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“Quarantines belong to the Stone Age,” the Iranian health minister said late last month at a press briefing about COVID-19. The country is in no danger from the virus he said, while coughing and sweating severely.
One day later, he was under quarantine.
The story helps explain how Iran became one of the countries most affected by the new coronavirus. The government reports more than 17,000 cases of infection and over 1,100 deaths.
And many observers fear those numbers are even higher than officials say.
The days of Iranian denial of the virus gave it time to spread. And the conditions were right --- Iran celebrated its 41st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution with huge public gatherings. Later, people gathered at voting places to take part in parliamentary elections.
Now state television is warning the virus could kill “millions.”
Iran has one of the best medical systems in the Middle East. However, its hospitals appear to be in crisis. The country has asked other countries to provide it with 172 million masks. It has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $5 billion loan.
The major holiday of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is Friday. On Monday, Iran’s president asked people to stay home for the holiday. The next day, Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a religious ruling banning “unnecessary” travel.
What happens next will affect not only Iran, but the wider world as well.
Amir A. Afkhami, a professor at George Washington University, is an Iran expert. He says the request for the $5 billion loan shows that Iran is realizing the situation is “out of control.”
Many unknowns about Iran’s outbreak remain. For example, officials have not identified “patient zero” - the first person infected. So, they also do not know where the first infection appeared.
Public comments on that issue suggest the city of Qom, 125 kilometers southwest of Tehran. How the virus arrived there remains in question.
Officials suggested that an Iranian businessman returned from China with the virus. Qom is home to major Shi’ite religious schools that include Chinese among the student population. The city lies along a $2.7 billion railroad project. A Chinese company is building the railroad. China is also building a solar power plant in Qom.
The pro-reform newspaper Aftab-e Yazd first warned of the virus in January.
“Mysterious virus at Iran’s gates,” the paper reported as China established a lockdown to control the spread of the new coronavirus.
Yet travel between China and Iran continued.
The first two coronavirus cases were reported February 19 with the announcement that both patients died in Qom.
The Health Ministry later shared maps that showed the virus moving across Iran.
Among the first infections in Tehran was Harirchi, the deputy health minister. COVID-19 killed several officials including Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a close adviser to Khamenei, Hadi Khosroshahi, Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, and Ahmad Tuyserkani, another adviser. Several lawmakers and a member of the country’s Assembly of Experts also died from the disease.
And, the virus infected a vice president and two government ministers, along with Revolutionary Guard members and doctors.
“We found out a little late that the coronavirus had entered Iran because we mistook it for the flu,” a deputy health minister later said.
A man in Qom recorded video of bodies that waited days for burial. The man said all died of COVID-19, although officials later said they did not have test results yet.
“The situation is terrible here and I hope God helps us,” the man said.
He was later arrested.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/svwzyjt
The Christ the Redeemer statue has sat on top of Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro for nearly 90 years. Almost 90 million people visited the nearly 40-meter high statue last year. Now, it is being forced to close, at least temporarily. The reason: the coronavirus outbreak.
The Christ the Redeemer statue closed at day’s end on Tuesday and will not reopen for at least a week.
Brazil’s Chico Mendes Institute ordered the closure of all national parks it oversees to fight coronavirus and COVID-19, the name of the disease caused by the virus.
On Tuesday, Rio’s governor, Wilson Witzel, declared a state of emergency. Just one day earlier, the city’s famous coastline was filled with people. Now the beaches are empty.
Witzel’s declaration calls on restaurants and bars to limit themselves to 30 percent capacity for 15 days. Boats and buses are to cut their passenger loads in half. Brazilians are being told to avoid beaches and swimming in public places. The declaration also suspended classes and all other activities and events that involve gatherings.
“We are afraid, we feel unsafe,” said Maurilivia Gomes, who was visiting Rio from Goias state. She spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday from inside a near-empty train to the top of the statue.
“We’re taking the necessary measures. And we’re also going to enjoy what we can,” she added.
Brazil has recorded almost 300 confirmed cases of Covid-19. More than 50 percent are in Sao Paulo, followed by Rio, notes the health ministry.
Across the country, some local government leaders have announced steps aimed at preventing the spread of the virus. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has warned the measures could damage the economy. He expressed skepticism of the virus’ severity.
He told one radio station, “What is incorrect is the hysteria, as though it were the end of the world. A nation like Brazil, for example, will only be free when a certain number of people are infected and create antibodies.” .
People who work in the tourism industry are worried about their jobs.
“We have to count on the hope that we can find a family that wants to walk around and do something at least, so we can earn something this month,” noted Alexandre Faria Carbonelli. He spoke to The Associated Press.
At the Christ statue, Rio’s Catholic Church is planning a light show for Wednesday night. It will show the flags of nations fighting coronavirus on the lonely statue.
Words In This Story
redeemer – n. to make new or clean
outbreak – n. the sudden occurrence of war or disease
park – n. a green place where children play and people gather
bar – n. a place where people go to drink alcohol
capacity – n. the full amount
skepticism – n. to express disbelief
hysteria – n. uncontained panic and fear
tourism – n. visiting a place for entertainment
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/v2xzh4m
A small Italian company has used 3D printing technology to quickly produce oxygen valves to treat some coronavirus patients.
Italy has been battling the world’s largest number of cases of the new coronavirus outside of China.
Cristian Fracassi founded and heads the Italian start-up company Isinnova. He told the Reuters news agency that he heard about a shortage of the valves at a hospital near the northern city of Brescia. The area has had an explosion of coronavirus cases.
The devices are called Venturi valves. They are named after 18th century Italian physicist Giovanni Battista. The devices are used to connect patient masks to oxygen equipment. The oxygen masks are used to treat patients suffering from breathing problems.
Fracassi, a 36-year-old engineer, said the hospital was in serious need of the valves. The devices “are impossible to find at the moment,” he said. He added that the fast-spreading virus was simply preventing current production from meeting the growing demand.
He decided to offer the services of his company’s 3D printing equipment and of his 14 employees to help ease the shortage.
“When we heard about the shortage, we got in touch with the hospital immediately. We printed some prototypes, the hospital tested them and told us they worked,” Fracassi said. “So we printed 100 valves and I delivered them personally.”
The company’s team was able to effectively copy the valves using a 3D printer at the company headquarters in Milan
The company produces a series of technology products. They include high-tech luggage for Italian designer Gucci and a special paint developed to survive temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Fracassi told Reuters it cost his company very little to produce the plastic valves, which weigh around 20 grams each.
“I’m not going to charge the hospital,” he said. “It was the least I could do to help doctors and nurses who work all day long to save human lives.”
The company's quick action to help coronavirus patients was praised by Italy’s Minister of Innovation Technology Digitalization, Paola Pisano. In a Twitter message, she thanked Fracassi and his employees for supplying the valves. She also published a picture of the freshly made 3D devices.
At least 10 hospital patients had used the new valves as of March 14, reported Massimo Temporelli, the president and co-founder of Italy’s FabLab. The organization creates technology-based solutions for companies. It has worked with Isinnova in the past.
In a Facebook post, Fracassi said he did not want to be called a hero or a genius for the actions he took. “Sure, people were going to die, but we only did our duty,” he wrote. Fracassi added that refusing to act after learning of the need could have likely resulted in more patient deaths.
In the message, Fracassi said the company does not plan to profit from its valve production and will only use its designs and manufacturing methods to help those currently in need.
He added: “Let's focus on the real heroes, those who save lives, who work 16-hour hospital shifts, and are day and night next to the sick, and praise them.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/tovvabm
Wasima Khan stopped attending school six years ago. She has yet to complete her studies.
The 19-year-old is not an exception. She is like many other young women in Nuh, where she lives, in northern India. Only about 30 percent of the women there can read and write. That is about half the national average.
Wasima Khan left school because she had to do housework and help her mother with younger brothers and sisters, she said. And there was no middle school in her community.
