Boeing anti-stall software forced down the nose of a doomed Ethiopian jet even after pilots had turned it off, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as investigators scrutinize the role played by technology and crew in the fatal March 10 crash.

A preliminary Ethiopian report into the disaster is due to be published within days and may include evidence the software system kicked in as many as four times before the 737 MAX dived into the ground, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

A third person familiar with the findings confirmed the software had fired up again after pilots had initially switched it off, but said there was only one significant episode in which the plane pointed itself lower in the moments before the crash.

The so-called MCAS software is at the center of accident probes in both the crash of Ethiopian flight 302 and a Lion Air accident in Indonesia five months earlier that together killed 346 people.

It was not immediately clear whether the Ethiopian crew chose to re-deploy the system, which pushes the Boeing 737 MAX downwards to avoid stalling. But one of the sources said investigators were studying the possibility that the software started working again without human intervention.

In a statement on media reports about the investigation, Boeing said: “We urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report.”

Ethiopian investigators were not available for comment.

The Ethiopian crash led to a global grounding of 737 MAX jets and scrutiny of its certification process. Initial results of the accident investigation are due within days.

The stakes are high. The 737 MAX is Boeing’s top-selling jet with almost 5,000 on order. Ethiopian Airlines is also in the midst of an expansion drive, while other 737 MAX customers and victims’ families want answers, and potentially compensation.

Boeing shares were down 1.5 percent at 1450 GMT. They have lost more than 8.5 percent since the Ethiopian crash.

Emergency procedures

Getting the planes flying again depends partly on the role that Boeing design features are found to have played in the crash, though investigators are also paying attention to airline operations, crew actions and regulatory measures.

Boeing is upgrading the MCAS software and training while stressing that existing cockpit procedures enable safe flight.

People familiar with the investigation have already said the anti-stall software was activated by erroneous ‘angle of attack’ data from a key aircraft sensor.

Now, the investigation has turned towards how MCAS was initially disabled by pilots, but then appeared to resume sending automated instructions to point downwards before the jet plunged to the ground, the two sources said.

Boeing issued guidelines to pilots on how to disable the anti-stall system after the Indonesian crash, reminding pilots to use cut-out switches in the console to shut off the system in the event of problems.

Cockpit procedures call for pilots to leave the MCAS system off for the rest of the flight once it has been disengaged.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the pilots had initially followed Boeing’s emergency procedures but later deviated from them as they tried to regain control of the plane.

Disabling the system does not shut down MCAS completely but severs an electrical link between the software’s attempts to give orders to push the plane lower and the actual controls, a person familiar with the aircraft system said.

Investigators are studying whether there are any conditions under which MCAS could re-activate itself automatically, without the pilots intentionally reversing the cut-out maneuver.

Aerospace analyst Bjorn Fehrm said in a blog post for Leeham News that pilots may have deliberately re-activated the system in order to make it easier to trim or control the aircraft only to be overwhelmed too quickly by counter-moves from MCAS.

Safety experts stress the investigation is far from complete and most aviation disasters are caused by a unique combination of human and technical factors.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Digital mapping technology has been around for awhile, but it’s only recently that it’s been applied to art history. University researchers are receiving grants from sources such as the Getty Foundation to build web applications for users to explore and research historic sites. 

Historians increasingly are getting a new perspective on the past by connecting the worlds of art history with computer mapping technology.

“It actually lets you think about how people lived in these spaces, moved through these spaces,” said Heather MacDonald, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “How art works interacted and would have been seen and understood in relationship to one another.”

3-D animation and digital mapping allow people to explore and research archeological sites and historic cities to better understand the environment where art objects were found.

“Because of the developments in computer science and in regular standard computers even laptops have made this kind of work much easier for art historians,” said Duke University Art History Professor Paul Jaskot, who directs the Wired Lab for Digital Art History and visual culture.

The data could include archival information that spans hundreds of years such as a map of the growth of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

For the project, called Visualizing the Mountain Estate, researchers combined digital maps and 3-D modeling of the Qing Dynasty imperial park in China. They used survey maps and historic sources such as  woodblock prints, texts and paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries to show how the park changed over time. 

In the Hidden Florence project, augmented reality is used to explore art history in the home of the renaissance. Users can interact with a 16th century map that is embedded into the application as they tour this old Italian city. 

“You can start to layer historical evidence or historical views or historical material onto that physical environment,” Jaskot said.

“I think that’s the great thing about digital art history is that it gives us all kinds of new horizons both to answer old questions and to ask new ones,” MacDonald said.

And with more understanding of the past, it may allow for more awareness of the art that is currently on display in today’s cities.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Facebook is much better than it was in 2016 at tackling election interference but cannot guarantee the site will not be used to undermine European Parliament elections in May, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday.

Chastened since suspected Russian operatives used Facebook and other social media to influence an election that surprisingly brought Donald Trump to power in the United States, Facebook has said it has plowed resources and staff into safeguarding the May 26 EU vote.

Zuckerberg said there had been a lot of important elections since 2016 that have been relatively clean and demonstrated the defenses it has built up to protect their integrity.

“We’ve certainly made a lot of progress … But no, I don’t think anyone can guarantee in a world where you have nation states that are trying to interfere in elections, there’s no single thing we can do and say okay we’ve now solved the issue,” Zuckerberg told Irish national broadcaster RTE in an interview.

“This is an ongoing arms race where we’re constantly building up our defenses and these sophisticated governments are also evolving their tactics.”

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia ran a disinformation and hacking operation to undermine the American democratic process and help Republican Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Moscow denies interfering in the election.

Under pressure from EU regulators to do more to guard against foreign meddling in the bloc’s upcoming legislative election, Facebook toughened its rules on political advertising in Europe last week.

It also announced plans to ramp up efforts to fight misinformation ahead of the vote and will partner with German news agency DPA to boost its fact checking.

“Here in the EU for the upcoming elections we are bringing the full battery of all of the strategies and tools that worked very well in a lot of important elections so far so I’ve a lot of confidence,” Zuckerberg said during a trip to Dublin, home to Facebook’s international headquarters.

“But I think that we should expect that for some of these countries that are out there that are trying to interfere, they are just going to keep trying, so we need to stay ahead of that and keep on doing this work in order to stay ahead.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

The Dutch security service advised the government Tuesday not to use technology from countries with active cyber-hacking campaigns against the Netherlands, such as China and Russia.

The recommendation came as the Dutch government is weighing options for a new 5G telecommunications network in the coming years and seeks to replace its domestic emergency services network, known as C2000.

The AIVD security agency flagged Chinese and Russian attempts at digital espionage as a major security risk.

“It is undesirable for the Netherlands to exchange sensitive information or for vital processes to depend on the hardware or software of companies from countries running active cyber programmes against Dutch interests,” the AIVD said in its annual report.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte has refused to rule out doing business with Chinese technology companies, even as key allies the United States and Australia restricted Huawei Technologies from accessing its next-generation mobile networks on national security grounds.

Washington has said that Huawei is at the beck and call of the Chinese state, warning that its network equipment may contain “back doors” that could open them up to cyberespionage.

Huawei says such concerns are unfounded.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The killing of rapper Nipsey Hussle involved a personal dispute with the gunman and was not gang violence, Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore said Tuesday.

Hussle and the suspect, Eric Holder, 29, knew each other, but Moore did not reveal how they were acquainted or any details about what the dispute involved.

Hussle was fatally shot Sunday afternoon outside his South Los Angeles clothing store. Moore said Holder repeatedly approached Hussle and talked with him before returning with a gun and opening fire. Holder then fled in a waiting car driven by a woman, the chief said.

Moore told reporters at a news conference televised live that he was certain Holder was watching and urged him to surrender.

Moore and the president of the city’s Police Commission had been scheduled to meet with Hussle on Monday to discuss the relationship between the police force and the inner city.

The chief said he was devastated when he learned that Hussle had been killed.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said Hussle’s killing occurred during an upsurge of gun violence that followed significant decreases, and announced plans to deploy an array of resources to roll it back. Authorities urged that Hussle’s killing not be followed by more violence.

A disturbance at a memorial for Hussle Monday night left at least 19 people injured, including two people who were taken to local hospitals in critical condition.

Dozens of police officers cleared the memorial site after a fight apparently broke out and a stampede ensued.

At least one of the critically-injured persons was struck by a car and the other one had a “penetrating injury,” although it was unclear whether that person was stabbed or cut by broken glass, a fire department spokeswoman said. Two other people suffered serious injuries and 15 had injuries that were considered non-life threatening.

An autopsy completed Monday showed that Hussle, 33, died after being shot in the head and torso. The rapper, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, had recently purchased the strip mall where the shop is located and planned to redevelop it into a mixed-use commercial and residential complex.

The plan was part of Hussle’s broader ambitions to remake the neighborhood where he grew up and attempt to break the cycle of gang life that lured him in when he was younger.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

When Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey introduced their Green New Deal resolution, Markey said it would be “the greatest blue-collar job creation program in a generation.”

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, said it would “put millions of Americans out of work.”

Battle lines have been drawn with the first major U.S. proposal to tackle climate change in nearly a decade: Does stopping global warming mean wrecking the economy? Or is failing to act worse? 

In the coming months, Voice of America will explore the prospects for salvaging the environment without killing off jobs.

We will meet winners and losers in the energy transition. Our first stop will be in Markey’s home state of Massachusetts, where an energy transition is well underway. We will visit a town where one of the state’s last coal-fired power plants closed, shedding coal jobs but gaining a cutting-edge solar farm. We will see how Massachusetts’ investments in the green economy are paying dividends in jobs and economic growth. 

Though the Senate has voted down Markey and Ocasio-Cortez’s nonbinding Green New Deal resolution, the proposal has put climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions back on the agenda on Capitol HIll. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a steadfast opponent of measures to reduce carbon emissions, now acknowledges global warming is a real and human-induced threat.

Trump, by contrast, has called climate change a hoax and sees unfettered production of coal, oil and natural gas as the path to economic expansion. 

Hotter, drier, wetter

Pressure is growing on elected officials to do something. The impacts of climate change are increasingly obvious. 

Eight of the 10 hottest years on record have piled up in just the last decade. 

Hotter and drier conditions in California helped spread the wildfires that caused $24 billion in damage and claimed 106 lives last year. Those fires broke the record for area burned, a record that was set just the year before.

A warmer atmosphere holds more water, making epic soakers like last year’s Hurricane Florence more likely. That $24 billion disaster followed 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, which did $127.5 billion in damage to Houston and the surrounding areas. 

And this is just the beginning. Scientists from 13 government agencies estimated that if emissions remain high, extreme heat would slice $155 billion annually from labor productivity by 2090 as more days are too hot to work. Dwindling water supplies for cities and industries would take a $316 billion toll each year. Annual health care costs for West Nile Virus, just one of several diseases expected to rise with warming temperatures, would be $3 billion higher.

Polls show Americans feel the threat of a changing climate more strongly than ever. Seventy-three percent say global warming is happening, and 62 percent say it is mostly human-caused. Both figures are the highest since the Yale Program on Climate Communication started polling in 2008. 

Two-thirds say they are “worried” or “very worried” about global warming. For the first time, that includes a third of conservative Republicans.

Meanwhile, the federal government is moving in the opposite direction. Trump has moved to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate treaty. His administration is working to loosen Obama administration regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and vehicles. 

That has left states, local governments and businesses to fill in the gap. But it will not be easy or cheap. 

Pricing pollution

One possible tool: Put a price on the carbon pollution that is causing global warming in the first place.

Raising the price reduces demand for more-polluting fuels and encourages companies and consumers to find cheaper, cleaner alternatives, economists say.

Pricing carbon would also raise revenue that can be returned to taxpayers or invested in reducing emissions.

Nine U.S. states price carbon through a cap-and-trade system, a market-based approach in which polluters buy permits for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit. California has its own program.

And economic growth in these states has continued as greenhouse gas emissions have declined.

“There’s a lot of rhetoric about how a carbon tax or a greenhouse gas tax would wreck the economy,” said Brookings Institution economist Adele Morris. “There’s absolutely no peer-reviewed evidence that supports that assertion.”

But these policies are not politically popular. A national cap-and-trade proposal died in Congress in 2010. Last November, Washington state voters rejected a carbon tax.

And they would not solve the problem on their own. Pledges the United States and others made in Paris will not achieve the ultimate goal of the accord: Keep global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.” 

That would take a carbon price of at least $40 to $80 per ton, rising to $50 to $100 by 2030, according to a World Bank-backed commission. It’s only about $15 per ton in California, and $5 in the nine-state market. 

“There’s an open question whether politically, it’s achievable to hit some of the temperature targets that scientists have recommended,” Morris said. “That’s the conundrum. What’s the willingness to pay (in carbon taxes) of the American electorate? How far can we go before we hit a wall?”

Filling the federal vacuum

As Trump moves to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate treaty, many states are moving forward on their own. 

Most require power providers to source a percentage of their energy from renewable or zero-carbon sources. Several have recently increased these requirements. New Mexico recently joined California in aiming to be 100 percent renewable by mid-century. 

And the private sector is stepping up, as well. 

After Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris agreement, more than 2,000 businesses and investors declared that they continue to support the climate accord.

A group of large investors managing more than $30 trillion in assets is pushing major corporations in their portfolios to get on board. 

“Any company that’s a high-emitting sector, we need to work with them to radically change their emissions or divest from them,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit. Ceres is a founding partner of the initiative known as Climate Action 100+. 

Under pressure from the group, oil giants Shell and BP recently said they will tie executives’ bonuses to reaching climate goals. Major mining corporation Glencore agreed not to expand its coal mining business.

For investors, Lubber says, the economic risk comes not from fighting climate change. 

“If we don’t stop global warming, we wreck the economy,” she said. 
…

From: MeNeedIt

The World Trade Organization has cut its forecast for trade growth this year by more than a percentage point, to 2.6 percent, due to an economic slowdown and amid a trade conflict between the United States and China.

The downgrade — from 3.7 percent forecast issued in September — reflects how quickly the prospects for global business are fading as, among other things, the U.S. and China struggle to agree on how to lift tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of trade.

“With trade tensions running high, no one should be surprised by this outlook,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said Tuesday.

Beyond the trade war, the WTO has cited weaker economic growth in North America, Europe and Asia — largely as the effect of fiscal stimulus by the Trump administration wears off. It noted a “phase-out” of monetary stimulus in Europe and China’s efforts to shift its economy away from its traditional reliance on manufacturing and investment toward services and consumption.

In 2018, trade grew by just 3 percent — far below the WTO’s forecast for 3.9 percent, which had itself been downgraded last year. And next year, the Geneva-based trade body expects only a small uptick in trade growth by volume next year, to 3 percent.

The WTO oversees international trade rules and settles disputes between countries. The Trump administration has also been critical of the WTO, accusing it of being “unfair” with the United States.

The U.S. has slowly squeezed the WTO by blocking appointments to its dispute settlement group, the Appellate Body, which could in December fall below the minimum number of members required.

Azevedo pointed to the “fundamental importance of the rules-based trading system,” saying that its weakening would “be an historic mistake with repercussions for jobs, growth and stability around the world.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

On April 4th, 2019, NATO members will mark the 70th anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty — part of a successful effort to contain Soviet expansionism and to cajole the war-torn nations of Western Europe to forsake ancient enmities and to forge solidarity. 

But for the transatlantic alliance to continue, Europe will have to make a greater contribution and share more of the burden, warn analysts.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO appeared uncertain about what part to play, but the return of Russian assertiveness under President Vladimir Putin has partly changed that — and the alliance’s supporters say NATO’s traditional role of collective security has never been more important.

Nonetheless, the U.S.-European alliance has been shaken by President Donald Trump’s episodic questioning of the very value of the transatlantic pact in periodically bruising encounters with European leaders and using tweets or brusque off-the-cuff remarks to do so. 

The resignation in December of U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis highlighted strained ties between the Trump administration and European allies. 

In his resignation letter, the outgoing defense secretary said: “One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.”

​Weeks earlier, Trump suggested he might cut U.S. force levels in Europe, if the European allies didn’t boost their military spending. “They kill us with NATO,” Trump said during a speech in Montana. “They kill us,” he repeated. 

Last July, during his visit to the annual summit of NATO allies in Brussels, President Trump expressed frustration with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over a planned Russia-to-Germany undersea gas pipeline, saying, “We’re supposed to protect you from Russia, but Germany is making pipeline deals with Russia. You tell me if that’s appropriate. Explain that.”

There have also been sharp disagreements over Iran and the U.S. decision to withdraw from a landmark nuclear arms pact with Russia in reaction to alleged cheating by Moscow. Washington has also expressed growing frustration with European partners over what it sees as a lax attitude to Chinese security threats to the West.

Such clashes have added to the uncertainty about the future of NATO, which is founded on a US security guarantee to Europe. 

Much of the media coverage on the current strains in the transatlantic relationship focus on President Trump’s characteristically confrontational style. European newspapers have highlighted the U.S. leader’s general distrust of multilateral organizations and his wanting a return of powerful, independent nation states that deal with each other bilaterally rather than via international organizations

But some analysts say the problems with the alliance predate the current American incumbent and at the heart of the strains has been a European reluctance to help to rebalance NATO. “The deeper reasons for the uncertainty go beyond him [Trump],” argues Hans Kundnani of Britain’s Chatham House. 

He says Europe has failed to uphold its part of a bargain. Even before Trump was elected there was a consensus in Washington that, as the United States increasingly focuses on Asia, Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own security. Presidents before Trump, including his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, have also pressed the European members to increase their defense expenditure and to share more of a burden.

“It seems pretty clear that the only way the U.S. security guarantee to Europe might be made sustainable in the long term is for Europeans to make a greater contribution to their own security,” Kundnani argues.

And the U.S. President has his defenders when it comes to his table-thumping approach to NATO — both in the U.S. and Europe — who say Trump’s confrontational style may be the only way to shake up the alliance’s European members. 

Many in Britain’s military and intelligence establishments have been supportive of Trump’s complaints. A group of eight former British military and intelligence chiefs, who worry Britain could slip from being a “tier one” military power, argued in a newspaper advertisement that the U.S. leader’s criticism of the Europeans (and Canadians) over burden-sharing was valid.

They argued the threats the West faces demand increased military expenditure, even though Britain is one of only four European countries that already meets an agreed two percent of GDP in defense spending.

Combat readiness across the board among European militaries is woefully inadequate.

Last year, the German parliament’s military commissioner issued a scathing report on the readiness of Germany’s armed forces, noting that only a fraction of crucial weapons systems was operational. At the end of 2017, six out of six of the navy’s submarines were out of commission and none of the air force’s 14 large transport planes were available for deployment due to repairs. More than 20,000 officer and non-commissioned officer positions were unfilled. Many fighter jets, tanks and ships are outdated or in disrepair, the commissioner noted.

The report urged the government to pursue reforms “with greater urgency” and to increase defense spending.

In the face of U.S. complaints, a division has emerged among European policymakers — between those who argue they must take into greater account U.S. interests in a bid to try to improve strained transatlantic relations and those officials and leaders who want to adopt a more aggressive “Europe First” strategy to counter Trump’s “America First” approach.

French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated ambitiously a Euro-army and talks of Europe needing to free itself from military dependence on America. But both Britain and Germany are deeply skeptical of Macron’s idea for such an army. Skeptics say such an army could never make up for American military might and its importance for European defense. Others point out that it would end up with European governments having to increase their spending dramatically.

Central European states much closer to Russia place greater faith in an American security guarantee than one from their Western neighbors — for good historical reasons, they say. And despite Trump’s sharp criticism of NATO’s European members, they note, Washington remains committed to expanding a military presence in the Black Sea, the Baltic states and Poland and supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced an agreement to invest $260 million to fund a military storage site in central Poland in support of U.S. forces that operate in the region. “This will fund storage and maintenance of pre-positioned military equipment — which will speed up reinforcement for Europe,” Stoltenberg said during a news conference at the alliance’s Brussels headquarters.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The boom times for the U.S. lobster industry are imperiled this year because of a shortage of a little fish that has been luring the crustaceans into traps for hundreds of years.

Members of the lobster business fear a looming bait crisis could disrupt the industry during a time when lobsters are as plentiful, valuable and in demand as ever. America’s lobster catch has climbed this decade, especially in Maine, but the fishery is dependent on herring — a schooling fish other fishermen seek in the Atlantic Ocean.

Federal regulators are imposing a steep cut in the herring fishery this year, and some areas of the East Coast are already restricted to fishing, months before the lobster season gets rolling. East Coast herring fishermen brought more than 200 million pounds of the fish to docks as recently as 2014, but this year’s catch will be limited to less than a fifth of that total.

The cut is leaving lobstermen, who have baited traps with herring for generations in Maine, scrambling for new bait sources and concerned about their ability to get lobster to customers who have come to expect easy availability in recent years.

“If you don’t have bait, you’re not going to fish. If the price of bait goes up, you’re not going to fish,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “We have to take the big picture, and make sure our communities continue to have viable fisheries.”

The cut in the herring quota stems from a scientific assessment of the fish’s population last year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. The assessment found a below-average number of young herring are surviving in the ocean.

The loss of herring has sounded alarms among scientists and conservationists, because the fish also serve a critical role in the ocean food chain and they’re valuable as food for humans.

It’s unclear exactly what factors are causing young herring to fail to survive to maturity, said Jonathan Deroba, lead assessment scientist for herring with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He said it’s “premature to predict the sky is falling,” though he added the herring population could be suffering from multiple stresses at once.

“We’d be foolish not to look at climate change. The abundance of haddock, which are egg predators. And fishing activity on Georges Bank disrupting herring,” Deroba said. Georges Bank is a key fishing area off New England.

Fishermen bring herring to shore mostly in Maine and Massachusetts, which are also the biggest lobster fishing states. Lobstermen also load traps with other kinds of bait, such as menhaden, and some herring is available in freezers, but fishermen said they’re concerned there won’t be enough to go around.

The New England Fishery Management Council is also considering herring catch quota for 2020 and 2021 later this year, and fishermen said they’re concerned the cuts could be maintained for those years. The loss of herring is also a heavy blow to the fishermen who harvest the species, said Jeff Kaelin, who works in government relations for Lund’s Fisheries, a herring harvester based in Cape May, New Jersey.

“It’s going to be tough on everyone,” Kaelin said, not just the people who catch the herring, but also “the lobstermen who depend on it for historic bait supply.”

The U.S. lobster fishery set an all-time record for value at docks in 2016, when the catch was worth more than $670 million. That was also the year the herring catch fell to its lowest point since 2002, though it was still more than 138 million pounds.

Lobsterman Jeffrey Peterson, who fishes out of the island town of Vinalhaven, Maine, said he’s sure he’ll be able to load his traps with bait this summer. He’s just concerned about how expensive it’ll be to do so.

“It’ll be around,” he said. “It’s just how much they gouge you for it.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Several Republican-led state legislatures are advocating for women to gain over-the-counter access to birth control in what they say is an effort to reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

State legislatures in Arkansas and Iowa, for example, are working on legislation that would allow women older than 18 the ability to receive birth control from a pharmacist rather than going first to a doctor for a prescription. The measures are seeing bipartisanship support in those states and come after similar laws have passed in nearly a dozen other states.

​Arkansas legislation

Arkansas state Representative Aaron Pilkington, a Republican, said he started working on the bill after seeing “about a 15 percent decrease of teen births” after other states passed similar legislation. Arkansas consistently has one of the highest birth rates among teenagers in the country.

Pilkington said support for the bill “in many ways, it’s very generational. … I find that a lot of younger people and women are really in favor of this, especially mothers.”

According to the Oral Contraceptive (OCs) Over the Counter (OTC) Working Group, a reproductive rights group, more than 100 countries, including Russia, much of South America and countries in Africa, allow access to birth control without a prescription. 

Women are required to get a doctor’s prescription to obtain and renew birth control in most of the U.S., much of Europe, Canada and Australia, according to the reproductive rights group.

Pilkington, who identifies as a “pro-life legislator,” said he brought the bill forward partly as an effort to counter unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The bill would require a doctor’s visit about every two years to renew the prescription.

Rural residents

Arkansas has a population of about 3 million people, a third of whom live in rural areas. Pilkington said the bill would likely benefit women who reside in rural areas or those who have moved to new cities and aren’t under a doctor’s care yet.

“A lot of times when they’re on the pill and they run out, they’ve gotta get a doctor’s appointment, and the doctor says, ‘I can’t see you for two months,’” he said. “Some people have to drive an hour and a half to see their PCP (primary care physician) or OB-GYN (obstetrician-gynecologist), so this makes a lot of sense.”

What Pilkington is proposing is not new. In 2012, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists endorsed the idea of making birth control available without a prescription. Today, at least 11 other states have passed legislation allowing for patients to go directly to the pharmacist, with some caveats.

In October, ahead of a tight midterm race, Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds raised a few eyebrows when she announced she would prioritize over-the-counter access to birth control in her state. Like Pilkington, she cited countering abortion as a main driver behind the proposed legislation. The bill closely models much of the language used in another Republican-sponsored bill In Utah that passed last year with unanimous support.

The planned Iowa legislation comes after the Republican-led state Legislature passed a bill in 2017 that rejected $3 million in federal funds for family-planning centers like Planned Parenthood.

The loss of federal funds forced Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit organization that provides health care and contraception for women, to close four of its 12 clinics in the state.

Since then, Jamie Burch Elliott, public affairs manager of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in Iowa, said that anecdotal evidence shows that sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies have gone up.

“With family planning, it takes time to see the impacts, so there are long-term studies going on to really study the impact of this,” said Burch Elliott. “Right away, we saw STI (sexually transmitted infections) and STD (sexually transmitted diseases) rates go up, particularly chlamydia and gonorrhea. As far as unintended pregnancy rates, we are hearing that they are rising, although the data is not out yet.”

Pro-life pushback

So far the Iowa legislation has received some pushback, mostly from a few pro-life groups.

The Iowa Right to Life organization has remained neutral on the issue of birth control, but the Iowa Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the bishops of Iowa, and Iowans for LIFE, a nonprofit anti-abortion organization, have come out against the bill, citing concerns that birth control should not be administered without a visit to a physician.

Maggie DeWitte, executive director of Iowans for LIFE, also pointed out that oral contraception can be an “abortifacient [that] sometimes cause abortions,” challenging Reynolds’ motivation for introducing the bill.

On the other hand, Iowa family-planning organizations and Democratic legislators are mostly on board.

“Policywise, I think this is really good,” said Heather Matson, a state representative of a district located just outside the state capital, Des Moines. She appreciated that insurance will still cover birth control, but took issue with the age restriction, saying she would like to see an option for people younger than 18. “Is it exactly the bill that I would have written, if given the opportunity? Not exactly.”

While Matson represents one of the fastest-growing districts in the country, she pointed to the number of “health care deserts” in rural Iowa, where a shortage of OB-GYNs is leading to the closure of some maternity wards.

Like Planned Parenthood’s Burch Elliott, Matson agreed that this bill would be just one step in providing more access to birth control for women in rural parts of the state.

“Even before Planned Parenthood was defunded, there wasn’t great access to birth control in Iowa to begin with,” Burch Elliott said. “Having said that, [this bill] is not a solution. Pharmacists are never going to be a replacement for Planned Parenthood, for example, where you’ll get STI and STD screenings, and any other cancer screenings or other preventive care that you might need.”

Regardless of whether the bills pass in Des Moines or Little Rock, Arkansas Representative Pilkington expects other states to follow suit.

“As the times have changed and you have a lot of conservative states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Utah (pass this legislation), I think it makes it way less of a partisan issue” and more of a good governance issue, he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see other states kind of pushing this as well. Especially when they see the success that other states are having with this.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

A groundbreaking new exhibit at the Newseum in Washington marks the 50th anniversary of a police raid on a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and highlights key moments in the modern gay rights movement in America that many believe was born out of that historic event. For some members of the LGBTQ community, the exhibit is deeply personal. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

For decades, it was virtually unknown outside a small circle of investors, corporate lawyers and government officials. 

But in recent years, the small interagency body known as the Committee for Investment in the United States has grown in prominence, propelled by a U.S. desire to use it as an instrument of national security and foreign policy. 

This week, the panel made headlines after it reportedly directed Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech to divest itself of Grindr, a popular gay dating app, because of concern the user data it collects could be used to blackmail military and intelligence personnel. 

Operating out of the Treasury Department, the nine-member CFIUS (pronounced Cy-fius) reviews foreign investments in U.S. businesses to determine whether they pose a national security threat.  

Notification was voluntary

Until last year, notifying the panel about such investments was voluntary, something Kunlun and California-based Grindr took advantage of when they closed a deal in 2016.  

But given growing U.S. concern about Chinese companies with ties to Beijing buying businesses in sensitive U.S. industries, the committee’s rare intervention to undo the deal was hardly a surprise, said Harry Broadman, a former CFIUS member.   

“I think anyone who was surprised by the decision really didn’t understand the legislative history, legislative landscape and the politics” of CFIUS, said Broadman, who is now a partner and chair of the emerging markets practice at consulting firm Berkley Research Group. 

The action by CFIUS is the latest in a series aimed at Chinese companies investing in the U.S. tech sector and comes as the Trump administration wages a global campaign against  telecom giant Huawei Technologies and remains locked in a trade dispute with Beijing. The U.S. says the state-linked company could gain access to critical telecom infrastructure and is urging allies to bar it from participating in their new 5G networks.   

While the administration has yet to formulate a policy on Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment, the latest CFIUS action underscores how the U.S. is increasingly turning to the body to restrict Chinese investments across a broad swath of U.S. technology companies.  

“CFIUS is one of the few tools that the government has that can be used on a case-by-case basis to try to untangle [a] web of dependencies and solve potential national security issues, and the government has become increasingly willing to use that tool more aggressively,” said Joshua Gruenspecht, an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Washington, who represents companies before the committee. 

CFIUS’s history has long been intertwined with politics and periodic public backlash against foreign investment in the U.S.  

OPEC investments

In 1975 it was congressional concern over the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) investments in U.S. stocks and bonds that led President Gerald Ford to set up the committee through an executive order. It was tasked with monitoring the impact of foreign investment in the United States but had little other authority.  

In the years that followed, backlash against foreign acquisitions of certain U.S. firms led Congress to beef up the agency.  

In 1988, spurred in part by a Japanese attempt to buy a U.S. semiconductor firm, Congress enshrined CFIUS in law, granting the president the authority to block mergers and acquisitions that threatened national security.  

In 2007, outrage over CFIUS’s decision to approve the sale of management operations of six key U.S. ports to a Dubai port operator led Congress to pass new legislation, broadening the definition of national security and requiring greater scrutiny by CFIUS of certain types of foreign direct investment, according to the Congressional Research Service.  

But by far the biggest change to how CFIUS reviews and approves foreign transactions came last summer when Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. 

Slated to be fully implemented in 2020, the new law vastly expanded CFIUS’s jurisdiction and authority, requiring foreign companies that take even a non-controlling stake in a sensitive U.S. business to get the committee’s clearance.  

While the new law did not mention China by name, concern about Chinese investments and national security dominated the debate that led to its enactment. 

“There is no mistake that both the congressional intent and the executive intent has a clear eye on the role of China in the transactions,” Broadman said. 

Threats to ‘technological superiority’

Under interim rules issued by the Treasury Department last fall, investments in U.S. businesses that develop and manufacture “critical technologies” in one or more of 27 designated industries are now subject to review by CFIUS. Most of the covered technologies are already subject to U.S. export controls. The designated industries are sectors where foreign investment “threatens to undermine U.S. technological superiority that is critical to U.S. national security,” according to the Treasury Department. They range from semiconductor machinery to aircraft manufacturing.  

The new regulations mean that foreign companies seeking to invest in any of these technologies and industries must notify CFIUS at least 45 days prior to closing a deal. CFIUS will then have 30 days to clear the deal, propose a conditional approval or reject it outright. If parties to a transaction do not withdraw in response to CFIUS’s concerns, the president will be given 15 days to block it.   

To date, U.S. presidents have blocked five deals — four of them involving Chinese companies. One was blocked by the late President George H.W. Bush in 1990, two by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2016, and two by President Donald Trump. 

The number is deceptively small. A far greater number of deals are simply withdrawn by parties after they don’t get timely clearance or CFIUS opens a formal investigation. According to the Treasury Department, of the 942 notices of transactions filed with CFIUS between 2009 and 2016, 107 were withdrawn during the review or after an investigation.  

In recent years, CFIUS has reviewed between 200 and 250 cases per year, according to Gruenspecht. But the number is likely to exceed 2,000 a year under the new CFIUS regime, he added.  

The tighter scrutiny has raised questions about whether the new law strikes the right balance between encouraging foreign investment and protecting national security.  

“I think the short answer is it’s too early to tell,” Gruenspecht said. However, he added, if the new law “becomes a recipe for taking foreign investment off the table for whole realms of new emerging technology, that crosses a lot of boundaries.” 

Concern in Europe

The U.S. is not the only country toughening screening measures for foreign investment. In December, the European Union proposed a new regulation for members to adopt “CFIUS-like” foreign investment review processes. 

Gruenspecht said that while foreign investors are not  “thrilled” about the additional CFIUS scrutiny, “a lot of Western nations are also saying, actually, ‘We totally understand the rational behind CFIUS and we’re looking to implement our own internal versions of CFIUS ourselves.’ ”
…

From: MeNeedIt