U.S. singer Beyonce has given birth to twins in Los Angeles, several celebrity news websites reported Saturday, citing unidentified sources.

Beyonce, 35, and rapper and music producer Jay Z, also have a 5-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy.

E! News, citing multiple unidentified sources, reported the birth and that Jay Z and Blue Ivy were seen at a Los Angeles area hospital Thursday. Us Weekly, also citing multiple unidentified sources, reported that the couple welcomed twins earlier this week.

“Bey and Jay are thrilled and have started sharing the news with their family and closest friends,” one unidentified source told PEOPLE.

Reuters could not verify the reports. A representative for Beyonce did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The celebrity news websites did not provide additional details, such as the date and time the twins were born or the sex of the infants.

Pregnancy announced on Instagram

The “Lemonade” singer, one of the most powerful women in the music business, announced the pregnancy on her Instagram account in February along with an image of her posed in lingerie and caressing a noticeable baby bump.

The announcement got more than 8 million “likes” in the first 24 hours to become the “most-liked” Instagram ever.

The R&B singer performed live at the Grammy awards in Los Angeles two weeks later, proudly displaying her swelling belly in a motherhood-themed show. She has since posted numerous pictures of her bare baby bump on her social media accounts.

The birth of Blue Ivy caused a paparazzi storm in 2012, with New York’s Lenox Hill hospital shutting down part of its maternity wing to accommodate music’s royal couple.

Rumor of marital trouble

News of the pregnancy came less than a year after the release of Beyonce’s 2016 album “Lemonade,” in which she appeared to address long-standing rumors of trouble in her eight-year marriage.

The lyrics of several songs spoke about being cheated on, and regretting being married. But Beyonce made clear in the final tracks of the album and in music videos featuring Jay-Z that she had decided to stay in the relationship.

The couple have never addressed the rumors publicly.
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From: MeNeedIt

The soaring cathedrals of Europe seem to defy gravity. But 3D architects are taking a page from the ancient masters to form their new creations. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Stephen Furst, who played naive fraternity pledge Flounder in the hit movie Animal House, has died of complications from diabetes, his family said Saturday. Furst was 63.

Furst died Friday at his home in Moorpark, California, north of Los Angeles, said his son, Nathan Furst.

Furst played Kent “Flounder” Dorfman in the 1978 film that also starred John Belushi. It was Belushi’s character, Blutarsky, who drew Flounder into a prank that went terribly wrong and ended up with the frantic Flounder shooting a gun loaded with blanks into a ceiling, frightening a horse so much that it died of a heart attack.

Furst’s long list of credits included the 1980s medical drama St. Elsewhere, on which he played Dr. Elliot Axelrod. He played Vir Coto and was an occasional director on the 1990s sci-fi series Babylon 5.

He also voiced characters on projects including TV’s Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and the video The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea.

“He was proudest of his family, and he felt blessed and incredibly privileged to have the career that he had an enjoyed,” Nathan Furst said Saturday.

Stephen Furst also was a director and producer, working with his other son, Griff. Their Curmudgeon Film projects included the movies My Sister’s Keeper and Cold Moon, a suspense thriller set for release in October, Griff Furst said.

Stephen Furst’s survivors include his wife, Lorraine, and two grandchildren, his sons said.
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From: MeNeedIt

The UN Children’s Fund warns three-quarters of a million children in Eastern Ukraine are at risk of water-borne diseases as fighting threatens to cut off their safe water supply.

The United Nations estimates around 10,000 people have been killed and more than 23,500 injured since fighting in Eastern Ukraine erupted between the government and Russian-backed separatists more than three years ago.

The U.N. children’s fund warns an upsurge in fighting in the rebel-held territory is putting more lives at risk.  The agency reports the recent escalation of hostilities has damaged vital water infrastructure, leaving 400,000 people, including more than 100,000 children without drinking water for four days this week.

Water pipes repaired

Damage to these water pipes has been repaired.  But, UNICEF says other infrastructure that provides water for three million people in eastern Ukraine is in the line of fire. UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac warns many families, including some 750,000 children will be cut off from safe drinking water if these structures are hit.