At the same time, boys living in Papika, in Haryana state, walk to the nearest high school, about four kilometers away. Yet girls are not permitted to leave the small village.
In Papika, many of the women work in fields or care for farm animals. Young girls get water, while children play. Men often sit outside their homes in the sun after a cold winter.
A group of young women from this mostly Muslim community made it to college by overcoming prejudices against women. Now they are working to get more girls into school. Every Sunday they spread out in Papika and other villages to talk to people about why they should let their daughters study.
The young women persuaded Wasima Khan’s mother to keep her younger daughter at school. They ease her concerns about dowries — the money or goods that a woman’s family must give to her husband’s family when they marry. She fears that educated girls will want to marry educated men who will demand a bigger dowry. This is a difficult for many poor families who see no reason to educate girls.
Arastoon is a postgraduate student studying history. She says her college education has given her the strength to fight the dowry tradition. “I will only marry into a family which does not demand dowry,” she said, “however well-to-do they may be.”
The young women tell Wasima Khan that she can return to school. As a girl, her goal had been to join India’s police force. She does not know if she can go back, but she says she will do whatever she can to make sure her sister does not leave school.
“I loved my classes,” she said. “But I was helpless.”
A non-profit organization called the Selfie with Daughter Foundation is leading the campaign to empower and education women in these villages. Its aim is to bring change by publicizing the success stories of girls who came from the villages and now serve as role models for other families.
Rizwana Khan began her campaign by persuading her extended family to educate their daughters. She tells these women that educated girls could help the villages. In some areas, women are not permitted to interact with male lawyers, be taught by male teachers or get treated by male doctors.
Khan is training for a job in health care as a nurse. When she was a teenager, she became terribly sick, but her treatment was a problem. Her parents could not read and medical centers in the area were very poor quality. It made her decide to get her own education.
Khan said she wants to bring medical aid to women in the area. This is a goal her father urged her to go for — even selling belongings to pay for her nursing school.
“They don’t want to educate their daughters, but if women are ill, they want a lady doctor. How will that happen?” Khan said.
Another girl in the campaign, Shahnaz Bano, wants to teach in a local school. She said, “I tell them that if your daughters don’t attend schools, how will they find female teachers?”
Read more of this story and take our comprehension quiz: http://tinyurl.com/rqu9bcb
From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle Report.
Every culture has some sort of person-to-person greeting. But they are different all over the world.
In some countries such as the United States, handshakes and hugs are the norm. In many European cultures, kisses on the cheek or air kisses are the thing to do when greeting people. And if you play on a sports team, high fives may be the greeting -- no matter what your cultural background.
These are our traditions during normal times.
The World Health Organization recently declared the new coronavirus a “pandemic.” Health officials all over the world are urging people to wash their hands frequently. People are warned to avoid large crowds and to practice social distancing to control the spread of the disease.
This has led to new ways of greetings around the world.
The new COVID-19 virus came from Wuhan, China. So, it is not surprising that a video featuring something called the “Wuhan Shake” recently went viral.
In the video, a man offers his hand to another man for a handshake. Instead of shaking hands, the two men greet each other by kicking feet – quick right kick, quick left kick. The video then shows more men greeting each other this way. It looks like a dance step or a soccer move.
Other videos are appearing on social media showing people in other parts of the world using the foot tap as a greeting.
Changes in the workplace
Zheng Yu Wen is a television host for Voice of America’s China service. Her job involves contact with many on-air guests. So, she says she has changed her guest greeting policy.
“So, starting today [March 12] I was telling all my guests who appear in the studio -- we don’t shake hands anymore. We do elbow touch, we do foot tapping or, we say, foot kissing...”
Another journalist in VOA China’s branch, Sharon Wu, is taking a different approach. For now, she has not changed the way she greets guests. However, she has a new after-greeting habit – group hand-washing.
“Recently we’ve had some guests coming to the studio. And for me, I still shake hands with them. But after that I say, ‘Okay. Let’s both go to the restroom and wash hands.’ ”
Mir Abdul Moshref works at Voice of America in the Afghan service. He says that while hugging between men and women is not common, same-sex hugging is. However, those who used to hug have started using new ways of greeting people.
“Usually people are not shaking hands. But, they are greeting verbally. They are not hugging, which is common among Afghans here in my service. We are just elbow-touching and sometimes we are kicking feet [with] each other. And sometimes we are just, you know, having a bump-bump to each other.”
In Iran, people have used a similar greeting called “butt bump.”
Besides the foot kick, butt bump and elbow touch, there are other ways to greet people without touching.
Many Asian cultures already use non-contact greetings. So, people in this part of the world may have an easier time avoiding person-to-person contact. In Japan, a deep bow with both hands kept down to the sides is a traditional greeting.
No more kissing ... for now
In Europe, kissing is a common way to greet people. People in France and other parts of Europe often use two kisses -- one on each cheek -- or in the air as a greeting. People in Switzerland give three kisses.
Reuters reported that health officials in Switzerland and France have advised people to stop the traditional kiss greeting. And the Italian government has banned kissing in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.
This is not the first time a government has made lip contact between people forbidden.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/ull6jvu
A Chinese company says it has created a new facial recognition system that can identify people even if they are wearing masks.
Developers began working on the new system in January, when cases of the new coronavirus began rising in China. The fast spread of the virus – which can be deadly – has led most Chinese citizens to wear face masks in public to help reduce infections.
China is recognized as a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence and facial recognition systems. Engineers at the Beijing-based Hanwang Technology Ltd. say their system is the first to be created to effectively identify people wearing face masks.
The company told the Reuters news agency that a team of 20 people built the system in about a month. The system is based on existing technologies developed over the past 10 years. The process involved adding a collection of about 6 million unmasked faces and a much smaller collection of masked faces, the company said.
Hanwang is now selling two main kinds of products that use the new technology. One performs “single channel” recognition, which is designed to be used at the entrances to buildings.
The other product is a “multi-channel” recognition system that uses groups of surveillance cameras. Hanwang’s vice president, Huang Lei, told Reuters that the multi-channel system can identify individuals in a crowd of up to 30 people “within a second.”
“When wearing a mask, the recognition rate can reach about 95 percent, which can ensure that most people can be identified,” Huang said. He added that the system’s success rate for people not wearing a mask is about 99.5 percent.
The company says one of the largest users of the new system is China’s Ministry of Public Security, which operates the country’s police agencies. The Chinese government widely uses cameras and facial recognition technology for identification purposes and to record people’s movements.
Huang said officials can use Hanwang’s technology to compare images with ministry records on individuals in order to identify and track people as they move about. The system can identify crime suspects, terrorists or make reports or warnings, he added.
However, the new system struggles to identify people wearing both a mask and sunglasses. “In this situation, all of the key facial information is lost. In such cases recognition is tough,” Huang said.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/w8kbw8f
Former Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to 23 years in prison for sex crimes.
Last month, a New York jury found him guilty of raping an actress in a hotel room in 2013 and sexually assaulting a former production assistant at his home in 2006.
The 67-year-old Weinstein has been accused of sexual wrongdoing by more than 90 women, including Hollywood actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek and Uma Thurman.
Weinstein has said that any sexual activity was consensual, or agreed to by both people involved.
“Although this is a first conviction, this is not a first offense,” Judge James Burke said before announcing the prison sentence. Weinstein faced up to 29 years in prison.
Before the sentencing was announced, Weinstein told the court he felt “remorse for the situation.” But he also added that men are being accused of “things that none of us understood.”
“I’m totally confused,” Weinstein said. “I think men are confused about these issues.”
Weinstein added that he remembered having “wonderful times” with his accusers.
His lawyers have promised to appeal the court’s guilty finding.
Weinstein was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. He and his company produced Oscar-winning films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction.
Accusations against him became public in October 2017. That month, stories published in The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine described Weinstein’s mistreatment of women.
The stories helped give rise to the #metoo movement on social media, in which women and some men told their stories of sexual assault and harassment.
