardier last year sold Delta Air Lines 75 CS100 aircraft for less than it cost to build them.

 

“Subsidies enabled Bombardier to dump its product into the U.S. market, harming aerospace workers in the United States and throughout Boeing’s global supply chain,” Boeing said Tuesday.

Boeing upset with Delta deal

 

But Delta has said Boeing didn’t even make the 100-seat jets it needed.

“Boeing has no American-made product to offer because it canceled production of its only aircraft in this size range — the 717 — more than 10 years ago,” Delta said in a statement Tuesday.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to get tough on trade. He has repeatedly criticized Canada, saying it unfairly blocks U.S. dairy products and subsidizes its softwood lumber industry. Trump also has threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if he can’t negotiate a better version with Canada and Mexico.

Boeing’s complaint against Bombardier drew a backlash even before Tuesday’s decision. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened this month to stop doing business with Boeing, which is in talks to sell Canada 18 Super Hornet jet fighters. British Prime Minister Theresa May has discussed the case with Trump. Her concern: Bombardier employs more than 4,000 workers in Northern Ireland.

Connecticut lawmakers concerned

Connecticut Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy last week wrote a letter urging U.S. government officials to “refrain from taking action that will endanger the many jobs in Connecticut that depend upon Bombardier.” Engines for the C Series aircraft are made by Pratt & Whitney, based in East Hartford, Connecticut.

Commerce’s findings Tuesday aren’t the end of the matter. The department is expected to announce its findings in another case against Bombardier early next month. Then the International Trade Commission — an independent federal agency that rules on trade cases — will decide early next year whether to uphold Commerce’s duties.

Bombardier could appeal any sanctions to a U.S. court or to a dispute-resolution panel created under NAFTA. The Canadian government could also take the case to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

 
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US Fed Chief Backs Gradual Rise in Rates

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Despite concerns about low inflation in the United States, the head of the U.S. central bank says raising interest rates gradually would be the most appropriate policy stance for the Federal Reserve.

“It would be imprudent to keep monetary policy on hold until inflation is back to two percent,” Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday, while speaking to the National Association for Business Economists (NABE) in Cleveland, Ohio.

Inflation, a sustained increase in the price of goods and services, has remained consistently below the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. But even with uncertainty about the possible reasons for the low rate of inflation — from misjudging the strength of the labor market to the impact of foreign competition on the global supply chain — Yellen said the Fed “should be wary of moving too gradually.”

The Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark lending rate near record lows since the 2008 financial crisis to stimulate the U.S. economy. It has raised its interest rate three times since last December. The federal funds rate, the interest rate the central bank charges banks on overnight loans, currently sits in a range between one and one-and-one-quarter percent.

Ellen Zentner, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, says her biggest takeaway from the Cleveland speech was Yellen’s confidence that “a strong U.S. labor market would ultimately drive inflation closer to the Fed’s two percent goal over the next few years.”

Equity markets, which have benefited from low borrowing costs, anticipate a fourth rate hike in December, and possibly three more next year. Starting next month, the Fed says it will begin the process of “unwinding,” or selling off, the massive holdings of bonds and securities it has acquired since 2008.

But Yellen’s longer-term goals may be subject to change. Her four-year term as the nation’s top banker ends in February. President Donald Trump has not said whether he plans to re-appoint Yellen or overhaul the central bank’s seven-member board of governors.

Zentner believes there is a 60 percent chance Yellen will be named to serve a second term. “The longer the president waits, the greater the probability that Yellen will be re-appointed,” the bank economist said.  

Yellen spoke in Cleveland as the Conference Board released a survey that showed consumer confidence declined in September. The global business research group reported consumers’ views about the strength of the U.S. labor market have weakened and home sales have dropped to an eight-month low due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the states of Texas and Florida. 
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US Picks Companies to Help Make Rules for Advanced Personal Health Monitors

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Digital devices designed to monitor the wearer’s health in much greater detail than current models will need regulatory approval, and Apple, Fitbit and seven other companies will take part in a program to speed the approval process, the U.S. health regulator said Tuesday.

The firms will take part in a program that could make it faster for digital health devices to come to market by requiring less information to be sent to regulators ahead of time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

Current devices, like the Apple Watch or Fitbit Blaze, measure things like motion and heart rate. But to take further measurements like blood oxygen or glucose, future devices might full under regulatory review. That review can take months or years, which is far slower than the pace of software updates from most technology firms.

