Every day, billions of photos uploaded to the Internet contain faces. Experts say sophisticated algorithms can collect these images, compare and glean information – some for law enforcement agencies and some for hackers, intent on stealing and misusing that data. An Israeli company says there’s a way to prevent that. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Month: March 2018
Smart Shoes Provide the Right Beat for Health and Safety
Shoes that promote health and safety were featured last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Trump Not Backing Down on Steel, Aluminum Tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump reaffirmed his pledge to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum Monday. The plan sparked outcry and criticism from the international community, including from members of Trump’s party. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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Plan to Open Drilling Off Pacific Northwest Draws Opposition
The Trump administration’s proposal to expand offshore drilling off the Pacific Northwest coast is drawing vocal opposition in a region where multimillion-dollar fossil fuel projects have been blocked in recent years.
The governors of Washington and Oregon, many in the state’s congressional delegation and other top state officials have criticized Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to development by private companies.
They say it jeopardizes the environment and the health, safety and economic well-being of coastal communities.
Opponents spoke out Monday at a hearing that a coalition of groups organized in Olympia, Washington, on the same day as an “open house” hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson told dozens gathered — some wearing yellow hazmat suits and holding “Stop Trump’s Big Oil Giveways” signs — that he will sue if the plan is approved.
“What this administration has done with this proposal is outrageous,” he said.
Oil and gas exploration and drilling is not permitted in state waters.
In announcing the plan to vastly open federal waters to oil and gas drilling, Zinke has said responsible development of offshore energy resources would boost jobs and economic security while providing billions of dollars to fund conservation along U.S. coastlines.
His plan proposes 47 leases off the nation’s coastlines from 2019 to 2024, including one off Washington and Oregon.
Oil industry groups have praised the plan, while environmental groups say it would harm oceans, coastal economies, public health and marine life.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee met with Zinke over the weekend while in D.C. for the National Governors Association conference and again urged him to remove Washington from the plan, Inslee spokeswoman Tara Lee said Monday.
There hasn’t been offshore oil drilling in Washington or Oregon since the 1960s.
There hasn’t been much interest in offshore oil and gas exploration in recent decades though technology has improved, said Washington’s state geologist David Norman.
“It’s a very active place tectonically. We have a really complicated tough geology. It’s got really rough weather,” Norman said.
There’s more potential for natural gas than oil off the Pacific Northwest, said BOEM spokesman John Romero. A 2016 assessment estimates undiscovered recoverable oil at fractions of the U.S. total.
Proponents have backed the idea as a way to provide affordable energy, meet growing demands and to promote the U.S.’s “energy dominance.” Emails to representatives with the Western States Petroleum Association and the American Petroleum Institute were not immediately returned Monday.
Sixteen members of Washington and Oregon’s congressional delegation last month wrote to Zinke to oppose the plan, saying gas drilling off the Northwest coastline poses a risk to the state’s recreational, fishing and maritime economy.
Kyle Deerkop, who manages an oyster farm in Grays Harbor for Oregon-based Pacific Seafood, worried an oil spill would put jobs and the livelihood of people at risk.
“We need to be worried,” he said in an interview, recalling a major 1988 oil spill in Grays Harbor. “It’s too great a risk.”
Tribal members, business owners and environmentalists spoke at the so-called people’s hearing Monday organized by Stand Up To Oil coalition.
The groups wanted to allow people to speak into a microphone before a crowd because the federal agency’s open house didn’t allow that. Instead the open house allowed people to directly talk to staff or submit comments using laptops provided.
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Washington Becomes First State to Approve Net-neutrality Rules
Washington became the first state Monday to set up its own net-neutrality requirements after U.S. regulators repealed Obama-era rules that banned internet providers from blocking content or impairing traffic.
“We know that when D.C. fails to act, Washington state has to do so,” Gov. Jay Inslee said before signing the measure that lawmakers passed with bipartisan support. “We know how important this is.”
The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to gut U.S. rules that meant to prevent broadband companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from exercising more control over what people watch and see on the internet.
Because the FCC prohibited state laws from contradicting its decision, opponents of the Washington law have said it would lead to lawsuits.
Inslee said he was confident of its legality, saying “the states have a full right to protect their citizens.”
Oregon law has not been signed
The new law also requires internet providers to disclose information about their management practices, performance and commercial terms. Violations would be enforceable under the state’s Consumer Protection Act.
While several states introduced similar measures this year seeking to protect net neutrality, only Oregon and Washington passed bills. But Oregon’s measure would’t put any new requirements on internet providers.
It would stop state agencies from buying internet service from any company that blocks or prioritizes specific content or apps, starting in 2019. It’s unclear when Oregon’s measure would be signed into law.
