The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, accused social media company Twitter of being politically biased  Tuesday as he defended his plan to roll back rules intended to ensure a free and open internet.

Pai, a Republican named by President Donald Trump to head up the FCC, unveiled plans last week to scrap the 2015 landmark net neutrality rules, moving to give broadband service providers sweeping power over what content consumers can access.

“When it comes to an open internet, Twitter is part of the problem,” Pai said. “The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.”

He pointed to Twitter’s refusal to let Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, advertise a campaign video with an anti-abortion message.

“To say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users,” Pai said.

A spokesperson for Twitter said that at no time was Blackburn’s video censored and that her followers would have been able to still see it.

“Because advertisements are served to users who do not necessarily follow an account, we therefore have higher standards for their content,” the Twitter spokesperson said.

Twitter in October declined a campaign video advertisement by Blackburn, who announced she was running for the U.S. Senate, saying that a remark by Blackburn about opposing abortion was inflammatory. Twitter later reversed its decision.

Internet-based firms’ letter

Pai’s criticism came a day after Twitter and a number of other internet-based companies — including AirBnb, Reddit, Shutterstock, Tumblr and Etsy — sent a letter urging the FCC to maintain the net neutrality rules.

Trump is a prolific user of Twitter, often posting his thoughts on the news of the day. He used Twitter throughout his presidential campaign to circumvent traditional media and talk directly to voters.

Pai has also been a frequent user of the website — acknowledging during the speech, “I love Twitter” — to push his case in favor of the rule changes. On Tuesday afternoon, he even posted a link to his remarks critical of Twitter on his own Twitter account.

Following Pai’s remarks on Tuesday, at an event organized by the libertarian-leaning R Street Institute, two other FCC commissioners said they would support his proposal when they vote on December 14.

Big internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications have favored a repeal of net neutrality. On the other side, websites such as Facebook and Alphabet’s Google have favored the rules.

The rules prohibit broadband providers from giving or selling access to speedy internet, essentially a “fast lane,” to certain internet services over others.

“So when you get past the wild accusations, fearmongering and hysteria, here’s the boring bottom line,” Pai said. “The plan to restore internet freedom would return us to the light touch, market-based approach under which the internet thrived.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists say they’ve unearthed fossil remains of a sea cow that lived in the shallow waters off Southern California’s Channel Islands some 25 million years ago.

The fossil skull and rib cage were discovered this summer on Santa Rosa Island, in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, the National Park Service announced Tuesday.

Scientists say the remains may be from a previously unknown sea cow species but they won’t know for sure until the skull is analyzed by an expert.

Some fossilized remnants of at least from four other sea cows also were found nearby.

Sea cows are torpedo-shaped plant-eaters that graze in shallow waters and can grow up to 13 feet long. The only living species are the dugong and three types of manatee.

Two researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey found the skull and rib cage in a steep ravine while mapping earthquake faults, said Yvonne Menard of the park service. Erosion may have only recently revealed them.

“This sea cow may have only been exposed the past few years after being buried for millions of years,” said Jonathan Hoffman with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, which is protecting the fossils.

“They’re embedded in rock and the top surface has been exposed,” Menard said.

That surface has been covered with plaster-impregnated bandages and burlap to protect the fossils until work to excavate them can resume in late spring, Menard said.

The work is slow because researchers need to obtain permits to excavate.

Researchers hope to uncover the teeth of the sea cow, which could help determine the animal’s diet and its age when it died.
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From: MeNeedIt

Researchers from Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago are using advanced technology to unwrap the mysteries of an 1,800-year-old mummy.

They say the high-energy X-ray beams from a synchrotron will provide molecular information about what is inside the mummy of the little girl. Argonne says it’s the first time the beams have been used in this way.

Researchers say the technology allows them to study what’s inside the mummy while leaving the 5-year-old girl’s remains and wrappings intact.

Scientists examined the rare find on Monday in the hopes of learning more about how the girl died. And they say studying the wrapping materials may shed new light on ancient Egyptian culture.

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From: MeNeedIt

As India starts to use blockchain technology for land deals, it must protect the rights of the most vulnerable with policies for the responsible use of big data, analysts said.

At least two Indian states are testing blockchain — a ledger system tracking digital information — to record land deals and bring transparency to a system that is rife with fraud and leaves the poor at risk of eviction.

Putting India’s land records on blockchain — the technology behind the bitcoin currency — would greatly increase efficiency, reduce corruption and boost economic growth, experts say.

But fears about the misuse of data persist.