Because of the potential for lengthy reviews, consumer technology companies have been reluctant to wade directly into territory regulated by the FDA. Apple, for example, has tended to partner with existing health researchers and companies such as DexCom Inc, a conventional medical device firm, for uses of their products that involve regulatory oversight.

But under President Donald Trump, the FDA has been moving to relax some of its requirements. The FDA in July created a pilot program that would pre-certify certain companies so that they have to submit less information before marketing a product.

The initial participants in the pilot program also included Samsung Electronics, Alphabet’s Verily biotech unit, Johnson & Johnson and Swiss biotech firm Roche AG, among others. The FDA said in a statement it was also considering whether companies in the pilot program “may not have to submit a product for premarket review in some cases.”

“Our method for regulating digital health products must recognize the unique and iterative characteristics of these products,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in the statement.

One major difference in the pilot program from existing regulations is that it will evaluate companies based on how well their software-design systems work, rather than looking at each product and its accompanying software individually.

“We are hopeful this will allow us to accelerate FDA regulated features and software development, bringing new capabilities that could positively impact health outcomes to market more quickly,” Fitbit CEO James Park said in a statement.
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Mexico Tallying Economic Cost of Big Earthquake

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Mexican officials are tallying up the economic losses of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that caused widespread damage in the capital, as the number of buildings that may need to be pulled down or need major repairs rose to 500.

 

The death toll in the quake rose to 333, with 194 of those deaths in Mexico City. Authorities pledged a return to normality, but many streets in the capital were still blocked by construction equipment and recovery teams looking to extract the last remaining bodies from the rubble. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said 40 to 50 people are still considered missing.

 

The city government announced a plan of reconstruction loans and aid for apartment dwellers who lost their homes or who may lose them as teetering buildings are pulled down.

 

But for city businesses like the downtown restaurant Guapa Papa, the result is already all too clear.

 

Sitting in the entrance of his restaurant Monday, surrounded by caution tape, Antonio Luna said: “This is a bust. It’s already closed due to structural damage to the building.”

 

He had to let go the three dozen employees at the 1950s-themed restaurant and is just trying to salvage whatever furniture and equipment wasn’t damaged.

 

“In the end the company let everyone go because it couldn’t continue having expenses,” Luna said.

 

Mancera said that the city, in alliance with private developers, would handle repairs on buildings that needed touch-ups or minor structural work to be habitable. He offered low-interest loans to apartment owners whose buildings would have to be demolished and rebuilt.

However, it is unclear to what extent the city can force owners to demolish buildings. Some that were damaged in the 1985 are still standing, in part because court challenges can stretch on for years.

 

Moody’s Investors Service said in a report Monday that the Sept. 19 earthquake that caused damage and deaths in the capital and nearby states “has the potential to be one of Mexico’s costliest natural catastrophes.”

 

Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director for Moody’s Analytics, said they were still collecting data on losses, but a preliminary estimate was that the earthquake could knock 0.1 to 0.3 percentage point off growth in Mexico’s gross domestic product in the third and fourth quarters.

 

For the full year, the impact on gross domestic product should be about 0.1 percentage point. “The impact on the year’s growth will be small, particularly considering that the reconstruction work will compensate for some of the total loss in activity during the fourth quarter,” Coutino said.

 

Money is expected to pour into the economy as Mexico City and the federal government tap their disaster funds. As of June, the city’s disaster fund stood at 9.4 billion pesos (more than $500 million), making it slightly larger than the national fund, according to a Moody’s Investors Services report.

 

Of course, the national fund also has to deal with recovery from the even stronger Sept. 7 quake that has been blamed for nearly 100 deaths, mostly in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas.

 

There will be months of work ahead from demolition to repairs and reconstruction.

 

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said that 500 “red level” buildings would either have to be demolished or receive major structural reinforcement. An additional 1,300 are reparable, and about 10,000 buildings inspected so far were found to be habitable.

At least 38 buildings, including apartments and office buildings, collapsed during the earthquake.

 

Mexico’s education ministry also has 1.8 million pesos (about $100,000) to spend on school repairs. In Mexico City alone, only 676 of the city’s 9,000 schools had been inspected and cleared to resume classes, Education Secretary Aurelio Nuno said Monday.

