Month: February 2018

US Postal Service Rolls Out Virtual Mail

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A new service that sends virtual images of the day’s mail to inboxes, before snail mail arrives in actual mailboxes, is now a reality in the United States.  

“Informed Delivery” is the latest way the United States Postal Service (USPS) is trying to stay competitive.  

“Informed Delivery is a way for you to receive an email every single day of all the digital images of all your mail,” explained David Rupert, media relations specialist at USPS.  Rupert said his digital images arrive around 9 a.m. each day.

Though the USPS delivers about 46 percent of the world’s total mail, it is battling email, text messages, online advertising, television and other delivery services for consumers’ attention and business.

 

“In a digital world, more and more people are having their bills delivered online, paying them on line. And that’s starting to cut into the overall letter volume, as well as the handwritten letter and the notes that we used to send. The reality is, we’re not doing that anymore. That’s not just a U.S. trend, that’s a worldwide trend,” Rupert said.

WATCH: USPS Enters Digital, Virtual, Augmented Worlds to Attract Customers

Battling that trend also means using virtual and augmented technology in advertising, often called “junk” mail.

“What you can do is to take your cellphone, and you can take a mail piece, and it will interact with that mail piece,” Rupert described.

If there is a special digital code on an ad, consumers can scan it with their mobile device and an animated, augmented reality ad will appear.  An advertiser can also send a cardboard virtual reality headset along with a code for mobile phone users to scan.  What shows up is a VR ad that can be inserted into the headset for a 360-degree experience.

Virtual and augmented reality advertising are getting mixed results from consumers.

“Not all junk mail [pieces] are junk mail. You can find some good [things] within the junk mail. It’s a good idea. We’ll see how it works out,” said consumer Victor Teah.

 

“For some, that might be fun. But for me, I wouldn’t have any use for it,” consumer Jocelyn Coatney said.

Informed Delivery has broader appeal.

“I think I would like that a lot, especially with checks and things coming in, and things coming in from grandkids. That would be a nice service,” said Coatney.

 

Rupert added: “We don’t want to be a world leader on technology, but we certainly want to make our services relevant to you — in your home and in your neighborhood.”
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Russian Cargo Ship Launched to ISS After 2-Day Delay

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An unmanned Russian cargo ship has blasted off for the International Space Station, two days after the original launch was scrubbed.

The Progress capsule is carrying 2.7 metric tons (3 U.S. tons) of food, fuel and other supplies. It entered orbit eight minutes after liftoff Tuesday from the Russian space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

 

The abandoned Sunday launch was intended to test a new regime for fast deliveries to the space station, docking less than four hours after launch. But Tuesday’s launch will follow a longer route, with docking scheduled for Thursday.

 

There are six astronauts aboard the space station – three Americans, two Russians and one from Japan.

 
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Carlos Campos Conquers New York’s Catwalks

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Carlos Campos arrived in the U.S. when he was 13 years old – alone and undocumented – but now the Honduran fashion designer and his elegant collections are a staple of New York’s Fashion Week. Fashion Week runs thru 2/16. Faith Lapidus has more.
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Hotel in DC Offers a Cooking Class for Couples before Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day is probably the most romantic holiday. In the United States, with people sending 190 million Valentine’s Day cards and spending around $100 per person on gifts. Instead of going out for a restaurant dinner for the holiday, a new idea is taking hold. These days more couples are planning to do something together. Classes like painting and cooking are a popular. Mariia Prus checked out the options for couples at one of Washington’s fanciest hotels.
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A New Weapon In The Fight Against Poachers

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In the dense tropical rainforests of the Minkebe national park in northern Gabon, conservationists are hoping a new weapon can help them win a war against elephant poaching. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Holidaying Frog Game Finds Fans Among China’s Harried Youth

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Wang Zhuyin studies 10 hours a day preparing for a series of tests to obtain a U.S. physician’s license. But like millions of young Chinese adults, the 26-year-old has found a new way to cope with the pressure: an online game about a frog.

 

A frog that’s perpetually on vacation.

 

Wang’s diversion, the Japanese mobile game “Travel Frog,” has attracted a massive following in China by speaking to a desire for a more passive existence among harried young people that some have termed “Buddhist style” for its desired goal of Zen-like serenity.

 

The game has only two scenes, a loft home and a courtyard where users can collect clover leaves to buy food and other travel supplies for their frog. There isn’t much else a user can do, either. The virtual frog randomly spends time reading a book at home, eating or going on vacation around Japan. Since users have no control over their frog’s behavior, waiting takes up most of the playing time.

