Month: April 2018

Consumer Groups: Facebook’s Facial Recognition Violates Privacy Rights

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Facebook violates its users’ privacy rights through the use of its facial recognition software, according to consumer groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Their complaint to the federal government focuses on the use of Facebook software that identifies people in photographs that are uploaded to its site.

A complaint filed Friday by a coalition of consumer organizations with Federal Trade Commission said the social media giant “routinely scans photos for biometric facial matches without the consent of the image subject.”

The complaint says the company tries to improve its facial recognition prowess by deceptively encouraging users the participate in the process of identifying people in photographs.

“This unwanted, unnecessary, and dangerous identification of individuals undermines user privacy, ignores the explicit preferences of Facebook users, and is contrary to law in several state and many parts of the world.”

The groups maintain there is little users can do to prevent images of their faces from being in a social media system like Facebook’s. They contend facial scanning can be abused by authoritarian governments, a key argument considering Facebook may be required to provide user information to governments.

The complaint is the latest in a string of privacy-related issues the FTC is already investigating, including charges it allowed the personal information of 87 million users to be improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the British consulting firm which was hired by U.S. President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Until Thursday, Facebook had not said how many accounts had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has also been hesitant to explain how the company’s product might have been used by Russian-supported entities to affect the U.S. presidential election outcome.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before two congressional committees.
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Cardi B Caps Breakthrough Year with Debut Album Release

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The anticipation around Cardi B’s debut album has been scorching hot, so when the breakthrough artist finally debuted the full album at a party late Thursday, she told the DJ to make sure the sound level was perfect.

“DJ, make it a little loud ’cause I don’t feel it in my bones,” she said after the second track played, while the DJ worked on the sound.

That’s when Cardi B’s silly and likable personality — which has helped her skyrocket on social media and the pop charts — shined brightly. She went into karaoke-mode, singing some of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” even getting the audience of music industry players in New York City to participate.

But the DJ needed two more minutes.

“Two minutes? What the [heck] I’m supposed to do with two minutes? I’m running out of jokes. I’m running out of entertainment,” she said, then reminded the crowd that she’s performing on Saturday Night Live this weekend.

Cardi B, the 25-year-old Bronx rapper, released her major-label debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” on Friday. It comes 10 months after she dropped “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves),” the ubiquitous rap song that topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October, making her one of three females to top the pop charts with a song last year.

When that Grammy-nominated song came up during the listening, she skipped it: “I know you heard it 1,000 times. I put it on my album because that’s the song that made me rich. … That song changed my life.”

The next track, “Be Careful,” was released last week and was met with controversy when an older version of the song by rapper Pardison appeared online. Some of the lyrics were directly used on Cardi B’s song and some wrote that she stole the song, though Pardison was listed as a co-writer on the track.

“I don’t know where Pardison is at, but Pardison is a big part of the song. You know, I heard the record and I was like, ‘…I want that record for me. So, you know, I flipped it and I made it into a girl version,” she said.

“I don’t give [expletive], ghostwriter, co-writer, [people], I don’t give a [expletive],” she said. “What you need to do is ask your favorite rappers about their ghostwriters.”

Thursday’s event was tightly packed, as attendees bumped shoulder to shoulder while dancing to Cardi B’s new songs and drinking out of large red cups. The scene outside was similar as people waited in the cold to get inside the white-hot event, then were met with the heavy smell of marijuana as the door opened and some people were allowed to enter.

Bartenders and waitresses at Common Ground mimicked Cardi B’s style: They dressed in the short, green wig and black-and-white plaid shirt Cardi B sports on her new album cover.

“Isn’t it funny? This is the spot I first met my man at,” said Cardi B, referring to her fiance Offset of the multi-platinum rap trio Migos.

“Thank you everybody for coming out. I worked so hard on this album. … This music industry [stuff] is a roller coaster, an emotional roller coaster. It’s more crazier than the streets,” she said.

“Invasion of Privacy” also includes the hit “Bartier Cardi,” while Chance the Rapper, SZA, J. Balvin, Bad Bunny, Kehlani and YG make guest appearances. Cardi B, who developed a following on social media after stripping and appeared on the reality show Love and Hip Hop, has also had major success with the songs “Finesse” with Bruno Mars, “No Limit” with G-Eazy,” and MotorSport” with Migos and Nicki Minaj.

“In barely a year this woman has broken so many records. This girl has so many Hot 100 [hits]. … She’s worked her [butt] off,” said Julie Greenwald, the chairman and COO of Atlantic Records, home to Ed Sheeran, Missy Elliott, Kelly Clarkson, Coldplay and Sia.