“One of the biggest challenges with respect to big data is the fear of discrimination and profiling based on religion, caste or income level,” said Nikhil Narendran, a partner at the law firm Trilegal.

“The government should engage in responsible and ethical big data processing, and have adequate mechanisms to retain ownership and confidentiality,” he said in Blockchain for Property, a handbook for its adoption, released Tuesday.

Land records in most Indian states date to the colonial era, and most land holdings have uncertain ownership. Fraud is rampant, and disputes over titles often end up in court.

Torn maps, old disputes

A national land record modernization program, launched in 2008 to survey lands, update records and establish ownership, has been delayed by torn maps and disputes dating back decades.

Blockchain works by creating permanent, public “ledgers” of all transactions, potentially replacing a mass of overlapping records with one simple database.

It enables real-time updates of records, improving efficiency and transparency, and reducing bribes, analysts say.

But there cannot be a complete switch to a blockchain platform, because millions are still not literate and lack access to smartphones and computers, said Ananth Padmanabhan, a fellow at think tank Carnegie India.

“There needs to exist a dual system, that is, an option to use the online services but also the old process of paper documents submission at the government office,” he said.

It is also important that the data not be used to profile people or discriminate against them — for instance, denying home loans to people from certain backgrounds, Narendran said.

“If used in a responsible and ethical manner, big data can bring about real change, including in the area of land transactions,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We need a model that is rights based and accountability based, so there are fewer chances of the misuse of data.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Bruce Springsteen on Tuesday announced four more months of intimate concerts on Broadway after his initial run triggered massive interest — and wide disappointment among fans who couldn’t get tickets.

The rock legend, who for decades has sold out arenas with his adrenaline-fueled marathon performances, said he would extend his residency at the 960-seat Walter Kerr Theatre from February 28 to June 30.

Springsteen opened the shows on October 3 and already extended once, until February 3, with tickets selling out nearly instantly.

The 68-year-old balladeer of working-class America set prices at $75 to $800 — but tickets immediately reappeared on resale sites at much higher prices.

As of Tuesday, the cheapest ticket on resale site StubHub was $1,449, significantly higher than Broadway’s other coveted theater seats, including those for Hamilton and Bette Midler’s revival of Hello, Dolly!

Springsteen has tried to reduce scalping through a new verification system by Ticketmaster, which asks fans to sign up and uses algorithms to determine the likelihood that they will attend before providing a code to allow purchases.

In light of the number of fans who were unable to buy tickets initially, the ticketing company said it would not start a new verification round, instead sending codes to fans who already signed up.

Springsteen has said he was inspired to create a more intimate concert experience after he played a somber private show at the White House as a gift from departing President Barack Obama to staff.

Instead of Springsteen’s high-octane arena shows with his E Street Band — whose surprise song choices once marveled fans — the Broadway concerts feature the rocker alone on piano and guitar and a standard set list.

The shows, which follow the release of Springsteen’s autobiography, start with his early song Growin’ Up, about his teenage years, and culminate in Born to Run, his classic hit of escape and ambition.
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From: MeNeedIt

Thousands of birds that usually migrate to Africa during the colder months are now making Israel their final winter destination. Avian experts say climate change is to blame, and human interaction with the various species is more critical than ever. VOA’s Robert Raffaele explains.
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From: MeNeedIt

Inspired by the folding technique of origami, U.S. researchers said Monday they have crafted cheap, artificial muscles for robots that give them the power to lift up to 1,000 times their own weight.

The advance offers a leap forward in the field of soft robotics, which is fast replacing an older generation of robots that were jerky and rigid in their movements, researchers say.

“It’s like giving these robots superpowers,” said senior author Daniela Rus, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The muscles, known as actuators, are built on a framework of metal coils or plastic sheets, and each muscle costs around $1 to make, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed U.S. journal.

Their origami inspiration derives from a zig-zag structure that some of the muscles employ, allowing them to contract and expand as commanded, using vacuum-powered air or water pressure.

“The skeleton can be a spring, an origami-like folded structure, or any solid structure with hinged or elastic voids,” said the report.

Possible uses include expandable space habitats on Mars, miniature surgical devices, wearable robotic exoskeletons, deep-sea exploration devices or even transformable architecture.

“Artificial muscle-like actuators are one of the most important grand challenges in all of engineering,” said co-author Rob Wood, professor of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard University.

“Now that we have created actuators with properties similar to natural muscle, we can imagine building almost any robot for almost any task.”

Researchers built dozens of muscles, using metal springs, packing foam or plastic in a range of shapes and sizes.