“When your frog goes sightseeing, there is nothing you can do but go with the flow,” said Wang, a native of the high-tech center of Hangzhou outside Shanghai. “This is similar to the situation young people are facing. Suffocated by stress, we learn to pretend we don’t care.”

 

The game’s popularity underscores the degree of pressure Chinese millennials face in a highly competitive society where stability and opportunity have become ever more elusive.

Developed by Nagoya-based Japanese company Hit-Point, Travel Frog — also known as Tabi Kaeru — has become the most downloaded free game app in China, despite never having been translated into Chinese.

 

The game’s simplicity has users enthralled. Wang and others describe a sense of healing when gallivanting frogs send photos from their trips, or just relax at home.

 

The frog “doesn’t interact with you or talk to you. You just watch the frog living its own life,” said Jia Weiwei, 37, who works with autistic children in Beijing. “There isn’t a lot of information, which gives you plenty of space for imagination.”

 

Jia has studied an online translation guide and checks her phone regularly to see whether her frog will surprise her by sending a photo or bringing home souvenirs.

 

Psychologist Hai Ming says the popularity of the game shows that human relations have declined in an increasingly data-driven digital society.

 

“Behind every frog-raising player is a lonely person,” Hai said. “How do you externalize your loneliness, your indecision? Through the frog.”

On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, the topic (hash)TravelFrog(hash) has received over 1.96 billion views. According to Travel Frog developer Mayuko Uemura, Travel Frog has racked up about 30 million downloads on Apple’s App Store and Google Play since its launch in November. Fully 95 percent of downloads of the game from the App Store were in China.

 

“We were hoping to some extent that people overseas would be able to enjoy this game as well, but I would never have imagined that it would become so popular with people in China,” Uemura said.

The company is now considering producing an international version that could be tailored to appeal to local audiences, she said.

 

Social media have played an important role in the game’s success, said Chenyu Cui, a game analyst with IHS Markit in Shanghai.

 

Gamers can show off on Chinese social media sites by comparing photos of their frogs’ “travels,” Cui said.

 

Some users refer to the frog as their child and will worry if it hasn’t been home for even two days.

 

“It connects with people’s common experience,” said Shao Yuanyu, 32, a Taiwanese doctor based in Beijing. “Now I know how my mom felt when she waited for me to come home.”

 

For young people living in China’s fast-paced modern society, the game provides a sense of connection, said Xu Ziwei, a counselor from the mental health center at Beijing’s Renmin University.

 

“To some extent, you feel that you have a stable relationship with the frog. If it leaves, it will always come back, it will send you a postcard,” Xu said.

 

Not all are as positive. The game and the social trends it embodies run counter to the ruling Communist Party’s frequent exhortations to the public to strive for economic advancement. In a speech last year, President Xi Jinping called on young people to “write a vivid chapter in your tireless endeavors to serve the interests of the people.”

 

The party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, stated in a recent Weibo post that young people should spend their time enriching themselves “instead of just being a lonely frog-raising person.”

 

But others see the frog game and the popularity of “Buddhist style” thinking as examples of young Chinese expressing a newfound independence. People born in the 1990s are largely better off than earlier generations of Chinese and they’re searching for meaning beyond material wealth, said Jia, the frog raiser in Beijing.

 

“This is like the western lifestyle we always envy: to be able to really be ourselves and not care about how others judge us,” Jia said.

 

“The ‘Buddhist style’ doesn’t mean a lack of pursuits or simply giving up,” Jia said. “I think it’s a spiritual pursuit. It’s not harmful if it makes people more at peace.”
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GM to Close Auto Plant in South Korea in Restructuring

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General Motors said Tuesday it will close an underutilized factory in Gunsan, South Korea, by the end of May as part of a restructuring of its operations.

 

The move is a setback for the administration of President Moon Jae-in, who has made jobs and wages a priority.

 

A GM statement said Monday the company has proposed to its labor union and other stakeholders a plan involving further investments in South Korea that would help save jobs.

 

“As we are at a critical juncture of needing to make product allocation decisions, the ongoing discussions must demonstrate significant progress by the end of February, when GM will make important decisions on next steps,” Barry Engle, GM executive vice president and president of GM International, said in the statement.

 

The company’s CEO Mary Barra has said GM urgently needs better cost performance from its operations in South Korea, where auto sales have slowed.

 

South Korea’s government expressed “deep regret” over the factory’s closure. It said it plans to study the situation at the business and will continue talks with GM.

Korea’s finance ministry said earlier this month that GM had sought government help. The government has denied reports that South Korea will raise the issue in trade talks with the U.S.