Weinstein’s lawyers had sought a five-year sentence, the least severe punishment for his crimes, because of his age and poor health. Government lawyers had asked for a long sentence that would take into account the many accusations against Weinstein.
Weinstein is also facing charges of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles, California. He faces up to 28 years in prison for those crimes. Police in California are also investigating three additional sexual assault cases that involve Weinstein.
Words in This Story
assault – n. the crime of trying or threatening to hurt someone physically
conviction – n. the act of proving that a person is guilty of a crime in a court of law
remorse – n. a feeling of guilt
confused - adj. unable to understand or think clearly
sexual harassment – n. behavior such as making unwelcome sexual remarks or physical advances in a workplace or other professional or social settings
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/sqxmuos
Professor Matthew Delmont decided a few years ago that he wanted to change how he teaches African American history.
Delmont teaches at Dartmouth College in the state of New Hampshire.
At first, Delmont turned to Twitter. There, he shared stories of the everyday lives of African Americans he read about in black newspapers.
That project expanded in November to become the website Black Quotidian. There, readers will find life stories of hundreds of African Americans taken from black newspapers. The stories appeared in publications between the early 1900s and the 1980s.
The website contains copies of stories from more than 10 black newspapers, such as the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier. It also has audio recordings, pictures and videos.
“l felt like my students were coming away from the class only thinking African American history was about these civil right(s) marches or about martyrs,” Delmont said.
“I felt like they spent so much time thinking about black death that they were losing sight of the broader complexity, really the beautiful aspects of African American history.”
The website shows African Americans who made their mark in sports, politics, the military and other areas. Among them are icons like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights activist Rosa Parks. But Delmont also aims to bring attention to lesser known people.
One of them is Juanita Blocker. She was the first black member of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association. She wrote about bowling in the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper for 20 years.
The website also tells about Claudette Colvin of Montgomery, Alabama. As a 15-year-old, she refused to give up her seat on a bus – nine months before Rosa Parks did the same.
Delmont said, “These iconic figures are important but we need to understand the everyday people doing important things in their community.” He added that he has observed a growing interest in rediscovering overlooked African Americans.
Delmont said he hopes the website brings attention to black newspapers. He said the publications were especially important for African American communities that had recently migrated north. The newspapers described people’s daily lives. They provided news of everything from politics to sports to weddings.
Ethan Michaeli worked for the Chicago Defender and wrote a book about the newspaper. He said Delmont’s website is offering a fresh look at the role these newspapers played in black communities. Many of the papers included on the website have closed or no longer print newspapers.
Michaeli said, “I’m very excited about it as kind of serving as the bridge between the past and the present in this way.”
Read more! http://tinyurl.com/r4eslp7
The 1997 film Titanic is one of the most popular movies ever made. It won many film awards and was one of the highest-grossing films in movie history.
The film is a love story set against the sinking of the famous ship in 1912. It has many memorable scenes. Some of them can teach you important ideas about English grammar.
Today, we will explore one short scene to teach you about tag questions and polite forms of speaking. A tag question is a short question added to a statement.
#1 Tag questions
In our scene, Jack, played by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, eats dinner with a group of rich people. DiCaprio does not come from a wealthy background – just the opposite, in fact. He does not have a home.
A wealthy woman asks Jack a difficult question. She asks if he enjoys his homeless life.
You can hear the tense silence after her question.
“And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?”
“Well, yes, ma'am, I do.”
Let’s examine this short exchange.
We will begin with the woman’s question.
The woman’s question is a kind of tag question.
First, she makes a statement:
”And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing”
Notice that the main verb is find.
The woman follows the statement with a tag question:
“do you?”
If English speakers make a statement that uses a verb other than be, then the tag question often uses an auxiliary verb such as do or have. In this case, the woman made a statement using the verb find, and she used the auxiliary verb do in the tag question.
This is just one form that a tag question can take. If you want to learn more about different kinds of tag questions, you can read the story on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com.
#2 Polite forms of address, word order
Now let’s continue with the scene.
Think about DiCaprio’s response to the woman’s question.
DiCaprio responds by saying:
“Well, yes, ma'am, I do.”
The order of DiCaprio’s words is important.
DiCaprio begins with the word well. Well is a common word that has many uses. Speakers often use well when giving an explanation.
DiCaprio then says yes, a term of agreement.
The next word is ma’am.
Ma’am is a polite term. Americans generally use it to speak to a woman who they do not know.
The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that in the United States, speakers generally use ma’am in answers - after the word yes or the word no.
In other words, you are more likely to hear Americans say yes, ma’am, or no, ma’am. Americans do not use the term ma’am along with a woman’s name.
DiCaprio uses the words well, yes, ma’am … to show politeness, and to show that an explanation is coming.
DiCaprio could have responded in a different, more direct way, as in:
”And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
Such a statement would have been a little too strong. That is why DiCaprio did not say it.
Closing thoughts
The point of this story is to show you that you can learn about culture and grammar by watching films or television shows. Even short clips can give you a lot of information.
When watching these films or shows, try asking yourself some questions. Why do the speakers say the things they do? Could they change the way they say their lines? These can be difficult questions to answer, but you will learn a lot by thinking about them.
A word of advice: It helps if you choose a clip from something that you like – perhaps a film or a show that you have seen before.
Read more! http://tinyurl.com/vc8fx3p
Chinese state media say officials are canceling flights and trains leaving the city of Wuhan to limit the spread of a new, deadly virus.
The state-owned People's Daily newspaper reported on Twitter Thursday that no one would be permitted to leave the city starting at 10 a.m. The official Xinhua News Agency said that officials also were asking people not to leave without specific reasons.
Wuhan city officials reportedly ordered city buses and boats to temporarily stop operating. Wuhan is a city of several million people in China’s central Hubei province.
Health officials urged people in the city to avoid crowds and public gatherings. They warned that the newly identified coronavirus has infected more than 500 people and killed at least 17. It is believed to have come from a market selling wild animals and seafood.
The coronavirus comes from a family of viruses that can cause the common cold but also more serious sicknesses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. Between 2002 and 2003, the SARS outbreak spread from China to other countries and killed about 800 people.
Li Bin is deputy director of China’s National Health Commission. He said, "There has already been human-to-human transmission and infection of medical workers.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/un74dq7
The largest swimming pool in Russia’s Muslim-majority North Caucasus area has banned all women from using the pool.
Rights groups and others criticized the new policy, calling it discrimination.
The pool is part of a large sports and spa center near Makhachkala, capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan. The center announced its policy change Monday on the Instagram social media service. “From Jan. 20 onwards attendance of the pool is open only to men,” the message said.
Three women from Dagestan brought an official complaint to the local Prosecutor’s Office, Reuters news agency reported. The complaint states that the ban violates the constitution because it discriminates based on gender.
However, the operators of the pool said they made the decision for financial reasons. The center explained on Instagram that previously, women were permitted to visit the pool on Fridays for woman-only sessions. The Instagram messages were reported by Russia’s state-operated RIA news agency.
The center said that very few women came to visit on Fridays. Because of this lack of business, “the difficult decision was made that keeping days for women open in our pool was not viable,” the pool operators said on Instagram.
Fatima Abdulkhalimova is a 31-year-old former professional swimmer and a swim teacher at the pool. She questioned that reasoning. She noted that if having women-only days was not working financially, the pool could return to its earlier system. In the past, men and women could share the pool at the same time.
Abdulkhalimova added that she thinks the decision has something to do with religion. “I believe it is because a lot of religious guys come here,” she said.
In the North Caucasus, many people hold traditional social and religious beliefs. It is common for sports centers in the area to separate the days of use for men and women. But activists say a complete ban on women violates Russia’s constitution.
One of the women who brought an official complaint is Svetlana Anokhina. She is the editor of a locally-based internet website that addresses women’s rights issues. She told Reuters the practice of separating public spaces by gender was on the rise in the area.
“I have a daughter here and she has three daughters too. I’m angry because... I’m afraid for them. I don’t want them to live in a special ghetto for women,” Anokhina said.