They created “muscles that can contract down to 10 percent of their original size, lift a delicate flower off the ground, and twist into a coil, all simply by sucking the air out of them,” said the report.

The artificial muscles “can generate about six times more force per unit area than mammalian skeletal muscle can, and are also incredibly lightweight,” it added.

A .09-ounce (2.6-gram) muscle can lift an object weighing 6.6 pounds (three kilograms) “which is the equivalent of a mallard duck lifting a car.”

According to co-author Daniel Vogt, research engineer at the Wyss Institute, the vacuum-based muscles “have a lower risk of rupture, failure, and damage, and they don’t expand when they’re operating, so you can integrate them into closer-fitting robots on the human body.”

The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
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From: MeNeedIt

Women need to be given a greater role in industries in poorer nations to meet the global goal of cutting poverty by 2030, the head of the United Nations industrial development agency said on Monday after being voted in for a second term.

Li Yong said empowering women will be a priority in his second four-year stint as director general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which oversees about 860 projects to boost economic growth and tackle poverty.

Data shows about half of the world’s women are in the labor force compared with about 75 percent of men, hold less senior roles and earn on average 60 to 75 percent of what men make.

But studies repeatedly show that more women working accelerates economic growth, while women also invest more of their income into families to educate children and end poverty.

“We need to look at how our projects help women’s empowerment and job creation,” Li, formerly of China’s Ministry of Finance, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview at UNIDO’s 17th General Conference in Vienna.

“Lots of projects like agro-industry are related to women’s empowerment … and one part of our evaluation is to look at women’s empowerment, at training, at jobs, all those things that are very concrete measures.”

Li was widely praised in his first term in office for re-establishing UNIDO as a key development organization in the U.N. system with a mission to promote industry as a driver to create jobs, boost prosperity, and reduce poverty.

Some countries had questioned the purpose and effectiveness of UNIDO, one of 15 specialized U.N. agencies, and some nations withdrew funding in the past decade including Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and France.

Climate Change

Representatives of UNIDO’s 168 member states, however, said Li had changed the focus to support developing countries and find ways to build sustainable, environmentally friendly businesses using fewer resources, less energy and generating less waste.

He had also encouraged public and private, local and international partnerships such as setting up agro-industrial parks and introducing clean tanning technology to India’s leather industry.

One of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, an agenda to be reached by 2030, acknowledges industrialization as a key driver of sustained economic sustainability and prosperity.

Li said UNIDO’s core mission had never been more relevant.

He said poverty, employment and hunger remain major challenges, exacerbated by climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation and the potential impact of new technology which will cut jobs, with women to be worst hit.

Africa remained a priority, but climate change meant thinking differently about manufacturing, particularly in low-lying small island nations with limited resources, he said.

Such nations import expensive crude oil to generate power, he said.

“I said to them ‘Open your eyes. Expand your vision.’” said Li. “If they could use renewable power, like solar or maybe tidal … they can manage their fishing industry, or tourism, and expand job creation.”

He said the Pacific island nations of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands had joined UNIDO in the past two years and others were keen to follow suit.

“Our work is very relevant to their economic development,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Climate change is turning Israel into a permanent wintering ground for some of the 500 million migrating birds that used to stop over briefly before flying on to the warm plains of Africa, Israeli experts say.

The birds now prefer to stay longer in cooler areas rather than cross into Africa, where encroaching deserts and frequent droughts have made food more scarce.

“In the last few decades Israel has become more than just a short stopover because many more birds and a greater number of species can no longer cross the desert,” said ornithologist Shay Agmon, avian coordinator for the wetlands park of Agamon Hula in northern Israel.

“They will stay here for longer and eventually the whole pattern of migration will change,” he said.

Cranes are one of the most abundant species to visit the Hula wetlands and Agmon said that the number that prefer to stay in Israel until the end of March has risen from less than 1,000 in the 1950s to some 45,000 currently.

Although migrating birds are a welcome attraction for ornithologists and tourists, their hunger for food from crop fields makes them a menace to farmers.

Workers at the lush Hula reserve, which lies in the Syrian-African Rift Valley, have lured the birds from surrounding fields by feeding them at the wetlands site and offering them a far more comfortable existence.

“It’s harder for the birds to cross a much larger desert and they just cannot do it. There is not enough fuel, there are not enough ‘gas stations’ on the way, so Israel has became their biggest ‘gas station,’ their biggest restaurant,” Agmon said.

Yossi Leshem, a zoology professor at Tel Aviv University and bird expert, cautioned that changes in migration patterns were also affecting the global food cycle because birds eat insects and also protect crops.

