Amid concerns about Russian hacking and online influence, Russian technology firm NtechLab has won a prize awarded by the United States intelligence community. VOA’s Moscow Bureau visited NtechLab to ask its general director about the award, the technology, and concerns about privacy.
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Month: November 2017
Smooth Sailing So Far on $7.5M Makeover of Pilgrim Ship
If you’re a fan of the Mayflower II, here’s something that will float your boat.
A year after craftsmen embarked on an ambitious effort to restore the rotting replica of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, the work “is going really great,” project manager Whit Perry says.
Britain built the vessel and sailed it to the U.S. as a gift of friendship in 1957. Usually it’s moored in Plymouth Harbor, where more than 25 million people have boarded it over the past six decades. But over the years, the elements, aquatic organisms and insects took their toll.
It’s now in dry dock at the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport, getting a $7.5 million makeover in time for 2020 festivities marking the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing.
The Associated Press caught up with Perry, director of maritime preservation and operations at Plimoth Plantation , for a progress report.
AP: You’re 12 months into a 2-year project involving major structural repairs to America’s most beloved boat. Any unpleasant surprises?
Perry: Not really. I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress we’re making right now. We’ve had some major milestones since we began on Nov. 3, 2016. We have more than 100 new frames and floor timbers inside in the hold. Now we’re actually going to start the planking process on the outside of the ship, which is very exciting.
AP: So nothing’s bugging you? This time last year, on top of water damage and dry rot, you had beetles chewing through the bottom of the boat.
Perry: Ah, yes, the wharf borer beetle. No, that’s been a minor issue. We did find evidence of (Teredo worms). This is a mollusk that can grow up to three feet long and eats through wood. On the bottom of the keel, there’s something called a “worm shoe” — a 4-inch-thick piece of wood that runs the whole length of the ship. It lets the worms have a field day but not get into the main structure of the boat. That’s where we found evidence of worms. The ship itself is OK.
AP: The shipyard’s live webcam is pretty cool, but it’s hard to tell how many people are involved and what they’re doing. Can you tell us what we can’t see?
Perry: There are 20 people working on the Mayflower II at any one time. They’re working regular shifts, but we’re paying a little overtime so they don’t feel like they have to put down their tools if they’re in the middle of something. There are small teams working all over the ship. As we take things apart, we’re fixing anything with a question mark now, while we have the chance.
AP: Sea water actually preserves a wooden ship like this one. What happens when it’s on dry land for so long? Is that bad for a boat?
Perry: It can be. We’re very proactive in spraying the boat with salt water and an antifungal agent. As we put the ship back together, we try to keep the humidity up with misters so it doesn’t dry out too much. We also have to leave a little play on the new planking beneath the waterline so it doesn’t buckle when the ship returns to the water and the wood starts to swell. It’s not an exact science.
AP: In 2020, the eyes of the world will be on Plymouth. Sounds like you’re confident the ship will be ready?
Perry: It’s all going really great. We’re on budget and we’re on schedule. The ship will leave Mystic Seaport by late spring or early summer of 2019. And I’ve got to say, sailing the Mayflower II back to Plymouth is going to be quite a spectacle. Seeing the ship back under sail is going to be a beautiful sight.
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Tech Firms Scrounging for Skilled Workers Training Their Own
Some information technology companies are growing so concerned about not find enough digital talent that they’re training their own.
IBM, Amazon and Microsoft all now have apprenticeship programs that pay workers learning on-the-job while they build IT skills. The programs cost companies tens of thousands of dollars per trainee.
IBM Vice President Joanna Daly says the apprenticeship program the tech giant started last month will help fill the several hundred vacant early-career IT jobs in the U.S. Rhode Island-based Carousel Industries executive Tim Hebert says the company’s apprentices are loyal and stay for years.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the median pay last year for computer and information technology occupations was about $83,000, compared to $37,000 for all jobs.
Trappers ask Court to Throw out Lawsuit Over US fur Exports
Fur trappers are asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit from wildlife advocates who want to block the export of bobcat pelts from the United States.
Attorneys for trapping organizations said in recent court filings that the lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service infringes on the authority of state and tribal governments to manage their wildlife.
The plaintiffs in the case allege the government’s export program doesn’t protect against the accidental trapping of imperiled species such as Canada lynx.
More than 30,000 bobcat pelts were exported in 2015, the most recent year for which data was available, according to wildlife officials. The pelts typically are used to make fur garments and accessories. Russia, China, Canada and Greece are top destinations, according to a trapping industry representative and government reports.
Federal officials in February concluded trapping bobcats and other animals did not have a significant impact on lynx populations.
The Fish and Wildlife Service regulates trade in animal and plant parts according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which the U.S. ratified in 1975.
The advocates’ lawsuit would “do away with the CITES export program,” according to attorneys for the Fur Information Council of America, Montana Trappers Association and National Trappers Association.