 

AIR Worldwide, a Boston-based catastrophe modeling consultant, provided a wide range for industry-insured losses, but noted they would be only a small part of the total economic losses. It put the insured losses at between 13 billion pesos ($725 million) and 36.7 billion pesos ($2 billion).

 

A graceful traffic roundabout encircled by restaurants, cafes and shops is now a sprawling expanse of medical tents, piles of food and other relief supplies, and stacks of building materials. While relief work went on outside Monday, men were busily wrapping furniture in foam and plastic inside the Antiguo Arte Europeo store.

 

Stone panels on the building’s facade appeared cracked or were altogether missing. Saleswoman Luisa Zuniga said the owners were waiting for civil defense inspectors to certify there was no structural damage to the building before reopening to the public.

 

Meanwhile, they were moving furniture that could still be sold to their other branches.

 

“Then we’ll see how long it takes to fix everything,” she said. “It is important to get back to work.”

 

Edgar Novoa, a fitness trainer, went back to his job Monday after working as a volunteer following the earthquake. Around midday, he stopped his bicycle at a cleared foundation where a building of several stories had stood near his home.

 

He knelt and prayed while others left flowers and candles at the site.

 

The government has said that nine foreigners, including five from Taiwan, died in the quake. One of the buildings that collapsed in the quake housed a business listed as Asia Jenny Importaciones, SA de CV. A South Korean man was also confirmed dead.

 

A Panamanian woman died, as did one man from Spain and one from Argentina.
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Twitter to Test 280-character Tweets, Busting Old Limit

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The days of Twitter limiting messages to 140 characters, a signature of the social network since its launch in 2006, may be numbered.

Twitter said on Tuesday that it would begin a test with a random sample of users allowing them to send tweets that are as long as 280 characters, double the existing cap, in most languages around the world.

The San Francisco-based company has stood by its short messages as a defining characteristic – like chirps from a bird, which is the company logo – even as users found ways around the limit, such as posting photos of text.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Twitter said its emphasis on brevity would never change but that it had been wondering whether people could express themselves easily enough, hurting the service’s popularity.

“Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain,” Twitter project manager Aliza Rosen and senior software engineer Ikuhiro Ihara said in the post.

The employees acknowledged some users may have an “emotional attachment” to the current limit.

News reports in January 2016 said that Twitter was running internal tests for longer tweets and considering a limit as high as 10,000 characters.

Though Twitter is ubiquitous in media because of frequent use by U.S. President Donald Trump and many celebrities, the company has struggled financially. For the second quarter, it reported a loss of $116 million and zero growth in the number of users, at 328 million people. Facebook Inc has 2 billion users.

A higher character limit was inspired by how people use Twitter when writing in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, the company said.

Characters in those languages can often express more than Roman characters can, meaning those users already, in effect, have a higher limit. They also use Twitter more often.

“In all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting,” the two employees wrote.

The test of 280 characters will run for an unspecified number of weeks in all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean, Twitter said. The company declined to say how many people would be included in the test.

The 140-character limit originated from the use of SMS text messages. Twitter’s founders, including Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, wanted a limit just below the SMS cap of 160 characters.
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Businesses Give $300M Toward K-12 Computer Science Education

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A coalition of businesses including Amazon, Google and General Motors has agreed to give $300 million to boost K-12 computer science programs across the U.S.

Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman announced Tuesday that the private-sector contribution will come in over the next five years. Beckerman led a panel discussion at a downtown Detroit high-rise that featured President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump.

Her visit to Detroit came a day after the president announced a plan to spend at least $200 million annually on competitive grants so schools can broaden access to computer science education.

“Knowing how to code is really foundational toward success in any industry, not just tech narrowly defined,” Ivanka Trump said.

Just before Ivanka Trump arrived on stage, Beckerman announced the private-sector contribution.

Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.org are giving $50 million apiece; Lockheed Martin is promising $25 million; Accenture is committing more than $10 million; and General Motors and Pluralsight have pledged $10 million toward the effort. Additionally, Detroit-based Quicken Loans announced that it will work to make sure that 15,000 Detroit Public Schools students receive computer science training.

Ivanka Trump said it is crucial that young people, especially girls and racial minorities, learn how to write computer code and study computer science.