“We are so proud of this album,” she added, before calling Cardi B “the first lady of Atlantic Records.”
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Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda Has Shingles, Quarantined From Baby Son

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Lin-Manuel Miranda thought he had a migraine. It turns out the Broadway star really had shingles.

Miranda tweeted on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with shingles, saying he it caught early and that he had been quarantined from his 8-week-old son.

The Associated Press had reported that he also said on Twitter his ophthalmologist had blurred his eyes and that he was wearing a mask during treatment. But Miranda tweeted Friday that his mask reference and accompanying “Phantom of the Opera” gif were a joke, and his blurred eyes a part of his medical exam. He tweeted, “Sorry. I’m fine. Not wearing a mask.”

Miranda said he was staying with parents nearby.

The 38-year-old wrote the book, music and lyrics and starred in the Broadway smash “Hamilton.”
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Facebook: Up to 2.7 Million EU Users Affected by Data-Mining

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The European Union said Friday Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.

EU spokesman Christian Wigand said EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova will have a telephone call with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg early next week to address the massive data leaks.

The EU and Facebook will be looking at what changes the social media giant needs to make to better protect users and how the U.S. company must adapt to new EU data protection rules.

Wigand said that EU data protection authorities will discuss over the coming days “a strong coordinated approach” on how to deal with the Facebook investigation.

Separately, Italy’s competition authority opened an investigation Friday into Facebook for allegedly misleading practices following revelations that the social network sold users’ data without consent.

Authority chairman Giovanni Pitruzzella told Sky News24 that the investigation will focus on Facebook’s claims on its home page that the service is free, without revealing that it makes money off users’ data.

The investigation comes as Italian consumer advocate group Codacons prepares a U.S. class action against Facebook on behalf of Italians whose data was mined by Cambridge Analytica. Codacons said just 57 Italians downloaded the Cambridge Analytica app, but that an estimated 214,000 Italians could be affected because the data mined extended to also the users’ friends.

A top Facebook privacy official is scheduled to meet with the authority later this month.

This story was earlier corrected to show that the EU call will take place with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg not with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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As Trump Tweets, Amazon Seeks to Expand its Business Empire

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Amazon is spending millions of dollars on lobbying as the global online retailer seeks to expand its reach into a swath of industries that President Donald Trump’s broadsides haven’t come close to hitting.

Trump’s attacks over the last week targeted what Amazon is best known for: rapidly shipping just about any product you can imagine to your door. But the company CEO Jeff Bezos founded more than two decades ago is now a sprawling empire that sells groceries in brick-and-mortar stores, hosts the online services of other companies and federal offices in a network of data centers, and even recently branched into health care.

Amazon relies on a nearly 30-member in-house lobbying team that’s four times as large as it was three years ago as well as outside firms to influence the lawmakers and federal regulators who can help determine its success. The outside roster includes a retired congressman from Washington state who was a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee when he stepped down.

Overall, Amazon spent $15.6 million on lobbying in 2017.

“Amazon is just not on an even playing field,” Trump told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One. “They have a tremendous lobbying effort, in addition to having The Washington Post, which is as far as I’m concerned another lobbyist. But they have a big lobbying effort, one of the biggest, frankly, one of the biggest.”

Bezos owns the Post. He and the newspaper have previously declared that Bezos isn’t involved in any journalistic decisions.

Earlier in the week, Trump alleged that Amazon is bilking the U.S. Postal Service for being its “delivery boy,” a doubtful claim about a contract that’s actually been judged profitable for the post office. And he has charged that Amazon pays “little or no taxes,” a claim that may have merit. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in February that Amazon “has built its business model on tax avoidance.” Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits in 2017 “and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it,” according to Gardner.

The company declined to comment on Trump’s remarks and did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its lobbying operations.

Amazon has grown rapidly since it launched in 1995 as a site that sold books. It has changed the way people buy paper towels, diapers or just about anything else. And its ambitions go far beyond online shopping: its Alexa voice assistant is in tablets, cars and its Echo devices; it runs the Whole Foods grocery chain; the company produces movies and TV shows and it designs its own brands of furniture and clothing.

The company is in the midst of launching an independent business with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that is seeking to lower health care costs for employees at the three companies. Given the three players’ outsize influence the alliance has the potential to shake up how Americans shop for health care and the initiative sent a shudder through the industry when it was announced in January.

Amazon Web Services is angling for a much larger share of the federal government’s market for cloud computing, which allows massive amounts of data to be stored and managed on remote servers. The CIA signed a $600 million deal with Amazon in 2013 to build a system to share secure data across the U.S. intelligence community.

A partner of Amazon Web Services, the Virginia-based Rean Cloud LLC, in February scored what appeared to be a lucrative cloud computing contract from the Pentagon. But the contract, initially projected to be worth as much as $950 million, was scaled back to $65 million after Amazon’s competitors complained about the award.