“They are seeking to interfere with the way the States and Tribes manage their wildlife, by forcing them to limit, if not eliminate, the harvesting of the Furbearers and at the very least restrict the means by which trapping is conducted,” attorneys Ira Kasdan and Gary Leistico wrote in their motion to dismiss the case.
Bobcats are not considered an endangered species. But the international trade in their pelts is regulated because they are “look-alikes” for other wildlife populations that are protected under U.S. law.
Critics of the government export program argue the government review completed in February did not look closely enough at how many lynx trappers inadvertently catch in traps set for bobcats or other furbearing species.
Pete Frost, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the fur industry’s move to throw out the case “seeks to deprive citizens of their right to court review of the federal pelt export program.”
Between 2.3 million and 3.6 million bobcats lived in the U.S., with populations that were stable or increasing in at least 40 states, according to a 2010 study from researchers at Cornell University and the University of Montana.
Three Coffees a Day Linked to More Health Than Harm: Study
People who drink three to four cups of coffee a day are more likely to see health benefits than harm, experiencing lower risks of premature death and heart disease than those who abstain, scientists said on Wednesday.
The research, which collated evidence from more than 200 previous studies, also found coffee consumption was linked to lower risks of diabetes, liver disease, dementia and some cancers.
Three or four cups a day confer the greatest benefit, the scientists said, except for women who are pregnant or who have a higher risk of suffering fractures.
Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed drinks worldwide. To better understand its effects on health, Robin Poole, a public health specialist at Britain’s University of Southampton, led a research team in an “umbrella review” of 201 studies based on observational research and 17 studies based on clinical trials across all countries and all settings.
“Umbrella reviews” synthesize previous pooled analyses to give a clearer summary of diverse research on a particular topic.
“Coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption,” Pool’s team concluded in their research, published in the BMJ British medical journal late on Wednesday.
Drinking coffee was consistently linked with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease. The largest reduction in relative risk of premature death is seen in people consuming three cups a day, compared with non-coffee drinkers.
Drinking more than three cups a day was not linked to harm, but the beneficial effects were less pronounced.
Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout, the researchers said. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions such as cirrhosis of the liver.
Poole’s team noted that because their review included mainly observational data, no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. But they said their findings support other recent reviews and studies of coffee intake.
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Wolves’ Return to Oregon Brings Conflict, Opportunity
Wolves were once so plentiful in the abundant forests that would become Oregon that the earliest settlers gathered from far and wide to discuss how to kill them.
Those “wolf meetings”in the 1840s, spawned by a common interest, eventually led to the formation of the Oregon territory, the precursor for statehood in 1859.
Today, Oregon’s statehood is secure, but the future of its wolf population once more hangs in the balance. Wolves have returned after decades, and this time, humans are having a much more contentious discussion about what to do with them.
It’s a political debate playing out against the backdrop of a rapidly growing wolf population, a jump in wolf poaching and demands from ranchers and hunters who say the predators are decimating herds and spooking big game.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will vote in January on whether to adopt a new wolf management plan that could eventually open the door for a wolf hunt for the first time since bounty hunting wiped out wolves in the state 70 years ago. Idaho, which has a much larger population of the animals, allows wolf hunting.
Conservationists worry the plan will erode recent progress, particularly given a rash of unsolved poaching cases and an uptick in state-sanctioned wolf killings in response to wolf attacks on livestock. They are adamantly opposed to wolf hunting and say the population is a long way from supporting it.
The species lost its endangered status under Oregon law two years ago — when the population hit 81 wolves — and is no longer federally protected in the eastern third of the state. Wolves, which were wiped out in the continental U.S. in all but a slice of Minnesota, also are rebounding in other Western states, prompting similar debates about human co-existence.
Oregon wildlife officials have killed or authorized the killing of 14 wolves since 2009, including 10 in the past two years, and 12 more have been poached, including eight since 2015, according to state wildlife officials.
“When we had zero wolves 10 years ago, and now when we have 112 wolves, that’s certainly a success story — but we’re not done,” said Rob Klavins, a wolf specialist with Oregon Wild, a conservation organization. “Can you imagine if there were only 81 known elk in the state of Oregon, or if there were 81 salmon? We wouldn’t think of delisting them.”
Early explorers noted wolves were “exceedingly numerous” in what would become Oregon, and the so-called wolf meetings that led to the region’s first civic government established a bounty for wolves in 1843 that paid $3 per hide. The state later took over the bounty and offered $20 per wolf in 1913 — the equivalent of nearly $500 today.
The last bounty payment was recorded in 1947, and the wolf vanished from Oregon for decades.
In the mid-1990s, wolves were reintroduced to central Idaho, and in 1999, a lone wolf wandered into northeastern Oregon. It was trapped and returned to Idaho.
