Mattel, home of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels, is cutting 2,200 jobs in order to save money after the closing of U.S. toy retail giant Toys R Us.

The toymaker said the cuts amount to 22 percent of its nonmanufacturing employees worldwide. Mattel has about 28,000 employees.

It also plans to sell factories in Mexico as part of a $650 million cost-saving plan.

Mattel’s stock fell nearly 9 percent to $14.85 in after-hours trading Wednesday, after dropping 1 percent during the regular trading day.

Mattel reported a loss of $240.9 million in the second quarter, bigger than the $56.1 million loss in the same period a year ago.

Revenues fell nearly 14 percent to $840.7 million, below the $863.1 million analysts had predicted.

Ynon Kreiz, who was named CEO in April, said Wednesday that he expects the negative impact of Toys R Us closing to subside by next year.

The toymaker has lagged behind its competitors in digital media, analysts say, and is trying to catch up with other brands that have spawned apps, movies and TV shows.

Kreiz said the company is working closely with other retailers and looking for more ways to sell its toys online.
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From: MeNeedIt

One girl between the ages of 15 and 19 is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, every three minutes of every day, a United Nations report found.

The report, released Wednesday at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, said teenage girls are bearing the brunt of the AIDS epidemic, largely due to gender inequality.

Henrietta Fore, head of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), called it a “crisis of health.”

“In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just power to say no to unsafe sex,” she said. “HIV thrives among the most vulnerable and marginalized, leaving teenage girls at the center of the crisis.”

The report said while there was significant progress in the battle against AIDS in other age groups, it is notably lacking among adolescents.

While AIDS-related deaths among all other age groups have been falling since 2010, those among children aged 15 to 19 have seen no reduction.

In 2017, 1.2 million 15- to 19-year-olds were living with HIV, three in five of them were girls, according to UNICEF.

Actress and activist Charlize Theron addressed the issue in her speech at the conference.

The AIDS epidemic is “not just about sex or sexuality,” she said. It is also about “the second-class status of women and girls worldwide.”

The solution, according to Angelique Kidjo, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador who contributed to the report, is education and economic empowerment.

“We need to make girls and women secure enough economically that they don’t have to turn to sex work,” she said. “We need to make sure they have the right information about how HIV is transmitted and how to protect themselves.”
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From: MeNeedIt

They are arguably among the most recognizable figures in American pop culture, and by their daring exploits, capture the imaginations of fans around the world. They are the fictional characters we call superheroes. Comic book and movie fans say characters such as Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America hold values that are especially relevant in today’s social and political climate. Elizabeth Lee reports on the pop culture significance of superheroes at Comic-Con in San Diego.
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From: MeNeedIt

At Comic-Con 2018, fantasy can come to life. Fans dress up as Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America, just to name a few.

These names have become some of the most familiar heroes in American popular culture. The values they represent have captured the imaginations of fans from around the world. 

Superman fan Dorian Black was dressed in a blue costume, a red cape, yellow belt, red boots and a big “S” on his chest.

At Comic-Con in San Diego, Black said he becomes the alien from the planet Krypton who represents the immigrant spirit. A story, he adds, that is just as relevant today as it was when superman was created in 1938.

“There was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment happening at the time that he was created, and I don’t feel like that’s ever changed,” Black said. “We’d like to pretend that America has changed greatly from that time period. A lot of ways it has for the better, but we’re still having this argument of do we let in refugees? How much is too much?”

Relevant today

Superman is not the only superhero fans find relevant in today’s political and social climate in the U.S. The female comic book superhero Captain Marvel will be featured in a movie in 2019. Many female fans are excited about what she represents. 

“Strength and female strength especially, which I think is really important in our current world,” said Hayley West, who dressed as Captain Marvel, complete with a red, dark blue and gold jumpsuit with a star on her chest. 

Seeing a superhero’s relevance in politics and social issues is not a new phenomenon. Superman’s character first appeared during the Great Depression.

“He’s (Superman) almost a kind of anarchist, socialist,” said English professor Ben Saunders, who directs a University of Oregon comics and cartoon studies minor, the first of its kind in the U.S. 

Saunders said Superman originally fought representatives of the oil companies and advertising executives who were out to fleece the public, and campaigned for prison reform. He then became more socially conservative in the 1940s and 1950s as American values changed, but what stayed consistent was Superman’s ability to always do the right thing, Saunders said.

“Of course, our notions of what the right thing is changed. It’s culturally contingent. It changes month to month sometimes, and that’s what makes Superman a particularly challenging character to write,” he added. 