Lobbying disclosure records filed with the House and Senate show Amazon is engaged on a wide variety of other issues, from trade to transportation to telecommunications. The company also lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on the testing and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Amazon has been exploring the use of drones for deliveries, but current federal rules restrict flying beyond the operator’s line of sight.

The $15.6 million Amazon spent on lobbying last year was $2.6 million more than in 2016, according to the disclosure records. The bulk of the money — $12.8 million — went for Amazon’s in-house lobbying team. The nearly 30-member unit is led by Brian Huseman, who worked previously as chief of staff at the Federal Trade Commission and a Justice Department trial attorney.

As most large corporations do, Amazon also employs outside lobbying firms — as many as 14 in 2017.

In Amazon’s corner is former Washington congressman Norm Dicks of the firm Van Ness Feldman. Dicks was serving as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when he ended his 36-year congressional career in 2013. He represented the company on information technology matters and “issues related to cloud computing usage by the federal government,” according to the records, which show Van Ness Feldman earned $160,000 from Amazon last year.

Amazon brought aboard four new firms in 2017, according to the records. Newcomers Ballard Partners, BGR Government Affairs, Brownstein Hyatt, and McGuireWoods Consulting lobbied for Amazon on transportation, taxes, drones and other issues.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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March Jobs Report: Another Big Month for Hiring?

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Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?

When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.

Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.

The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.

Hiring defies expectations

The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.

In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.

For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.

Will wages rise, too?

An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.

But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.

Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.

But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.

Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.

Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.

And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.

Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Smartphone Technology Helps Mental Health Patients

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About 1 percent of the world’s population lives with the mental condition called bipolar disorder, characterized by swings between elevated and depressed moods. In most cases, timely interaction with psychotherapists, family and friends can alleviate the symptoms. Researchers in Denmark say modern technology can help by keeping track of a patient’s symptoms and summoning help quickly when needed. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Trump, White House Defend Action on China Trade

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The Trump administration says China is responsible for a trade war with the United States because of its long-term unfair practices. A senior White House economic adviser said Thursday no measures have been enacted, but the situation cannot continue. U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China will have a “fantastic relationship” once they straighten out their trade issues. But analysts warn that raising tariffs is not good for the global economy. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Facebook: Public Data of Most Users Probably Has Been Scraped

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Facebook’s acknowledgement that the personal data of most of its 2.2 billion members has probably been scraped by “malicious actors” is the latest example of the social network’s failure to protect its users’ data.

Not to mention its seeming inability to even identify the problem until the company was embroiled in scandal.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters Wednesday that Facebook is shutting down a feature that let people search for Facebook users by phone number or email address. Although that was useful for people who wanted to find others on Facebook, it turns out that unscrupulous types also figured out years ago that they could use it identify individuals and collect data off their profiles.

The scrapers were at it long enough, Zuckerberg said, that “at some point during the last several years, someone has probably accessed your public information in this way.”

The only way to be safe would have been for users to deliberately turn off that search feature several years ago. Facebook had it turned on by default.

Several investigations

“I think Facebook has not been clear enough with how to use its privacy settings,” said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy for Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative. “That, to me, was the failure.”

The breach was a stunning admission for a company already reeling from allegations that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately accessed data on as many as 87 million Facebook users to influence elections.

Over the past few weeks, the scandal has mushroomed into investigations across continents, including a probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Zuckerberg himself will be questioned by Congress for the first time Tuesday.

“The FTC looked the other way for years when consumer groups told them Facebook was violating its 2011 deal to better protect its users. But now the Cambridge Analytica scandal has awoken the FTC from its long digital privacy slumber,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Washington-based privacy nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy.

Problem found after Cambridge Analytica

Neither Zuckerberg nor his company has identified those who carried out the data scraping. Outside experts believe they could have been identity thieves, scam artists or shady data brokers assembling marketing profiles.

Zuckerberg said the company detected the problem in a data-privacy audit started after the Cambridge Analytica disclosures, but didn’t say why the company hadn’t noticed it — or fixed it — earlier.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on when it discovered the data scraping.

In his call with reporters Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company had tried “rate limiting” the searches. This restricted how many searches someone can conduct at one time from a particular IP address, a numeric designation that identifies a device’s location on the internet. But Zuckerberg said the scrapers circumvented that defense by cycling through multiple IP addresses.

Public information useful 

The scraped information was limited to what a user had chosen to make public — which, depending on a person’s privacy settings, could be a lot — as well as what Facebook requires people to share. That includes full name, profile picture and listings of school or workplace networks.