Another woman who said she had often used the pool said she had been refused a membership pass last month. Commenting on Instagram, the woman wrote that the pool’s operators told her she couldn’t buy a pass because there was not enough locker room space for men.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/u8vokq3
Each year, the consumer electronics show, or CES, presents new technology developments across many industries.
The event is going on this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a chance for companies to launch their latest products aimed at making life easier, more productive and fun.
Here is a list of some of the most interesting products introduced at CES 2020.
8K televisions
The show is always a favorite place for companies to release their latest televisions (TVs). This year was no different. Several manufactures released large models with 8K, which is considered the highest quality standard. Samsung showed off a new 8K version that brings the picture right to the edge of the TV.
A TV that acts like a phone
Samsung also introduced a TV that can be used to watch video designed for a smartphone. The Sero TV does this by turning itself from the normal TV position to an upright position that looks like the shape of a phone. The TV can connect to mobile devices to play video directly from the phone.
The TV is already for sale in South Korea for about $1,600. The company says it is designed to appeal to “the mobile generation.” Samsung says it plans to expand Sero’s availability “to several global markets in 2020.”
Smart waste can
A company called TOWNEW presented a waste can designed for the home that does a lot of the dirty work on its own. When the can is full, the user touches a button to activate the machine’s smart abilities. The device then completely seals the waste bag inside and puts a new one in place, all by itself. The can then raises its top so the user can pick up and throw away the bag.
Snore stopping pillow
People who snore when they sleep might be helped by the “Motion Pillow.” This smart pillow is designed to collect information about the sleeper’s head position and breathing during the night. The system then uses this data to change the shape of the pillow, with the help of built-in air bags. The idea is that by changing the pillow, the sleeper’s head will move just enough to improve airflow through the nose and reduce snoring.
A sitting Segway
Segway people movers have been around for years, but the company used CES to announce its new S-Pod model. The new transporting “pod” looks like a small chair with wheels. The company says its new model is designed to be used in enclosed areas such as airports, amusement parks and shopping malls.
Phone charger and car battery saver
Mophie announced a new charging device that can wirelessly charge smartphones, and also be used to start a car with a dead battery. The Powerstation Go comes with two USB openings for device charging, as well as car battery connectors and a powerful light.
READ MORE: http://tinyurl.com/yx3xkxyl
Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump defended his targeted killing of an Iranian general.
Qassem Soleimani was the head of Iran’s Quds Force. He died last Friday in a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad International Airport.
His death increased tensions in the area. Iran has already answered by firing missiles into Iraq. The missiles landed at two military bases that house U.S. troops.
No casualties from that attack were reported. Trump did not speak Wednesday about using additional military force against Iran. Instead, he said he would put more economic restrictions on the country.
But many American lawmakers are expressing concerns about open war between the two countries. They will vote this week on a measure to prevent U.S. military forces from taking action against Iran unless Congress approves.
How does the U.S. declare war?
The U.S. Constitution says Congress has the authority to declare war. And it says the president is the commander-in-chief of the military.
The men who wrote the Constitution divided these powers on purpose. They wanted to prevent one person or group from making a sudden move toward war without others in the government agreeing.
But lawmakers and the president have often clashed over how to operate within the rules of the Constitution. The last time Congress officially declared war was almost 80 years ago, during World War II. American military actions since then have happened without an official declaration of war.
In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act to further define the president’s role in directing military actions. The law required that U.S. presidents had 38 hours to report to Congress after committing U.S. forces to military actions overseas. The president must also officially say why she or he is committing forces.
In 2001, lawmakers and the president worked together to create a resolution permitting actions to answer terrorist threats. It is called the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. The AUMF is unusual because it permits actions against groups or people, as opposed to nations or areas.
The resolution has created debate under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump. All three leaders have used the AUMF’s large definition of a terrorist threat to say military actions are needed.
What does Trump say?
Observers say Trump appears to be using his ability to strike under the War Powers Act, which permits the president to use military force to answer an attack. Trump’s government noted intelligence they say pointed to planned attacks on Americans as a reason for the airstrike.
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump wrote, “These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”
How is Congress reacting?
Lawmakers from the opposition party to the president, the Democrats, have expressed concerns about how Trump’s government told lawmakers about the airstrike. Some want to require Trump to discuss increasing hostilities against Iran with Congress and the public before taking action.
For his part, Trump on Wednesday called on the security alliance of NATO to become “much more involved in the Middle East process.”
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A group of scientists is hurrying to document ancient ruins on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. The sites, along Puerto Rico’s coast, date back a few thousand years. The scientists are working as fast as they can before rising sea levels destroy a large part of the island’s history.
Scientists hope to use the three-dimensional (3D) images they have taken to help identify which sites are most at-risk to natural disasters and other dangers.
Falko Kuester is director of the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative at the University of California, San Diego. He said, “A big part of what we’re working on is to make the invisible visible and make sure it stays in our memory.”
The university, known as UCSD, is involved in the research project. Also involved are its Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Para la Naturaleza, an environmental group based in Puerto Rico.
The work started in August 2017. Scientists first explored a large stretch of land along Puerto Rico’s north coast. That area includes a ceremonial center used by the Taino Indians about 2,000 years ago, said Isabel Rivera Collazo.
Rivera is an environmental archaeologist at UCSD and directing the project. She said the scientists found what appears to be a large settlement just east of the ceremonial site. It was discovered with help from drone aircraft and other technology, including 3D images. She added that scientists were also able to map out the shape of the ceremonial site.
The Tainos once lived on many islands in the Caribbean Sea. But after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other Europeans, the indigenous people were nearly all killed.
Rivera said, “Up to today, there is still a lot we don’t know about indigenous culture along our coasts. It’s not in our history books…we want to recover that information before it disappears.”
Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural Resources has said the sea level around the island is rising by more than 3 millimeters every year. However, climate change has more immediate effects. These include the destruction of the island’s coastline and natural habitats.
Some scientists say that warmer temperatures in the Caribbean increase the number and strength of storms. Puerto Rico faces the possibility of storms every year for six months during the Atlantic hurricane season. Scientists noted that large amounts of water caused by Hurricane Maria washed away part of the area they are studying.
Eric Lo is an engineer with UCSD’s cultural heritage initiative. He flew to Puerto Rico in August 2017 to launch the project one month before Maria struck the island. Lo was surprised at what he saw when he returned to the U.S. territory months later.
He said, “Pieces of land where I had stood and flown the drone didn’t exist anymore. They were underwater.”
Scientists are now trying to find out how badly the hurricane and loss of land have affected the archaeological site they are studying.
The scientists are using 3-D models based on drone images to measure areas and explore other details.
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On Tuesday, the United States Department of Defense announced it was halting operational training of all Saudi Arabian military personnel in the U.S. until further notice.
The announcement came less than a week after a Saudi Air Force lieutenant shot and killed three people at a U.S. Naval Air Base in Pensacola, Florida.
The department’s decision will have far-reaching effects on visiting Saudi military personnel, including grounding more than 300 Saudi Arabian flight students.
The move also affects all other Saudi military training programs, except classroom training. Such coursework, which includes English language classes, will continue.
Many U.S. military bases provide an economic engine for the communities in which they operate. But the Navy has a special relationship with the city of Pensacola that is built on hundreds of years of history. A large number of the 52,000 people who live in the Pensacola area are people who first came to the city because of the naval base.
Gary Yetter spent 21 years in the Navy and used to call the northwestern state of Washington his home. The Navy brought him to Pensacola twice, and after retiring he made it his home for good. He worked part-time at the base in a non-military position, and eventually opened a beer-making business.
“Everybody says, ‘Are you from Pensacola?’ and most people say, ‘No, I’m from somewhere else.’ But we all move here eventually,” said Yetter.
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan first came to Pensacola as a member of the Air Force, and returned to the city when he retired.