“If birds are not present, farmers will have to use more pesticides, which costs more money, kills birds, damages soil and contaminates the water. If one part of the environment is affected, the others collapse in a domino effect,” Leshem said.

Agmon said that because fewer species will be able to survive in traditional wintering grounds and more will spend winter further north, permanent human intervention will become ever more important in assisting nature.

“We will have to deal with it all the time. We will be in charge of the health and wellness of every species around us,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Diplomats are searching for ways to prevent the global trade dispute resolution system from freezing up, after the Trump administration blocked appointments to the body that acts as the supreme court for global trade.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vetoed the appointment of judges to fill vacancies on the seven-member Apellate Body of the World Trade Organization, which provides final decisions in arguments between countries over trade.

“Members are already having a conversation about what to do with this situation,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told reporters. “They are floating ideas, they are discussing. We have to see how that evolves.”

The WTO normally has seven judges and needs three to sign off on every appeal ruling. But two have left and another goes in December, leaving only four — just one above the minimum — to deal with a growing backlog of trade disputes.

Azevedo said he did not think the situation was a threat to the WTO’s survival but it was already having an impact, and the longer it went on the more acutely it would be felt.

In a confidential note sent to all WTO members on Monday, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the Appellate Body said departing judges would continue working after they left on appeals filed before their terms ended. The United States has objected to that practice in the past.

Appointments to the Appellate Body are meant to be unanimously agreed by all 164 members, like all decisions at the WTO. The fine print says the WTO can switch to majority voting if necessary, but diplomats are reluctant to do that for fear of unravelling a system that relies on consensus as a bulwark to protectionism.

Azevedo said the Trump administration had made clear it had misgivings about the way the world trade system has functioned, although it had not linked any specific demands for reform with the decision to halt appointments to the appeals panel.

The Trump administration has not publicly explained why it is blocking the appointment of judges to the trade panel. The U.S. mission to the WTO in Geneva declined to comment.

‘True emergency’

Several trade experts said the move seemed to fit Trump’s ideology of favoring bilateral trade deals over the multi-lateral system embodied by the WTO.

Pieter Jan Kuijper, professor of law at the University of Amsterdam, said Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, preferred the pre-WTO practice of negotiating the outcome of trade disputes rather than being bound by WTO rulings.

Although Trump regularly says Washington has been hurt by trade disputes, WTO experts mainly say the United States has actually been a big winner at the WTO. But negotiating the outcome of trade disputes rather than leaving them to judges might tip the balance further in Washington’s favor.

Kuijper compared Trump’s stance to that of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe killing off the court of the Southern African Development Community by blocking new judges when the court became too troublesome.

“That example doesn’t make one optimistic,” he said. “We are in a true emergency where we should take into account that the end of the Appellate Body may come, either by design or by accident.”

Possible solutions

At a panel discussion Monday for trade officials and diplomats, Kuijper and other trade experts discussed possible ways to avert a crisis if more vacancies come open.

One solution would be to switch to majority voting for appointing judges. Another would be for the judges to change their own working procedures, refusing to take any more appeals until there are more judges.

Nicolas Lockhart, a trade lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP, suggested the WTO could use its arbitration process more to resolve disputes and rely less on appeals.

All three approaches have drawbacks, including the risk of further alienating the United States.

“A process that could lead to a situation where the United States leaves the WTO in a huff is actually a situation where everyone loses, and the last thing we should be aiming for,” said Alice Tipping, a former New Zealand trade diplomat now at the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development.
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From: MeNeedIt

Britain’s Prince Harry is officially engaged to American actress Meghan Markle.

Harry’s father, Prince Charles, made the announcement in a statement Monday.

“His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle.”

The statement said the wedding will take place in Spring 2018 and “Further details about the wedding day will be announced in due course.”

The couple became engaged in London earlier this month, according to the statement.

Harry “informed The Queen and other close members of his family,” the announcement said, and “. . . also sought and received the blessing of Ms. Markle’s parents.”

An official announcement had been expected after Markle said in a recent interview in Vanity Fair about her relationship with Harry:  “We’re a couple. We’re in love.”

Markle’s parents also released a statement, saying “We are incredibly happy for Meghan and Harry. Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person. To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents.”

Markle’s parents, Thomas Markle and Doris Ragland, are divorced.

Markle is best-known for her work in the television drama Suits.

She is a Global Ambassador for World Vision Canada, which campaigns for better education, food and healthcare for children around the world. As well as her humanitarian work, she is known for campaigning for gender equality.