“Why we are worried is because the children who are cut off from clean drinking water can quickly contract water-borne disease, such as diarrhea,” said Bouliererec.  “Girls and boys having to fetch water from alternative sources or who are forced to leave their homes due to disruptions to safe water supplies face dangers from ongoing fighting and other forms of abuses.”  

Other problems

UNICEF reports nearly four million people in Eastern Ukraine need humanitarian assistance.  The agency says children are among those suffering the most from more than three years of conflict.  

The aid agency says tens of thousands of children face dangers from landmines and unexploded ordnance.  It says many children show signs of severe psychological distress.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. farm groups criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to retreat from his predecessor’s opening toward Cuba, saying it could derail huge increases in farm exports that totaled $221 million last year.

A trade delegation from Minnesota, one of the largest U.S. agriculture states, vowed to carry on with its planned visit to Cuba next week. 

“We’re going to continue to beat the drum and let them (the Trump administration) know that trade is good for agriculture,” said Kevin Paap, a farmer in the delegation.

Trump signed a presidential directive Friday rolling back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the Communist-ruled country after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes.

Farm groups saw the move as a step backward in what had been an improving trade relationship between the two countries, which are 90 miles (145 kms) apart, even though agriculture is not directly targeted.

U.S. law exempts food from a decades-old embargo on U.S. trade with Cuba, but cumbersome rules on how transactions were executed have made deals difficult and costly.

Since Obama’s detente, substantial headway has been made with shipments of U.S. corn and soybeans to Cuba soaring 420 percent in 2016 from a year earlier to 268,360 tons, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows.

Through the first four months of 2017, total shipments of U.S. grain and soy were 142,860 ton, up from 49,090 tons during the same period of 2016.

While the quantities are dwarfed by total U.S. exports — nearly 56 million ton of corn alone last year — the added volumes were welcome as farmers face a fourth year of languishing grain prices and crimped incomes.

“At a time when the farm economy is struggling, we ask our leaders in Washington not to close doors on market opportunities for American agriculture,” Wesley Spurlock, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said in a statement.

The group sees an opportunity for $125 million more a year in trade to Cuba.

Trump’s move could cut off near-term sales and stymie economic development that would drive longer-term demand growth, said Tom Sleight, president of the U.S. Grains Council, a grain trade development organization, in a statement.

“Neither of those outcomes is favorable for the U.S. ag sector or the Cuban people,” he added.

Paap said the United States should be doing more to encourage exports.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve made some advances and built those relationships,” he said. 
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From: MeNeedIt

The key to success for ride-hailing providers like Uber is keeping drivers happy so they run their app, ensuring that enough cars respond to passenger demand.

Estonia upstart Taxify is hoping to win over drivers and take on Uber Technologies Inc., the industry leader, by offering a larger share of the profit.

Upstarts across the world, such as Lyft Inc. and Ola, are trying to catch Uber in the on-demand car-ride market by securing brand loyalty.

But Uber has gathered critical mass and reached a valuation of more than $60 billion in eight years, despite a lack of profits. It has kept rivals at bay, partly by offering incentives to drivers to stay online.

Taxify hopes to lure drivers

Taxify, a minnow compared with Uber, cannot afford these perks but believes that by taking a smaller share of fares, 15-20 percent compared with Uber’s 20-25 percent, it can steal market share from its San Francisco-based rival.

It also hopes that allowing drivers to take cash as well as credit card fares will also help it attract more passengers.

“Taxify’s biggest advantage is the focus on good service by treating the drivers and riders better than other platforms. This means having higher pay for drivers, thanks to lower fees,” Chief Executive Markus Villig told Reuters at Taxify’s headquarters in Estonia.

An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment but the company has said it had fare revenue of around $20 billion last year. Villig said Taxify generated fares worth “tens of millions of euros” each month. Taxify runs in just 25 cities in Europe and Africa, while Uber operates in nearly 600 cities worldwide.