Morgan recently met with reporters shortly after the shooting last Friday. During that press conference, he noted that the Pensacola community is hurt because it opens its heart and homes to foreign nationals who train at the base.
“We opened our country to the allied officers, we opened our hearts. Many of the folks that surround our military base...do sponsorships, where they sponsor officers into their homes to do a cultural exchange,” Morgan said. “You should have walked the crime scene with us, and you’d understand the anger in this community right now.”
The military history of the area dates back to 1698, when Spain built a fort in the same area where the American base is now. French forces destroyed the Spanish fort in 1719. The Spanish later built Fort San Carlos de Barrancas in 1797 and some of that structure is still on the current base. U.S. President John Quincy Adams ordered the establishment of a Navy yard on the land and building began in 1826. Flight training at the base began in the years before the U.S. entered World War I.
Pensacola takes a lot of pride in its military base. One local school is even named for the highly-skilled Blue Angels flying team based there. A Blue Angels jet is permanently positioned over the city’s visitor welcome center, made to look like it is flying above the building.
After the attack, the community went into action. The day of the shooting, people lined up to give blood at a local blood donation center. The next day people continued to come in to donate blood as their way to try to help.
“It’s about the least I can do,” said Navy Ensign Kyle Hering, who has been stationed at the base for about a year. “There’s not really much else I can do in my position except give blood and try to provide comfort…Pensacola is really welcoming to all the Navy folks, and it’s really hard when we have our brothers and sisters get shot and killed.”
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You have been told to wash your hands many times a day to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus. You have been told to avoid touching your face.
But, you also should try to keep clean the device that you may be using now more than ever – your phone.
Scientific studies have shown that the virus can live for two to three days on materials like plastic and stainless steel.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends cleaning all “high-touch” surfaces every day. These include things we touch and come into contact will all day long, like phones, keyboards and computers.
But it is important to be careful. If you do not clean your phone in the right way, it can get damaged.
Here are some things not to do when disinfecting your phone:
· Do not spray cleaners directly on the phone.
· Do not put the phone into any cleaning liquids.
· Do not use devices that use forced air, which are often used to clean computer keyboards
· Avoid rubbing your phone with rough materials that could make small cuts on it.
So, what should you do? Start by turning off the phone and unplugging any wires. You want to make sure your phone is not charging when you clean it.
Below are some suggested ways to clean your phone. With any of these suggestions, be sure not to get the phone wet.
You can use Clorox wipes or wipes with 70 percent alcohol. You can buy these products at a store and wipe down your phone. iPhone manufacturer Apple has warned against using household cleaners on its phones, and says that when using wipes, do so “gently.”
AT&T recommends pushing out any liquid from disinfectant wipes before using them on a phone. It says paper cloths work too. You can spray them with disinfectant and then use the cloth to clean the phone. Again, do not spray the phone itself.
You can also use a soft fabric to clean the phone. Some examples are microfiber cleaning cloths or ones used to clean camera lenses and eyeglasses.
Google suggests cleaning your phone with a cloth that has been lightly covered in soap and water, as long as you are careful not to get moisture in the phone.
Samsung, the world’s biggest phone manufacturer, says it is offering something new: A free phone-sanitizing service involving UV light. The service will be offered at some U.S.-based Samsung stores and service centers. It will expand to other countries in the coming weeks.
Cleaning your phone is one of many measures public health officials are recommending to try to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. Most patients have only minor or moderate symptoms. However, older people and those with existing health conditions are more likely to develop more severe illness.
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On Scotland’s Isle of Skye, scientists have identified two areas with evidence of ancient life forms.
Researchers believe the markings are, in fact, footprints from dinosaurs that lived 170 million years ago. They say the prints date to the middle of the Jurassic Period, a time from which few dinosaur fossils have been recovered.
Researchers reported this month on their study of about 50 fossilized footprints at the two sites. The markings are just a few hundred meters apart from each other. They are said to show dinosaurs walking in different directions.
At least three kinds of dinosaurs left the footprints.
Steve Brusatte, the leader of the research team, is a paleontologist with the University of Edinburgh.
“The tracks are located on flat rocky surfaces near the beach, so they are only exposed at low tide,” he said. “The tide laps across them, back and forth, every day.”
One set of markings came from a two-legged, meat-eating dinosaur that researchers say was about the size of a car. They say its footprints have three toes. The creature, with sharp claws, appears to be from a group of dinosaurs called theropods.
Bigger, three-toed footprints came from large-bodied, two-legged plant-eaters called ornithopods or perhaps, the researchers say, a large theropod. All of these prints had worn-down toes, not sharp edges.
The researchers are especially interested in markings left by another creature: an early member of a group of heavily built, four-legged plant-eaters called stegosaurs.
The footprints represent some of the oldest evidence anywhere of a stegosaur, notes Paige dePolo, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh.
DePolo was the lead writer of a report on the study. The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The most famous member of the stegosaurs was Stegosaurus, which lived late in the Jurassic Period. It had large, bony protective plates around the neck and back - and a large spiked tail, too.
Brusatte was careful to note that the researchers still have a lot of unanswered questions about this creature.
“I suspect this stegosaur was about the size of a cow, which is fairly small for a stegosaur. Whether that’s because it’s a primitive, smaller species or a juvenile of a bigger species, we’re not sure,” he said.
The researchers noted that the findings were an important window into the many kinds of dinosaurs on the Isle of Skye.
“Skye has emerged as one of the most important windows into Jurassic dinosaur evolution. We know that dinosaurs were diversifying with a frenzy in the Middle Jurassic, but there are few fossil sites of this age anywhere in the world,” Brusatte added.
Words in This Story
fossil – n. the remains of an ancient organism
paleontologist – n. the science that deals with the fossils of animals and plants that lived very long ago especially in the time of dinosaurs
track – n. markings; something showing evidence of movement
beach – n. a sandy or stone-filled area, usually between the ocean and land
expose – v. to leave (something) without covering or protection
lap – v. washing against something with a gentle sound
toe – n. any of five extensions at the end of the human foot
claw – n. a curved, pointy hard surface on each finger or toe in birds and some animals
spiked – adj. having sharp points : formed into points
evolution – n. the process by which changes in plants and animals happen over time
frenzy – n. a period of wild behavior
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Facebook and Twitter say they have removed numerous false social media accounts linked to Russia that targeted the American public.
Facebook said in a statement that the network of accounts appeared to be in the process of building up a following of U.S.-based users. The network was operated by people in Ghana and Nigeria for individuals in Russia.
Facebook said its investigation found that the accounts had ties to individuals linked to past activity by Russia’s Internet Research Agency. U.S. officials have accused that group of leading a major disinformation campaign online in an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In some cases, the removed accounts claimed to be nongovernmental organizations or personal blogs.
The accounts on Facebook and on the company’s Instagram service attempted to gain users by posting about issues like black history, fashion, and news about famous Americans. In total, Facebook removed 49 accounts, 69 Facebook pages and 85 Instagram accounts. Twitter removed 71 accounts.
Facebook said the accounts did not appear to center on elections. They also did not include support or criticism of individual political candidates.
Facebook’s statement said that while the company is making progress in identifying and stopping such abuses, the problem represents “an ongoing challenge” it is dealing with.
“That means building better technology, hiring more people and working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies,” the statement said.
Twitter said the accounts it removed dealt mainly with social issues such as race and civil rights, without favoring any candidate or political ideas.
The latest removals follow a recent report that found Russia’s campaign of election interference has not reduced since 2016 -- and appears to be getting more difficult to discover.
Young Mie Kim, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created the recent report. She found that Russia-linked social media accounts were posting about many of the same issues as during the 2016 elections. These include race relations, gun laws and immigration. Facebook has since removed those accounts, too.
Last month, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, warned that Russia was still involved in a campaign of “information warfare” that uses false social media accounts to spread disinformation.
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in U.S. elections.
