Temperatures around the world are rising as humans burn coal, oil and other fossil fuels for energy. Burning those fuels releases heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But it does more than that. CO2 is vital for plant growth. While having more of it sounds like a good thing, scientists are finding it is not always that simple. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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From: MeNeedIt
Is your dorm room stifling hot? That might impact your memory.
New research shows that heat can affect even healthy young adults intellectually, with worse cognitive performance observed in students who slept in a non-air-conditioned room during a heat wave.
Researchers from Harvard University recruited 24 students who slept with air-conditioning and 20 who slept in rooms without AC before, during and after a Boston-area heat wave.
They recorded temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and noise in each bedroom throughout the study.
The indoor temperature of the non-air-conditioned dorm averaged 26.3 C (79.3 F) compared with 21.4 C (70.5 F) in the dorm with air-conditioning.
Each participant wore an activity monitor to measure heart rate, perspiration and sleep quality. When the students woke up each morning, they were tested for how quickly and accurately they completed two cognitive tests that measured memory and reaction.
Researchers also noted how much water and caffeine the students consumed, and how long they spent outdoors each day.
After 12 days, researchers were surprised by the data.
“We found very significant effect of detrimental cognitive function among those students that didn’t have air-conditioning during this heat wave period,” said lead author Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The students who didn’t have air-conditioning performed significantly worse on the basic cognitive tests. In particular, going without AC during a heat wave hurt their reaction time when they had to make quick judgments.
“Their study really demonstrated that exposure to heat can have all these potential effects on people’s daily activities,” said Daisy Chang, an organizational psychologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
“A whole host of reasons could potentially explain this exposure effect,” Chang noted. “It’s not necessarily directly exposure to heat. [The heat] could have affected their sleep quality so they’re less rested, they have less energy, or mental resources, or ability to focus.”
The dorms without AC were louder at night because of fan and street noise, which could have disrupted sleep.
And while air-conditioned rooms can hold higher levels of carbon dioxide, which can have a negative impact on cognition, the students slept better in a cooler room.
“We find that heatwaves are impacting us all,” Cedeno said. “These … extend to those like the young and healthy university students. And that we find significant effects on the way they think – their cognitive functions.”
Extreme heat exposure is the biggest killer of all climate phenomena in the United States, killing 7,000 people between 1999 and 2010. Previous research focused on how hot weather affects at-risk populations like the elderly and the very young. And 2016 was the hottest year on record for the past 200 years.
From: MeNeedIt
Plans to launch the first NASA astronauts since 2011 to the International Space Station from the United States look set to be delayed due to incomplete safety measures and accountability holes in the agency’s commercial crew program, according to a federal report released on Wednesday.
SpaceX and Boeing Co are the two main contractors selected under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s commercial crew program to send U.S. astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Dragon and Starliner spacecraft respectively.
But the report from the Government Accountability Office said the issues could cause delays in the launch of the first crewed mission from U.S. soil by a private company and could result in a nine-month gap in which no U.S. astronauts inhabit the ISS.
“Boeing and SpaceX continue to make progress developing their crew transportation systems, but both contractors have further delayed the certification milestone to early 2019,” the report said.
“Without a viable contingency option for ensuring uninterrupted access to the ISS in the event of further commercial crew delays, we concluded that NASA was at risk of not being able to maximize the return on its multibillion dollar investment in the space station,” it added.
Test flights set for this year
Boeing said it was aiming for test flights this year. “Boeing is working with NASA to ensure that the CST-100 Starliner flies at the earliest time it is safe to do so,”
Boeing senior spokesman Jerry Drelling told Reuters in an email. Officials with SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, and NASA could not immediately be reached to comment.
In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing respectively received $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion contracts to build crew transportation systems under the commercial crew program, NASA’s flagship campaign to use the private sector for ISS missions.
In the report, NASA said it was working closely with its commercial partners to resolve the issues and was developing contingency plans in case of further delays.
Safety first
Before SpaceX and Boeing can launch the astronauts they must demonstrate their crew systems are safe for human spaceflight, according to NASA.
The GAO said it is tracking potential safety risks on the private companies’ crew capsules, including a Boeing Starliner abort system meant to eject the capsule from a hazardous rocket explosion, and a since-upgraded fuel valve on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket that triggered a costly 2016 launchpad explosion.
Since 2011, NASA has bought seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft months in advance to send U.S. astronauts to the space station from launchpads in Kazakhstan. U.S. launches before 2011 were handled by NASA.
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From: MeNeedIt
The acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency plans to keep cutting anti-pollution rules and regulations on industry.
Andrew Wheeler held his first meeting with EPA employees Wednesday after taking over the job for Scott Pruitt, who resigned last week amid allegations of ethics violations.
Wheeler, like Pruitt and President Donald Trump, believes the nation’s air and water can still be protected without what they say are job-killing regulations and pollution standards on industry.