 

The factory in Gunsan, a port city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Seoul, has been making the Cruze, a sedan, and the Orlando model SUV. It employs about 2,000 workers, and only used about 20 percent of its full production capacity in 2017, rolling out 33,982 vehicles.

 

GM Korea has made 10 million vehicles since it was set up in 2002. In 2017, it sold 132,377 units in Korea and exported 392,170 vehicles to 120 markets around the world.
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‘Hello, Universe’ Wins Newbery for Best Children’s Book

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Erin Entrada Kelly’s “Hello, Universe,” a nuanced account of a diverse group of middle school students and their unexpected encounters, has won the John Newbery Medal for the outstanding children’s book of 2017. The Randolph Caldecott Medal for best illustration went to Matthew Cordell and his near-wordless story of a girl and the wolf pup she saves, “Wolf in the Snow.”

The awards were announced Monday by the American Library Association, which has gathered in Denver for its annual mid-winter meeting. Both the Newbery and Caldecott medals are more than 80 years old, with previous winners including Jacqueline Woodson’s “Brown Girl Dreaming” and Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” 

On Monday, Woodson who received the Laura Ingalls Wilder award for lifetime achievement and Nina LaCour’s “We Are Okay” was given the Michael L. Printz Award for best young adult literature. Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give,” one of last year’s top-selling young adult novels, was cited twice. It won a William C. Morris Award for best debut book for teens and an Odyssey Award for best audiobook.

Renee Watson’s “Piecing Me Together” won the Coretta Scott King Award for outstanding book by an African-American. The King award for best illustrator went to Ekua Holmes for “Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets.” Eloise Greenfield, whose dozens of books include “Honey, I Love” and “In the Land of Words,” won the King award for lifetime achievement.

The Pura Belpre Award for best Latino book was given to “Lucky Broken Girl,” by Ruth Behar. The Pura Belpre illustrator prize went to Juana Martinez-Neal and “La Princesa and the Pea.”
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Opioid Makers Gave $10 Million to Advocacy Groups Amid Epidemic

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Companies selling some of the most lucrative prescription painkillers funneled millions of dollars to advocacy groups that in turn promoted the medications’ use, according to a report released Monday by a U.S. senator.

The investigation by Missouri’s Senator Claire McCaskill sheds light on the opioid industry’s ability to shape public opinion and raises questions about its role in an overdose epidemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives. Representatives of some of the drugmakers named in the report said they did not set conditions on how the money was to be spent or force the groups to advocate for their painkillers.

The report from McCaskill, ranking Democrat on the Senate’s homeland security committee, examines advocacy funding by the makers of the top five opioid painkillers by worldwide sales in 2015. Financial information the companies provided to Senate staff shows they spent more than $10 million between 2012 and 2017 to support 14 advocacy groups and affiliated doctors.

The report did not include some of the largest and most politically active manufacturers of the drugs.

The findings follow a similar investigation launched in 2012 by a bipartisan pair of senators. That effort eventually was shelved and no findings were ever released.

While the new report provides only a snapshot of company activities, experts said it gives insight into how industry-funded groups fueled demand for drugs such as OxyContin and Vicodin, addictive medications that generated billions in sales despite research showing they are largely ineffective for chronic pain.

‘Pretty damning’

“It looks pretty damning when these groups were pushing the message about how wonderful opioids are and they were being heavily funded, in the millions of dollars, by the manufacturers of those drugs,” said Lewis Nelson, a Rutgers University doctor and opioid expert.

The findings could bolster hundreds of lawsuits that are aimed at holding opioid drugmakers responsible for helping fuel an epidemic blamed for the deaths of more than 340,000 Americans since 2000.

McCaskill’s staff asked drugmakers to turn over records of payments they made to groups and affiliated physicians, part of a broader investigation by the senator into the opioid crisis. The request was sent last year to five companies: Purdue Pharma; Insys Therapeutics; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, owned by Johnson & Johnson; Mylan; and Depomed.

Fourteen nonprofit groups, mostly representing pain patients and specialists, received nearly $9 million from the drugmakers, according to investigators. Doctors affiliated with those groups received another $1.6 million.

Most of the groups included in the probe took industry-friendly positions. That included issuing medical guidelines promoting opioids for chronic pain, lobbying to defeat or include exceptions to state limits on opioid prescribing, and criticizing landmark prescribing guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Doctors and the public have no way of knowing the true source of this information and that’s why we have to take steps to provide transparency,” said McCaskill in an interview with The Associated Press. The senator plans to introduce legislation requiring increased disclosure about the financial relationships between drugmakers and certain advocacy groups.