Its basic business model is identical — both connect passengers with self-employed drivers. Many incumbent cab companies in Europe have developed apps to operate in a similar manner but most have focused on their domestic markets.

Markets not Uber dominated

But Taxify is unusual in launching in about 18 countries, mainly smaller markets in Eastern Europe and Africa, where Uber is absent or not yet dominant.

Uber usually takes market share by giving drivers money to sign on to its app, paying them even if they are not driving passengers. Then, as it becomes more popular with passengers, it withdraws the inducements. Analysts say Uber aims to build a customer franchise and stable of drivers to dominate the market.

“The way I see it, Taxify is cheaper than Uber,” said Tumelo Malatjie, 33, a former truck driver for a logistics firm turned full-time Taxify driver in Johannesburg. “Taxify takes 15 percent and Uber about 25 percent or 30 percent,” said Malatjie, who nonetheless is on a waiting list to become an Uber driver.

Taxify has avoided expensive head-to-head battles with its much larger rival but its model will soon be tested as Villig plans to launch in London, Uber’s biggest European market in the coming months.

“We are coming in as a second wave,” Villig said.

Small but growing

Founded 3½ years ago, Taxify has 140 staff worldwide, a third of whom are based in Estonia. It says it has 2.5 million active passengers in 18 countries. Uber says it has more than 12,000 people across the world and millions of passengers in 70 countries.

In Africa, Villig said Taxify has hired away 20 former Uber executives, helping its expansion in cities like Lagos, Cairo and Johannesburg.

The start-up has raised 2 million euros in outside financing from local venture capitalists. Like Uber, it is losing money, although it was “close to profitability for the past six months,” Villig said.

Uber reported in late May that its net loss, excluding employee stock options and other items, narrowed in the first quarter to $708 million, from $991 million in the fourth quarter.

Same challenges

Taxify and Uber face many of the same regulatory and commercial challenges.

Uber was dealt a major setback to its European ambitions in May when the lead advocate for Europe’s highest court said it should be regulated like a transport company rather than an online electronic intermediary.

Taxify could face the same legal treatment, which would make it more susceptible to new regulations being introduced by a growing number of European cities.

Similarly, bans on ride-sharing in cities such as Brno in the Czech Republic, apply to Taxify as much as Uber.

Uber has faced complaints from its drivers in London, France and the United States who were unhappy about compensation.

But Taxify has also had protests from drivers in Estonia unhappy at how the company had slashed fare rates. Villig declined to comment.

While analysts do not expect Uber to be dethroned by Taxify anytime soon, the Estonian company’s lower commission model may put pressure on Uber’s margins in countries where it is seeking to cut fares or increase its share of fares.
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From: MeNeedIt

Jurors in the sexual assault trial of celebrity comedian Bill Cosby have entered their fifth day of deliberation over charges that he drugged and then molested a woman in 2004.

On Thursday, jurors told a judge they were deadlocked and could not come to a unanimous decision on Cosby’s guilt in any of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault levied against him.

The jurors have deliberated for 40 hours already and it is unclear exactly what the deadlock is about. Judge Steven O’Neill has not said how long he is prepared to wait on the jury to make a decision.

The jury seemed exasperated at times over the course of the week as it repeatedly asked the judge for clarifications of evidence or to hear testimony from the trial again.

O’Neill told the jurors other judges may not have granted their six requests to revisit evidence from the trial, but since he granted their first request, he felt obligated to fulfill the rest because he didn’t want them to think some pieces of evidence were more important than others.

“From now on when you ask for testimony, I am compelled to give it to you,” he said Wednesday night.

O’Neill told the jurors Thursday to continue discussing the charges in the jury room after the panel told him they could not agree on Cosby’s guilt.

The 79-year-old Cosby is charged with drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand, a former director of operations of the Temple University women’s basketball team.

He allegedly gave her pills that paralyzed her and left her unable to resist when he started touching her in his Philadelphia home.

If found guilty, Cosby could go to prison for the rest of his life.