But hackers and scam artists could then use that information, and combine it with other data in circulation, to pull hoaxes on people, plant malware on their computers or commit other mischief.

Having access to such a massive amount of data could also pose national security risks, Winterton said.

A foreign entity could conceivably use such information to influence elections or stir up discord, exactly what Russia is alleged to have done, using Facebook and other social media, in the 2016 presidential elections.

Oversharing

Privacy advocates have long been critical of Facebook’s penchant for pushing people to share more and more information, often through pro-sharing default options.

While the company offers detailed privacy controls — users can turn off ad targeting, for example, or face recognition, and post updates that no one else sees — many people never change their settings, and often don’t even know how to.

The company has tried to simplify its settings multiple times over the years, most recently this week.

Winterton said that for individual Facebook users, worrying about this data scraping won’t do much good, after all, the data is already out there. But she said it might be a good time to “reflect on what we are sharing and how we are sharing it and whether we need to.”

“Just because someone asks us information, it doesn’t mean we have to give it to them if we are not comfortable,” she said.

She added that while she no longer has a Facebook account, when she did she put her birth year as 1912 and her hometown as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Neither is true.

This story was written by the Associated Press
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Venezuela Cuts Commercial Ties With Panama Officials, Firms

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Venezuela said on Thursday it was halting commercial relations with Panamanian officials and companies, including regional airline Copa, for alleged involvement in money laundering, prompting Panama to recall its ambassador.

The resolution names Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and nearly two dozen Cabinet ministers and top-ranking officials, adding that Panama’s financial system had been used by Venezuelan nationals involved in acts of corruption.

Venezuela said the individuals named in the resolution “present an imminent risk to the [Venezuelan] financial system, the stability of commerce in the country, and the sovereignty and economic independence of the Venezuelan people.”

The statement came a week after Panama declared President Nicolas Maduro and about 50 Venezuelan nationals as “high risk” for laundering money and financing terrorism.

Caracas did not detail whether the move would halt the operations of Copa in Venezuela, which is one of the crisis-stricken country’s few providers of international flights following a sharp reduction in airline services.

Copa’s website showed its planned Panama City-Caracas flight later Thursday was canceled. Copa flights Friday between the two cities were listed as scheduled.

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Panama’s Varela, in brief comments to reporters Thursday, described the Venezuelan announcement as nonsensical.

“We have not heard anything about breaking relations but rather about a set of supposed sanctions, it’s gibberish,” Varela said.

The South American country has been hit with sanctions by Canada, the United States and a number of other countries over issues ranging from human rights violations to corruption and drug trafficking.

Maduro says the country is victim of an “economic war” led by his adversaries with the help of Washington, and says the sanctions are part of foreign countries’ efforts to undermine his government.

This story was written by Reuters.
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Facebook Fined $33 Million for Failing to Aid Brazil Graft Probe

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A Brazilian judge has ordered that Facebook Inc pay 111.7 million reais ($33.4 million) for failing to cooperate with a corruption investigation, federal prosecutors said on Thursday, prompting Facebook to say it was exploring “all legal options.”

The judge fined Facebook for failing to give access in 2016 to WhatsApp messages exchanged by individuals under investigation for defrauding the healthcare system of Brazil’s Amazonas state, the prosecutors said in a statement. In an emailed comment sent to Reuters, Facebook called the fine groundless.

“Facebook cooperates with law enforcement. In this particular case we have disclosed the data required by applicable law,” the statement said. “We understand this fine lacks grounds, and are exploring all legal options at our disposal.”

According to federal police, a Brazilian judge ordered in April 2016 that Facebook give authorities access to the WhatsApp messages in question.

The fine amounted to 1 million reais plus interest for every day Facebook did not comply with the order, beginning when it took effect in mid-June 2016, and ending when the corruption investigation was made public that September, police said.

Through the probe known as “Operacao Maus Caminhos,” or “Operation Bad Paths,” federal police exposed the embezzlement of tens of millions of reais of public funds.

This story was written by VOA News
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Bollywood in Shock Over Superstar’s Jail Term

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Hundreds of disbelieving fans flocked to the home of Bollywood superstar Salman Khan on Thursday in protest against the five-year jail term given on the action hero for poaching endangered antelopes.

Khan’s army of devotees took selfies outside the Galaxy apartment complex in the Indian film capital Mumbai as their hero was taken off to spend the night in jail in Rajasthan.

Police set up barricades outside the building overlooking the Arabian Sea where actors and tycoons are the main residents.

The Bollywood elite also rallied behind the 52-year-old star of blockbusters such as Sultan and one of the world’s most highly paid actors.

Many fans were angry and stunned at the jail term imposed by a court in the Rajasthan city of Jodhpur over the killing of two rare black bucks 20 years ago.