‘Front groups’

A 2016 investigation by the AP and the Center for Public Integrity revealed how painkiller manufacturers used hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to fight state and federal measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, often enlisting help from advocacy organizations.

Bob Twillman, executive director of the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, said most of the $1.3 million his group received from the five companies went to a state policy advocacy operation. But Twillman said the organization has called for non-opioid pain treatments while also asking state lawmakers for exceptions to restrictions on the length of opioid prescriptions for certain patients.

“We really don’t take direction from them about what we advocate for,” Twillman said of the industry.

The tactics highlighted in Monday’s report are at the heart of lawsuits filed by hundreds of state and local governments against the opioid industry.

The suits allege that drugmakers misled doctors and patients about the risks of opioids by enlisting “front groups” and “key opinion leaders” who oversold the drugs’ benefits and encouraged overprescribing. In the legal claims, the governments seek money and changes to how the industry operates, including an end to the use of outside groups to push their drugs.

U.S. deaths linked to opioids have quadrupled since 2000 to roughly 42,000 in 2016. Although initially driven by prescription drugs, most opioid deaths now involve illicit drugs, including heroin and fentanyl.

Companies and their contributions

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, contributed the most to the groups, funneling $4.7 million to organizations and physicians from 2012 through last year.

In a statement, the company did not address whether it was trying to influence the positions of the groups it supported, but said it does help organizations “that are interested in helping patients receive appropriate care.” On Friday, Purdue announced it would no longer market OxyContin to doctors.

Insys Therapeutics, a company recently targeted by federal prosecutors, provided more than $3.5 million to interest groups and physicians, according to McCaskill’s report. Last year, the company’s founder was indicted for allegedly offering bribes to doctors to write prescriptions for the company’s spray-based fentanyl medication.

A company spokesman declined to comment.

Insys contributed $2.5 million last year to a U.S. Pain Foundation program to pay for pain drugs for cancer patients.

“The question was: Do we make these people suffer, or do we work with this company that has a terrible name?” said U.S. Pain founder Paul Gileno, explaining why his organization sought the money.

Depomed, Janssen and Mylan contributed $1.4 million, $650,000 and $26,000 in payments, respectively. Janssen and Mylan told the AP they acted responsibly, while calls and emails to Depomed were not returned.
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4 Robots That Aim to Teach Your Kids to Code

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You’ve seen apps and toys that promise to teach your child to code. Now enter the robots.

At the CES electronics show in January, coding robots came out in force. One convention hall area was packed with everything from chip-embedded, alphabet-like coding blocks to turtle-like tanks that draw on command.

Of course, no one can really say how well these coding bots teach kids, or even whether learning to code is the essential life skill that so many in the tech industry claim. After all, by the time today’s elementary-school kids are entering the workforce, computers may well be programming themselves.

But experts like Jeff Gray, a computer science professor at the University of Alabama and an adviser to the nonprofit coding education group Code.org, say kids can derive other benefits from coding robots and similar toys. They can, for instance, learn “persistence and grit” when the toys inevitably do something unintended, he says.

So if you’re in the market for a coding robot that teaches and maybe even entertains, here’s a look at four that were on display at CES. But beware: None of them are cheap.

CUBETTO

London-based Primo Toys, the makers of this mobile wooden block, believes kids can learn coding concepts at age 3 before they can even read. And they don’t even need a screen.

The “Cubetto” block on wheels responds to where chip-embedded pieces are put on a wooden board. Different colors represent different commands – for example, to “go straight” or “turn left.”

Kids can bunch together a number of commands into what’s called a function and can also make Cubetto repeat actions in a loop.

Pros: Good for parents who want to avoid more screens

Cons: Doesn’t offer an immediate path to real coding

Price: $226

ROOT

Root Robotics’ flattish, hexagonal droid has downward-facing scanners, magnetic wheels, touch-reactive panels, lights, motion sensors, and a pen-grabbing hole in the center of its body.

Controlling it does require a screen.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, company also claims kids don’t need to be able to read and can start playing with Root at age 4.

Root draws, moves, sees and reacts to touch and various other commands. Kids can use Root to start drawing lines and progress to creating snowflake-like mathematical patterns called fractals.

Co-founder Zee Dubrovsky says his daughter began coding with Root at age 4, and progressed up to the point where her robot drew her name on a whiteboard in school.