Two more were found dead in Oregon in 2000. But the first definitive proof wolves had returned to the state came in 2007, when a wolf was found shot to death. The following year, a wolf nicknamed Sophie by conservationists gave birth to the first litter of pups born in Oregon in decades.
Last year, state biologists counted 112 wolves in the northeastern and southwestern corners of the state — and they believe that is an undercount.
Wolf conflicts with ranchers have risen and, for the first time, an elk hunter this month reported killing a wolf in self-defense.
That wolf was previously unknown to biologists, and the case has become a flashpoint in the fight over wolves. A local prosecutor declined to press charges, prompting 18 conservation groups to petition Gov. Kate Brown to intervene without success.
Ranchers who run cattle and sheep in northeastern Oregon also believe there are more wolves than officially documented – and say they are paying the price.
Todd Nash, head of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, estimates he’s lost $50,000 in dead calves and in herds that are underweight from being too spooked to graze properly.
The state requires ranchers to prove wolves have killed two animals or killed one and attempted to kill three others before it will consider killing a wolf to protect livestock. The ranchers also must show they have tried other deterrents, such as special fencing and flashing lights.
The state killed four wolves this summer and authorized a rancher to kill one more, but Nash said it’s almost impossible to prove most cases because the wolves eat the carcasses or drag them away. Ranchers in his area are fed up because the bulk of Oregon’s wolves live in just a few remote counties where he says abundant cattle make easy prey.
Killing a few wolves “does nothing but infuriate the conservation folks, and it doesn’t serve to placate the ranchers because they know it’s not going to do any good,” Nash said.
Yet the fact that Oregonians are debating when and how to kill wolves at all is incredible given the predators didn’t exist here a decade ago, said Derek Broman, carnivore coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife.
As the point person on the upcoming wolf management plan, he hears from dozens of competing interests on what to do with wolves.
“It wasn’t all that long ago that people were worried about wolves blinking out and there just being a handful of them,” Broman said.
“Wolves are so contentious, and there’s a lot of baggage that comes with them — but there’s also a lot of interest, which is nice.”
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What Happens Once ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules Bite the Dust?
The Federal Communications Commission formally released a draft of its plan to kill net-neutrality rules, which equalized access to the internet and prevented broadband providers from favoring their own apps and services.
Now the question is: What comes next?
‘Radical departure’
The FCC’s move will allow companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to charge internet companies for speedier access to consumers and to block outside services they don’t like. The change also axes a host of consumer protections, including privacy requirements and rules barring unfair practices that gave consumers an avenue to pursue complaints about price gouging.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says his plan eliminates unnecessary regulation. But many worry that his proposal will stifle small tech firms and leave ordinary citizens more at the mercy of cable and wireless companies.
“It would be a radical departure from what previous (FCC) chairs, of both parties, have done,” said Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to Tom Wheeler, the Obama-era FCC chairman who enacted the net neutrality rules now being overturned. “It would leave consumers and competition completely unprotected.”
During the last Republican administration, that of George W. Bush, FCC policy held that people should be able to see what they want on the internet and to use the services they preferred. But attempts to enshrine that net-neutrality principle in regulation never held up in court – at least until Wheeler pushed through the current rules now slated for termination.
Pai’s proposals stand a good chance of enactment at the next FCC meeting in December. But there will be lawsuits to challenge them.
More details
The formal proposal reveals more details of the plan than were in the FCC’s Tuesday press release. For instance, if companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon decide to block a particular app, throttle data speeds for a rival service or offer faster speeds to companies who pay for it, they merely need to disclose their policies for doing so.
The FCC also says it will pre-empt state rules on privacy and net neutrality that contradict its approach. Verizon has noted that New York has several privacy bills pending, and that the California legislature has suggested coming up with its own version of net neutrality rules should the federal versions perish.
The plan would leave complaints about deceptive behavior and monitor privacy to the Federal Trade Commission, which already regulates privacy for internet companies like Google and Facebook.
Best behavior
Broadband providers are promising to be on their best behavior. Comcast said it doesn’t and won’t block, throttle or discriminate against lawful content. AT&T said that “all major ISPs have publicly committed to preserving an open internet” and that any ISP “foolish” enough to manipulate what’s available online for customers will be “quickly and decisively called out.” Verizon said that “users should be able to access the internet when, where, and how they choose.”
Some critics don’t put much weight on those promises, noting that many providers have previously used their networks to disadvantage rivals. For example, the Associated Press in 2007 found Comcast was blocking some file-sharing. AT&T blocked Skype and other internet calling services on its network on the iPhone until 2009.
But others suggest fear of a public uproar will help restrain egregious practices such as blocking and throttling. “I’m not sure there’s any benefit to them doing that,” said Sohn. “It’s just going to get people angry at them for no good reason. They don’t monetize that.”