Words in This Story:
account – n. an arrangement in which a person uses internet or service of a particular company
network – n. a system or group of connected parts
blog – n. a regularly updated website or web page, usually run by an individual or small groups
fashion – n. the most popular style of clothes, appearance or behavior at a particular time
LGBTQ – adj. a term that is short for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer
challenge – n. a difficult task that tests a person’s abilities
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With schools shutting down and the ways of daily life-changing, children are hearing more about the coronavirus. They may not fully understand it, or know how seriously to take it, but their lives are affected.
Many parents are trying to decide how to talk with their children about the virus and the outbreak. Some say they are checking in each day to see how their children are doing. But others worry that talking too much about it could make their children more nervous and fearful.
Nicole Poponi is the mother of 10-year-old Clara, and 12-year-old Jane. The family lives in Audubon, New Jersey. She said, “We talk about it a lot. I watch the news every morning, and they’re always watching it, too.”
Both girls said they have talked about the virus at school. Jane said her teachers have discussed it during science lessons.
“I’m not really as scared of it. It’s still not even that many people getting sick here," Jane said. “One of my friends is really scared of it, but she’s honestly really scared of all diseases.”
Beth Young said she has decided to limit the conversations with her four children. They are ages 8, 10,12, and 15. The family lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
She said she does not want them to be afraid of getting sick, because “kids get sick pretty often.” And she does not want them to worry about dying.
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Saudi Arabia has directed the state oil company Aramco to increase its total possible oil production, or capacity. It announced the move at the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange Wednesday.
A short time later, Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas company ADNOC said it was increasing production by 25 percent to 4 million barrels per day.
Saudi Arabia is working to flood the market after another oil producer, Russia, refused to agree to oil production cuts.
Worldwide, demand for oil is decreasing as the spread of the new coronavirus has interfered with travel, transport and other industries.
Saudi Arabia said earlier this week it would increase its oil production to 12.3 million barrels a day starting in April. That is 300,000 barrels per day more than Aramco’s current production. Now the company says it will produce up to 13 million barrels per day.
Aramco also said Wednesday that the Saudi Energy Ministry, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the increase.
Saudi Arabia had been producing around 9.8 million barrels per day. That amount was in line with an agreement among a number of oil producing nations, including Russia. The cuts were an attempt to stop the oversupply in the market that had pushed prices down.
However, a few days ago, the kingdom’s policy changed completely when Russia refused to go along with deeper cuts.
Saudi Arabia is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. It is expected that other members of that group will also increase production.
Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC on Wednesday said it would increase output from about 3 million barrels to over 4 million barrels of oil a day starting in April. In addition, the company said it would move up its plans for a 5 million barrels a day production goal. ADNOC said its plan to increase production was made in reaction to the market.
Experts say it appears Saudi Arabia hopes to pressure Russia by controlling market share in a price war.
The price of unprocessed, or crude oil went down 25 percent on Monday. It was the sharpest decrease since the 1991 Gulf War. By yesterday, the price had increased a small amount. By the end of trading, oil was at $36 a barrel.
Eurasia Group is a private business that researches and advises clients about political risk. It describes the current oil situation as a crisis that could last “several weeks or months, until prices are low enough to change fundamental views in Moscow and Riyadh” and force a compromise.
Words in This Story
barrel – n. a round usually wooden container with curved sides and flat ends
client – n. a person who pays a professional person or organization for services
fundamental – adj. of or relating to the basic structure
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Housing centers for old people in the United States are buying large numbers of masks and thermometers because of coronavirus. They are also screening visitors and preparing for shortages of health workers.
In China, where the new virus began, the disease has been much deadlier for old people. In Italy, the most affected country in Europe, more than 100 people have died from COVID-19. All either were old, already had health problems or both.
Of the 21 deaths across the U.S. as of Sunday, at least 16 had been linked to a home for old people near Seattle, Washington. The Seattle Times reported that a second similar home and a retirement community in the area had each reported one case of the virus.
That has gotten the attention of other old people homes in the U.S., especially in Florida and California. Both those states have large numbers of old people.
About 2.5 million people live in long-term care centers in the United States.
“For people over the age of 80 ... the (death) rate could be as high as 15 percent,” said Mark Parkinson. He is president of the American Health Care Association.
The federal government inspects such centers. It is now working on plans to control infection centers with confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Federal rules already require the centers to employ an infectious disease prevention specialist. However, action to deal with the coronavirus has been uneven at such centers.
About 160,000 old people live in some type of special care homes in Florida. These places are not screening visitors “because we’re not at that stage,” said Kristen Knapp. She is a spokeswoman for the Florida Health Care Association.
The Palm Gardens Corporation operates 14 Florida old people homes. Each is now requiring visitors to answer some questions upon arrival. They are asked about their health, recent travel and contact with others said company Vice President Luke Neumann.
At the South Shore Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center south of Boston, patient Leo Marchand keeps a container of disinfecting cloths near his bed. He uses one several times a day. The 71-year-old retired truck driver has breathing problems. The possibility of getting the coronavirus worries him.
Many old people housing centers across the country have reported difficulties in finding medical masks and clothing because of shortages.
Some visitors have been angry about the screenings. Janet Snipes is the director of the Holly Heights Nursing Center in Denver. She said it has been difficult to explain to visitors that the screening is necessary to keep the old people there safe.
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Dogs have a kind of sensor on the end of their nose that helps them recognize small changes in temperature, such as when other animals are nearby.
That information comes from scientists at Lund University in Sweden and Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University.
The scientists say the discovery can help researchers better understand how some animals identify their prey.
The findings appeared in Scientific Reports, a publication produced by Nature Research.
The scientists reported that the wet skin surface at the end of a dog’s nose is full of nerve endings. It works like a kind of infrared sensor, they said.
“Dogs are able to sense the thermal radiation coming from warm bodies or weak thermal radiation and they can also direct their behavior according to this signal,” said Anna Balint. She was the lead author of the published report.
“We tested whether we can find an area in the brain that shows higher activity if they are exposed to a warmer … object,” she added.
Brain imaging tests showed increased brain activity when dogs were shown objects that were warmer than their surroundings.
The study involved two sets of experiments. In one, Lund University researchers used weak thermal radiation to train three dogs.
The other, at the Eötvös Loránd University, involved 13 dogs. They were given functional magnetic resonance imaging tests to see how the brain reacted if they recognized weak thermal radiation.
Researchers were careful to note that all the animals were privately owned. Owners gave “informed consent for their dogs to be used in the study.” Among the dogs involved in the experiments were golden retrievers and border collies.
Ronald Kroger is a scientist at Lund University. He noted “it is possible that other carnivorans possess a similar infrared sense and that adds a new chapter to the story of prey-predator relationships.”
The researchers wrote that in the grey wolf, the closest wild relative of domestic dogs, “the ability to detect the radiation from warm bodies would be advantageous for such predators.”
Kroger added, “Predator hunting strategies have to be re-evaluated and the biology of prey animals has to be revisited with body heat sensing predators in mind.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/sal2fg2
The popularity of Chinese-owned video sharing service TikTok continues to grow among young people in the United States. In 2019, experts say the service more than doubled its American user base to 37 million. TikTok is especially popular with teens and young adults.
The service lets users create and share short videos, many of which are under 15 seconds. The TikTok app offers a wide choice of sounds, brief parts of songs and special effects tools to help create a video. Some TikTok-based memes go viral. Videos often include popular songs from well-known artists and TikTok has even helped launch the careers of new music stars.
TikTok is considered a competitor to video-sharing app Snapchat, as well as Facebook’s Instagram service. Snapchat and Instagram also mainly interest young users with a wide mix of photos and videos centered largely on fashion, pop culture and humor.
Last year, TikTok was the second-most downloaded app from Apple and Google stores. Only WhatsApp was downloaded more. Research company Sensor Tower estimates people have downloaded the TikTok app 1.65 billion times.
TikTok has been used by many major companies to reach young people who use little or no traditional media.