More than 50 women claim Cosby sexually assaulted them in incidents dating back to the 1960s, when he emerged as a major comedy star. Most of the alleged incidents occurred too long ago to be prosecuted now.

Constand’s complaint is the only one that has come to trial. Cosby has denied all the charges.
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From: MeNeedIt

Amazon announced Friday that it will purchase Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. It is the e-commerce giant’s biggest acquisition to date, and highlights the company’s continued attempt to penetrate the $800 billion grocery industry.

“Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” said Amazon co-founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. “Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting and nourishing customers for nearly four decades – and they’re doing an amazing job and we want that to continue.”

Whole Foods Market was founded in 1978 in Austin, Texas. Despite nagging concerns that the high-end grocery chain inflated prices, it experienced steady growth. It has landed on the Fortune 500 list every year since 2005 and employs more than 70,000 people in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The grocer will keep its corporate office in Austin and continue to use the Whole Foods name after the sale.

For its part, Amazon has strained to enter the grocery market for years. Initially an internet bookshop, Amazon began delivering non-perishable food items like cereal and soup in 2006, prompting derision from the grocery industry. “I’m a little baffled by this,” said an analyst in 2006. “Economically I just don’t know how it makes much sense.”

The doubters appeared right. By early 2017, only 4.2 percent of regular Amazon shoppers used its grocery home delivery service. “Online grocery is failing,” analyst Kurt Jetta told The New York Times in March.

In response, Amazon, an online retailer, has built some of the kind of stores it has disrupted – brick and mortar shops. Last year, it opened two small stores in Seattle where drivers can seamlessly pick up produce without leaving their cars. The Whole Foods acquisition continues the e-retailer’s awkward embrace of physical stores. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2017.
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From: MeNeedIt

In 2011, RollingStone magazine deemed it the “greatest song of all time,” cementing singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s status as perhaps the most influential musician in American history.

“Like a Rolling Stone,” recorded 52 years ago on June 16, 1965, was considered the “moment” when rock music took the spotlight from traditional American folk songs, according to critics and fans.

Dylan plugged in, abandoning his usual acoustic sound by adding a gospel organ arrangement and the steely sounds of a Telecaster guitar.  He also stretched convention in the master recording with the song’s six-minute length.

The impact was undeniable.  To hard core folk fans, it was a betrayal.  To others, it was a new, and positive, beginning in American music.

Rolling Stone magazine justified the importance of the song, writing:

“The most stunning thing about Like a Rolling Stone is how unprecedented it was: the impressionist voltage of Dylan’s language, the intensely personal accusation in his voice (“Ho-o-o-ow does it fe-e-e-el?”), the apocalyptic charge of (Al) Kooper’s garage-gospel organ and Mike Bloomfield’s stiletto-sharp spirals of Telecaster guitar, the defiant six-minute length of the June 16th master take. No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.”

Of the song, rocker Bruce Springsteen was quoted as saying, “[it] sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind.”

Dylan was just 24 years old when he changed the sound of American music, and would go on to have many other crowning (and controversial) achievements, not the least of which was his 2016 win of the Nobel Prize in Literature. 
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From: MeNeedIt

The White House lacks a unified plan to increase the government’s borrowing cap as a likely September deadline is drawing near, said Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

A failure by Congress to raise the debt ceiling could send dangerous shock waves through the global economy. The federal government could be at risk of defaulting on obligations such as interest payments on bonds as well as temporarily halting benefit programs.

The White House budget director suggested in an interview Thursday with reporters that neither the Trump administration nor Capitol Hill lawmakers had set their terms for an agreement.

“It’s fair to say we haven’t settled on a final way to address the debt ceiling any more than the Hill has,” Mulvaney said.

The former South Carolina congressman added that none of this was necessarily “unusual.”

Possible extension

Under the current borrowing restrictions, the government has already been taking extraordinary measures and will likely be unable to pay its bills at some point in September. But Congress still has a recess scheduled in August that could create time pressures. Private analysts say the debt ceiling deadline could be extended into October.