Fast lanes, slow lanes
Sohn, however, suggests there’s reason to worry about more subtle forms of discrimination, such as “paid prioritization.” That’s a term for internet “fast lanes,” where companies that can afford it would pay AT&T, Verizon and Comcast for faster or better access to consumers.
That would leave startups and institutions that aren’t flush with cash, like libraries or schools, relegated to slower service, said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group. In turn, startups would find it harder to attract investors, Sohn said.
Michael Cheah, general counsel of the video startup Vimeo, said broadband companies will try to lay groundwork for a two-tiered internet – one where cash-strapped companies and services are relegated to the slow lane. To stay competitive, small companies would need to pony up for fast lanes if they could – but those costs would ultimately find their way to consumers.
The view is different at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank funded by Google and other established tech companies. Doug Brake, a telecom policy analyst at the foundation, said there’s little chance broadband companies will engage in “shenanigans,” given how unpopular they already are with the public.
Brake likewise played down the threat of internet fast lanes, arguing that they’ll only be useful in limited situations such as high-quality teleconferencing. Like the FCC, he argued that antitrust law can serve to deter “potentially anticompetitive” behavior by internet providers.
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Anti-Smoking Ads to Air on American TV
This weekend, TV viewers across America will again be watching advertisements sponsored by major tobacco companies, but quite different from the ones pulled from the airwaves nearly 50 years ago. Instead of attractive people enjoying a smoke, these ads will lay out in plain text and narration the dangers of using tobacco. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Study: Earth’s Night Skies Getting Brighter
Goodbye, Moon. We don’t need you anymore.
The Earth’s night skies are getting brighter. A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, finds the Earth’s artificially lit outdoor areas grew by 2.2 percent per year from 2012 to 2016.
Light pollution is actually worse than that, according to the German-led team of researchers.
The measurements used in the study come from an imaging sensor on a polar-orbiting weather satellite that can’t detect the color blue generated by the new and increasingly popular LED lights, which means some light is missed by the sensor.
Overall, 79 countries, mostly in Asia, South America and Africa, experienced a growth in nighttime brightness. Sixteen countries, including areas of conflict such as Syria and Yemen, witnessed a decrease, and 39 countries, including the U.S., stayed the same.
“Artificial light is an environmental pollutant that threatens nocturnal animals and affects plants and microorganisms,” the study said.
Light pollution has been known to have adverse effects on all living creatures. People’s sleep can be marred, in turn affecting their health. The migration and reproduction of birds, fish, amphibians, insects and bats can be disrupted, and plants can have abnormally extended growing periods.
Co-author of the study, Franz Holker of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, said things are at the critical point.
“Many people are using light at night without really thinking about the cost,” Holker said. Not just the economic cost, “but also the cost that you have to pay from an ecological, environmental perspective.”
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Facebook to Let Users See Whether They ‘Liked’ Russian Accounts
Facebook Inc. said Wednesday that it would build a web page to allow users to see which Russian propaganda accounts they have liked or followed, after U.S. lawmakers demanded that the social network be more open about the reach of the accounts.
U.S. lawmakers called the announcement a positive step. The web page, though, would fall short of their demands that Facebook individually notify users about Russian propaganda posts or ads they were exposed to.
Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc. are facing a backlash after saying Russians used their services to anonymously spread divisive messages among Americans in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. elections.
U.S. lawmakers have criticized the tech firms for not doing more to detect the alleged election meddling, which the Russian government denies involvement in.
Facebook says the propaganda came from the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization that according to lawmakers and researchers employs hundreds of people to push pro-Kremlin content under phony social media accounts.
As many as 126 million people could have been served posts on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram, the company says. Facebook has since deactivated the accounts.
Available by year’s end
Facebook, in a statement, said it would let people see which pages or accounts they liked or followed between January 2015 and August 2017 that were affiliated with the Internet Research Agency.
The tool will be available by the end of the year as “part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors who try to undermine our democracy,” Facebook said.
The web page will show only a list of accounts, not the posts or ads affiliated with them, according to a mock-up. U.S. lawmakers have separately published some posts.
It was not clear whether Facebook would eventually do more, such as sending individualized notifications to users.
Lawmakers at congressional hearings this month suggested that Facebook might have an obligation to notify people who accessed deceptive foreign government material.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who had asked for notifications, said Facebook’s plan “seems to be a serious response” to his request.
“My hope is that it will be a responsible first step towards protecting against future assaults on its platform,” he said in a statement.
Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, called it a “very positive step” and said lawmakers look forward to additional steps by tech companies to improve transparency.
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Hindu Politician Offers $1.5M for Beheading of Bollywood Actress, Director
A leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced that he would pay a reward roughly equivalent to $1.5 million to anyone who would behead an Indian actress and a film director.