“We have to do better. We are going to do better, and this is a giant leap forward in that direction,” she said during the panel discussion, which also included Dan Gilbert, chairman of Quicken Loans; Hadi Partovi, CEO of Code.org; Rob Acker, CEO of Salesforce.org; and Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin.

Gilbert said teaching schoolchildren computer science “isn’t one of these things where maybe this will work.

“This is the answer. This is flat-out the answer,” said Gilbert, who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.
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Diwali Festivals Grow in US, from Disney to Times Square

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The holiday of Diwali is starting to light up mainstream America.

Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and others in India and other countries, has long been observed in immigrant communities around the U.S.

But now public celebrations of the holiday are starting to pop up in places ranging from Disneyland and Times Square to parks and museums.

The Times Square event is the brainchild of Neeta Bhasin, who says that while many Indian immigrants have found great success in the U.S., “still people don’t know much about India. I felt it’s about time that we should take India to mainstream America and showcase India’s rich culture, heritage, arts and diversity to the world. And I couldn’t find a better place than the center of the universe: Times Square.”

Bhasin, who came to the United States from India 40 years ago, is president of ASB Communications, the marketing firm behind Diwali at Times Square. The event, now in its fourth year, has drawn tens of thousands of people in the past. It’s scheduled for Oct. 7, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., with dance performances, Bollywood singers, a bazaar of food, saris and other goods, and a lighting ceremony.

While Diwali celebrations are held throughout the fall, the holiday’s actual date is Oct. 19. Also called Deepavali, it’s an autumn harvest festival held just before the Hindu new year. Celebrations include lighting oil lamps or candles called diyas to symbolize “a victory of knowledge over ignorance, light over darkness, good over evil,” said Bhasin.

The Diwali celebration at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California, includes performances of traditional Indian dances and a Bollywood dance party for guests. It’s part of a festival of holidays at the theme park reflecting cultural traditions from around the world. The Disney festival begins Nov. 10 and runs through Jan. 7.

San Antonio, Texas, has one of the nation’s largest city-sponsored celebrations of Diwali, drawing more than 15,000 people each year. The 2017 event, scheduled for Nov. 4 at La Villita, a historic arts village, will be its ninth annual Diwali celebration with Indian dance, entertainment, food, crafts, fireworks and the release of lighted candles into the San Antonio River along the city’s River Walk.

New York City’s Rubin Museum will mark Diwali with an overnight Ragas Live Festival featuring more than 50 Indian classical musicians performing amid the museum’s collection of sacred Himalayan art. The event begins Oct. 21 at 10 a.m. and continues all day and night through Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. Chai and mango lassis will be served, visitors will have access to all the galleries and pop-up events like meditation and sunrise prayer will be offered. Special tickets will be sold for the opportunity to sleep beneath the artwork.

Other places hosting Diwali celebrations include Cary, North Carolina, in Regency Park, Oct. 14; Flushing Town Hall, Queens, New York, Oct. 29; the Seattle Center, Oct. 21; the Dulles Expo center in Chantilly, Virginia, Oct. 7-8; and Memorial Park in Cupertino, California, Sept. 30. In Columbus, Ohio, the Ohio History Center is hosting a photo exhibit about the city’s fast-growing population of immigrants from Nepal, Bhutan and India, with a Diwali event Oct. 8.

Bhasin said Diwali’s message is particularly timely now. “It is extremely important to be together and showcase to the world, not only Indians, but the entire immigrant community, to be together with Americans and to show the world we are one, we are all the same human beings,” she said.
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Residente Leads Latin Grammys Nominations With 9 Nods

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Puerto Rican rapper Residente’s first solo album post-Calle 13 has received a leading nine nominations for this year’s Latin Grammys, including for record, song and album of the year.

Colombian sensation Maluma follows him with seven, Shakira’s comeback gathered six, and Juanes, Mon Laferte and producer Kevin Jimenez ADG received five nominations each, the Latin Recording Academy announced Tuesday. The announcement was delayed by nearly a week after last year’s devastating earthquake in Mexico and hurricanes Irma and Maria, which have devastated the Caribbean.

This year’s ceremony could provide Juanes with the opportunity to break his record tie with Calle 13: Both acts have won 21 awards each.