Mohammad Arif Khan, 26, traveled from his home in Uttar Pradesh vowing to spend three days in Mumbai in the hope that his hero will be released.

“Khan’s absence will have a big impact and mistakes do happen. But he has paid for his crimes and shouldn’t be made to go to jail. The decision is extremely appalling and not a good one,” he said.

“Salman Khan is a good man and a humanitarian who runs his own charity helping people.”

‘A great star’

He added: “The court and the government should take note of all his good deeds as his absence will affect not just Bollywood but also those in need of help and who get assistance from his charity.”

Many fans wore “Being Human” T-shirts named after his charity.

Seventeen-year-old student Abdul Rashid said Khan’s “loyal fans” will stand by him.

“I am not sure where our justice system is headed as the … punishment doesn’t feel justified for killing an animal. I was at the airport last night and met Salman. He waved at us. He is such a great star and impacts all our lives by helping needy people. He should not be punished.”

Sagar Raza Khan, a 50-year-old writer, said the verdict had come out of the blue as the case has been going on so long.

“He’s already suffered enough and should not have to go through it again. His family will again face a lot of suffering if he is incarcerated. Plus, his impact on Bollywood is too huge to be ignored.”

Sheikh Alimuddin, 43, traveled from rural Maharashtra to get to Khan’s home.

“Khan is an epitome of kindness and has helped cancer patients and children requiring medical assistance. There are numerous ongoing cases where the guilty have not been punished.”

Alimuddin called the guilty verdict and punishment “sensationalized.”

Financial losses

Jaya Bachchan, a veteran Bollywood actor and lawmaker, said so much money was invested in Khan’s films that “there will be losses.”

“After 20 years, they have realized he is guilty. But law takes its own course, what can one say. He does a lot of charity. I am worried for the producers,” Bachchan told reporters.

Leading Bollywood director Subhash Gai said he was “extremely shocked” at the jail term.

Gai called Khan “a most loved person” in the film industry, but also said he had “full trust” in India’s appeal procedure.

Actor Arjun Rampal said on Twitter he felt “helpless” over the action taken against Khan.

“The last thing @BeingSalmanKhan is, is a criminal. I feel this is too harsh. I do hope he gets the relief he deserves.”
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Wedding Videos That Rival Hollywood Films Get Their Own Channel

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It’s easy for the line between Hollywood and real life to blur when you’re watching wedding videos on Love Stories TV [[https://lovestoriestv.com/]].

Between the dramatic, swooping aerial shots of outdoor vistas, and romantic, candlelit sequences of couples tastefully canoodling, modern day wedding videos have become full-fledged movie productions.

There are couples strolling through sunny (but not too sunny) open pastures, others posing in loving embrace on a deserted beach at sunset, lovers walking hand-in-hand through a moody and mysterious (but not ominous) forest. Love is interpreted in a multitude of ways here, but always with the highest production values and cinematography rivaling that of films on the big screen.

“I was thinking this is the best content I’ve ever seen,” says Rachel Silver, CEO and founder of Love Stories TV. “It’s real people, real stories, but professional production.”

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Love Stories TV is not technically a TV channel, but an online platform for watching and sharing professionally produced wedding videos.

Idea for site

The idea for Love Stories came to Silver after talking to female co-workers who recounted falling down a proverbial rabbit hole of watching wedding videos with their girlfriends, after a night out. Most couldn’t recall how they found the videos.

“They were like, ‘Well, I don’t really know. Maybe I would see my older sister’s friends and then watch more from that filmmaker, but we didn’t really know where to go to watch them,’” Silver says. “That was the insight where we were like, oh, this would be really powerful for people who are watching these films for fun … but also people planning their wedding,” she adds.

Silver claims the site has amassed thousands of wedding films from around the world. The videos are submitted by newlyweds or filmmakers, who also share additional details about the vendors, such as videographers, caterers and florists.

Popular wedding planning websites like The Knot and Style Me Pretty offer more comprehensive information on wedding planning, but neither focus solely on wedding videos or use them as an entertainment vehicle. Videographers typically publish their work on their own websites and wedding websites where customers can leave reviews.

“Someone recently called us Netflix for wedding videos and that’s really powerful,” Silver says.

Posting to the site

Karly Carrow, who married last December, says she had no qualms about posting her wedding video to Love Stories TV.

“I think it took me 30 seconds to click ‘Submit Video,’” Carrow says. “I wanted to make things easier for other brides, other couples.”

Carrow says posting publicly was about “giving credit where credit was due.” She hopes viewers watching her wedding video will glean ideas and be inspired to make their wedding their own.

“I think a lot of people struggle with the decision to actually budget in video to their wedding,” she adds. “Hopefully, they’ll be inspired to spend the money and understand the importance and the value in the long run.”