“The characters become the voice of whoever’s creating them at the time. Whoever the writer is or the artist. The things that are important to them are going to get interjected into those characters,” said Aaron Lopresti, a comic book artist who has drawn superheroes, including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, for publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics. 

Lopresti said modern-day writers tend to have more liberal views on what is happening in society, which is often reflected in their work.

“When things change or different ideas come into view, I think a lot of times you see those things reflected in the characters or the situations they’re in, in their comics,” Lopresti said.

Timelessness of values

Fans, however, also see a timelessness in values held by their favorite superheroes.

“I believe that Captain America holds really good values of staying true to your family and really just making sure that you stick to what you’re going to say and what you’re going to do,” said 18-year-old Valencia Garcia, a movie fan who proudly held a replica of Captain America’s shiny red, silver and blue shield with a silver star in the middle.

“I like all of them. They’re all heroes to help save the people, and they do good deeds,” said Sonya Flores, a Laotian American who loves superhero movies.

Fans say these superheroes represent an ideal that people and those in positions of power should try to emulate.

“I feel like, as a society, we’re so jaded to the idea of power that if you have power, you’re just by default corrupted by it. And there’s that saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But Superman is sort of a counter argument to that. You can be all powerful and be good, but you have to try to be good,” said Black. 

In Spider-Man’s story, there is a famous line that says, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“There are people in positions of power today who I think will be well-advised to remember that power and responsibility go hand in hand,” Saunders said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Tariffs are set to top the agenda in a meeting Wednesday between U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Juncker is coming to Washington with the hopes the European Union can avoid an all-out trade war by convincing Trump to hold off punitive tariffs on European cars. The potential car tariffs would hurt Germany’s thriving automobile industry and come on top of hefty tariffs that Trump has already imposed on aluminum and steel imports.

But on the eve of the meeting, Trump appeared pessimistic the two sides would come to any agreement after the U.S. leader threatened more tariffs on U.S. trading partners. In a tweet late Tuesday, Trump said both the United States and the European Union should drop all tariffs, barriers and subsidies.

“That would finally be called Free Market and Fair Trade!” Trump said. “Hope they do it, we are ready — but they won’t!” he added.

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. president declared “Tariffs are the greatest!” and threatened to impose additional penalties on U.S. trading partners. “Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with tariffs. It’s as simple as that.”

Trump again complained the world uses the United States as a “piggy bank” that everyone likes to rob. 

The European Commission has responded with retaliatory tariffs, but new levies on cars could prompt Europe to take further action.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Tuesday Europe won’t cave in to Trump’s threats.

“No one has an interest in having punitive tariffs, because everyone loses in the end,” Maas wrote on Twitter. “Europe will not be threatened by President Trump If we cede once, we will often have to deal with such behavior in the future.”

Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan told reporters Tuesday he does not think “the tariff route is the smart way to go.”

Ryan said he understands Trump is seeking “a better deal for Americans” but added the U.S. should instead “work together to reduce trade barriers and trade restrictions between our countries.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Sean Spicer received poor reviews during his brief stint as White House spokesman and his new memoir, “The Briefing,” which hits bookstores on Tuesday, is not faring much better.

“Mr. Spicer’s book is much like his tenure as press secretary: short, littered with inaccuracies and offering up one consistent theme: Mr. Trump can do no wrong,” ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl said in a review for The Wall Street Journal.

Spicer got off to a rocky start as press secretary by defending President Donald Trump’s patently false claim that the size of the crowd at his inauguration was larger than that of president Barack Obama’s.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,” Spicer thundered in his first appearance at the White House podium.

Spicer then stormed off and refused to take any questions from the White House press corps.

Trump was not pleased with his performance, Spicer says in the book, and things went downhill from there, resulting in his departure after just six months in the White House.

“I had made a bad first impression, and looking back, that was the beginning of the end,” Spicer writes.

The Wall Street Journal described it as the beginning of the “tenure as one of the most widely scorned press secretaries in history.”

Spicer’s daily White House briefings became the target of biting impersonations of him by Melissa McCarthy on the comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live.”

If the book is an attempt by Spicer to rehabilitate his reputation and to elevate that of Trump, the first reviewers tend to think that he missed the mark.

“Twisting language into the incomprehensible – and meaningless – was a special talent of Spicer the press secretary and also clearly of Spicer the memoirist,” The Washington Post said.

“‘The Briefing’ isn’t a political memoir, nor is it a work of recent history, nor a tell-all, or tell-anything,” it said.

“Rather, it is a bumbling effort at gaslighting Americans into doubting what they have seen with their own eyes as far back as June 2015, when Trump announced his candidacy and labeled Mexican immigrants as rapists, beginning a pattern of racist attacks.”