Pros: Sturdy frame; kids can progress from graphical block-based codes to text coding

Cons: Requires lots of clean, flat surface area, preferably whiteboards. Root has three difficulty levels, some of which wade into deeper math, so parental time commitment could be considerable. The Kickstarter-launched company has taken a while to ship items, so delivery could be delayed

Price: $199

Shipping: June 2018 (although the company has been working to fulfill Kickstarter orders since May 2017)

COZMO

This bundle of personality on wheels debuted in 2016. It now comes with an app called Code Lab, which allows kids to drag and drop blocks of code that control its movements and animations. They can even access facial and object recognition functions enabled by Cozmo’s front-facing camera.

Cozmo, recommended for kids aged 8 and up, looks like a little tractor and can pick up interactive cubes, which are included.

Part of its appeal are the twitches and tweets that make it seem like an energetic pet, according to Boris Sofman, the CEO and co-founder of Cozmo maker Anki, based in San Francisco.

Pros: Its expressive eyes and movements make it seem like a little R2-D2

Cons: Because it’s so full of personality, there might be a disconnect between programming it to do things and just letting it be itself

Price: $180

EVO

 

This dome-shaped, wheeled dynamo about the height of a few fingers looks for direction right out of the box – and comes equipped to follow around any finger placed before its frontal camera.

 

“We want kids to immediately engage with a robot,” says Nader Hamda, founder and CEO of Evo’s maker, Redondo Beach, California-based Ozobot.

The robot makes sounds, flashes lights, moves and can sense and react to its environment.

An app helps kids – aged 8 and up – program Evo to do what they want. The bot’s downward facing scanners also let it follow lines drawn on regular paper, some of which embody coding instructions. For instance, blue-black-blue gets it to speed up; green-red-green-red tells it to spin.

Pros: It’s cheaper than other coding bots

Cons: It doesn’t do quite as much as other bots

Price: $89
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Disposable Delivery Drone Goes Where Other Services Do Not

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Plastic foam, plywood and some other plastic parts could make the difference between life and death.

These are the materials that make up a delivery drone created by DASH Systems. The California company also describes its lightweight aircraft as an unmanned aerial vehicle or glider.

It can be used to deliver up to 20 kilograms of food, medicine or other essential supplies to people in need in areas that traditional shipping and delivery companies cannot reach. And because it’s made of low-cost materials, it’s disposable, so there is no worry about getting it back.

“Many times, we found that during times of crisis or humanitarian need, it’s very, very difficult to get supplies into remote regions,” said Joel Ifill, chief executive officer and co-founder of DASH Systems.

“Couple that with reduced or destroyed infrastructure. Those are the areas and circumstances under which this system really shines,” said DASH Systems co-founder Joe Caravella.

The system’s aim is targeted, precision delivery. There is a built-in Global Positioning System device that provides enough accuracy to land the vehicle in the courtyard of a hospital.

“You can always fly an airplane overhead, so we help bridge that gap. Using our technology, you can throw a package out of an airplane and have it land right at the area of use,” Ifill said.

The DASH Systems delivery drone will go to places too dangerous or remote for other global shipping services such as FedEx or DHL.

“So, for instance, a delivery in South Sudan or Puerto Rico — oftentimes every traditional carrier will say no. Organizations are willing to pay the fair market value for those trips. They just do not have the solution,” said Ifill.

Ifill thought of this solution while working on smart bombs at a previous job.

“Actually, I felt bad about essentially making technology that was designed to harm and kill people. So, I wondered what else could I do with the technology of a smart bomb, something that can launch from an airplane and land within inches. And I thought, ‘Why can’t I use that same technology to deliver packages and goods?’ ”

DASH Systems says its unmanned glider is unlike other methods of delivery to remote places that have been developed thus far.

“There are a variety of parachute-type systems where you can drop things out of airplanes. We’re hoping to improve the whole operation, both with deploying it at the right time and then guiding the package to where it needs to be, to be more accurate than anything currently on the market,” said Caravella.
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Activists Worldwide Press Environmental Demands

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Industrial pollution is making life difficult in Iran, adding to a long list of economic and political grievances, according to Hamid Arabzadeh, an Iranian-born environmental health expert who teaches at UCLA. Pollution is among the reasons for the protests in Iran in December and January, Arabzadeh said.

The pollution “started with water resources,” he noted. “It led to air pollution, and now in some of the very large cities in Iran, people literally don’t have the air to breathe.”

Arabzadeh said one of the largest salt lakes in the world, Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, is drying up because of dams diverting water and the pumping of groundwater.

“The government has been promising for many years that they are going to reverse some of the ill-conceived policies,” he said. “And it never happened.”