Surajpal Singh Amu, a member of the BJP in northern Haryana state, is apparently upset about an upcoming movie, Padmavati, starring actress Deepika Padukone as the 16th-century Hindu queen Padmini.
The movie is directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Amu alleged that the movie is misleading, not based on truth and offends Hindu sentiments in the country.
“We will reward the ones beheading them, with 10 crore rupees, and also take care of their family’s needs,” Amu said in an interview with India’s Asia’s Premier News (ANI) earlier this week.
Threats against movie
Amu also vowed not to allow the release of the movie and warned movie theaters to avoid playing the movie or risk being torched.
The movie was set to be released during the first week of December.
Rights activists have reacted strongly to the threats and urged the government to take action.
“This is pretty outrageous that you announce publicly and no action takes place at a time when people are being arrested for most trivial reasons in this country,” Gotum Naulakha, an Indian-based civil liberties activist, told VOA.
An official complaint has been registered against Amu, but many are criticizing the stance of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — which controls the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — on the matter.
“I’ve not heard any official stance from the central government or the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,” Vinod Sharma, an Indian-based analyst, told VOA.
Anil Jain, a local BJP spokesperson, told ANI that the law applies to everyone in the state of Haryana and no one can threaten others. The central government has yet to react, however.
Bollywood actress Padukone stood her ground and said the movie would be released despite the threats.
“Where have we reached as a nation? We have regressed. The only people we are answerable to is the censor board, and I know and I believe that nothing can stop the release of this film,” Padukone told Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) last week.
Controversy
Padmavati was controversial right from the start. Opponents of the movie stormed the filming of one scene and destroyed the film sets. They were upset that the director of the movie was distorting facts by alleging romance between the Hindu queen and the Muslim invader Alauddin Khilji.
Film director Bhansali, however, denies the allegations and maintains the story is based on a Sufi and medieval-era poem written about the Hindu queen. In the poem, the Hindu queen chooses death before the Muslim conqueror could capture her.
Some experts say the poem is centuries old and there is a possibility the Hindu queen might be purely a fictional character found only in folklore.
“There’s a lot of debate in India whether Padmavati was actually a living being many, many years ago or whether she was just an imagined person in a poem,” analyst Sharma said.
Rights activists maintain that if government fails to draw clear lines around the threat made by the politician, and discourage a growing sense of impunity for some, incidents like this will only increase and threaten the freedom of expression in the world’s biggest democracy.
“By letting loose and giving [a] sense of impunity to the goons of the ruling party or people who’re connected or close to the ruling party, we’re paving the ground for much bigger and [worse] things to happen in the near future,” Naulakha told VOA.
The movie is awaiting approval from India’s Central Board of Film Certification.
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Soup Restaurant Teams With Family Farm to Serve Farm-to-table Freshness
Pumpkins, squash, beets and collard greens are just a few of the more than 50 different crops that Garner’s Produce in Virginia grows and sells at farmers markets about two hours away in Washington, D.C.
At a small soup shop in the northwest section of the District of Columbia, cooks are chopping Garner’s fresh squash and sweet potatoes for Soupergirl! vegan and kosher soups.
“We are trying to save the world one bowl of soup at a time,” said Sara Polon, a Soupergirl! founder.
Polon’s farm-to-table business model means that she buys produce to use in her soups from farmers markets around D.C. or wholesale from local growers like Garner’s Produce in Warsaw, Virginia.
“We need to think more about where our food comes from,” Polon said. “Where it was grown, who grew it, how it was picked, how it was prepared.”
Much of the produce that is sold in grocery stores is grown in other parts of the world and spends days in a shipping container before reaching a table.
“I didn’t know how corrupted our food system had become,” Polon said, adding that she thinks food should come from just a few miles away. “Why do we need to get apples from New Zealand, if they grow in Virginia?”
Bernard Boyle, farm manager for Garner’s Produce, agrees.
“You don’t know exactly” how farmers elsewhere are producing their crops, Boyle said. If the food is grown by a neighbor, “you know you’re going to get what you’re supposed to get.”
Polon’s mission is to make vegan and kosher soups using local produce to promote a healthful lifestyle. This model has sustained her business for over nine years. Sarah uses only vegetables that are in season, and she says that soup is always in season.
“Soup is not a fad, it’s not a trend. It’s classic, it’s not going anywhere,” she said.
Soupergirl! sells chilled soups in the summer using ingredients like Garner’s Produce watermelons and tomatoes. In the fall, the menu features fall-harvested produce such as lentils, butternut squash, collard greens, kale and potatoes from farms in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
Polon embraced her Soupergirl! alter ego nine years ago, when she and her mother started delivering soups they had made with local produce to individuals and businesses. She and her mom, whom she calls “the chief anxiety officer,” were making about 10 gallons of soup a day at that time.