Wheeler said the EPA would make cleaning up Superfund industrial waste sites and investing in water infrastructure priorities.
He promised to listen to all voices within the agency. “I value your input and your feedback, and you will find me and my team ready to listen,” Wheeler told staffers.
Wheeler also said he was proud of his work as a coal industry lobbyist — something that has attracted criticism from environmentalists and some Democrats. He said some people use the term “coal lobbyist” in a derogatory manner, but that he had nothing to be ashamed of.
Wheeler’s lobbying efforts primarily focused on better health care, pensions and benefits for retired coal miners.
Trump will nominate a new EPA chief in the coming months, and that person must meet Senate approval. Wheeler has said he is not interested in the job permanently.
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From: MeNeedIt
The air pollution problem isn’t going away. According to the World Health Organization, nine out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air and approximately 7 million die as a result of exposure to it each year. One creative startup has an artistic solution to an ugly problem. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on imported steel has been welcomed by U.S. producers of the material but slammed by American manufacturers that rely on a global steel supply chain to make everything from cars to razor blades. VOA’s Michael Bowman visited a can company that is being squeezed by the new tariff and has this report, which was produced by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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From: MeNeedIt
As the trade war between the world’s two largest economies nears the end of its first week, its most unsettling fact may be this: No one seems to foresee any clear path to peace.
The United States insists that China abandon the brass-knuckles tactics it’s used to try to supplant America’s technological dominance. Yet Beijing isn’t about to drop its zeal to acquire the technology it sees as crucial to its prosperity.
Having run for the White House on a vow to force China to reform its trade policies, President Donald Trump won’t likely yield to vague promises by Beijing to improve its behavior — or to pledges to buy more American soybeans or liquefied natural gas.
“It certainly feels like we’re in for a protracted fight,” said Timothy Keeler of the law firm Mayer Brown and a former chief of staff at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. “Truthfully, I don’t know what the off-ramp is.”
The first shots sounded July 6: The United States slapped 25 percent taxes on $34 billion in Chinese imports. Most of them are industrial goods that the Trump administration says receive subsidies or other unfair support from Beijing. China quickly lashed back with tariffs on $34 billion in U.S. products.
The two countries have targeted an additional $16 billion worth of each other’s products for a second round of25 percent tariffs. On Tuesday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed 10 percent tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese imports, ranging from fish sticks to burglar alarms.
All told, Trump has threatened eventually to slap tariffs on up to $550 billion in Chinese imports — more than China actually exported to the United States last year — if Beijing won’t relent to U.S. pressure and continues to retaliate.
At the heart of the dispute: The Trump administration’s complaints that China has used predatory practices in a relentless push to grant Chinese companies an unfair advantage in the industries of the future, including robotics, electric cars and biopharmaceuticals. These tactics include the outright theft of trade secrets, government subsidies to homegrown tech firms and demands that U.S. and other foreign companies hand over technology if they want access to China’s vast market.
Eliminating the new tariffs will prove a lot harder than it was to raise them in the first place, said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who is a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Both sides have too much at stake and don’t want to back down.”
So how does the trade war end? Analysts offer several potential scenarios:
China Blinks
The Trump administration boasts that China has more to lose in a trade war. After all, Beijing sold $524 billion worth of goods and services to the United States last year and bought far less — $188 billion. So China has far fewer goods to tax than the United States does.
And China’s benchmark stock index — the Shanghai Composite — has dropped 15 percent this year, at least partly on fears about damage from the trade conflict with Washington.
“It’s a dicey time for the Chinese economy,” said Claude Barfield, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former consultant to the U.S. Trade Representative.
Beijing is trying to contain a run-up in corporate debt and manage a difficult transition away from fast but unsustainable export-driven growth based on exports and often-wasteful investment toward steadier growth built on consumer spending. The International Monetary Fund expects Chinese economic growth to decelerate to 6.6 percent this year from 6.9 percent in 2017.
So it’s possible that economic pressure could persuade Beijing to cave. Yet many analysts are skeptical. Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, said the economic damage from U.S. tariffs is “likely to be muted since China has enough room to forestall a growth slowdown” by increasing government spending or adopting easy-money policies that put more cash into the economy.
Mary Lovely, an economist and trade expert at Syracuse University, says it’s unclear how China could appease Trump, even if it wanted to. China has pledged in the past to police cyber-theft and end coerced technology transfers. So any negotiations, Lovely said, would raise more questions: Would the Trump administration accept another promise? How would any promise be verified? How long would it take to determine whether Beijing has actually reformed its ways?
And China’s leaders might prove reluctant to back down and risk a backlash from the public.
“They have nothing to gain internally by kowtowing to President Trump, and that’s exactly what it would be,” Lovely said.