So who exactly is tuning in? And is there really an audience for the wedding videos of strangers?

Silver says the audience skews young and female, and that watching wedding videos is akin to watching reality TV shows like ABC’s The Bachelor, which many have grown up viewing.

“What I always say about these films is that they just happen to be at a wedding,” Silver says. “It’s about the love story. Inevitably in a wedding film, it comes out how you met, how you fell in love. … They interview the friends and the family members, so you walk away with just this overwhelming sense of joy and an interest in other people and their family.”

Searchable weddings

Besides the entertainment value, Love Stories TV may prove helpful when it comes to wedding planning — listing the venues, makeup artists, dressmakers and more depicted in each video, which are searchable by location, religion, culture and even sexual orientation.

Looking for a rustic, Bohemian-style Muslim wedding on a ranch? Or a gay-friendly, five-star beach setting with Latin vibes? You’ll find both on the site.

For those in the wedding business, the platform is the chance to showcase their wares in real life, albeit highly stylized versions of real life.

“You could go out as a marketer and try to stage actors to show off your products … but that’s not the same as a groomsman giving an epic speech wearing your suit and making everyone cry,” Silver says. “You’re trying to get that emotional connection with your products and nothing really can do that like a wedding film.”

Silver eventually plans to offer a targeted marketing service for vendors, who can pay a monthly subscription fee to reach viewers. Branded partnerships are also part of Love Stories TV’s business model. The startup has partnered with companies like menswear e-tailer Bonobos.

Spur for business

Jennifer Thompson works for wedding videography company NST Pictures and says the website has helped spur her business.

“It’s a great place for us to contribute our work, get it in front of more potential clients,” Thompson says.

Cynics may roll their eyes at the self-congratulatory couples, but Silver contends that the videos are no different from submitting your wedding announcements to The New York Times or Town & Country magazine.

She regrets passing up the chance to have her own wedding documented and argues that these milestone moments are rare.

“All of their family and friends and the people they love the most are surrounding them and that only happens to you a handful of times in your entire life,” Silver says.

All the more reason perhaps, to preserve the moment for posterity … or late night binge-watching.
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YouTube Shooter’s Bizarre Videos Key to Suspected Motive

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The woman who police say shot three people at YouTube’s headquarters was prolific at producing videos and posting them online, many of them bizarre, such as a clip in which she removes a revealing purple dress to expose fake breasts with the message, “Don’t Trust Your Eyes.”

In others, Nasim Aghdam exercises, promotes animal rights and explains the vegan diet, often in elaborate costumes or carrying a rabbit.

The videos have become central to the motive authorities have settled on for the shooting: Aghdam’s anger with the policies of YouTube – the world’s biggest online video website.

Nasim Aghdam, who was in her late 30s, posted the videos under the online name Nasime Sabz, and a website in that name decried YouTube’s policies, saying the company was trying to “suppress” content creators.

“Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!” one of the messages said. “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”

People who post on YouTube can receive money from advertisements that accompany their videos, but the company “de-monetizes” some channels for reasons including inappropriate material or having fewer than 1,000 subscribers.

YouTube had no comment about any actions related to Aghdam’s videos.

Nasim Aghdam also ran a Farsi-language public channel on the messaging app Telegram, which had 6,000 followers. Telegram reportedly has some 40 million users in Iran. In one post she says, “Internet crackdown and filtering is increasing in the West.”

Police who found Nasim Aghdam sleeping in her car early Tuesday in the city of Mountain View about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from YouTube headquarters said she was calm and said nothing about being angry with YouTube or having any plans to harm others or herself.

“It was a very normal conversation. There was nothing in her behavior that suggested anything unusual,” said Mountain View Police Chief Max Bosel.

Later that day, Aghdam went to a gun range before walking through a parking garage into a courtyard at YouTube’s campus south of San Francisco, where she opened fire with a handgun and wounded three people, police said. She then killed herself.

Two women wounded in the shooting were released Wednesday from a San Francisco hospital. The third victim, a 36-year-old man, was upgraded from critical to serious condition.

The suspect’s father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group he warned police the day before the attack that his daughter was upset with how YouTube handled her videos and might be planning to go to its offices.

Police in Mountain View said they spoke to Ismail Aghdam twice after contacting the family to report finding his daughter and that he never told them she could become violent or pose a threat to YouTube employees. During her 20-minute interview with officers, Nasim Aghdam said she was having family problems and had left her home, police said.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Wednesday searched two homes where Nasim Aghdam had lived – one in Menifee, which is southeast of Los Angeles, and another in 4S Ranch, north of San Diego.