Washington state was among more than 20 states and the District of Columbia that sued in January to try and block the FCC’s action. There are also efforts by Democrats to undo the move in Congress.
Governors in five states — Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Montana and Vermont — have signed executive orders related to net-neutrality issues, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Expect new rules by mid-June
Big telecom companies have said net neutrality rules could undermine investment in broadband and introduce uncertainty about what are acceptable business practices. Net-neutrality advocates say the FCC decision would harm innovation and make it harder for the government to crack down on internet providers who act against consumer interests.
The FCC’s new rules are not expected to go into effect until later this spring. Washington’s law will take effect mid-June.
Messages left with the Broadband Communications Association of Washington, which opposed the bill, were not immediately returned.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Turning 70, Looks Back and Forward
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 70th birthday is coming up and it turns out there is something the composer really wants on his special day. More work.
The man behind such blockbuster shows as “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “School of Rock” has shows in London’s West End, Broadway and on tour, but he’d like to be composing another one.
“The biggest birthday present to me would be to know that I’ve found another subject. Genuinely, that’s what I would most want for my 70th birthday: To know I’m writing,” he said.
Lloyd Webber may actually be close to another musical subject but doesn’t want to jinx it by revealing details.
“Knowing me, I’ll find some speed bump along the line,” he said.
It’s typical of this restless, self-described perfectionist that he’s looking forward as his past is being celebrated in words, performances and music.
His autobiography, “Unmasked,” is being released this month, along with a massive, four-CD collection of his songs, performed by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Lana Del Rey and Madonna. NBC plans a primetime tribute March 28.
The Lloyd Webber-mania also includes an upcoming live televised NBC version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” starring John Legend and Sara Bareilles, and a new musical featuring his songs at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in September. He was the subject of a Grammy Awards tribute, and winter Olympic fans would have noticed Lloyd Webber soundtracks for several skaters.
The book, which he jokingly refers to as a “medium sized doorstop,” covers the years from his birth to the birth of “The Phantom of the Opera.” It’s honest and very funny.
“I just hope it shows a little more about me to people who perhaps don’t know me,” he said in his apartment overlooking Central Park. “I just hope I’ve told some of the funniest stores and they’re not too boring for people.”
Readers will learn how close he was to being cast as Mozart in the Oscar-winning film “Amadeus,” the time he scribbled the title song in “Jesus Christ Superstar” on a paper napkin, how Judy Garland inspired “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and the moment he accidentally exploded a bottle of Champagne all over Barbra Streisand’s hors d’oeuvres.
He also corrects the record about his first meeting with mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh. They did not consume four bottles of burgundy over a long lunch. “It was three bottles and two kirs,” he writes.
One of the book’s most fascinating sections involves the troubled creation of “Cats,” which became a global phenomenon. Lloyd Webber had to put his own money into the show and watched its progression nervously.
There were warning signs: The show was his first without lyricist Tim Rice, with whom he’s had success with “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Evita.” He was working with a then-unknown producer in Mackintosh and a director who’d never done a musical. Lyrics came from a dead poet, T.S. Eliot. The musical director resigned after having a nervous breakdown.
“We were asking people to believe that human beings were cats. It appeared to have no story-line,” Lloyd Webber said. “There was not one ingredient that anybody could see was anything other than a recipe for the worst disaster that had ever happened in the history of musical theater.”
Lloyd Webber is positive he’d be unable to get backing for a show like that on Broadway today, though he cheers the imagination of current hits like “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Come From Away” and “The Band’s Visit.” None seem safe bets: “Every single one of those four would be considered to be written by somebody who terminally insane,” he said, laughing.
His 480-page autobiography ends in 1986 with “Phantom”: “I resembled a jelly about to enter a pizza oven.” But he doubts he’ll write a second volume. By the end of the first, several key relationships have frayed and betrayal is felt.
“On the way down sometimes is when you see peoples’ true colors. I don’t want to write about that. I never want to write about the bad side of people or things,” he said.
Jonathan Burnham, the book’s editor at HarperCollins, said the book offers charming anecdotes along with Lloyd Webber’s thinking about music, including the mechanics of putting on musicals.
“What makes the book so valuable and entertaining is his voice, which is unshackled,” Burnham said. “It’s like spending a delightful series of evenings with a witty friend who’s lived lots of interesting experiences.”
The CD collection of 71 songs proves Lloyd Webber’s range, including a song he wrote for Elvis Presley, orchestral suites, and tunes performed by everyone from Donny Osmond to Beyonce. Lana Del Rey performs “You Must Love Me” and Nicole Scherzinger does “Memory.”
“I’m rather unfashionable now because I’m not sure that melody is as fashionable as it was,” he says. “What I do is melody and I still believe there’s a place for that.”