Trump Blinks
Trump faces pressures, too. The Chinese designed their tariffs to inflict political pain in the United States. They have, for example, targeted soybeans and other farm products in a shot at Trump supporters in the American heartland. And U.S. farmers are represented by trade groups and congressional delegations who aren’t shy about attacking U.S. policies that threaten farm incomes.
But the president would also find it hard to back down. He’s already considered one possible solution only to back away from it. In May, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced after a meeting with the Chinese that the trade war was “on hold” and the tariffs suspended after Beijing agreed to reduce the U.S. trade deficit by buying more American energy and farm products.
Yet the cease-fire quickly collapsed once critics complained that the Trump administration was letting China buy its way out of the impasse.
“The president felt the sting of that and didn’t like that,” Keeler said. So the administration decided to “drive a harder bargain,” and it revived — and ramped up — its tariff threat.
A Win-Win Resolution
Taiya Smith, a former Treasury official who handled negotiations with China, says it’s possible a deal could be reached in which Beijing ends its predatory practices but can still keep itself competitive in advanced industries. The key, she says, is persuading China that its tech companies don’t need massive assistance from the state.
“Their companies are becoming very powerful,” Smith said. “They have to be willing to compete on a level playing field. They no longer need a leg up.”
But she said the U.S. would have to make concessions, too, perhaps by agreeing to let China play a bigger role in global economic policymaking.
“The Chinese have to have a political win somewhere in there, too,” Smith said. “You can’t design something where we get what we want and China gets nothing. They have their own politics.”
The War Drags On
Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing and a sharp critic of Beijing’s trade practices, wants to see the tariffs remain until either U.S. companies leave China or Beijing opens its market wider to American goods and investment.
“They should stay on for long enough that they manifest some change,” he said. “I don’t see the tariffs coming off anytime soon.”
Paul notes that China has repeatedly made empty promises to reform its practices.
“We have waste cans full of promises by the Chinese government to reform its anti-competitive practices that are completely ignored,” he said. “The tariffs are the best and only leverage that we have with China, and we would be foolish to squander them without major gains.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk on Tuesday landed a deal with Chinese authorities to build a new auto plant in Shanghai, its first factory outside the United States, that would double the size of the electric car maker’s global manufacturing.
The deal was announced as Tesla raised prices on U.S.-made vehicles it sells in China to offset the cost of new tariffs imposed by the Chinese government in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to slap heavier duties on Chinese goods.
Musk was in Shanghai Tuesday, and the Shanghai government in a statement said it welcomed Tesla’s move to invest not only in a new factory in the city, a center of the Chinese auto industry, but in research and development, as well. China has long pushed to capture more of the talent and capital invested by global automakers in advanced electric vehicle technology.
Tesla plans to producing the first cars about two years after construction begins on its Shanghai factory, ramping up to as many as 500,000 vehicles a year about two to three years after that, the company said.
That would make Tesla’s Shanghai plant large by auto industry standards, where most factories are tooled to build 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles a year, and roughly equivalent to the planned annual production at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California.
Tesla shares rose 1.5 percent in early U.S. trading, even as some analysts questioned where the money-losing company will get the capital required to build and staff such a large plant.
Musk has said Tesla will be cash-flow positive this year.
Analysts have predicted the company will raise capital to fund a list of new projects, including launching an electric semi truck, a pickup truck, a compact SUV and new battery and vehicle production facilities that Musk has proposed for China and Europe.
“I am sure that Tesla needs fresh money at the latest next year,” said Frank Schwope, an analyst with NORD/LB.
In its statement, the Shanghai government suggested it could help with some of the capital costs. “The Shanghai municipal government will fully support the construction of the Tesla factory,” the statement said.
Tuesday’s announcement will not impact U.S. manufacturing operations, which continue to grow, Tesla said.
Musk was talking about building a Chinese factory long before the Trump administration proposed punitive tariffs on Chinese goods. China until recently levied 25-percent tariffs on imported cars, and for decades automakers have been moving to build more vehicles in the markets where they will be sold to neutralize the risk of currency shifts and trade policy
reversals.
China is the largest market for electric vehicles, and most forecasters predict that electric vehicle sales in the country will accelerate rapidly as government regulation drives toward a goal of 100 percent electric vehicles by 2030.
China is the world’s largest auto market overall, with more than 28 million vehicles sold last year, and annual sales are forecast to top 35 million by 2025. That level would be more than double the current U.S. market, where new light vehicle sales run at about 17 million vehicles a year.
Still, the Chinese authorities’ decision to grant Tesla permission to move forward lands as President Trump is fighting to stop U.S. manufacturers from responding to his trade policy by shifting production overseas, as U.S. motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson said it would do last month.
Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The signing was held at Shanghai’s Fairmont Peace Hotel but media attendance was limited, a Shanghai government official who declined to give his name told Reuters. Tesla’s Chief Executive Elon Musk attended the signing, according to a Reuters witness.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Musk will visit Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday.