Pollution has led to decades of protests in China and officials have responded, making environmental protection a priority, said Alex Wang, who teaches environmental law at UCLA. He has worked in the Beijing office of the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council.

“There’s a new concept that the (Chinese) state is calling ecological civilization,” he said, “and it’s been all over the official propaganda and the state leadership messaging.” Wang explained that the approach has been “top-down,” with the officials taking the lead and sometimes limiting the flow of information on environmental problems through media censorship.

Thanks to citizen-activists, however, the process has also been bottom-up. Chinese farmers in a village in Heilongjiang province won the first round of a lawsuit against the Qihua Group, arguing that its chemical plant was contaminating their land. The lawsuit was spearheaded by Wang Enlin, a farmer with just three years of formal schooling who spent 16 years studying law on his own. The farmers won compensation in early 2017, but an appeals courts reversed the verdict, and the case continues.

Chinese officials are moving too slowly for many. A 2015 internet documentary called “Under the Dome,” by former Central China Television journalist Chai Jing, shows the devastating impact of pollution. The documentary was widely circulated online, but pushed the limits for government censors who monitor the web for signs of unrest and challenges to state authority.

“That video within three days of being posted garnered by some estimates up to 300 million viewers, and within three or four days had also been blocked,” Wang said.

The stakes are higher in countries where corruption and the scramble for resources can lead to violence against the people, but the repression hasn’t stopped the activists who demand a voice, said Billy Kyte of the London-based organization Global Witness.

“Mining industries, agribusiness, logging, hydrodams are being built and imposed on people without their consent,” says Kyte. “This leads to them campaigning or protesting.”

Global Witness counted 200 killings in 24 countries in 2016 alone. The numbers recently released for 2017 were nearly as bad, with 197 killings. Kyte noted that the problem is worse in areas where corruption is common, with Latin America seeing the largest number of killings both years.

“Murder is just the sharp end of a whole range of attacks and tools used by industries and states to try and silence environmental activism,” he said, adding that threats and intimidation are also tools against activists.

Yet from Pakistan to Indonesia, activists are pressing their demands and are sometimes prompting action, often finding more success in societies that are open, said Arabzadeh.

“It has a lot to do in an organic and dynamic relationship with democratic institutions, with women’s rights, and with citizen’s empowerment,” he argued.

In the United States, activists have found a new target in President Donald Trump, who is withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement that limits the release of so-called greenhouse gases, unless he can secure better terms. Trump is a global warming skeptic and calls the agreement unfair.

The U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which most scientists say lead to climate change. China is the worst emitter.

Chinese protests usually focus on the regional impacts of industrial pollution, and environmental law professor Alex Wang is worried about limitations on activists and controls on the flow of information in China.

“While it’s good that the state, by all accounts, seems to be investing tremendous amounts of resources on pollution reduction, in order to keep it going, you need that public attention and public support, he said.”

Kyte of Global Witness said the activists his group calls Defenders of the Earth brave threats and violence in corrupt regimes, and harassment in others, where their activism is “criminalized.” And yet, they continue to speak out.
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Hallyday’s Daughter to Contest Late French Rock Star’s Will

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The lawyers for the daughter of late French rocker Johnny Hallyday say she plans to contest her father’s will, which leaves all his property and artistic rights “exclusively” to his widow Laeticia.

Laura Smet was said to have discovered the contents of Hallyday’s will “with amazement and pain” in a communique from her lawyers that was seen Monday by The Associated Press. The note says “not a guitar, not a motorbike, and not even the signed cover of the song ‘Laura’ which is dedicated to her” has been left to Smet.

 

Her lawyers say the will — which uses law from California, where the singer spent time — is contradicted by French law.

 

Laetitia Hallyday was the fourth wife of the man dubbed the “French Elvis,” who died in December.

 
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Eve Ensler Continues Fight for Women’s Issues on Stage

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Author, actress and activist Eve Ensler has dedicated her life and work to women’s issues around the world. She’s spent years visiting war zones and developed a special connection with victims of rape and torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo when she was invited there in 2007.

“I think what really struck me about the Congo,” Ensler recalled, “was the kind of synergistic cauldron of colonialism, capitalism, racism, insane misogyny. You know that all of those violences kind of being enacted on the bodies of women.”

She worked with local activists in the DRC to create a women’s leadership community and sanctuary for survivors of gender violence in Bukavu called City of Joy.

“And it’s almost impossible building something in the middle of a war zone. You don’t have roads, you don’t have electricity. You don’t have … it was just… it was madness!” she said.

In the midst of that chaos, her own life got upended. “I got diagnosed with stage III-IV uterine cancer. The alchemy of it all was just: you know, change or die,” she said with a rueful laugh.

Medicine to memoir

Ensler turned the months of harrowing treatment — and years of painful memories — into a book: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection.

Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus read the book, and wanted to collaborate with her on turning it into a one-woman show.

“It was signature Eve,” Paulus said of the memoir. “Philosophy, politics, feminism, all told through humor and her point of view, which she does not shy away from. But it was so deeply personal.”  

So, Paulus arranged to meet Ensler in her Manhattan loft, and they began an intense process to translate it into a play.

In the Body of the World toggles between the harrowing journey Ensler took to fight the cancer, her own painful family history, and her connection to women and nature in the outside world. Ensler says her own experiences with rape and abuse caused her to mentally disconnect from her body.

Watch a scene from In the Body of the World, as Eve Ensler talks about the support of friends during her cancer treatment (Courtesy Manhattan Theatre Club)

“I think my whole life, not only have I been trying to get back into my body, but I’ve been really working to find ways to support women coming back into their bodies,” she said. “And cancer did the trick, as well as building a City of Joy because those two things together … you know, we were building a place where women could come back into their bodies.”

The show, which just opened off-Broadway, has received glowing reviews. But it’s a tough performance schedule for a 64-year-old cancer survivor, so Ensler doesn’t plan to tour the play, like she did with her signature work, The Vagina Monologues. 

A play that launched a movement

Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues in 1994 as a celebration of vaginas and femininity. She says the purpose of the changed, becoming a movement to stop violence against women. Twenty years ago this February 14, the first V-Day was held: productions of the play in professional theaters, colleges and even living rooms, raised millions of dollars toward women’s causes.

“I’m so emotional right now, coming up on the 20th anniversary,” Ensler said. “You know, when I think 20 years ago, how hard it was to say the word vagina, you know, how crazy everybody thought it was. And then to see how women – amazing women – across the world, across this country took this play brought it into their communities, were brave enough to put it on.”

For the 20th anniversary, 3,000 performances are scheduled.
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Trump’s $4 Trillion Budget Helps Move Deficit Sharply Higher

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President Donald Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget for next year that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years.

And that’s before last week’s $300 billion budget pact is added this year and next, showering both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big increases.

 

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.

 

The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.

 

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

 

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

 

In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

 

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

 

Instead, the new budget deal and last year’s tax cuts herald the return of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Last year, Trump’s budget predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; instead, it’s set to easily exceed $1 trillion once the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to Congressional Budget Office projections.

 

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

 

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

 

“Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow,” he said.

 

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

 

But critics are likely to say this year’s Trump plan, which promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

 

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

 

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.

 

Presidential budgets tend to reprise many of the same elements year after year. While details aren’t out yet, Trump’s budget is likely to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers, and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

 
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Giving City Kids an Opportunity to Enjoy Winter Fun

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As the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics get underway in South Korea, here in the U.S., a group of schoolchildren is hitting the slopes in Vernon, New Jersey, enjoying the expensive sport of skiing for the very first time thanks to a non-profit foundation. Faiza Elmasry has this story narrated by Faith Lapidus.
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New Machine Will Boost Pumpkin Seed Production

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The invention of a machine that removes pumpkin seeds from the shell and sorts them is being celebrated in Cameroon as traders hope to boost production of the commodity in the Central African Country. Mariama Diallo reports.
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Lifestyle Changes Lower Chances for Cancer

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February is National Cancer Prevention Month in the United States, and the American Institute for Cancer Research is renewing efforts to inform the public how lifestyle changes can significantly lower the risk of several of the most common types of cancer. The campaign has been boosted by the results of a recent large-scale study that firmly established the association between diabetes and obesity and several types of cancer. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Disposable Delivery Drone Service Goes Where Other Services Do Not

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It has been called a delivery drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle or even a glider. It can be used to deliver essential supplies to areas traditional shipping and delivery companies cannot go to. Elizabeth Lee has details from Los Angeles.
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Royal Wedding Guess List: Who Gets a Nod from Harry, Meghan?

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Forget the Winter Olympics, the Champion’s League or the Super Bowl. The real competition right now is who’s going to be invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.

Everyone who is anyone in Britain is angling for an embossed royal ticket.

British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua, who is seeking to add two more world championships to the three he already owns, says he would be happy to interrupt his high-level training for a trip to Windsor Castle on May 19. The ebullient Joshua has not been shy, tweeting a picture of himself and Harry with the question “Need a best man?”