With that, one of music history’s most successful composers is itching to get to the airport, and back to work in England.
“I’ve already said I’m the most boring person I’ve ever met. I do not intend to bore people any further,” he said. “I just want to get to the theater and get on with the next case.”
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Partygoer Jailed for Stealing Oscar from Frances McDormand
McDormand received the Oscar for Best Actress Sunday night — and promptly lost it.
A man named Terry Bryant is in jail on $20,000 bail for allegedly trying to steal McDormand’s award during the Governor’s Ball in Hollywood, the post-show party.
Bryant posted video of himself waving the Oscar around, kissing it, and soliciting congratulations from bystanders, shouting, “This is mine,” before leaving the party.
Meantime, McDormand was in tears lamenting her lost prize.
A suspicious photographer who did not recall Bryant winning an award followed him, retrieved the Oscar without a struggle, and turned Bryant over to police. McDormand and Oscar were shortly reunited.
It is unclear how Bryant got his hands on McDormand’s statuette or how he got a coveted ticket to the ball.
McDormand received the award for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” It was her second Best Actress Oscar.
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UN Chief Appoints Bloomberg as Envoy for Climate Action
The U.N.’s new envoy for climate action, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Monday that President Donald Trump can become “a great leader” if he changes his mind about global warming and keeps the United States in the Paris climate agreement.
The billionaire media mogul expressed hope that Trump will listen to his advisers, look at the data on climate change, and support the 2015 Paris accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Bloomberg spoke during a ceremony at which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave him the new title of U.N. special envoy for climate action, handing him the job of spurring international action to help curb global warming.
A longtime activist for clean energy and a green economy, Bloomberg was appointed U.N. special envoy on cities and climate change by then U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2014. Since then, he has been traveling around the United States and the world campaigning for a reduction in carbon emissions.
Guterres announced that Bloomberg will help support a U.N. Climate Summit that he is planning at U.N. headquarters in 2019 to mobilize more ambitious action and start implementing the Paris climate agreement now.
Countries agreed in the Paris accord to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and do their best to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. But the agreement starts after 2020 — and at U.N. climate talks in November over 170 countries stressed the importance of implementing ambitious climate actions before 2020.
Trump announced last June that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement, fulfilling a campaign pledge to quit the world’s chief effort to slow planetary warming.
He framed his decision as “a reassertion of America’s sovereignty” and argued that the agreement had disadvantaged the U.S. “to the exclusive benefit of other countries,” leaving American businesses and taxpayers to absorb the cost.
Under terms of the agreement, the U.S. cannot officially pull out until 2020.
Bloomberg has urged world leaders not to follow Trump, and has pledged to save the Paris agreement.
Last October, for example, his foundation donated $64 million to a Sierra Club program seeking to phase out coal-fired power plants and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions.
Bloomberg said Monday that his foundation is interested “in spending a lot of money in helping us understand that climate change is real and it’s measurable.”
As examples, he said that for the first time the North Pole in the middle of the winter had temperatures above melting, oceans over the last 20 or so years have risen, and there are more frequent and powerful storms. In addition, Bloomberg said, there are floods where there used to be droughts — and droughts where there used to be floods.
He said the solution is for people everywhere to get together and change the way they live, “and we have to be a little smarter about how we generate energy.”
Guterres said last July that Bloomberg is convinced the United States will reach the Paris goals — despite Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris agreement.
Bloomberg expressed hope that Trump will change his mind.
“And if that’s the case, that shows a great leader who when facts change, and they recognize something different, they’re not bound to what they did before, they’re willing to change,” Bloomberg said. “And I think it’s fair to say this president does change his views — generally it’s one day to the next, but over a longer period of time.”
Guterres also stressed the evidence of global warming.
He said temperatures in the atmosphere and at sea level are rising faster than expected, glaciers are receding more quickly, and the Arctic ice cap is “shrinking much more quickly and dramatically than in the past — so climate change is running faster than we are.”
But the U.N. chief said there are two pieces of “very good news,” the secretary-general said: “Today, the cheapest energy is green energy” and the “green economy” is the economy of the future. And there is “enormous capacity” to mobilize civil society, the business community and cities.
Guterres pointed to the work Bloomberg has done in all those areas, saying: “I am very confident that this battle will be won, because the realities of today’s economy are such that the wise decision is the green decision.”
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The Oscars’ Most Intimate Celebrity Moments Occur Off-Camera
There are cameras everywhere at the Academy Awards, but some of the most intimate celebrity moments at the show still manage to escape the lens.
Here’s a look at some of the backstage interactions that never made it to TV screens:
LADY-BIRD BONDING: Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern shared some poignant moments backstage before presenting the documentary award.