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s megahit “Despacito” got four nominations: record and song of the year, as well as best urban fusion/performance for its remix with Justin Bieber and best short form music video for its clip. The video, the most watched on YouTube with over 3.8 billion views since its January release, was produced and directed by Carlos R. Perez and highlights the color and beauty of now devastated Puerto Rico, which was hit by a Category 4 hurricane, Maria, less than a week ago.

Ten acts are vying for album, song and record of the year, unlike the traditional Grammy Awards where five nominees compete. Album of the year nominees also include Ruben Blades with Roberto Delgado & Orquesta, Antonio Carmona, Vicente Garcia, Nicky Jam, Juanes, Mon Laferte, Natalia Lafourcade, Shakira and Danay Suarez.

The record of the year list is comprised by a diverse group of artists, genres and collaborations that include Residente’s “Guerra,” ″Amarrame” by Mon Laferte, featuring Juanes; Shakira and Maluma’s “Chantaje”, “El Ratico” by Juanes with Kali Uchis, Jorge Drexler’s “El Surco,” Maluma’s “Felices Los 4,” Blades’ “La Flor De La Canela,” Alejandro Fernandez’s “Quiero Que Vuelvas” and Ricky Martin’s “Vente Pa’ Ca,” also featuring Maluma.

The Latin Grammys will air live on Univision on Nov. 16 from Las Vegas.
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Guitarist Joe Walsh, Friends Stage VetsAid Concert

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Joe Walsh is known for his guitar skills as a member of The James Gang and later as a member of the rock super group, The Eagles.  He has received multiple Grammy awards, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and was a Kennedy Center honoree.

But not many people know Walsh is also the son of a flight instructor who was killed while on active duty in Japan in 1949. 

The 69-year-old guitarist told VOA that because of his own history, he wanted to help the families of veterans, especially those coming home from Afghanistan.

“We’re at war, Walsh said. “This is an ongoing war with no end in sight.  And there are more and more troops coming home. And the transition back to civilian life is almost too big of a mountain to climb.  And I just decided that I can do something about it to help.”

A little help from his friends

Walsh contacted others in the music industry to try to organize what became VetsAid – a concert series along the lines of the FarmAid program spearheaded by country entertainer Willie Nelson.

The guitarist and singer says finding acts to perform was more difficult than he thought – until he called country entertainer Keith Urban.

“Keith called up and said ‘You know I could actually do it, but I can’t really get my band there in time, but I could come and if like there’s a house band, I’ll be there.” And then he called up and said ‘I’m bringing my whole band.'” Walsh said.

“And Gary Clark, Jr. had a commitment on the West Coast, and so I had written him off, but he called up and said ‘you know I’d much rather be there with you than doing what I am supposed to be doing out here. So I’ll be there.’ ” Walsh added. “And Zac [Brown]. He’s so hot right now. But he said ‘I gotta be there, too.’ So he changed his tour around.”

Blues, Country, and Rock for Vets

Blues musician and singer Gary Clark, Jr. started the show to a crowd of around 7,500 fans.  Clark, called “The Chosen One” for his guitar skills, included a cover of the Beatles “Come Together” in his set that had the fans cheering.

Keith Urban had the crowd on its feet with several of his hits, including “Sweet Thing,” “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” and “Wasted Time.” 

Country superstars and multiple Grammy winners The Zac Brown Band performed several of their hits, including “Colder Weather” and “Chicken Fried.”  The players showed off their virtuosity by covering two guitar anthems – “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and the Charlie Daniels’ Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Senator urges support for charity

Before Walsh took the stage, Illinois Democratic senator and combat wounded veteran Tammy Duckworth – who lost both legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket propelled grenade in Iraq – urged the crowd to support Vets Aid.

“So tonight I am so grateful for my friend Joe Walsh, and I am proud to introduce him,” she said. “And I’d also like you to join me in dedicating tonight’s performance to the memory of his father, Lt. Robert Newton Fiddler. And now, the great Joe Walsh!”

Walsh gave the fans what they came for – playing several of his hits including “Life’s Been Good,” “In the City,” and covering an Eagles’ hit “Take it to The Limit.”  Gary Clark, Junior, Keith Urban, and Zac Brown then joined Walsh on stage for the final song.