Mulvaney said he would like to see the debt ceiling raised in July.

But Trump administration officials still have yet to resolve internal differences on the best strategy to increase the legal cap on government debt, which already exceeds $19.8 trillion.

Mulvaney suggested he would like to have any increase in the borrowing authority be attached to other spending changes, a move that could attract Republican support but alienate Senate Democrats. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal seeks to beef up spending on the military and border security while cutting many social programs.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has indicated he would like a “clean” bill to raise the debt ceiling, so it would not have to be tied to any spending changes, but Capitol Hill conservatives are resisting the idea.

“Secretary Mnuchin believes it needs to be clean. I think the vast majority of the Republican conferences would not agree,” said Representative Mark Meadows R-N.C., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a group of strongly conservative House Republicans.

Mulvaney said Mnuchin would ultimately be in charge of handling the debt ceiling push “once we do settle on our formal policy, if we do.”

A 2011 standoff between Republicans and the Obama administration over the debt ceiling led to tighter controls on spending. That standoff was not resolved until the 11th hour and prompted Standard & Poor’s to impose the first-ever downgrade to the country’s credit rating.

Talks with lawmakers

The administration is also engaged in talks with House and Senate Republican leaders about what kind of increase they could possibly pass. Mulvaney said the issue was not a source of division inside the White House or the Republican Party.

The discussions involve whether the House should increase the debt limit enough to last through the 2018 election or the president’s first term.

“It would be foolish of us to come up with a policy devoid of having talked to the Hill,” Mulvaney said.

Congress also faces pressure to pass a budget in September for next fiscal year, as well as to address administration priorities that include a tax code rewrite and the proposed repeal of former President Barack Obama’s 2010 health insurance law.

Failure to pass spending bills could cause a government shutdown and cause nonessential government agencies to close. Trump suggested on Twitter last month that he might welcome a shutdown to help shake up the government.

Mnuchin told the Senate Budget Committee this week that “at times there could be a good shutdown,” though he cautioned it’s not the administration’s “primary objective.”

With action on the budget front otherwise stalled, the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved the first of 12 spending bills, an $89 billion measure that contains generous increases for veterans programs and Pentagon construction projects.

But the White House and its GOP allies — much less opposition Democrats — haven’t come up with an overall plan for implementing Trump’s promises to increase the Pentagon budget and advance more than $500 billion worth of annual domestic agency spending bills.
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From: MeNeedIt

American tourists strolling the ample squares and narrow streets of colonial Havana may not know it, but from novelist Ernest Hemingway’s famed Floridita bar to Sloppy Joe’s eatery, they are probably patronizing businesses owned by Cuba’s military.

It is that lucrative line of business that President Donald Trump will target when he rolls out his new Cuba policy Friday in Miami, the heart of the country’s hard-line exile community, according to U.S. officials who have seen a draft presidential memorandum.

Trump will significantly restrict U.S. companies from doing business with some military-linked enterprises, the officials said.

“Any ban on using military-owned tourism facilities would make it very difficult to bring groups larger than seven people, because for logistical reasons you need to work with the government,” said Collin Laverty, president of Cuba Educational Travel.

The number of Americans traveling to Cuba, mostly in large groups because of U.S. regulations, has nearly tripled in recent years and was expected to reach around 400,000 in 2017, according to U.S. travel agencies.

Trump’s expected limits on U.S. business deals will target the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group (GAESA), a conglomerate involved in all sectors of the economy that is led by General Luis Alberto Rodriguez, reportedly President Raul Castro’s son-in-law.

That is bad news for the pro-engagement U.S. politicians and hundreds of businesses that flocked to Cuba in the last few years in search of new opportunities.

Lone hotel deal

The only hotel deal struck to date may prove the last for now, at least in the capital. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which is owned by Marriott International, signed on to manage a Gaviota hotel in Havana under the Sheraton brand, which opened in 2016.

Gaviota is part of GAESA, and tourism development projects in Havana and other choice locations are almost exclusively in its hands.