The two women spent at least 10 minutes backstage together chatting and preparing for their moment onstage, during which Dern gave Gerwig a bit of a pep-talk.
“It’s amazing. And it’s historic,” Dern told Gerwig of her best director nomination – the fifth woman in academy history to be so recognized. “Are you breathing?” the elder actress asked.
“Your dress is perfect. Your makeup is perfect,” Dern said. {“Let’s check the booty.”
With that, Dern and Gerwig turned around to reveal the back of their dresses to each other, which they deemed camera-ready.
Dern also advised her co-presenter not to slouch or lean into the microphone.
“Shoulders back,” Gerwig said, convincing herself.
Still, Dern worried about having worn her eyeglasses.
“No, they look so cute!” Gerwig said. “There’s nothing hotter than a hot lady with glasses.”
They discussed whether they should walk out arm in arm or holding hands. Gerwig took an impromptu vote with backstage workers, who said holding hands would be their best bet.
“Good,” Gerwig said. “We crowd-sourced it.”
The two women emerged onstage holding hands.
FOOT FETISH: Comedic actresses Maya Rudolph and Tiffany Haddish had planned to wear comfortable footwear onto the Oscar stage even before it became part of their lines Sunday night.
Haddish insisted on wearing her slippers onstage.
“Girl, I got bunions and corns,” Haddish told Rudolph. “The foot-fetish people will be all about it. Did you see that bunion? Did you see them corns?”
The comedienne joked to Rudolph that she’s been using “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray on her feet.
DIVA IN THE HOUSE: Oscar-winner Faye Dunaway likes to make her own rules. She refused to stay in her position backstage before announcing the best picture winner.
The 77-year-old Dunaway repeatedly walked away from her prescribed spot backstage before she and Warren Beatty were to announce the final award of the night.
She demanded to know where her lines were and whether Allison Janney won for supporting actress (she did).
When a backstage photographer snapped a candid photo of Dunaway, she was livid. She told the man to “go away” and made the kind of shooing motion one might use for a pet dog.
She and Warren Beatty successfully announced the best picture winner this year: “The Shape of Water.”
Later, while posing for photos with the night’s winners, Dunaway continued directing the photographers who captured her image.
Native Americans Delight as Veteran Actor Speaks Cherokee at Oscars
Native Americans took to social media to express gratitude to Hostiles star Wes Studi, Cherokee, who, during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles last night, spoke Tsalagi, the language of the Cherokee people.
The Cherokee Nation itself took to Twitter to express gratitude.
“As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served,” Studi said, introducing a filmed tribute to Hollywood’s portrayal of the military. “Over 90 years of the Academy Awards, a number of movies with military themes have been honored at the Oscars. Let’s take a moment to pay tribute to these powerful films that shine a great spotlight on those who have fought for freedom around the world.”
Studi has enjoyed a long career in movies, appearing in such classic movies as Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans, and most recently, he played Chief Yellow Hawk, co-starring with Christian Bale in Scott Cooper’s new western Hostiles.
Studi is affiliated with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, based in Tahlequah, the largest of three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes. The other two are the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also headquartered in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Between 1836 and 1839, the U.S. military removed the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas and forced them west into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the Western U.S.
Native Americans have served in every branch of the U.S. military and in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War.
Studi is a veteran himself. Born in Nofire Hollow in rural Oklahoma, he joined the National Guard during his senior year at the now-defunct Chilocco Indian School, a boarding school in north-central Oklahoma. He later volunteered for the U.S. Army and served 18 months in Vietnam.
“Amongst themselves, Native Americans are treated with a lot more honor for having served the people,” he told the Military Times in January. “Our culture values the fact that our young men are willing and ready and able to put their lives on the line to protect others.”
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AI Has a Dirty Little Secret: It’s Powered by People
There’s a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It’s powered by an army of real people.
From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can’t quite make out.
Such data feeds directly into “machine learning” algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. Many such technologies wouldn’t work without massive quantities of this human-labeled data.
These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world – even in the U.S. And it underpins a technology that could change humanity forever: AI that will drive us around, execute verbal commands without flaw, and – possibly – one day think on its own.
For more than a decade, Google has used people to rate the accuracy of its search results. More recently, investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into startups like Mighty AI and CrowdFlower, which are developing software that makes it easier to label photos and other data, even on smartphones.
Venture capitalist S. “Soma” Somasegar says he sees “billions of dollars of opportunity” in servicing the needs of machine learning algorithms. His firm, Madrona Venture Group, invested in Mighty AI. Humans will be in the loop “for a long, long, long time to come,” he says.
Accurate labeling could make the difference between a self-driving car distinguishing between the sky and the side of a truck – a distinction Tesla’s Model S failed in the first known fatality involving self-driving systems in 2016.
