About 3 million Americans will enter the job pool this year as graduation ceremonies get underway at various colleges and universities across the United States. With unemployment at a 10-year low, 2017 is shaping up to be a good year for new grads. But as Mil Arcega reports, success for many will depend on a desire to keep learning and a willingness to go where the jobs are.
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From: MeNeedIt
This time of the year, Hollywood rolls out its big-budget films. Monsters and superheroes are framed by spectacular special effects on IMAX screens, and the industry’s big stars flex their muscles, figuratively and literally.
Most of these movies promise chills and thrills for not a small fee at the box office, and though they are not usually Oscar heavyweights, they are meant to quench theatergoers’ summer thirst for adventure. Some of the industry’s big-budget flicks look promising for their originality and good acting and for their revival of classic movie franchises.
Filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to his iconic Alien franchise with his new Alien: Covenant. It takes place 10 years after his 2012 Alien film Prometheus, which did not fare that well among the diehard fans of the sci-fi horror franchise because it veered off the monster plot line of the genre.
Now, in Alien: Covenant, Scott returns to his fiendishly intelligent and indestructible xenophorms preying on humans on a distant planet. To the delight of Alien fans, Alien: Covenant bursts out following the same formula as the original Alien film almost 40 years ago.
Crew members of a colony ship are lured to an unknown planet after they receive a human signal. When they land, they discover Earthlike living conditions, but what looks at first like a haven soon turns into hell. The crew is decimated by the horrific acid-dripping crustaceans.
Katherine Waterston, who plays Daniels, a terraform expert and captain of the ship, resembles Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, the heroine of the original films. The designs of the creatures are as horrific and awesome as ever, and the 3-D IMAX technology adds detail to the gruesomeness of their attacks.
Michael Fassbender adds a Shakespearean tone with his dual role of two identical-looking “synthetics,” as artificial intelligence is called in the film. The upgraded synthetic, Walter, is part of the crew and human-friendly, while David, the first version stranded on the planet, is ruthless and destructive.
The film’s story line is meant as a prequel to Scott’s original Alien trilogy and the opening chapter to new Alien sci-fi horror installments. And though Scott sacrifices originality for form, Alien fans will probably love it, and Hollywood will likely cash in.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
After the unexpected success of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, filmmaker James Gunn makes a bigger, flashier sequel with the same cast, as the guardians are embroiled in new adventures. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 mixes action with raunchy humor and relies on the successful chemistry among the cast of bankable actors such as Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.
The impressive visuals and 1970s rock music aim to attract moviegoers of all ages, a formula that has proven very successful for the movie industry. So far the sequel has grossed over $630 million.
Wonder Woman
One of the most anticipated superhero blockbusters this summer is Wonder Woman. As a woman herself, director Patty Jenkins creates a dynamic female superhero, an Amazon princess who leaves her realm to go and fight a war to end all wars.
Wonder Woman is fleshed out by actress-model Gal Gadot, who also served as a combat instructor in the Israeli army. Gadot promises to make this DC Comics superhero memorable for many sequels to come. Chris Pine plays Colonel Steve Trevor, a male sidekick, offering Wonder Woman all the adulation and adoration she deserves. If Wonder Woman is meant to show female moxie, Gadot has got it.
The Mummy
Tom Cruz headlines the revamped The Mummy and shows off some wicked stunts while chasing the resurrected malevolent creature in ancient tunnels under modern London. Sofia Butella plays a convincing mummy, a role first played by Boris Karloff in 1932. This is the first time the mummy is fleshed out by a woman. Butella plays ancient Egyptian Princess Ahmanet who wakes up from the dead and unleashes her rage on humanity because her father broke his promise to her and did not make her Pharaoh.
War for the Planet of the Apes
In War for the Planet of the Apes, Andrew Serkis reprises the role as simian leader Caesar in a motion capture suit (which creates a special effect that blends human and ape features), who rises against humans to avenge his kind. Woody Harrelson plays the diabolical colonel set to destroy Caesar and the apes once and for all.
The success of this franchise, mainly due to special effects and Serkis’ fine acting, has whetted Hollywood’s appetite for another robust box office in the middle of summer.
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From: MeNeedIt
This time of the year, Hollywood rolls out its big-budget films. Monsters and superheroes are framed by spectacular special effects on IMAX screens, and the industry’s big stars flex their muscles, figuratively and literally. This summer, some of the industry’s monster flicks look promising. VOA’s Penelope Poulou reports.
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From: MeNeedIt
About three million American university graduates will enter the job market this year. And with unemployment currently at a 10-year low, it’s a good time to be graduating, says Nicole Smith, chief economist at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW).
“We are at one of the lowest unemployment rates we’ve had since May of 2007, so what that means for the graduating class of 2017 is that the likelihood of getting a job is really, really good,” she said.
The U.S. Labor Department says unemployment for those with a four-year bachelor’s degree or higher is 2.5 percent, compared to the overall jobless rate of 4.5 percent. For those with a high school diploma or less, the average unemployment rate is 6.8 percent.
Demand for graduates with associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees is particularly strong in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
However, Smith says, a four-year degree is not necessary to compete in today’s economy.
“There are about 28 million jobs or so in the U.S. economy that are good-paying jobs; that are high-skilled jobs for people without a B.A,” she said.
While higher learning can give new workers the upper hand, Smith says almost a third of students with bachelor’s degrees are under-unemployed.
“So we have to do this cakewalk, this tightrope walk, to understand exactly what the market demands,” she said.
Options without college degree
A survey of the hottest employment sectors in 2017 shows some of the fastest-growing fields don’t require a four-year degree, according to Bankrate.com senior analyst Mark Hamrick.
“You don’t have to have a college degree for some of those technical jobs, where, let’s say, a kind of therapy might be involved — physical or occupational therapy,” he said.
Health care and service-oriented jobs aimed at the needs of a graying population are bound to remain strong as baby boomers — those born between 1946 to 1964 — continue to retire. But, Hamrick says, some skills are harder to learn in school.
“One of the skills which has been in strong demand really involves people skills — closing the deal, sales … business strategy; charting the course for a viable enterprise, that’s something that’s needed,” he said.
What is clear is that jobs that fueled the economy three or four decades ago are not the same jobs driving the economy today. In the 1970s, manufacturing accounted for nearly two of every five jobs; today, those manufacturing jobs account for fewer than one in 10.
“The types of manufacturing jobs that remain are jobs that are really high-skill, high-tech, high-demand manufacturing jobs. So those jobs require a lot more skills than their predecessors did,” Smith said.
Life-long learning key
Today’s job market also differs from the past because rapid technological and societal change demands a commitment to life-long learning, which means that getting a degree is just the beginning, according to Smith.
“Each year, there’s a new … version of technology that we must use,” she said. “So what the students need to be aware of is that they will need to come back to re-up their certification, to re-up their skills.”
Participating in today’s economy also means older and newer workers must be willing to move where the jobs are. Demand for workers is greatest where local economies are dynamic and where populations are growing, says Bankrate.com’s Hamrick. That means the exodus toward bigger cities on the East and West coasts will continue.
“That’s a process that’s accelerating,” Hamrick said. “It’s not slowing down, and so having the right skills, going where the jobs are located — those are the keys to obtaining and maintaining employment.”
The most recent jobs report shows the U.S. economy added 211,000 jobs in April, and unemployment fell to 4.4 percent. That’s a sharp contrast to the dark days that followed the 2008 financial crisis, when the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month and unemployment peaked at 10 percent.
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From: MeNeedIt
After years of stagnation and high unemployment, the eurozone countries appear to be bouncing back with growth in the shared currency bloc, soaring higher than in the United States and Britain.
The eurozone grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent during the first three months of 2017, while the bloc’s trade surplus doubled in March from the previous month. Unemployment is falling, albeit still stubbornly high at 9.6 percent.
“For a change, Europe is leading this upswing. It’s partly because of the connection between Europe and China, demand from China. But at the same time, we have also some domestic factors which are positive: there is a genuine improvement in domestic demand, particularly consumption. So the recovery is broad-based, and is more sustainable than in the past,” said analyst Lorenzo Codogno of LC Macro Advisors, also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.
Some of the economies that suffered most in the 2008 debt crisis are bouncing back strongest — the so-called PIGS. Portugal hit a 10-year high with 2.8 percent year-on-year growth. Spain’s economy is forecast to grow 2.7 percent in 2017, and passed a crucial milestone last month as its GDP exceeded pre-2008 crisis levels.
“We’re seeing a cyclical recovery because we finally had the European Central Bank operating like a normal central bank and doing quantitative easing,” says analyst John Springford of the Center for European Reform.
With inflation in the eurozone hitting the central bank’s target of 1.9 percent, many economists expect the quantitative easing program to keep interest rates low to be wound down later this year. There are fears, however, that turning off the money could hurt the eurozone’s poorest performers.
Italy’s economy is still in the slow lane with annualized growth of just .8 percent.
“It’s growing very slowly, its banks still haven’t been sorted out and there’s a lot of political instability,” says Springford.
Meanwhile, Greece is back in recession and the familiar public sector strikes have paralyzed transport systems this week. Police joined the protesters over proposed cuts to in-work benefits and pensions. The government plans further cuts in return for the next tranche of EU bailout money. A decision by EU finance ministers is due Monday.
Economist Codogno says the structural problems underpinning the eurozone have not gone away.
“The eurozone cannot survive without additional major reforms, which means more integration, in terms of fiscal and eventually even political.”
Overshadowing the bounce-back is Brexit. Britain’s decision to leave the EU is weighing on its economy as growth slows and wages fall, says Springford.
“The pain is going to be largely borne on the UK side because it’s a smaller economy. The big question is whether the EU and the UK can negotiate a deal which minimizes the economic costs. And we’ve had a very bad start to negotiations with a lot of bad blood.”
Europe’s politicians hope economic growth can help stop the march of anti-EU populism that saw Britain vote to leave the bloc.
The election of pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron as French president has reinvigorated the French-German axis that has long been the eurozone’s driving force. Macron’s political honeymoon could be short, with French unions already voicing objections to his proposed reforms.
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From: MeNeedIt
Space exploration is not something Chicago student Mawuto Akploh says she finds in her textbooks, or classroom discussion in her school.
“We do physics, biology, earth and space sciences,” she told VOA. “But we never actually take the time to talk about the people who actually do those things.”
Akploh is originally from Togo, and immigrated with her parents to the United States when she was a young child. She now attends a Chicago area high school career academy, and just became certified as an automobile mechanic.
Akploh says aerospace engineering wasn’t an option at her school.
“It’s not that people don’t want to do it… it’s that people don’t know about it.”
That lack of knowledge has, in part, fueled a shortage of students in the U.S. seeking advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math – also known as STEM. Fields the aerospace industry depends on.
“There is a shortage across engineering which I think is generally bad for humanity.” Which is one reason Beth Moses hopes her career serves as an inspiration to others to answer that shortage.
After successfully serving at NASA as the assembly manager for the International Space Station, Moses is now the chief astronaut trainer at Virgin Galactic, founded by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, seeking to be the first company consistently taking paying passengers into orbit.
“We are doing something, and I am doing something that has never been done before,” she explained to VOA. “There’s no road map, there’s no instruction manual, no guidance on how to do this.”
Which is why, as Moses writes one of the new instruction manuals in the emerging field of commercial human spaceflight, the need for more engineers is critical to help her company – and others – meet the demands of a growing industry that Moses says doesn’t “come in pink or blue.”
“In my entire time, in school and in aerospace engineering both at NASA and here at Virgin Galactic, I’ve never once had any hassle or gender issue, and there have been plenty of women around and also plenty of diversity of all kinds… age, race, points of view.”
It was a message Moses reinforced to those gathered at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, where she was awarded the 2017 “Women in Space Science Award” from the Adler Planetarium’s Women’s Board.
It also was a part of her pitch to hundreds of Chicago area high school students, including Mawuto Akploh, who gathered to see her speak at the place that sparked Moses’ own interest in space… the Adler Planetarium.
In front of a large view screen in the Adler’s theater, the audience was awed by her video presentation showing test flight footage from Virgin Galactic, and what the experience of heading into space as a commercial passenger with her company might look like, when it takes off.
Moses views the opportunity for widely available space flight as a unifying endeavor for humanity, but knows well that the final frontier of space is a difficult environment to master.
In 2006, Richard Branson told VOA he was hopeful Virgin Galactic would be orbiting the earth soon.
“Twenty-four months from now, my parents, my children and myself shall be popping into space,” he said with a grin.
But a series of setbacks, including a crash in 2014 that led to the death of one of the test spacecraft’s co-pilots, has pushed that timeline back.
Eleven years later, Branson still waits to be his company’s first passenger.
He told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph in April he hopes to see Virgin Galactic’s first sub-orbital flight by the end of 2017.
“We are in the air and we are working our way through a test program,” Moses told VOA. “When it is complete and the vehicle is safe, we’ll start commercial flights with Richard and his family.”
Those are flights that more than 700 passengers have already paid more than $200,000 to experience, reinforcing to students contemplating a career in aerospace engineering that not only is it in demand, it could also be lucrative… something Mawuto Akploh is keeping in mind as she plans for college, where a course of study in physics is her top pick.
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From: MeNeedIt
In New York, where buildings outnumber green spaces, some people have small gardens to grow some of their own food. Now, another garden is growing in New York in a very unusual location. On a barge, floating on a river, a variety of crops are being nurtured. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about this unique, self-sustaining garden project.
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From: MeNeedIt
Fox News CEO and Co-Founder Roger Ailes died Thursday morning at 77 years old, the news organization announced.
The network was informed of Ailes’s death by his wife Elizabeth. News anchors struggled to control their emotions as they read a statement written by Ailes’s wife.
“I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning,” the statement said.
“During a career that stretched over more than five decades, his work in entertainment, in politics, and in news affected the lives of many millions. And so even as we mourn his death, we celebrate his life,” the statement continued.
Ailes spent 20 years as the head of Fox, but he was removed last year amid claims of sexual harassment against him.
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From: MeNeedIt
Older white Americans are nearly twice as likely as African-Americans to say they’ve saved enough for retirement, a new poll found.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey also found that African- Americans and Latinos have less financial security than whites and will rely on fewer sources of income during retirement. The retirement savings gap between white and other minority groups extends beyond pensions, 401(k)s or other retirement accounts.
The survey shows older white Americans are also more likely to collect Social Security benefits, inherit money from their families or receive income from the sale of a home or other physical assets.
The disparity in retirement readiness is a sign that the structural inequalities black and Latino workers face during their working years extend into retirement. For example, the unemployment rate among African-Americans is twice that of whites. On top of that, blacks earn less than whites with similar education and experience, research shows.
“Having good saving habits is good but black and Latino workers are just always worse off and it makes every aspect of saving for retirement harder,” said Matthew Rutledge, an economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
About 38 percent of older white Americans said they had sufficient money for retirement compared with 20 percent for African-Americans.
Four in 10 older Americans say they think they’ll outlive their retirement savings.
“Black and Latino families benefit from being close,” Rutledge said, adding that family members help to care for children and the elderly. “But it doesn’t pay off when compared to whites family’s (financial) contributions.”
Families not only pass down money, but also information on how to handle finances.
“They have learned better savings behavior from the previous generation,” he said. “Older Americans who received financial help from family are less likely to have racked up credit card debt or student loans. They can save (for retirement) rather than paying off debt.”
The poll showed whites are significantly more likely, compared to African-Americans and Latinos to say they have a retirement account. They’re also more likely than African-Americans to say they will have income from the sale of physical assets.
But even when it comes to the most basic form of income during retirement, whites are more likely to say they will receive Social Security payments – 82 percent compared to 62 percent for African-Americans and 60 percent for Latinos, the survey found.
The situation is so dire that some older African-Americans and Latinos have no sources of income for retirement -14 percent compared to 4 percent of whites, the survey found.
Maria Villanueva, 69, is one of them. Villanueva doesn’t collect Social Security payments because she didn’t pay into the system. Villanueva immigrated illegally to California in the 70s to work as a farmworker and became a legal resident after the Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed into law. The single mother worked as a domestic worker but was paid in cash.
“I didn’t know I had to pay into Social Security,” she said in Spanish. “All my life I’ve taken care of everyone except myself.”
Villanueva hoped she would be able to work into older age but she can’t because of various chronic illnesses including diabetes and arthritis. She now relies on government assistance and food stamps. She provides for her 15-year-old granddaughter.
“I try not to think about the future because I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “What if I go to sleep tonight and I don’t wake up tomorrow?”
Retired members of minority groups tend to have lower incomes and are more likely to describe their financial situation as “somewhat poor or very poor” compared to white Americans. Black Americans were also more likely to say they sometimes fall behind on bills, the poll found.
John Jackson, 66, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to an Individual Retirement Account when he worked as a manager. Now, two years into retirement, he said he’s not sure if his savings and Social Security will be enough.
Jackson, who is black, says there are many people worse off than him and that’s why he doesn’t like to complain. Worst case scenario, he said, he has a big loving family who could take care of him.
“I know God will take care of me,” he said.
Some white Americans also are fearful about having enough for retirement. For example, Karen Brooks, a 52-year-old university professor living in a suburb outside Seattle, said she’s concerned whether she’s saved enough.
Brooks is, by most standards, better off financially than Jackson. She has a pension from her work as a school teacher. She is also contributing about 15 percent of her current income to a retirement account and she may even receive a small inheritance. But her biggest source of worry is that she didn’t save when she went back to graduate school.
“I’m pretty smart and I’ve done well,” she said. “I’m saving for retirement but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. It’s frightening even talking about it now.”
The survey was conducted Feb. 14 through March 13 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
It involved interviews in English and Spanish with 1,683 people aged 50 and older nationwide who are members of NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. It includes oversamples of 332 African Americans and 308 Hispanics. Results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points.
From: MeNeedIt
Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Dubai and met a billionaire business partner in the city-state, discussing “new ideas” as the Emirati’s real estate firm still lists possible plans for future joint projects while Trump’s father is in the White House.
The Trump Organization has said it won’t make new foreign deals while Donald Trump serves as America’s 45th president. That didn’t affect the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai’s opening in February , while a previously planned Trump-branded golf course designed by Tiger Woods is still being built nearby.
Both projects are being built by Dubai’s DAMAC Properties, owned by Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani. His company has paid the Trump Organization’s subsidiaries between $1 million to $5 million for the projects, according to a U.S. Federal Election Committee report submitted in May 2016.
Sajwani’s Instagram account posted a picture Tuesday night showing him with Trump, who now runs the Trump Organization with his brother Eric, at a table covered in a spread of Middle Eastern food and a plate of French fries.
“It was great having my dear friend and business partner Donald Trump Jr. over for lunch,” a caption with the photo read. “Discussing new ideas and innovation always make our meetings even more interesting.”
DAMAC did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting. However, recent regulatory filings made by the company suggest possible future plans with the Trump Organization.
DAMAC mentioned the Trump Organization in a prospectus for a sukuk, a type of Islamic bond, launched in April on the NASDAQ Dubai exchange. That filing noted DAMAC’s “product expansion also includes branding arrangements with … the Trump Organization.” It also listed plans for a “luxury boutique hotel to be operated by the Trump Organization” at DAMAC Hills, a massive development of villas and apartment buildings in Dubai’s desert that surrounds the newly opened Trump golf course.
Similar language had been included in previous regulatory filings by DAMAC, but its presence in documents after Trump’s election suggests the real estate company is keeping its options open. Days before becoming president, Trump had told journalists that DAMAC had offered the Trump Organization $2 billion in deals after his election, something DAMAC also confirmed.
Meanwhile, a quarterly earnings filing Monday made by DAMAC’s holding company listed a newly created subsidiary called Trump International Golf Club LLC, in which it described as holding a 100 percent legal and economic interest. The UAE-based entity lists its principal activity as being the “golf club,” without elaborating.
The Trump Organization has no new deals in the works in Dubai, company spokeswoman Amanda Miller said Wednesday. The company declined to answer other questions.
DAMAC’s first-quarter net profits of $240 million were down 16 percent compared to last year’s $285 million. The lower profits come as weak global oil prices squeeze Mideast countries, whose citizens form about half of DAMAC’s clientele.
DAMAC’s managing director also resigned Thursday, the company said in a regulatory filing. It offered no reason for his departure.
Experts have raised concerns that existing Trump business abroad could run afoul of the so-called “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution. That clause bars public officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments and companies controlled by them without the consent of Congress. Already, a liberal-funded watchdog group has filed a lawsuit citing the clause.
Others criticize Trump family members for traveling with Secret Service details while on private business trips, something afforded to them as direct relatives of the president.
While in Dubai, Trump also gave a commencement speech Sunday at the American University in Dubai, a private university founded in 1995 that has some 2,700 students. The university did not announce Trump would be making a commencement speech on its website ahead of time.
“When I look back on what my father did in this past election, and the risk he took, to me I’m far more impressed with the fact that he tried than by the fact he actually won,” Trump said in the 14-minute speech.”For a billionaire to step away from an amazing life and spend $75 million to go up against an incredible Republican field and then go up against one of the great political machines ever assembled… to do that was amazing.”
“We believed in his message and not necessarily the contrived message that was put out there in the media,” he added.
The university did not answer repeated emails and telephone calls asking if Trump received any payment for his speech. Security guards turned away an Associated Press journalist at the university’s gate Wednesday.
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From: MeNeedIt
Apple will reportedly announce an update to its lineup of laptops at its annual developer conference, known as WWDC, in June.
The report from Bloomberg suggests Apple is responding to increased competition from rival Microsoft.
According to the report, Apple will announce three new laptops: The MacBook Pro will get a quicker processor, as will the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Air. The processors, according to Bloomberg, will be Intel’s newest, seventh generation chips.
Apple’s laptops account for 11 percent of the company’s annual $216 billion in sales. iPhones make up nearly two thirds of the company’s sales.
Rival Microsoft recently unveiled its own Surface Laptop as a possible competitor to MacBook Air. That device reportedly boots up quickly and has a touchscreen.
According to Bloomberg, the new MacBook Pro would share the same basic external look of the current models.
It has been seven years since Apple redesigned the MacBook Air and more than a year since the company released a new MacBook Pro. The 12-inch MacBook saw its last update last spring.
Apple will also reportedly announce an upgrade to its macOS operating system.
The WWDC will start June 5.
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From: MeNeedIt