U.S. Gulf Coast ports and the Port of Virginia, which have signed letters of intent to work with the new Mariel container terminal, will most likely have to look elsewhere for shipping partners because it is controlled by Almacenes Universales, another GAESA company.

The terminal feeds a surrounding Chinese-style development zone that allows investors 100 percent ownership and that was visited by dozens of U.S. business delegations beginning in 2015, though no deals were signed. It also is controlled by Almacenes Universales.

GAESA does not run Cuba’s airports, or its cruise ship terminals, meaning U.S. airlines and cruise operators might not be directly affected, but it does control the marinas.

All the state hotels, stores and eateries in colonial Old Havana are owned by Habaguanex, which was recently taken over from the city historian’s office by GAESA.

GAESA began modestly enough in the 1980s as an effort to bring modern management to the civilian sector mired in the ways of Soviet-style administration.

It has grown dramatically over the last decade since Raul Castro took over for his ailing and now deceased older brother, Fidel.

Today GAESA boasts dozens of companies that control 40 percent to 60 percent of the Caribbean island’s foreign exchange earnings, according to Cuban economists.

GAESA’s books, like those of other state-run companies, are not public.

Military’s self-interest

Some Cuba experts and diplomats believe the military is feathering its own nest and perhaps preparing to cash in if the government falls.

But others believe revenues flow to the cash-strapped state.

A former British ambassador to Cuba, Paul Hare, who lectures at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies, said the military was viewed as a guardian of the Revolution.

“Their function is to ensure that private Cubans and foreign investors do not undermine the principles of ‘socialism,’ ” he said.

The holding company controls virtually all of the thousands of stores, supermarkets and malls in the country that sell imported products ranging from food and beverages to clothing and appliances, and hundreds of gas stations and eateries.

That means when you enter a shop in Cuba to purchase a bottle of water, soda or beer, you probably are patronizing a military establishment.

If you want to rent a condominium or satellite TV service, you have to go through a GAESA company.

The holding company also controls two banks and all credit card and money transfer transactions through Fincimex. RAFIN, the conglomerate’s mini-hedge fund, owns shares in the telecommunications monopoly ETECSA.
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists have identified three mutations that, if they occurred at the same time in nature, could turn a strain of bird flu now circulating in China into a potential pandemic virus that could spread among people.

The flu strain, known as H7N9, now mostly infects birds but it has infected at least 779 people in outbreaks in and around China, mainly related to poultry markets.

The World Health Organization said earlier this year that all bird flu viruses need constant monitoring, warning that their constantly changing nature makes them “a persistent and significant threat to public health.”

At the moment, the H7N9 virus does not have the capability to spread sustainably from person to person. But scientists are worried it could at any time mutate into a form that does.

To assess this risk, researchers led by James Paulson of the Scripps Research Institute in California looked at mutations that could potentially take place in the genome of the H7N9 virus.

They focused on the H7 hemagglutanin, a protein on the flu virus surface that allows it to latch onto host cells.

The team’s findings, published in the journal PLoS Pathogens on Thursday, showed that in laboratory tests, mutations in three amino acids made the virus more able to bind to human cells — suggesting these changes are key to making the virus more dangerous to people.

Scientists not directly involved in this study said its findings were important, but should not cause immediate alarm.

“This study will help us to monitor the risk posed by bird flu in a more informed way, and increasing our knowledge of which changes in bird flu viruses could be potentially dangerous will be very useful in surveillance,” said Fiona Culley, an expert in respiratory immunology at Imperial College London.

She noted that while “some of the individual mutations have been seen naturally, … these combinations of mutations have not,” and added: “The chances of all three occurring together is relatively low.”

Wendy Barclay, a virologist and flu specialist also at Imperial, said the study’s findings were important in showing why H7N9 bird flu should be kept under intense surveillance.

“These studies keep H7N9 virus high on the list of viruses we should be concerned about,” she said. “The more people infected, the higher the chance that the lethal combination of mutations could occur.”
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From: MeNeedIt