Nasim Aghdam referenced a since-deactivated website, PeaceThunder, in a 2014 interview promoting veganism. The state attorney general’s website shows a charity group named PeaceThunder affiliated with Nasim Aghdan was dissolved at her request in 2011. She gave no reason but said she was its only member and the group had no assets.

John Rundell, who lives next door to the family in Menifee, said the parents, son and daughter moved from San Diego about five years ago, but he hadn’t seen Nasim Aghdam in months.

The entire family was “very, very friendly,” according to Rundell, who spoke most often with the father, an electrical contractor. Topics of conversations included Persian cooking.

“They were just perfect neighbors,” Rundell said. “If I had to pick neighbors, I’d have them all around.”

Nasim Aghdam painted the house after the family moved in and Rundell said he gave her his own paint to finish the job. She once told Rundell that her pet rabbit was unhappy and asked where he got his.

The family turned away reporters outside the family home in Menifee Wednesday. A woman named Leila who identified herself as an aunt said Nasim Aghdam was a “really good person” and had no history of mental illness. She did not give her last name.

The family later distributed a statement saying they were “in absolute shock and can’t make sense of what has happened.”

“Although no words can describe our deep pain for this tragedy, our family would like to express their utmost regret, sorrow for what has happened to innocent victims,” the statement read.

Nasim Aghdam walked onto the YouTube property through a parking garage and it’s not clear whether she encountered any security.

The company said Wednesday it will increase security at its headquarters and offices around the world.
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Kim Kardashian West Shares First Photo of Her Family

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Kim Kardashian West has shared the first photo of her family.

The reality star posed with husband Kanye West, daughters North and Chicago, and son Saint in the photo, which was taken on Easter.

 

Kardashian wrote on Facebook : “I don’t think you really understand how hard it is to take a good family pic.” She said it was all they got before “all three kids started crying.”

 

The 37-year-old said she thought she also cried.

 

She also tweeted that while she was holding her baby, Chicago, in one hand, her other hand had ahold of Saint, who kept running away.
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Shock, Pity for Iranian-American YouTube Shooter in Tehran

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Tehran residents have expressed pity and shock that an Iranian-American woman, relatively known in Iran’s social media circles, was the shooter at YouTube headquarters in California who wounded three people before killing herself.

Many said on Thursday they don’t understand what could have prompted Nasim Aghdam – who posted videos under the online name of Nasime Sabz – to resort to shooting.

Hossein Naderi, a 23-year-old art student, questioned why Aghdam chose to “live in the U.S. though she didn’t like it there.” He says: “I wish I was there to use YouTube freely.”

Aghdam also ran a Farsi-language public channel on the messaging app Telegram, which had 6,000 followers. Telegram reportedly has some 40 million users in Iran.

Hamideh Heidari, a 35-year-old veiled teacher, says Aghdam needed “psychiatric help.”
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Bollywood Star Salman Khan Convicted in Poaching Case

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Bollywood star Salman Khan was convicted Thursday of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago and sentenced to five years in prison.

The busy actor contends he did not shoot the two blackbuck deer in the western India preserve in 1998 and was acquitted in related cases.

He was in court for the ruling in the western city of Jodhpur on Thursday. He is expected to be taken to a local prison while his attorneys appeal the conviction and seek bail, which could take days.

Four other stars also accused in the case, Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam, were acquitted by Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri. They were in the jeep that Salman Khan was believed to be driving during the hunt. Tabu and Neelam both use just one name.

Khan had been sentenced to prison terms of between one and five years in related cases before being acquitted by appeals courts for lack of evidence.

The blackbuck is an endangered species protected under the Indian Wildlife Act.

Khan has had other brushes with the law.

In 2014, the Mumbai High Court acquitted him in a drunken-driving, hit-and-run case.

The judges found that prosecutors had failed to prove charges of culpable homicide, in which they accused Khan of driving while intoxicated in 2002 and running over five men sleeping on a sidewalk, killing one of them.

The government of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, has challenged his acquittal in the Supreme Court.
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Aid Group Sends Food in a Bottle to North Korea

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Humanitarian groups in South Korea are using the ocean current to send needed food and information from the outside world into impoverished regions of North Korea. 

On Ganghwa Island in the Yellow Sea, located just south of the inter-Korean border, a group of North Korean defectors and volunteers with humanitarian groups this week launched aid packages containing rice, medicine, U.S. dollars and banned information. The ocean’s current, they say, will carry the sealed bottles to the cities and towns along the west coast of North Korea.

“If we set the date and time right, it will get there 100%,” said Park Jung-oh, with the Kuen Saem Education Center in Seoul that helps defectors from the communist North assimilate into life in the democratic South. 