National Public Radio said Spicer makes some valid points in his book about Washington politics but “leaves out important context and doubles down on some of the lies he became famous for as press secretary.”

“Spicer has already made his bed – it’s a shame he continues to lie in it,” NPR said.

At least one reviewer did rave about the book.

“A friend of mine and a man who has truly seen politics and life as few others ever will, Sean Spicer, has written a great new book,” Trump tweeted.

“It is a story told with both heart and knowledge. Really good, go get it!”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Filmmaker James Cameron and Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard are backing a bid by a group of British museums to acquire a collection of 5,500 artifacts from the sunken vessel.

The campaign announced Tuesday aims to raise $20 million (15 million pounds) to buy the items from a private American company that salvaged them from the wreck.

The director of the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, said there are grave concerns that the collection will be broken up and sold privately because that company has filed for bankruptcy.

“That’s why people who feel some protective role have stepped up and kind of linked arms,” Cameron said. “It’s an incredible piece of history, an object lesson about human hubris. If it gets sold into private hands, it disappears from the public eye. It would be broken up and could never be reassembled.”

He said his expeditions to the undersea site have made him feel a responsibility to honor those who lost their lives on its doomed voyage in 1912.

The objects include a section of the ship’s hull and a bronze cherub decoration from the ship’s grand staircase. They were recovered from the wreck site during seven deep sea expeditions between 1987 and 2004.

The bid for the artifacts comes from the Royal Museums Greenwich, National Museums Northern Ireland, Titanic Belfast and Titanic Foundation Limited. The National Geographic Society has pledge $500,000 to help fund the project — both Cameron and Ballard are National Geographic Explorers in Residence.

The bid was announced at Titanic Belfast at the location where the ship was designed, built and launched.

Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985, said the campaign is the “only viable option to retain the integrity” of the artifacts. He said the collection “deserved to be returned home to where its journey began.”

The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 passengers and crew died.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offenders Assessment Board is recommending Bill Cosby be classified as a sexually violent predator.

The Montgomery County District Attorney requested a hearing on the report Tuesday so a judge can decide if Cosby will be classified as a sexually violent predator. No date had been set for the hearing as of early Tuesday.

The 81-year-old was convicted April 26 on sexual assault charges related to accusations he had drugged and assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004.

The report, which looks at 14 different areas to determine the status, is not public. State law requires Cosby to register as a sex offender. The classification would require increased treatment in prison and increased notification of neighbors upon release.

Cosby is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 24. A message was left with his lawyer.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

An international team of scientists has moved closer to creating artificial embryos after using mouse stem cells to make structures capable of taking a crucial step in the development of life.

Experts said the results suggested human embryos could be created in a similar way in future — a step that would allow scientists to use artificial embryos rather than real ones to research the very earliest stages of human development.

The team, led by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a professor at Britain’s Cambridge University, had previously created a simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in a lab dish. That work involved two types of stem cells and a three-dimensional scaffold on which they could grow.

But in new work published Monday in the journal Nature Cell Biology, the scientists developed the structures further — using three types of stem cells — enabling a process called gastrulation, an essential step in which embryonic cells begin self-organizing into a correct structure for an embryo to form.

“Our artificial embryos underwent the most important event in life in the culture dish,” Zernicka-Goetz said in a statement about the work. “They are now extremely close to real embryos.”

She said the team should now be better able to understand how the three stem cell types interact to enable embryo development. And by experimentally altering biological pathways in one cell type, they should be able to see how this affects the behavior of the other cell types.

“The early stages of embryo development are when a large proportion of pregnancies are lost and yet it is a stage that we know very little about,” said Zernicka-Goetz.

“Now we have a way of simulating embryonic development in the culture dish, so it should be possible to understand exactly what is going on during this remarkable period in an embryo’s life, and why sometimes this process fails.”

Christophe Galichet, a senior research scientist at Britain’s Francis Crick Institute who was not directly involved in this work, agreed that the results held promise.

“While [this study] did not use human stem cells, it is not too far-fetched to think the technique could one day be applied to studying early human embryos,” he said in an emailed comment. “These self-assembled human embryos would be an invaluable tool to understand early human development.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists say the longest total lunar eclipse of this century will grace the night sky on Friday, turning the moon a reddish color.

NASA says the lunar eclipse will last for 1 hour and 43 minutes with total viability in Eastern Africa and Central Asia. Residents in most of the world will be able to see at least a partial eclipse. However, it won’t be visible from North America.

Scientists say that in the United States the period of totality will start around 4:21 p.m. Eastern time, making it too light outside to see the red moon.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon appears to be red because it lines up perfectly with the Earth and sun such that the Earth’s shadow totally blocks the sun’s light. The moon loses the brightness normally caused by the reflection of the sun’s light and takes on an eerie, reddish glow, giving the lunar eclipse moon the nickname of blood moon.