Now, Soupergirl! produces 300 to 500 gallons of soup a day for its two D.C. locations, as well as grocery stores across several states and at farmers markets. Polon has even started a soup “cleanse” — a three-day or five-day healthful-eating plan to eat four Soupergirl! soups a day.
“It’s basically everything every doctor says you should be eating delivered right to your door,” she said.
Polon met the family in charge of Garner’s Produce at a Washington farmers market about five years ago, and they have been growing together ever since.
“She’s like family,” said Bernard Boyle. His wife, Dana Boyle, is the daughter of the man who started Garner’s Produce. She now runs the family farm.
Because Polon won’t use produce that’s out of season, she relies on her relationship with the Boyles to build her menu.
“I know that I have a farmer I can count on to get me the high-quality seasonal ingredients and I can rely on to deliver on time,” Polon said.
Polon also wants to know who is picking her produce and that they’re being treated fairly.
Garner’s Produce has the ability to grow produce throughout the winter, not only to help supply Soupergirl! but also to create work for their employees. They use heated tents to grow produce into February, whereas in the past they were done harvesting by late November.
“We treat everybody like family who works with us,” Bernard Boyle said. “We want them to make it through the winter.”
Last year, Garner’s Produce was able to produce 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of butternut squash and sweet potatoes per month. In the past couple of months, Polon has received 300 to 400 pounds of collard greens per week.
Arash Arabasadi contributed to this story.
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Russian Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky Dies at 55
Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone known for his velvety voice, dashing looks and shock of flowing white hair, died Wednesday at a hospice near his home in London, a few years after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was 55.
Called “the Elvis of opera” and the “Siberian Express” by some, Hvorostovsky announced in June 2015 that he had been diagnosed with the tumor. He returned to New York’s Metropolitan Opera three months later to sing the Count di Luna in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” and was greeted with a loud and lengthy ovation that caused him to break character. Musicians in the orchestra threw white roses during the curtain calls.
Despite his illness, he sang in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at London’s Royal Opera that December, in Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” and “Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball)” at the Vienna State Opera the following spring and gave his final four staged opera performances as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Vienna, the last on Nov. 29 last year. He announced the following month that balance issues had caused him to cancel future opera appearances.
“Dima was a truly exceptional artist — a great recitalist as well as a great opera singer, which is rare,” said soprano Renee Fleming, who teamed with Hvorostovsky for a memorable run of “Onegin” among their many performances. “His timbre, musicality, musicianship, technique, and especially his capacity for endless phrases, were second to none. I have no doubt that he would have sung beautifully for another 20 years or more, had he not been taken from us. I can’t hear Eugene Onegin, Valentin in Faust or Simon Boccanegra without longing to hear Dmitri. He brought an innate nobility and intense commitment to every role.”
Hvorostovsky made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the Met last May for a gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company’s move to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Walking stiffly, looking thin and with his cheekbones more pronounced, Hvorostovsky received a standing ovation and lit into Rigoletto’s second-act aria “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata (Courtiers, vile cursed kind).” Some in the audience had tears in their eyes, and many pulled cellphones from their glittering handbags to snap photos as he walked through the lobby during intermission.
His last public concerts were on June 22 and June 23 at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria. In September, he was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland by Russia President Vladimir Putin for contributions to the nation’s art and culture.
“Words cannot express my anguish that one of the greatest voices of our time has been silenced,” tenor Placido Domingo said. “Dmitri’s incomparably beautiful voice and peerless artistry touched the souls of millions of music lovers. His passing will be mourned by his countless admirers around the world and by those of us who were fortunate to know him.”
The Met dedicated Friday’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem to Hvorostovsky.
“One of opera’s all-time greats, truly an artist for the ages,” Met General Manager Peter Gelb said. “In addition to his astounding vocal gifts, he had an electrifying stage presence and a charisma that won over both his adoring audiences and his devoted colleagues.”
The Vienna State Opera scheduled a minute of silence before Wednesday’s performance of Strauss’ “Salome.”
“I especially admire the wonderful way in which he carried himself during this terrible illness,” Vienna State Opera Director Dominique Meyer said. “Dima leaves a great void behind. He will stay in our memories as an exceptional artist who always gave a hundred percent.”
Hvorostovsky was born on Oct. 16, 1962, and grew up in Krasnoyarsk, in central Siberia. He started piano lessons when he was 7, only for his first piano teacher to tell him he was untalented. At Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical School and Krasnoyarsk High School of Arts, he thrived in music, boxing and soccer. “Apart from this, I was the worst pupil in school,” he said with a straight face.
He became a soloist at the Krasnoyarsk Opera in 1986, won the Russian Glinka National Competition, then attracted attention by winning vocal contests at Toulouse, France, in 1988 and then Cardiff in 1989 — where he beat out Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel for the top prize.