“I’m single,” the 28-year-old told the BBC, expressing an interest in seeing if the elegant, raven-haired Markle’s “got any sisters.”

(For the record Anthony, she has a half sister, 53-year-old Samantha Grant, a divorced mother of three who has called Markle “a social climber.”)

The actual guest list is a closely guarded secret – and details about it may not be released until the event is underway. But that hasn’t stopped speculation about who’s in or who’s out from becoming a national parlor game and the subject of wagers in Britain’s legal betting shops.

 

Any bride and groom run into parental interference in their guest list, whether it’s adding random cousins or forgotten neighbors. Yet Harry and Markle are enduring this phenomenon at a cosmic level due to the royal expectations that come along with being a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II.

At least Harry and Markle won’t face the 3,500 guests that his parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, welcomed to their 1981 “wedding of the century” in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.They also avoided the warehouse-sized Westminster Abbey, where Harry’s brother Prince William and Kate Middleton packed in 1,900 guests for a 2011 royal wedding extravaganza televised around the world.

 

Their wedding venue, St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, holds a mere 800 guests. Even so, it’s going to be tough to cut that list.

The British royals’ close relatives alone number over 50 – and this time Princess Eugenie gets to bring a plus-one, fiance Jack Brooksbank. Harry also won’t forget non-royals like Kate’s sister, Pippa Middleton, her husband James Mathews, and brother James Middleton.

At William’s wedding, 45 foreign royals from 20 countries were invited from nations as diverse as Spain, Norway, Malaysia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. William also invited governor generals from Commonwealth countries (23 seats); foreign dignitaries (27); U.K. politicians (42); religious figures (31); senior military officers (14) and 80 workers from charities that he backs. Oh – and don’t forget the ambassadors from countries with ties to Britain.

 

William barely could squeeze in A-listers like David Beckham and TV adventure host Ben Fogle – who may return for Harry’s nuptials.

Britain’s governing elite – Prime Minister Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond – would normally expect a Windsor invite. But with turmoil over Brexit roiling the ruling Conservative Party, perhaps the bride and groom should just wait until a week before the wedding, then invite whoever is still left standing.

The juiciest debate has been over invites for rival U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Harry and Obama have obvious chemistry and have worked together promoting Harry’s Invictus Games competition for wounded soldiers. Some British officials, however, fear that an invite to Obama would anger Trump.

 

The royals could note that Obama, the U.S. president in 2011, was not invited to William’s wedding. And they have a bit more leeway because Harry’s wedding is not considered a state event. Markle, meanwhile, is a Hillary Clinton fan.

“We’ve changed our minds on this. We think Harry is in a position that he does not have to worry about the political implications of an invite,” said Rupert Adams, a spokesman for the betting agency William Hill PLC. “We feel strongly that the Obamas will get an invite.”

As for Trump?

 

“We’d be very surprised to see him on the guest list,” Adams said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a trifecta of ties to the bride and groom:He’s the head of a Commonwealth country, host of Harry’s latest Invictus Games and leader of the nation where Markle had been living.

 

On the celebrity front, Elton John, who turned his song “Candle in the Wind” into an anthem for the late Princess Diana, is considered a 1-50 lock for an invite (98 percent chance) and singer James Blunt comes in at 1-4. Singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran is also reportedly close to Harry’s royal cousins and his U.K. tour doesn’t start until a few days later.

 

The betting for wedding performer includes John, Sheeran, Coldplay, Joss Stone and Adele.

Violet von Westenholz who introduced the couple will get a nod, along with Harry’s buddies Thomas and Charlie van Straubenzee, Thomas Inskip and Arthur Landon.

 

Yet A-listers could find themselves outnumbered by British military members and charity workers. Look for dress uniforms from both the Blues and Royals regiment and the Army Air Corps, because Harry served as a former Apache helicopter co-pilot in Afghanistan.

“You create significant bonds in a war zone,” noted Adams.

Among the 10 guests that Markle is allowed to pick [just kidding] will be her mom Doria Ragland, dad Thomas, half brother Thomas Jr. and possibly Grant. Markle’s friends include tennis star Serena Williams, stylist Jessica Mulroney, “Suits” star Patrick J. Adams and former “Made in Chelsea” cast member Millie Macintosh.

Markle’s ex-husband, producer Trevor Engelson, is not expected to receive an invitation.

But William Hill spokesman Adams admits that British bookies don’t really have a clue about who the 36-year-old American will invite.

“The simple reality is … we have been focusing on Harry over here,” Adams said.
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