Several charities – including Operation Mend, Warrior Canine Connections, Stop Soldier Suicide, TAPS, and the Semper Fi Fund – will benefit from the concert.  Walsh says his goal is for veterans to realize they are not alone, and hopes that realization can be the beginning of healing.
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Business as Usual as USOC Prepares for Winter Games in Seoul

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Not a single American athlete has expressed security concerns about next year’s Winter Games in South Korea and it is business as usual for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as it pushes ahead with preparations, officials said on Monday.

The USOC’s reaction to mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula contrasts with a comment from the French sports minister last week that the country would not send a team to the 2018 Games if security could not be guaranteed.

“We are preparing as if we are going to go,” said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun during a news conference to kick off a Pyeongchang Winter Games media summit.

“We understand individual athletes may have questions and concerns but our job as the national Olympic committee for the United States is to make sure the athletes have an opportunity to go and are well supported by us while they are there.”

Tensions in the region have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3, prompting global condemnation.

North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho said earlier on Monday that President Donald Trump had ‘declared war’ on North Korea and that Pyongyang reserved the right to take countermeasures, including shooting down U.S. bombers even if they were not in its air space.

The Games, scheduled for Feb. 9-25, will take place just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world’s most heavily armed border.

The two countries remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

“These Games are really no different than any other Games in terms of our preparations, we are working closely with the State Department and law enforcement,” said Blackmun, adding that no athlete had come forward with concerns about safety.

“We had an opportunity to be in South Korea a little over a month ago and met with the four-star general who oversees all the U.S. forces there.

“We are in constant communication should the unthinkable happen.

“There are conflicts between nations that’s not an issue for the U.S. Olympic Committee to get involved in, that is an issue for the IOC and foreign nations to make decisions on.

“We talk to the State Department on a regular basis. We are getting the same briefings other Americans are getting who are traveling to South Korea. There are no travel restrictions in place right now and if that should change I’m sure we would be among the first to know.”

French Sports Minister Laura Flessel said last week that the nation’s team could stay at home if the crisis deepened and security could not be guaranteed, although the country’s Olympic committee president Denis Masseglia later said he could not imagine a situation that would lead to France deciding not to attend the Games.

Ticket sales for the Games are slow, with only 30 percent sold, but Kim Jae-youl, executive vice president of the Pyeongchang organizing committee said he did not believe current tensions were the reason.

“We hope not because the Olympics is a special moment that happens once every four years and this is a chance where you get to see the competition between the best of the best so I don’t think the current situation is impacting ticket sales,” Kim told Reuters. “Security and safety are the critical aspects of the success of the Games.”
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US Olympics Committee Chief Backs Athlete Protests

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Athletes should feel free to express their political opinions during next February’s Winter Games in Pyeongchang despite strict Olympic rules barring such demonstrations, the head of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) said on Monday.

Referring to Sunday’s protest by over 100 NFL players, who went down on one knee during the national anthem to protest against racial inequality, USOC CEO Scott Blackmun said athletes had a right to air their opinions.

“The athletes you see protesting are protesting because they love their country, not because they don’t,” he said. “So we fully support that our athletes and everybody else to express themselves.”

Blackmun acknowledged that the situation is trickier given the International Olympic Committee charter, which specifically bans “demonstrations of political, religious or racial propaganda” at Olympic venues.

“We have a little bit of a different state of play when it comes to the Olympic Games.”

Blackmun praised the 1968 Olympic protest by American track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave a black power salute from the podium in Mexico City, sparking controversy. Smith later stated that the gesture was a “human rights salute.”

“That was a seminal moment not only for the Olympic movement but the U.S. Olympic team and we recognized them last year by bringing them to the White House,” he said.

Several Olympic hopefuls backed the protesting NFL players but said on Monday that it was too soon to say what they may do if they find themselves in a similar position.

“I respect what those guys did and I do believe there is a lot of room for social change. As a person of color I do think it’s something that we need to address,” said Elana Meyers, an American bobsled pilot and two-time Winter Olympic medalist. “But at the Olympics, the only time you get to hear your national anthem is if you win a gold medal. So it is going to come down to a game time decision.”

Julia Mancuso, an alpine skier and four-time Olympic medalist, also supports the NFL players but said the dynamics are different for Olympic athletes.

“When it comes to the Olympics, I like to think that it’s a special event not just like the NFL or pro sports teams that compete every weekend. For us it’s every four years,” she said.

“I’m proud of athletes that stand up for what they believe in… but I also like to think of us all as very patriotic athletes.”
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