Bottles vs balloons

Park said the ocean current is a safer and more reliable delivery system than launching balloons into the wind, a method that other North Korea activist groups have used to send packages containing mostly South Korean movies, television dramas and news critical of the Kim Jong Un government that is prohibited in the North.

In 2014, North and South Korean forces exchanged gunfire when an activist group from the South launched balloons full of leaflets into the North. That incident nearly disrupted plans at the time to hold a reunion for families that have been separated by the division of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II.

The activists have received little attention this year from either Seoul or Pyongyang as inter-Korean relations are improving and diplomatic talks appear to be progressing to peacefully resolve the North’s nuclear threat.

This week, the group involved in floating bottles of aid to the North sent over 500 kilograms of rice and 400 computer memory sticks full of South Korean movies and foreign news programs that are also not permitted in the North. In the last three years they have performed this operation 53 times, and will come out again in about 15 days. 

The United Nations reports that over 40% of North Korea’s population is undernourished. Conditions in the country have improved since the 1990s when failures in the communist agricultural system led to a severe famine and millions died of starvation. But food shortages are still common and there are concerns that sanctions on most exports, meant to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program, are increasing poverty and hunger in the country.

Defectors

Many of the aid activists are defectors who escaped poverty and repression in North Korea, and have become advocates to bring international attention to the widespread human rights abuses still going on in their homeland.

Jung Kwang-il, a North Korean defector who recently met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, has included a copy of the U.S. president’s fiery address last year to the United Nations as part of the information package being sent.

In his speech, Mr. Trump threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” if the Kim government continues to threaten the world with its nuclear weapons development program. He also strongly criticized the North Korean leader for the pervasive starvation and oppression in the country.

“So the message that we are sending to them is that the U.S. President knows that you are living in these harsh conditions,” said Jung, who leads a North Korean human rights activist group in Seoul called No Chain.

The North Korean defectors involved in this unconventional aid effort have raised money and donated their time to help those most in need in the country they left behind.

“It is very difficult when doing it, but after sending it I feel proud,” said Kim Yong-hwa, who is also a defector-turned-activist with the North Korean Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea in Seoul.

Some of their support comes from Christian churches that want to send bibles into the communist North, where religious teaching is also highly restricted.

A 2014 U.N. human rights report documented a network of political prisons in North Korea and numerous cases of state sponsored murder, torture and rape. In the U.N. Security Council, China, North Korea closest ally, is believed to be holding up a motion passed by the General Assembly to refer the Kim Jing Un government to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
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High-Tech Treadmill Uses Virtual Reality to Encourage Cardiovascular Fitness

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Virtual reality, or VR, is finding more applications as the technology matures. It is no longer only used for gaming or entertainment. One Austin-based company is using VR to improve health by making cardiovascular workouts more fun. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Surgeon General: More Americans Should Carry Overdose Antidote

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The nation’s chief doctor wants more Americans to start carrying the overdose antidote naloxone to help combat the nation’s opioid crisis and save lives.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams is expected to speak about the new public health advisory Thursday morning at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta.

In a news release, Adams said he hopes those who are at risk, as well as their friends and family members, will keep the antidote on hand and learn how to use it.

“Each day we lose 115 Americans to an opioid overdose, that’s one person every 12.5 minutes,” Adams said in a statement. “It is time to make sure more people have access to this lifesaving medication, because 77 percent of opioid overdose deaths occur outside of a medical setting and more than half occur at home.”

Fatal opioid overdoses

More than 42,000 Americans suffered fatal opioid overdoses in 2016, his statement said.

Naloxone can restore a person’s breathing after it is injected or sprayed in the nostrils, quickly bringing overdose victims back from near-death.

The drug, which, is often referred to by the brand name Narcan, is available over the counter in most states and is regularly used by first responders across the country. A two-dose pack of Narcan is among many options available and the drug is increasingly covered by insurance, according to The Network for Public Health Law, a nonprofit that helps government agencies.

As of July 2017, all 50 states have passed laws improving naloxone access, the nonprofit said.

A safety net?

Maine’s Republican Gov. Paul LePage has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the push, arguing that naloxone doesn’t treat addiction and merely discourages people from seeking treatment by essentially offering a safety net if they do overdose.

Proponents, however, argue that greater access to naloxone doesn’t draw people to illegal drug use or foster an addiction.

“To manage opioid addiction and prevent future overdoses, increased naloxone availability must occur in conjunction with expanded access to evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder,” Adams said in a statement.

Adams’ recommendation for more people to possess naloxone comes a month after Philadelphia’s health department urged residents to do the same.

Before his current role, Adams had been Indiana’s health commissioner, where he promoted needle-exchange programs aimed at stemming the spread of diseases among intravenous drug users.
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