She was married briefly in 2011 to film producer Trevor Engelson, but they split two years later.

The prince and the actress made their first public appearance in September at the Invictus Games in Toronto, a sports event for wounded veterans.

Last year, Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne, issued a statement decrying the media coverage of his girlfriend, condemning the “outright racism and sexism of social media trolls and web article comments,” as well as the racial stereotypes used in some newspapers.

Markle is bi-racial. Her father is white. Her mother is black.
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From: MeNeedIt

Guillermo Miranda Vazquez starts his day in a parking lot near the Home Depot where he easily finds work alongside other day laborers who are cleaning up Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

Some days, he clears rotted drywall and hauls out furniture and carpet destroyed by Harvey’s floodwaters. Other days, he chops fallen trees or helps to lay the foundations for new homes. He ventures daily into homes wearing a T-shirt, work pants and tennis shoes, often while surrounded by the pungent stench and raw sewage that flowed into homes during the flooding.

“I always wash and scrub myself, and I use alcohol or something similar so that I don’t get infected,” said Miranda, a native of Guatemala. “I haven’t gotten sick yet.”

Hundreds of day laborers like Miranda have quietly become an integral part of the recovery from Harvey, toiling in dangerous conditions amid the fear of being picked up by immigration authorities.

Harvey damaged or destroyed 200,000 homes and flooded much of Houston and smaller coastal communities with record amounts of rain and high winds. In a construction industry that already had labor shortages before the storm, it created a massive demand for the kind of work that day laborers have long performed after hurricanes and tropical storms.

Day laborers interviewed by The Associated Press said they’ve been hired by a mix of individual homeowners, work crews from out of state, and subcontractors working on residential and commercial buildings. Mostly immigrants, they operate in plain sight, gathering early in the morning in parking lots near construction stores and gas stations, and waiting to be offered work.

Advocates from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network recently fanned out to these sites with pens and clipboards to survey the workers about the conditions they’re experiencing. Interviews suggested most are routinely exposed to mold and contamination, and aren’t aware of legal protections they have even if they’re not in the country legally. Advocates have been passing out flyers with information and holding worker trainings.

About a quarter of the more than 350 workers surveyed said they had been denied wages promised for cleanup work after Harvey, sometimes by employers who abandoned them at work sites after they had completed a job, according to a report on the survey by Nik Theodore, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Around 85 percent had not received safety training.

More than 70 percent of the day laborers are in the U.S. illegally, some of them having previously been deported, the survey found. Their wages have stayed at around $100 a day, according to the survey, though some individual laborers said they were being paid more after the hurricane.

The problems they face have cropped up after every major recent storm. Day laborers were an integral part of Houston’s rebuilding after Hurricane Ike in 2008 and more recent storms that flooded neighborhoods in 2015 and 2016. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, one survey found that workers without legal authorization were being paid less and were less likely to have protective equipment than those who were in the country legally.

But while the federal government temporarily suspended some work-authorization laws after Katrina, the Trump administration ramped up immigration-related arrests this year and resumed field operations after Harvey. And Texas this year passed a law that prohibits police departments from stopping their officers from asking people about their legal status or cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Much of the law took effect a month after Harvey hit, when an appeals court overruled a federal judge’s ruling against it.

Martin Mares, a native of Mexico who settled in Houston in 1995, said he’s not worried about police stopping him or turning him over to immigration authorities while in the city, which joined several others in fighting the new law in court. But he said he’s concerned about working in the suburbs or outlying areas, where law enforcement was more supportive of it.

The demand for labor has also drawn in people who are unaccustomed to the work and untrained in basic safety measures, Mares said. He recently saw a pregnant woman cleaning an apartment building that had flooded without wearing gloves.

“People don’t analyze it. They don’t see the consequences,” Mares said. “They go to work without knowing whether the business will even pay them.”

In Houston, which has an estimated 600,000 residents who are in the country illegally, community leaders worry about the impact of immigration policies on worker safety. Even day laborers without legal residency are entitled to federal protections against wage theft and safety hazards.

“These people are scared,” said Stan Marek, who owns a Houston-based construction company and has long pushed for a program to legalize workers. “They’re not going to go to the police if they get robbed. It’s a formula for disaster in our community.”

Sitting on the curb outside the Home Depot recently, Miranda said he has often dealt with employers — or “patrones” — who didn’t pay what they promised, but that he hadn’t reported anyone to the police.

“This is a country where I’m here as an immigrant. I don’t have anything,” Miranda said. “The day they catch me, they’ll deport me.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt