On August 21, 2017 people in many parts of United States will be able to enjoy a rare visual spectacle – a total eclipse of the sun. Although the moon passes between the sun and our planet relatively often, a total eclipse is visible only occasionally and only in some parts of the globe. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt
Afghanistan’s all-girl robotics team returned Saturday to Kabul after its successful trip to Washington for the FIRST Global Robotics Challenge, and several officials representing the presidential palace welcomed the girls home, calling them role models.
In the ceremony, Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive of the national unity government, said, “Despite the differences between the Afghan and other teams, Afghan girls were able to achieve a silver medal.”
Abdullah promised to facilitate their participation in future competitions.
Teenagers from around the world demonstrated their skills in designing, building and programming robotic devices at the competition. The annual international robotics event aims to build bridges between high school students with different backgrounds, languages, religions and customs, and to ignite in them a passion for the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
It took an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials to allow the girls of the Afghan robotics team to receive visas after two rejections, letting them travel to the United States to participate in the robotics event.
Washington experience
One of their biggest surprises once in Washington? The tight security.
“The security that we see here is not in Herat, Afghanistan,” team member Kawsar Roshan told VOA in Washington during the last day of the competition.
“This is a peaceful city. People are not fighting each other, and it is a friendly environment,” said team member Fatima Qaderian.
Member Lida Azizi said she learned “unity and teamwork” at the robotics competition.
The team made it to Washington only a day before the event began. U.S. Embassy in Kabul had refused their initial visa applications, but were granted entry to the country after the intervention by high-level U.S. officials.
On Tuesday, Trump’s eldest daughter and a senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, visited he team and its sponsors. She had previously tweeted that she was looking forward to welcoming them.
Ayub Khawreen of VOA’s Afghan service contributed to this report.
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From: MeNeedIt
Food halls, communal dining spaces featuring a variety of food vendors under one roof, are becoming a popular option for dining out in New York City. In a city where high rents and operating costs have made it difficult for aspiring restaurateurs to establish themselves, food halls offer an alternative path to profit. Foodies, culinary upstarts and investors are flocking to get a seat at the table. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explores.
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From: MeNeedIt
To understand the significance of the so-called Monkey Trial, one must try to imagine the America of 1925; specifically, the southern state of Tennessee.
Under pressure by a coalition of strict Christians, Tennessee became the first state in the United States to pass a law — the Butler Act — that deemed it illegal to “teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal.”
The act alarmed many in the legal community, including the recently formed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which persuaded John Scopes, a 24-year-old high school science teacher and football coach from Illinois, to test the constitutionality of the law in what became known as “The Monkey Trial.”
The trial also attracted intense media attention, including live radio broadcasts of the trial for the first time in history, according to an award-winning documentary by PBS’s American Experience on the trial.
Attorney Clarence Darrow represented Scopes; William Jennings Bryan, a Democratic conservative, represented both Tennessee and the fundamentalists who were deeply opposed to Charles Darwin’s theory.
“I knew, sooner or later, that someone would have to stand up to the stifling of freedom that the anti-evolution act represented,” Scopes wrote in his 1967 book Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes.
The trial ended on July 21 with a guilty verdict and $100 fine.
A year later, the ACLU issued its appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which upheld the law, but overturned the conviction of Scopes on a legal technicality.
Decades later in 1967, Tennessee repealed the act and teachers were free to teach the theories of Darwin without breaking the law.
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From: MeNeedIt
About 30 youngsters were on a golf course, practicing their swing on a hot Saturday morning in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The students were as young as 3 and as old as 16. For nearly a year, they’ve come out every Saturday to Abuja’s IBB International Golf and Country Club to learn the rules of the game.
Uloma Mbuko guided them with a watchful eye.
“Princess, I want to see you hold your swing,” she said to one of them.
Mbuko walked up and down the line of students.
She is the lead instructor at this beginners’ golf training program for boys and girls. Nigeria’s premier female golfer, Mbuko has played in tournaments across Africa, winning a place in nearly all of them and garnering about 200 awards. She has been called the Queen of Golf in Africa. After 17 years as a Class A professional, she has risen to a level in sports that few women in Nigeria ever reach.
Ambitious youth
Even from a young age, Mbuko showed ambition, said her sister, Chinyere Mbuko.
“She’s always been a sports lady. She started with football, then handball. So when she was starting, you know, playing golf, I was like, ‘Ah! Serious?’ ” Chinyere Mbuko said with a laugh. “But I knew she could do it.”
The golfer comes from a working-class family, so getting into the sport was not easy.
“We all know that golf is expensive, even though we try to shy away from it. But it is expensive,” Uloma Mbuko said. “Now, to be a member of a golf club in Nigeria, definitely you’re talking about nothing less than 500,000.”
The 500,000 naira ($1,640) covers only the membership. At the IBB club where Mbuko spends most of her time, the fee is upward of 800,000 naira ($2,622). A golfer has to pay for access to practice facilities, training, a caddy, proper clothing and equipment.
WATCH: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Trains Her Potential Successors
More Nigerian golf professionals, like Mbuko, are trying to help young people overcome the financial hurdles of playing golf. Emeka Okatta, president and founder of the West Africa Golf Tour, said the government should help make golf more affordable.
No public courses
“There are no facilities for common people to play golf. We only have absolute member golf courses and a common man cannot walk into here and play. For you to walk in here just to have green fees is 10,000 naira ($32); that’s a lot of money. That’s probably some people’s salary in a month,” Okatta said. “But in other parts of the world, the government provides public golf courses, public drive ranges; but here there’s none and so a common man cannot play. That’s why it’s called a rich man’s game.”
Okatta founded the West Africa Golf Tour to give young golf enthusiasts more opportunities and exposure. Okatta said he was looking forward to collaborating with Mbuko’s Ladies Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria to organize tournaments.
Mbuko created the LPGAN in 2016 because there was no professional golf group for women in Nigeria. That was one of the challenges she faced in her early years. Women who wanted to become professionals had to join associations outside the country. Mbuko joined the Professional Golfers Association in South Africa and was able to attract sponsors for her training.
Mbuko has slowed down from playing in tournaments to focus on training the next generation of Nigerian women to reach the level of success she has attained. They meet several days a week under the LPGAN banner.
Mbuko’s students, like Stella Kadiri and Obiageli Ayodele, all hope to become pros.
“I’m here Monday to Friday. I’ve been playing golf since 2011,” said Kadiri, 25. “I’ve been going to Ladies’ Open, different places, and I’ve been winning. When I see my medal, it inspires me to play more.”
Swing barrel
Mbuko instructs the women to stand in a swing barrel. It’s a metallic circle that goes around the body. The golfer runs the club across it. The prop helps the golfer learn the proper hip rotation to get that perfect swing.
“Wow, it’s fantastic,” Ayodele said after using the barrel. “The few days that I took lessons from her, I found out that my game changed automatically.”
The 29-year-old golfer is one of the few female players whose husband supports her athletic goals.
“In our country, Nigeria, they find it difficult for the ladies to get into sports because of their husbands — I mean, the ones that are married. They don’t want their wives to be out there. They don’t want them to be in the midst of other men. They feel they will not properly take care of their home,” Ayodele said.
IN PHOTOS: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Mentors Next Generation of Potential Pro Golfers
Mbuko said she wanted to see her ladies playing internationally in the next three years.
“Yes, we are ladies, yes, we are African, but we have what it takes, we have the talent,” she said. “I want to sit down and watch television and see Nigerian ladies competing in ladies’ Masters and say, ‘This is my girl, this is my girl.’ ”
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From: MeNeedIt
President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Friday authorizing a comprehensive review of the U.S. manufacturing sector to help ensure the security of the nation, according to White House officials.
White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro told reporters Friday industrial supply chains will also be reviewed in the effort to address possible industrial vulnerabilities that may have been created as a result of U.S. factory closings.
Administration officials say there is a dearth of U.S. companies that can repair submarine propellers and circuit boards and produce parts such as flat panels in the event of a war.
“America’s defense industrial base is now facing increasing gaps in its capabilities,” Navarro said, adding that “certain types of military-grade semiconductors and printed circuit boards have become endangered species.”
The order will call for a 270-day review that will be conducted by the Pentagon, along with the departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor and the National Security Council.
The Commerce Department is already reviewing the possibility of imposing steel tariffs for national security reasons as a possible way to reshape international trade without negotiating new agreements with foreign countries.
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From: MeNeedIt
An international energy watchdog warns that the decline in global investment in the oil sector could lead to energy shortages when prices start to rebound. The International Energy Agency says energy investments have declined 20 percent in the past three years as oil profits fell. One analyst tells VOA that is a short-term recipe for long-term problems. Mil Arcega reports.
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From: MeNeedIt