One of those companies is American-based e.l.f. Cosmetics. The makeup company’s chief marketer, Kory Marchisotto, told The Associated Press that TikTok is “where the Gen Z party is.” Gen Z is a name used to describe the generation born between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. “That’s where they’re all hanging out,” Marchisotto said.
Companies appearing on TikTok can make money through advertising. Often, the companies create user “challenges” as part of their ad campaigns. In challenges, users are invited to publish their own videos in which they perform similar dance moves. One campaign by e.l.f. Cosmetics, for example, asked people to wink and move their lips while following a song. TikTok users created 3 million videos that received more than 4 billion views.
While TikTok has continued to grow since its U.S. launch in 2017, it has also received media attention for being the first Chinese-owned social-media service to rise to major success in the U.S.
U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about TikTok’s collection of user data and the possibility that the company could be sharing information with the Chinese government. In addition, the lawmakers said the app presents national security risks and could be used to censor material for users in the U.S.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/ttgb3x6
Recently, Alê Roque walked among a group of trees that she helped plant last year in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
The small piece of land is near Providencia. It is Rio de Janeiro’s first poor neighborhood, known in Brazil as a favela. There, homes lie close to one another. Bullet holes suggest the presence of violence.
The green area is a kind of garden. It is one of many places where trees are making the city of Rio greener.
“This is cacao, developing well...Look at this lime tree, it’s full...Lots and lots of tomato...,” Roque said.
As she walked, she saw a yam, and reminded herself to pick it with the children that she teaches to garden.
In addition to providing free food to residents, the small piece of land provides something else. It is cooler in the shade — something rare in this part of the city, far from the sea breeze of Copacabana and Ipanema.
The activist group Catalytic Communities has mapped sustainable projects across Rio de Janeiro. Theresa Williamson, the group’s executive director, said there are more and more new green projects. “There seems to be now, all of a sudden, in the last six months even, a growth in interest,” she said.
Rio is famous for its coastal forests. But Rio’s dense neighborhoods have little plant life.
Around 80 neighborhoods have less than 1 percent tree cover. Most are in the industrial North Zone. Without shade, these so-called “heat islands” make summer even hotter.
This month, the city’s highest temperatures reached around 40 degrees Celsius.
People in Rio also talk about the “apparent temperature,” a measure that includes wind and humidity. That number reached as high as 54.8 degrees Celsius on January 11.
Washington Fajardo is a visiting housing policy researcher with Harvard University. He said green projects represent a break with Rio’s recent past.
Fajardo also is the former mayor’s special advisor on urban issues. He told Associated Press reporters, “To get a tree to grow in an urban environment requires irrigation, because pollution makes it much harder for a sapling to reach adulthood. We knew how to do that better at the start of the 20th century than we do today, strangely.”
Cecilia Herzog is the president of Inverde, an organization that researches nature and urban structures. She said Rio’s public policy for green spaces is far behind the policies of other major cities. So people are taking matters into their own hands, she said.
The city has begun paying attention. Rio this month started planting native trees to create 25 “fresh islands” in the city’s West Zone.
In the Providencia neighborhood, Alê Roque irrigates her plants and teaches young people how to compost.
Roque argues that if children spend their days surrounded only by alleys, bullets, and trash, they will struggle to do good in the world. They need places to play and pick flowers, she said.
“How are you going teach kids about Mother Nature if they don’t have contact with it?” said Roque. “This could be happening in places all over the world, in other favelas, other little areas.”
Why does Roque work so hard in the heat?
“I want to make the world green!” she said and laughs, then collects herself. “It’s because someone has to do it, truthfully that’s it. Someone has to do it.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/u8ukl3u
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping are two of the most powerful rulers in the world.
Now, both have moved to extend their hold on power.
Last week, Putin announced major constitutional changes that, experts say, will extend his control beyond the end of his term in 2024.
Many note the similarity of the move to what Xi did in 2018. That year, Xi had China’s constitution changed to remove term limits on the Chinese head of state.
China and Russia have important influence in world events. China is economically strong. Its military is growing quickly in strength.
Russia has shown that it is willing to become involved in conflicts such as Syria’s civil war and to influence elections in other countries. It has used cyberattacks and misinformation to gain influence.
David Zweig is a professor emeritus of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He said Putin and Xi show a tendency of authoritarian leaders to hold on to power as long as possible, often dying in office.
“Very few authoritarian leaders give up power, always convinced that only they can save the country, which also justifies and makes their hunger for power morally correct,” Zweig said.
Differences in two authoritarian systems
Although similar, the systems that Xi and Putin lead have notable differences. Xi has often brought attention to the fall of the former Soviet Union as a danger to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule.
The Chinese government has crushed opposition and is increasing its control of the economy and civil society. It has created the appearance of complete unity around Xi.
In Russia, however, some parts of a multiparty democracy remain although opposition leaders are jailed on a usual basis. Russia also has faced severe international restrictions since it seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia’s constitution requires Putin to leave office when his term ends in 2024 after serving two consecutive terms. He has proposed amendments to the constitution that would give the lower house of parliament, the Duma, the power to choose the prime minister.
Putin’s changes include increasing the importance of a body few have heard of before: the State Council. Currently the body which includes local and federal officials is supposed to be advisory and is led by the president. Putin wants more power for the group which oversees national security issues.
Sergey Radchenko is a professor of international relations at Cardiff University. He believes either the prime minister position or a place on the State Council would permit Putin to extend his influence past 2024.
Putin has led Russia for more than 20 years making his rule the longest since leader Joseph Stalin. He is known for often biting criticism of the West and a concern for his public image.
Xi’s move to end term limits on the Chinese presidency in March 2018 was met with almost no dissent. The son of a former high communist official, Xi became the head of the party in 2012. He then began increasing his power through a major anti-corruption campaign and by silencing opposition of all kinds.
Xi’s removal of term limits is considered an attack on former leader Deng Xiaping’s attempt to ease power away from individual leaders. Deng sought to avoid a repeat of the cult of personality which followed Communist China’s first leader Mao Zedong. Many Chinese blame such support for the ten years of political violence of the Cultural Revolution which ended in 1976.
China observers note that unlike earlier leaders, Xi has not shown who might be his successor, causing many to believe he plans to remain leader for a long time.
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Call it luck, but not “dumb luck.”
Just three days into Wolf Cukier’s summer internship with the American space agency NASA, he found a new planet.
The 17-year-old high school student was tasked with looking through data from a telescope in search of evidence of planets outside our solar system.
“I was pretty much spending my summer looking at graphs on a computer screen.”
And on his third day with NASA, Cukier found it -- a previously unknown planet orbiting two stars.
Cukier was looking at data produced by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, known as TESS. Although he did not see the physical planet, he saw clear evidence of it.
“I couldn't say that I was confident it was a planet because it was day three on the job. And I couldn't say anything with confidence quite yet. But out of the hundred different targets that I looked at, I remember I put about 10 asterisks next to this one, saying this one looks good, we should look at this one first.”
The planet is 1,300 light years from Earth.
What Cukier had found was evidence of changes in the light of the two stars, called binary stars. The way scientists “see” such a distant planet is by changes in light. If a planet is moving between the telescope and the star it orbits, it produces an effect similar to an eclipse that we see here on Earth.
In other words, the planet blocks some of the sun’s light from the telescope. In graphs and other data, this shows up as a dip -- a line that moves down and then up again.
Later that day, Cukier met with his boss, Veselin Kostov, to go over his find.
The high school student was working with a team of scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C.
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Airline companies are changing flight paths throughout the Middle East following the deadly crash of a Ukrainian passenger plane in Iran Wednesday.
The crash killed all 176 people on the plane. It happened just hours after Iran attacked American bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles. No one was hurt in the strikes. The strikes were in answer to the U.S. killing last week of Iranian military official Qassem Soleimani.
The plane crashed minutes after leaving Tehran airport. Iranian officials said they believed a mechanical problem caused the crash. They have disputed suggestions that the plane was hit by a missile.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy cut short a visit to Oman to return to Kyiv following the crash. He said a team of Ukrainian experts would fly to Tehran to help investigate the crash. "Our priority is to find the truth and everyone responsible for the tragedy," Zelenskiy wrote in a Facebook statement.
The UIA flight was bound for Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, carrying 167 passengers and a crew of nine. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said the dead included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons. Airline officials said most of the passengers were going to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to change planes for other cities.
Later Wednesday, several European airline companies announced they were changing their routes to avoid Iranian airspace. The changes are expected to decrease air travel between Iran and Western Europe.
Air France and Dutch airline KLM both said Wednesday that they had suspended all flights over Iranian and Iraqi airspace. German airline Lufthansa also canceled flights to Iraq.
In North America, Air Canada changed its flight paths from Toronto to Dubai through Egypt and Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling over Iraq.
In Canada, Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday Canada’s “hearts are with the loved ones of the victims, including many Canadians.”
The Ukrainian president asked Ukraine International Airlines to begin a full inspection of all non-military airplanes in the country.
Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry said it appears that one of the plane’s engines caught fire.
The plane was fully loaded with fuel for its 2,300-kilometer trip. It crashed near the town of Shahedshahr, just outside Tehran.
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This year saw the deaths of people who changed culture through art, politics and tireless hard work. It also witnessed tragedy, in talent struck down in its youth.
A sharecropper's son who rose through positions of political power to become one of the nation's influential voices. A Republican who went on to lead the U.S. Supreme Court's liberal justices. A beloved writer who explored prejudice through her novels.
In 2019, the United States lost a major civil rights leader. Elijah E. Cummings was born the son of a poor farmer. A school official once told young Cummings he would never become a lawyer because he was too slow to learn and spoke poorly.
He refused to believe that. Cummings not only gained an education in law, but went on to become an influential congressman and champion of civil rights.
Cummings died in October. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1996. The Maryland lawmaker became the leader of one of the House committees that led an investigation of President Donald Trump.
America also lost a leading legal mind in 2019. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens died in July. Stevens was appointed to the high court as a member of the Republican Party. However, he became the leader of its liberal members. He ruled in support of abortion rights and consumer protections.
The death of writer Toni Morrison in August left a huge hole in the publishing world. The 88-year-old was a leader of modern American literature. She was also seen as an artistic guide to many young writers.
Morrison wrote books that explored the inhumanity of racism and other discrimination. In 1993, she became the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2012, then-President Barack Obama awarded her one of the country’s highest civilian honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Her most famous books include The Bluest Eye, Beloved and A Mercy.
Among those in the scientific world who died in 2019 was Soviet cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space. Leonov, who died in October, stepped out of a spaceship in 1965 and spent 12 minutes floating above Earth. He later described how he saw the stars that day: “They were everywhere,” he said, “up above, down below, to the left, to the right. I can still hear my breath and my heartbeat in that silence.”
American Scientist Wallace Smith Broecker, died in February. Broecker brought “global warming” into common use with a 1975 report that predicted rising carbon dioxide levels would lead to the warming of the planet. He was among the first people to warn about the dangers of climate change.
In January, Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani died in Jordan at the age of 80. She was important to the rebuilding of the Iraqi National Museum's collection after raids and thefts in 2003. Al-Gailani’s work helped Iraq recover thousands of ancient objects and art.
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Experts say a recent change in the color of the Mekong River – from yellowish-brown to sky-blue – could be a worrying sign. They say the change suggests a possible problem caused by dams that have been built along the Mekong.
The river covers a distance of 4,300 kilometers. It begins high in the mountains of Tibet, flowing through China and five other countries: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The river eventually joins with the South China Sea.
The Mekong usually has a yellowish-brown color that results from the sediment it normally carries. But recent reports say it has been running clear, taking on a bluish-green color like that of the sky. The water levels have also become unusually low, creating sandbanks that enable people to stand in the middle of the river.
The low water levels clearly cause problems for fishermen and farmers. But experts in Thailand say the decrease in sediment represents a different threat, one that can result in a greater erosion of the sides and bottom of the river.
Experts and people living along the river blame the changes on a large hydroelectric dam upriver in Laos. The Xayaburi dam began operating in October. Critics say it is blocking much sediment from flowing down the river.
About 70 million people depend on the Mekong River for water, food, jobs, agriculture and transportation. Critics say several large dam projects along the Mekong are harming the river and its environment.
Pravit Kanthaduang is chief of the fishery office at Bueng Khong Long District in northeast Thailand. He told The Associated Press the Xayaburi dam is responsible for the water becoming clear. Less sediment means less nutrition for plants and fish, possibly threatening the river’s ecological balance, he added.
With less sediment, the force of the water also strengthens, Chainarong Setthachau told The AP. Chainarong teaches at Mahasarakham University and has studied changes in the Mekong’s environment for more than 20 years.
“The current has less sediment, which unleashes energy onto the river banks downstream. This so-called ‘hungry water’ will cause much more erosion to the banks, uprooting trees and damaging engineering structures in the river,” Chainarong said.
The dam’s developers have denied responsibility for low water levels that critics have said were caused by equipment tests that began in March.
In October, the Xayaburi Power Co. Ltd. said the project had spent more than $640 million to lessen harmful effects on the environment. The company said this included the building of outlets for sediment to pass through and systems to permit the passage of fish. The total cost of the dam project was $4.47 billion.
Daeng Pongpim lives about 800 kilometers downstream from the Xayaburi dam. She is from a farming family that used to fish in Ubon Ratchathani province. She told The AP she believes the dam is responsible for the river’s recent unusual condition.
“I am 67 years old and have never seen anything like it before. What makes me concerned the most is the low level of the water,” she said. “Now, we are in early winter, the water level should not be this low. I can’t imagine how hard it could be for us at the height of the dry season, in March and April.”
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“They.”
This common pronoun is what Merriam-Webster chose for the word of 2019. For hundreds of years, “they” generally has meant more than one person. But increasingly, “they” is being used instead of “he” or “she” to describe a non-binary person – one who does not identify as male or female.
The dictionary company says it chose “they” because of a 313 percent increase this year in people looking it up on their site.
“I have to say it’s surprising to me,” said Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer and Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large. “It’s a word we all know and love. So many people were talking about this word.”
Sokolowski and his team watch for spikes—or sharp increases—in word searches. Searches for “they” increased last January with the rise of model Oslo Grace. Grace, who uses the pronoun “they,” walks in both men’s and women’s fashion shows around the world.
Nick Adams is with the LGBTQ group GLAAD. He said Merriam-Webster’s choice is a positive step in recognizing non-binary people.
Editor Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press that “they,” one of a few non-binary pronouns to emerge in recent years, is “here to stay.”
Four years ago, Members of the American Dialect Society also voted for “they” as the word of the year.
Existential
Another language organization, Dictionary.com, chose “existential” as the 2019 winner.
The adjective means connected to existence.
Here is an example:
“Is climate change an existential threat to humans?” In other words, does climate change threaten humans’ existence on Earth?
The choice shows how threats and crises -- real and thought about -- affected the world in 2019. John Kelly is senior research editor for the site. He says, “In our data, it speaks to this sense of grappling with our survival.”
The word showed up in searches at Dictionary.com after wildfires, Hurricane Dorian and mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand and El Paso, Texas. It also showed up in presidential politics and popular culture. It was even linked to “Forky” the white plastic spork and new star of the movie “Toy Story 4.”
Editor John Kelly explained that Forky asked “existential questions” – those that make us wonder about who we are and why we are alive. In the film, the dirty spork feels sure he will end up as waste. But then he accepts his purpose as a treasured toy of a young girl named Bonnie.
Climate emergency
Oxford Dictionaries picked “climate emergency” as its 2019 word. It noted that how often people use a word reflects the feelings or concerns of the passing year, the company said in a statement.
Other top words for 2019 included “quid pro quo,” “snitty,” and “exculpate.” They are ways to say “an exchange,” “disagreeable,” and “withdraw a charge of guilt.”
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