With long hair that turned prematurely silver before he was 35 and then polar bear white, he was instantly recognizable. Hvorostovky’s public musical persona started with a rock ’n’ roll band, when he was a teen-age rebel under communism.
“Ah! Freedom! So what could I do?” he remembered in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press. “I had a few options — to become a street fighter, or I could become a hero in front of my girlfriends.”
He made his Royal Opera debut in 1992 as Riccardo in Bellini’s “I Puritani” and his Met debut in 1995 as Prince Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky’s “Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades).” He was lauded around the world for definitive performances as Onegin and also celebrated for the title role in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Valentin in Gounod’s “Faust,” Belcore in Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore.”
He is survived by his wife Florence Hvorostovsky, their son, Maxim, and daughter, Nina, and twins Alexandra and Daniel from his first marriage, to Svetlana Hvorostovsky.
Hollywood Spotlights Racial Tensions in America
America’s history of racial inequality and civil rights activism are prevalent themes in Hollywood films this season. Using gritty cinematography and A-list actors, directors Kathryn Bigelow, George Clooney and Dan Gilroy highlight America’s history of racial injustice, as well as opening up a conversation about racial tensions in the present.
The film drama Detroit by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bigelow is based on the riots that tore apart the city of Detroit in 1967. “These riots, this was anger that was building and it was on a collision course in 1967,” the filmmaker said.
Major American cities such as Detroit became the battleground for discontented African-Americans facing unemployment and racial discrimination in housing and education. In her film, Bigelow focuses on a chain of events one night during the riots when a group of innocent African-Americans were caught up in the violence and beaten by police.
Trying to escape the riots, a group of Motown singers seek refuge in the low-budget Algiers hotel downtown, but tensions follow them there. An African-American hotel resident points a toy gun at another, trying to make the point that a white society always points the proverbial gun at African-Americans. Police forces on the ground take the popping sound of the fake gun coming from the hotel as a potential sniper attack. They open fire at the hotel and then raid it.
Will Poulter portrays racist officer Krauss, a composite of police officers, who intimidates and brutalizes the youth in the hotel, to recover what he thought was a real gun. Three young men are killed, and police detectives arrest an African-American security guard in an effort to pin the crime on him. John Boyega plays real-life security guard Melvin Dismukes, who witnessed the events at the hotel and tried to intervene to diffuse the situation.
“He was an unspoken guardian angel to those boys that were there,” Boyega said.
An Oscar-worthy film, Detroit combines a cinéma vérité approach with taut drama. Weaving historic footage into dramatic sequences, the film immerses the audience into the riots as the pivotal moment of racial injustice and repression.
“My hope is that the film could maybe stimulate greater conversation,” Bigelow said.
Suburbicon
Tensions in white American suburbs of the 1950s are explored in Clooney’s dark satire Suburbicon. Like Bigelow, Clooney uses real-life racial tensions as a counterpoint to his murder mystery. He places his story in Suburbicon, a town modeled on the first all-white suburb of Levittown, Pennsylvania.
A corrupt middle-management executive, played by Matt Damon, commits murder, fraud and adultery while the largely oblivious community turns its attention and indignation against the Myers family, the first African-American family to move there. Clooney said the movie was made before President Donald Trump was elected and racial tensions became a higher profile issue in American political life.
“It was in the middle of the campaign, and it seemed it was fun to talk about it and remind people that these are not new subjects — we continue to have these for the history of this country,” he said.
Though the film carries the satirical stamp of writers Joel and Ethan Cohen, it emerges rather disjointed in its effort to balance the irony of all-white suburbanites fearing for their security by their African-American neighbors, while their so-called respectable white neighbor gets away with murder.
Roman J. Israel Esq.
In Roman J. Israel Esq., filmmaker Gilroy crafts a character drama that targets institutionalized racism through a corrupt judicial system. The story takes place in present day Los Angeles and revolves around Roman, a socially awkward lawyer who takes on the justice system with supreme legal knowledge but no people skills.
When his boss dies, Roman, the firm’s backroom consultant for decades, is forced out of the shadows to actively represent clients in court. He comes face to face with an overburdened justice system which disproportionately affects African-Americans.
Gilroy says his story, like his character, is reminiscent of the political activism of the 1960s and ’70s.
“The story spoke to me on a very contemporary level,” he said. “There are things going on right now legally, constitutionally, nationally and internationally that the story became a focus. One of the elements of the film that I hope people take out is, feel empowered.”
Unfortunately, the film’s message gets buried under the legal jargon and Denzel Washington’s challenging performance as a loner who seems to have stepped out of the ’70s does not connect with the audience.
Despite their hits and misses, all three films address racial tensions then and now, as well as the potential of racial reconciliation and tolerance.
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Nigeria Oil Spills Double Risk of Infant Mortality, Research Shows
Babies are much more likely to die in their first few weeks of life if their mothers live close to the site of an oil spill, according to new research. Scientists studied data on infant mortality and oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger delta region – and describe their results as ‘shocking’. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Uber Reveals Cover-up of Hack Affecting 57M Riders, Drivers
Uber is coming clean about its cover-up of a year-old hacking attack that stole personal information about more than 57 million of the beleaguered ride-hailing service’s customers and drivers.
So far, there’s no evidence that the data taken has been misused, according to a Tuesday blog post by Uber’s recently hired CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. Part of the reason nothing malicious has happened is because Uber acknowledges paying the hackers $100,000 to destroy the stolen information.
The revelation marks the latest stain on Uber’s reputation. It also brought an investigation from New York’s attorney general and threats of larger-than-normal fines from British authorities for failing to promptly disclose the hack.
The San Francisco company ousted Travis Kalanick as CEO in June after an internal investigation concluded he had built a culture that allowed female workers to be sexually harassed and encouraged employees to push legal limits.
It’s also the latest major breach involving a prominent company that didn’t notify the people that could be potentially harmed for months or even years after the break-in occurred.
Yahoo didn’t make its first disclosure about hacks that hit 3 billion user accounts during 2013 and 2014 until September 2016. Credit reporting service Equifax waited several months before revealing this past September that hackers had carted off the Social Security numbers of 145 million Americans.
Khosrowshahi criticized Uber’s handling of its data theft in his blog post.
“While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.”
That pledge shouldn’t excuse Uber’s previous regime for its egregious behavior, said Sam Curry, chief security officer for the computer security firm Cybereason.
“The truly scary thing here is that Uber paid a bribe, essentially a ransom to make this breach go away, and they acted as if they were above the law,” Curry said. “Those people responsible for the integrity and confidentiality of the data in-fact covered it up.”
The heist took the names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of 57 million riders around the world. The thieves also nabbed the driver’s license numbers of 600,000 Uber drivers in the U.S.
Uber waited until Tuesday to begin notifying the drivers with compromised driver’s licenses, which can be particularly useful for perpetrating identify theft. For that reason, Uber will now pay for free credit-report monitoring and identity theft protection services for the affected drivers.
Kalanick, who still sits on Uber’s board of directors, declined to comment on the data breach that took place in October 2016. Uber says the response to the hack was handled by its chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor whom Kalanick lured away from Facebook in 2015.
As part of his effort to set things right, Khosrowshahi extracted Sullivan’s resignation from Uber and also jettisoned Craig Clark, a lawyer who reported to Sullivan.
Clark didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent through his LinkedIn profile. Efforts to reach Sullivan were unsuccessful.
On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office confirmed that it had opened an investigation into the data theft, but a spokeswoman wouldn’t comment further. New York law requires that companies notify the attorney general and consumers if data is stolen.
In London, Britain’s Deputy Information Commissioner James Dipple-Johnstone said Wednesday the company faces “higher fines” because it concealed the hack from the public.
The Information Commissioner’s Office and the National Cyber Security Center are working to gauge the severity of the problem for British Uber users.
Uber’s silence about its breach came while it was negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission about its handling of its riders’ information.
Earlier in 2016, the company reached a settlement with the New York attorney general requiring it to take steps to be more vigilant about protecting the information that its app stores about its riders. As part of that settlement, Uber also paid a $20,000 fine for waiting to notify five months about another data breach that it discovered in September 2014.
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Kenyan Fashion Designers Struggle to Grow Business
The fashion and textile industry could generate nearly half a million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa over the next decade. That’s according to the African Development Bank, which launched its “Fashionomics” initiative in 2015 to revitalize the industry. However, designers in the region still struggle to grow their businesses. Lenny Ruvaga reports for VOA from Nairobi.
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Delhi’s Homeless Most Affected by City’s Severe Air Pollution
In the Indian capital, New Delhi, winter was once a season of cool, crisp winds, bracing walks and picnics under a blue sky. But as the city remained enveloped in gray smog this month, authorities rolled out a series of emergency measures to combat deadly levels of air pollution. As Anjana Pasricha reports, the toxic air has improved slightly, but it is still hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.
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Local "Souper-Hero" Serves Seasonal Soup with Help from Local Family Farm
Each year in America, when summer ends and fall begins, it’s a safe bet you’ll find pumpkins and sweet potatoes flavoring everything from coffee to pie. It’s seasonal food that makes its way from farms to tables around the country from Thanksgiving to Christmas time. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports from a local farm feeding local produce to a local business stewing seasonal sensations.
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Robotic Fingers Get a Feel for the Real World
You can reach into your pocket and tell whether you’ve grabbed coins or keys, and now researchers in California have developed a robot with a similar level of tactile sensitivity. Faith Lapidus reports.
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