Tesla has been in protracted negotiations to open its own factory in China to help bolster its position in the country’s fast-growing market for electric cars and to avoid high import tariffs.
Tesla hiked prices in China over the weekend to a level more than 70 percent higher than in the United States amid mounting trade frictions between Washington and Beijing that have seen several U.S. imports, including cars, become subjected to retaliatory tariffs of 25 percent.
Musk had previously criticized China’s tough auto rules for foreign businesses, which would have required it to cede a 50-percent share in the factory. The company was keen to maintain control of its plant and protect its technology.
It registered a new electric car firm in Shanghai in May after China announced that it planned to scrap rules on capping foreign ownership of new-energy vehicle (NEV) ventures by 2022.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Cuban government will allow new restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts and transportation businesses by the end of the year, reopening the most vibrant sectors of the private economy after freezing growth for more than a year.
The government is unveiling a set of new regulations Tuesday meant to control the growth of tourism-related private businesses and collect more tax revenue from them. Private restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts boomed after U.S.-Cuba normalization in 2014 prompted rapid growth in tourism to Cuba.
Tax evasion and purchase of stolen state materials also boomed in the mostly cash-based private hospitality sector. Among other measures, the new regulations announced Tuesday require private businesses to move all their revenue through state-run bank accounts. Cuba froze new licenses for restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts and other key business in August 2017.
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From: MeNeedIt
BMW Group and the biggest Chinese SUV brand, Great Wall Motor, announced a partnership Tuesday to produce electric MINI vehicles in China as global automakers ramp up development under pressure from Beijing.
The companies said they signed an agreement Monday during an event in Berlin attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
BMW and Great Wall said their venture, Spotlight Automotive Ltd., also will make electrics for the Chinese partner’s brand. Great Wall put total investment in the venture at 5.1 billion yuan ($770 million) and said it is aiming for annual production of 160,000 vehicles.
Automakers are pouring billions of dollars into creating electric models for China, the biggest market for the technology.
Beijing is using access to its market as leverage to induce global automakers to help Chinese brands develop battery and other technology.
Auto brands in China are required to make electric vehicles at least 10 percent of their sales starting next year or buy credits from competitors that exceed their quotas. Later, they face pressure to raise those sales in order to satisfy fuel efficiency requirements that increase annually.
Sales of pure-electric passenger vehicles in China rose 82 percent last year to 468,000, according to an industry group, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That was more than double the U.S. level of just under 200,000.
Other automakers including General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co. have announced similar plans with Chinese partners to produce dozens of electric models.
Great Wall, headquartered in Baoding, southwest of Beijing, sells more than 1 million SUVs a year.
“With our joint approach, we can quickly scale up production and increase efficiency,” said Klaus Frolich, a BMW board member, in a statement.
MINI’s first battery electric model is due to be produced at its main British factory in Oxford in 2019, according to BMW.
China is BMW’s biggest market. The Munich-based automaker said about 560,000 BMW brand vehicles were delivered to Chinese customers in 2017, more than its next two markets – the United States and Germany – combined.
China was MINI’s fourth-largest market in 2017, with 35,000 vehicles delivered, the company said.
The electrics venture with BMW is an important boost for Great Wall, which industry analysts warned would struggle to satisfy Beijing’s sales quotas due to its fuel-guzzling vehicle lineup and had yet to announce any significant electric plans.
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From: MeNeedIt
Twitter shares tumbled Monday on concerns the social media’s efforts to crack down on fake accounts would affect its user base, and potentially its finances.
At 1810 GMT, shares of the social media company were down 6.0 percent at $43.89 after earlier shedding almost 10 percent.
The decline follows a report late Friday in the Washington Post that described how Twitter’s greater scrutiny of user data had resulted in more than 70 million account suspensions in May and June.
The efforts are a response to criticism that social media companies have done too little to confront the spread of disinformation and fake news.
CFRA analyst Scott Kessler on Monday downgraded Twitter to “sell” from “hold,” citing the Washington Post article, which raised concerns about its official active user count and “about potential negative impacts on pricing and revenue.”
Twitter shares are “overvalued,” Kessler added.
Shares of the company rallied somewhat from session lows after chief financial officer Ned Segal said most of the accounts removed were not in the company’s official metrics since they were not on the platform for at least 30 days.
He said the company would provide user numbers when it reports earnings on July 27.
“This article reflects us getting better at improving the health of the service,” Segal said in a post that included the Post article. “Look forward to talking more on our earnings call July 27!”
The impact on Twitter’s user base was unclear. Twitter said last week it had “identified and challenged more than 9.9 million potentially spammy or automated accounts per week,” up from 6.4 million in December 2017.
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From: MeNeedIt