“We’re not building a system to play a game, we’re building a system to save lives,” says Mighty AI CEO Daryn Nakhuda.
Marjorie Aguilar, a 31-year-old freelance makeup artist in Maracaibo, Venezuela, spends four to six hours a day drawing boxes around traffic objects to help train self-driving systems for Mighty AI.
She earns about 50 cents an hour, but in a crisis-wracked country with runaway inflation, just a few hours’ work can pay a month’s rent in bolivars.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but for me it’s pretty decent,” she says. “You can imagine how important it is for me getting paid in U.S. dollars.”
Aria Khrisna, a 36-year-old father of three in Tegal, Indonesia, says that adding word tags to clothing pictures on websites such as eBay and Amazon pays him about $100 a month, roughly half his income.
And for 25-year-old Shamima Khatoon, her job annotating cars, lane markers and traffic lights at an all-female outpost of data-labeling company iMerit in Metiabruz, India, represents the only chance she has to work outside the home in her conservative Muslim community.
“It’s a good platform to increase your skills and support your family,” she says.
The benefits of greater accuracy can be immediate. At InterContinental Hotels Group, every call that its digital assistant Amelia can take from a human saves $5 to $10, says information technology director Scot Whigham.
When Amelia fails, the program listens while a call is rerouted to one of about 60 service desk workers. It learns from their response and tries the technique out on the next call, freeing up human employees to do other things.
When a computer can’t make out a customer call to the Hyatt Hotels chain, an audio snippet is sent to AI-powered call center Interactions in an old brick building in Franklin, Massachusetts. There, while the customer waits on the phone, one of a roomful of headphone-wearing “intent analysts” transcribes everything from misheard numbers to profanity and quickly directs the computer how to respond.
That information feeds back into the system. “Next time through, we’ve got a better chance of being successful,” says Robert Nagle, Interactions’ chief technology officer.
Researchers have tried to find workarounds to human-labeled data, often without success.
In a project that used Google Street View images of parked cars to estimate the demographic makeup of neighborhoods, then-Stanford researcher Timnit Gebru tried to train her AI by scraping Craigslist photos of cars for sale that were labeled by their owners.
But the product shots didn’t look anything like the car images in Street View, and the program couldn’t recognize them. In the end, she says, she spent $35,000 to hire auto dealer experts to label her data.
Trevor Darrell, a machine learning expert at the University of California Berkeley, says he expects it will be five to 10 years before computer algorithms can learn to perform without the need for human labeling. His group alone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year paying people to annotate images.
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Uber Sued After Data Stolen by Hackers Covered up
Pennsylvania’s attorney general is suing the ride-hailing company Uber, saying it broke state law when it failed to notify thousands of drivers for a year that hackers stole their personal information.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Philadelphia said hackers stole the names and drivers’ license numbers of at least 13,500 Pennsylvania Uber drivers. It accuses Uber of violating a state law to notify people of a data breach affecting them within a “reasonable time frame.”
Uber acknowledged in November that for more than a year it covered up a hacking attack that stole personal information about more than 57 million customers and drivers. Pennsylvania’s lawsuit seeks civil penalties in the millions of dollars.
An Uber spokesman declined immediate comment. Washington state and Chicago have also sued Uber.
Trump Would Exempt Canada, Mexico from Tariffs if New NAFTA Deal Reached
U.S. President Donald Trump says Mexico and Canada would be exempted from his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum imports if they can reach a “new and fair” trade agreement with the United States.
The three countries are currently in negotiations on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the latest round of talks wrapping up in Mexico City.
Trump contended Monday on Twitter the 24-year-old agreement “has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs.” He added, “Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.”
He said that “To protect our Country we must protect American Steel! #AMERICA FIRST.”
In 2016, the last year with complete government statistics, the United States said it sent $12.5 billion more in goods and services to Canada than it imported, while it had a $55.6 billion trade deficit with Mexico.
Canada is the largest U.S. trading partner and last year shipped $7.2 billion worth of aluminum and $4.3 billion of steel to the United States.
The tariffs – 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum – would hit other U.S. allies: Britain, Germany, South Korea, Turkey and Japan. But China, the world’s biggest steel producer would be less affected, it only sends two percent of its supply to the United States.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that Trump is not planning to exempt any countries from the tariff hike.
Navarro told CNN that final details on Trump’s anticipated 25 percent tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum should be completed by later in the week or early next week at the latest.
Trump’s new tariffs for the key metals have drawn wide condemnation from business-oriented Republican lawmakers in the U.S., as well as Canada and the European Union. But Navarro said the tariffs are needed to “protect our national security and economic security, broadly defined.”
He dismissed concerns from Defense Department officials who voiced support for targeted tariff increases aimed at specific countries but not increases on the imported metals from throughout the world.
Navarro called it “a slippery slope” to target only some countries with increased tariffs while exempting others. He said there would be a mechanism to exclude some businesses, on a case-by-case basis, from having to pay higher prices for the imported metals.
Navarro said the message to the world on U.S. trade practices is simple: “We’re not going to take it anymore. We don’t get good results,” Navarro said, adding that U.S. trade overseas is “not fair and reciprocal.”
In another news talk show appearance, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told ABC News that Trump has talked with “a number of the world leaders” about his trade tariff plans.
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said that in a Sunday phone call with Trump she had “raised our deep concern at the president’s forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties’ interests.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Ross said the total value of the impending U.S. tariffs amounts to about $9 billion a year, a fraction of 1 percent of the annual $18.6 trillion U.S. economy, the world’s largest.
“So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things, is wrong,” Ross said.
Ross dismissed European Union threats of imposing retaliatory tariffs on such prominent American products as Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and Levi’s jeans as unimportant and a “rounding error.”
In response on Saturday, Trump threatened European automakers with a tax on imports if the European Union retaliates against the U.S.
Ross called the possible European levies a “pretty trivial amount of retaliatory tariffs, adding up to some $3 billion of goods. In our size economy, that’s a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent. So, while it might affect an individual producer for a little while, overall, it’s not going to be much more than a rounding error.”
Trump weighed in Saturday on his rationale for the tariff hikes with a pair of Twitter comments.
“The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our ‘very stupid’ trade deals and policies,” he said. “Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!
“If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.,” he added. “They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!”
In 2017, the U.S. imported $151 billion more in goods from Europe than it exported to EU countries.
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China Sets Ambitious Growth Target, Promises Steel Cuts
China’s top economic official set a robust growth target Monday and promised more market opening and cuts in a bloated steel industry that has inflamed trade tensions with Washington and Europe.
The growth target of “around 6.5 percent” announced by Premier Li Keqiang to China’s ceremonial legislature, little-changed from last year, would be among the world’s strongest if achieved. The premier also promised progress on developing electric cars and other technology and better regulation of China’s scandal-plagued financial industries.
The meeting of the National People’s Congress is overshadowed by constitutional changes that would allow President Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely, but businesspeople and economists also are looking for signs Xi is speeding up reform. That follows complaints Beijing did too little while Xi focused on amassing power since becoming Communist Party leader in 2012.
“We will be bolder in reform and opening up,” said Li in a nationally televised speech to nearly 3,000 delegates to the ceremonial legislature in the Great Hall of the People.
Possible developments this week include the elevation of Xi’s top economic adviser, Liu He, who has told foreign businesspeople he supports free markets, to a post overseeing reform.
“The top priority over the past five years was power consolidation,” said economist Larry Hu of Macquarie Capital in a report. “Now the power consolidation is close to completed. It remains to be seen how policy priority would change for the next five years.”
The growth target officially is a basis for planning instead of a promise about how the economy will perform, but allowing activity to dip below that level could erode public confidence and make investors skittish.
The economy grew by 6.9 percent last year but that was supported by a boom in bank lending and real estate sales that regulators are trying to curb due to concern about rising debt. Analysts have questioned whether Beijing can hit this year’s target without stimulus from bank lending and government spending, which would set back reforms aimed at nurturing self-sustaining growth and curbing debt.
Li promised Beijing would open its economy wider to foreign investors by “completely opening up” manufacturing and expanding access to other industries, but gave no details.
Foreign business groups complain previous industry-opening pledges have been diluted by conditions such as ownership limits or requirements to hand over technology that make them unappealing.
At the same time, Li tempered the market-friendly promises by affirming plans to build up state-owned enterprises that dominate most Chinese industries including energy, telecoms and finance.
“Our SOEs should, through reform and innovation, become front-runners in pursuing high-quality development,” he said.
The premier promised “substantive progress” in a multi-year campaign to reduce production capacity in steel, coal and other industries in which supply exceeds demand. The United States and the European Union complain that surplus of Chinese steel and aluminum flooding into global markets depresses prices and threatens jobs.
This year’s targets include eliminating 30 million tons of production capacity in the politically sensitive steel industry, Li said. It was unclear how that might affect China’s annual output of about 800 million tons.
Li also promised to improve oversight of scandal-plagued Chinese financial industries and to control surging corporate debt that prompted rating agencies to cut Beijing’s credit rating last year.
Last month, regulators seized control of one of China’s biggest insurers, privately owned Anbang Insurance Group, amid concern about whether its debt burden was manageable. Authorities announced its founder and chairman would be prosecuted on charges of improper fundraising.
On Monday, the premier tried to defuse worries rising debt could trigger a banking crisis or drag on economic growth by repeating assurances that Beijing is “completely capable of forestalling systemic risks.”
In a sign Beijing might accept slower growth, Li cut the government’s budget deficit target to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product from last year’s 3 percent, which would reduce the stimulus from public spending.
“The government’s bottom line for economic growth is likely to be 6.3 percent,” said Tom Rafferty of the Economist Intelligence Unit in a report. He said that was the minimum required to meet Beijing’s goal of doubling economic output from its 2010 level by 2020.
The proposal to remove term limits for president from China’s constitution has prompted concern a slide toward one-man rule will erode efforts to make economic regulation more stable and predictable.
Officials say China needs continuity as Beijing carries out long-range changes including making state industry more competitive and productive and developing profitable high-tech industry.
Li, the premier, made no mention of the constitutional change or the controversy surrounding it but promised progress on an array of politically challenging goals including the restructuring or bankruptcy of “zombie enterprises,” or money-losing but politically favored companies that are kept afloat by loans from government banks.
The premier said Beijing will speed up state-led development in an array of technology fields including artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, mobile communications, aircraft engines and electric cars.
“We will develop intelligent industries,” said Li.
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Airship Drones Could Stay Aloft for Days
Battery-powered drones have mostly replaced manned aircraft in a range of tasks, from scientific measurements to aerial photography, with one persistent disadvantage – the limit of their power source. A startup company in San Francisco says their airship can do a lot of those tasks while staying in the air much longer. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Applications for Facial Recognition Increase as Technology Matures
From a shopping center and an airport to a concert venue or even your own phone, these are all places facial recognition technology can now be used due to technological advancements in the last few years. The types of applications are growing in a world where the idea of privacy is constantly evolving. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains.
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Drama in Red and Neutrals on Oscars Red Carpet
Looks in neutrals, reds and purples brought the drama Sunday on the Oscars carpet at Hollywood’s biggest fashion show.
Salma Hayek looked like exotic royalty in a custom Gucci gown in lilac. It was heavily jeweled and had a busy, ruffled tiered skirt. Rita Moreno, meanwhile, honored Academy Awards history by donning the same gown (with a bold patterned full skirt) she wore in 1962, when she won an Oscar for “West Side Story.”
“It’s been hanging in my closet this whole time,” Moreno told The Associated Press.
Among the walkers in Los Angeles were a few recently returned Olympians, including skier Lindsey Vonn in a fringed black gown and diamond choker with statement red stones. Figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu walked together. He wore belt-leather straps that crossed his chest and she chose a sheer, long-sleeve gown in soft blue.
Allison Williams of “Get Out” went for neutral. So did Gina Rodriguez in a nude sheath with silver embellishment, a plunging neckline and full princess skirt, courtesy of Zuhair Murad.
Among those in red was Allison Janney of “I, Tonya,” in long sleeves that fell to the ground. Sofia Carson wore a red cape gown with 26.10 carats of diamonds in her Chopard choker. Meryl Streep also wore red, a deep plunge at the neck. Last year’s best actress Emma Stone chose skinny trousers and a pink-belted, red tuxedo jacket.
The purple peeps also included presenter Ashley Judd, who went strapless in a dark shade by Badgley Mischka, accompanied by diamond strands.
There was an abundance of white, including fitted looks worn by Margot Robbie, Jane Fonda, Laura Dern (in Calvin Klein) and Mary J. Blige. One actress, Taraji P. Henson, was all leg in ethereal black with a high slit.
Among the standout guys: “Get Out” writer-director Jordan Peele, in a creamy white tuxedo jacket, and Chadwick Boseman, who honored his kingly T’Challa character in “Black Panther” with a long embellished coat.
Boseman’s co-star, Lupita Nyong’o, repped Wakanda in royal, one-sleeved gold with a studded sash element that had black detailing.
One of the evening’s brightest pops of color came on Viola Davis in electric pink from the Michael Kors Collection, hoops in her ears and a clutch to match. “Lady Bird” star Saoirse Ronan wore soft pink from Calvin Klein, while Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming of age film, offered another bright pop – hers in marigold yellow.
In beauty, a side-part trend took hold, both in updos and loose.
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MASH Star David Ogden Stiers Dies at 75
American actor David Ogden Stiers, known as the arrogant but brilliant surgeon Charles Emerson Winchester on the television series MASH, has died of bladder cancer at 75.
MASH was the story of an army hospital near the front lines during the Korean War.
The series was a well-established hit when Stiers, a classically-trained stage and film veteran, joined the cast in 1977 to play Winchester, a character created to replace the clownish Major Frank Burns.
While Burns was a mediocre doctor and the butt of jokes, Stiers’ Winchester was a superb surgeon and made sure everyone from his patients to the nurses and his fellow doctors know it.
Winchester was smug, vain, and ultra-conservative but often showed a generous and deeply caring side. He sometimes proved to be as much a practical joker as his fun-loving colleagues.
Stiers was twice nominated for outstanding supporting actor Emmys for MASH and continued to act in films and on television when the series closed in 1983 – most notably with director Woody Allen and in a series of Perry Mason TV films.
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Oscars to Bring an Unpredictable Awards Season to a Close
The Oscars will hope to live down their most infamous blunder at the 90th Academy Awards, which begin at 8 p.m. EST and will be broadcast live by ABC from the Dolby Theatre. But more than redemption is on the line Sunday for last year’s embarrassing best-picture flub — the fiasco known as Envelopegate.
The ceremony, to be hosted again by Jimmy Kimmel, will be the crescendo of one of Hollywood’s most tumultuous awards seasons ever — one that saw cascading allegations of sexual harassment topple movie moguls, upended Oscar campaigns and new movements launched to improve gender equality throughout the industry.
No Golden Globes-style fashion protest is planned by organizers of Time’s Up, the initiative begun by several hundred prominent women in entertainment to combat sexual harassment. Their goals go beyond red carpets, organizers said in the lead-up to the Oscars.
But the #MeToo movement is sure to have a prominent place in the ceremony. Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) is just the fifth woman nominated for best director. Rachel Morrison “Mudbound” is the first woman nominated for best cinematography. Ashley Judd, the first big-name actress to go on the record with allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, is among the scheduled presenters.
Before he was tossed out of the film academy after a storm of sexual harassment and sexual abuse allegations, Weinstein was for the last two decades the grand poobah of the Oscars. By one study’s findings, Weinstein was thanked more often than God in acceptance speeches.
As if his presence Sunday wasn’t already felt, a golden, life-sized statue of Weinstein seated on a couch with Oscar in hand was erected ahead of Sunday’s show just down Hollywood Boulevard.
Just as Seth Meyers did at the Globes, Kimmel will have a particularly steep challenge balancing a night of celebration for a Hollywood still reeling with shame and regret over “open secret” behavior that for years went unpunished in a largely male-dominated industry. In December, the film academy unveiled its first code of conduct.
It’s been an unusually lengthy — and often unpredictable — awards season, already an increasingly protracted horse race begun as most of the contenders bowed at film festivals last September. The Academy Awards, which will also be available for streaming on abc.com, are coming a week later this year because of the Olympics.
While the night’s acting categories are widely expected to go to Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”), Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”) and Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”), the lengthy season hasn’t produced a clear best-picture favorite.
Guillermo del Toro’s monster fable “The Shape of Water” comes in with leading 13 nominations, but many peg Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic revenge drama “Three Billboards” as the front-runner despite the film’s divisiveness among critics. And still, many aren’t counting out Jordan Peele’s horror sensation “Get Out” or Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic “Dunkirk,” which is expected to dominate the technical categories.
The field is made up largely of modest independent film successes except for the box-office phenomenon “Get Out” ($255 million worldwide after opening on Oscar weekend 2017) and “Dunkirk” ($255 million).
Twenty years ago, a “Titanic” sweep won record ratings for the Oscar broadcast. But ratings have recently been declining. Last year’s show drew 32.9 million viewers for ABC, a four percent drop from the prior year. Even more worrisome was a slide in the key demographic of adults aged 18-49, whose viewership was down 14 percent from 2016.
Movie attendance also hit a 24-year low in 2017 despite the firepower of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” ″Beauty and the Beast” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.” An especially dismal summer movie season was 92 million admissions shy of summer 2016, according to the National Alliance of Theater Owners.
But this year is already off to a strong start, thanks largely to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” which many analysts believe will play a prominent role at next year’s Oscars. In three weeks, it has already grossed about $500 million domestically. The film’s star, Chadwick Boseman, will be a presenter Sunday.
This year, the academy has prohibited the PwC accountants who handle the envelopes from using cellphones or social media during the show. Neither of the PwC representatives involved in the mishap last year, Brian Cullinan or Martha Ruiz, will return to the show.
However, multiple reports say that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will be returning to again present best picture, a year after they announced “La La Land” as the winner instead of “Moonlight,” because Cullinan handed them the wrong envelope. The “Bonnie and Clyde” duo will, 12 months later, get “take two.”
Washington Braces for Possible Trump-Induced Trade War
Washington is bracing for the start of a possible trade war between the United States and its closest allies and biggest commercial partners and a radical departure from America’s trading posture of the last seven decades. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the Trump administration is not backing down from last week’s announcement of looming tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum, with further details expected in coming days
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