Scientists say the reason this Friday’s lunar eclipse is especially long is because the moon is passing almost directly through the central part of Earth’s shadow. To compare, it falls just 4 minutes shy of the longest possible time a lunar eclipse could last.

For those who aren’t able to see the lunar eclipse this month, July has another treat in store for skygazers when Mars makes a close approach to Earth. Mars will appear about 10 times brighter than usual the last few days of the month, with peak brightness occurring on July 31.

Everyone in the world will have the possibility to see this celestial phenomenon, providing the skies are clear.
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From: MeNeedIt

The use of packaging plastic continues to rise as the world’s population grows. Environmentalists say compostable and biodegradable packaging is needed now more than ever, particularly when it comes to plastics used to protect our food.  But now, a biodegradable film made from discarded shellfish and trees may fill that need. It’s being developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Lead researcher Carson Meredith is interested in exploring alternatives to crude-oil-based plastics now being used. “Probably about eight years ago, we got involved in what’s referred to as forest-based nanotechnology,” he told VOA news.  This is an emerging area “looking at using wood and other plant resources to extract high performance nano-crystalline materials made out of cellulose and using those in creating light-weight, high strength materials.”

Wood, clamshells, lobsters

What that means, is that the same cellulose fibers found in woody plants used to make paper can also be used to replace plastic packaging material. Meredith’s group found that by combining the plant cellulose with chitin, the hard material that makes up clamshells and the exoskeleton of lobsters, they could create a biodegradable coating.

At the molecular level, chitin and cellulose are oppositely charged — meaning they are attracted to each other. The Georgia Tech scientists used this property when they sprayed very thin, alternating layers of the two materials onto a base. 

“In this case, we chose to use polylactic acid, or PLA, which is also derived from natural materials and is biodegradable,” said Meredith. PLA is a plastic made from renewable sources such as corn starch or sugarcane. It can be a clear film like cellophane or shaped into disposable tableware.

Plastics without crude oil

There is a common misconception that all plastics are made using crude oil. Susan Selke, who directs the Center for Packing Innovation and Sustainability, explained that technically, the term plastic refers to “a long-chain carbon-based structure that is capable of being shaped through an application of heat and pressure.” She continued, “PLA itself is classified as a compostable plastic. So if you put it into a municipal composting program that’s organized to get to the elevated temperatures with lots of moisture, then what happens is that the PLA hydrolyzes. And once it’s hydrolyzed, then it can biodegrade.”

So in the case of the new plastic film, Meredith and his co-authors used a clear flexible PLA base and applied alternating layers of chitin and cellulose nano-fibers that dry into a thin, but durable clear plastic like that used most commonly in grocery stores.

Meredith notes his research shows that the chitin and cellulose “perform much better as two or three thin layers, than they would as independent materials of equivalent thickness.”

The new material is exceptionally good at keeping oxygen out, which would make it useful for food packaging. Meredith says they haven’t formally tested it as a food packing material, but one of the attractions is that this would be a compostable packaging material that would be completely biodegradable.

Green alternative

Moving forward, Meredith hopes to see the new material put to use as a green alternative, although challenges remain. “I think the major challenge for commercializing this would be having a scalable supply chain of raw materials. Right now that largely doesn’t exist,”he told VOA. 

Selke agrees, wondering how cost-effective the material might be. “It’s going to have to compete with other kinds of materials that are designed to do the same kind of thing in improving the barrier.”

Although future obstacles remain, the new material has two key benefits. The plastic itself is completely composed of bio-materials, and is compostable, meaning it can break down without the harmful pollution associated with fossil fuel-based plastics.
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From: MeNeedIt

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for an investigation of a domestic drug manufacturer accused of violating regulations in making a rabies vaccine.

Changsheng Biotechnology has been ordered to stop production and recall the vaccine after the China Food and Drug Administration discovered it had been falsifying production and inspection records.

Premier Li issued a statement Sunday denouncing Changsheng for crossing a moral line, and promised to “resolutely crack down” on any actions that endangers public safety.

There have no reports of injuries from the vaccine, but the news led to a wave of criticism on social media.

Changsheng Biotechnology was forced to stop production of a vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis last year after regulators found the vaccine to be defective.

China has been working to restore confidence in its food and drug industries, both at home and abroad, after a series of scandals over the last decade over shoddy and tainted products, the most notorious in 2008, when 300,000 children were sickened when they were given milk powder contaminated with the chemical melamine. Six of the children died.
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From: MeNeedIt