Before it became one of the venues for the World Cup, the city of Volgograd in southwest Russia was famous for an overabundance of small, annoying flies called midges. While the small two-winged flies don’t bite, soccer fans are finding that they don’t leave you alone either. VOA’s Mariama Diallo takes a look at what Russian officials are doing to make the sporting life more comfortable for World Cup fans and players.
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From: MeNeedIt

Jehovah’s Witnesses have a long history of being persecuted around the world. Their activities are banned or restricted in several countries. They are considered an extremist organization in Russia, while their members are imprisoned in South Korea and Eritrea. Even near their main headquarters and publishing house in New York state, Jehovah’s Witnesses lead a somewhat secluded life. VOA’s Anush Avetisyan has the story.
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From: MeNeedIt

Globalization in the 20th century facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas and technology. But it also helped spread deadly germs and viruses around the world. A new exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History illustrates the impact of these sometimes lethal biological linkages and looks back at the deadliest and scariest epidemics throughout history. Maxim Moskalkov has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

In New York, Auxiliary Police Officers act as liaison between communities and the police department. Recently, Gursoch Kaur made headlines when she became the first female Sikh officer to serve in the Auxiliary Unit wearing a dastar, the traditional Sikh turban. Usually dastars are worn by Sikh men, but some women choose to wear them to raise awareness about their religion. VOA reporter Aunshuman Apte spoke to Gursoch Kaur to learn why she made that choice and how the community is reacting.
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From: MeNeedIt

After President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday, families seeking refuge from violence in their home countries are no longer being separated at the U.S. border. Still, more than 2,300 migrant children are living in shelters without their parents, and the Trump administration doesn’t have a plan in place to reunite these children with their parents.

One mother from Guatemala cried Friday as she held her young son for the first time in a month. Agents separated them after she crossed the border in May. “Te amo. Te amo.” “I love you. I love you,” she repeated as she kissed him and wrapped a blanket around him. 

The mother, Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, sued the U.S. government for separating her from her 7-year-old son. The lawyer who helped her worked for free.

​Long-term consequences

Government video shows children being held in cages, lying under Mylar blankets. They have also been placed in tents and shelters throughout the U.S., some as far away from Texas as Oregon.

The American Medical Association warned that as a result of being separated from their families, these children could suffer health consequences that could last a lifetime. 

Dr. Colleen Kraft, the president of the American Association of Pediatrics, has taken an active role in speaking out for these children. She warns that children who are exposed to toxic stress do not develop language or other skills at the proper age as a result of the trauma of being forcibly removed from their parents.

Trauma causes the body to produce high levels of stress hormones that can kill brain cells, affect the heart and cause children to regress. Some regress to wetting themselves. Others could develop a stutter. Some develop behavior problems.

“It may take a long time for this trauma to be resolved and these children to be healed,” Kraft said.

No one knows that more than Dr. Lisa Fortuna, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Boston University Medical School. Fortuna works with migrant children separated from their parents. She says the family separations have been going on for some time, and it’s very hard on children, no matter their age.

“I’ve had multiple kids tell me about feeling very cold, not eating enough, not having support of their parents or adults that care about them and that that was very, very distressing for them,” Fortuna said.

Touch important

Caregivers at some of the facilities where the children are being held say they are not allowed to touch even very young children. These rules were put in place for teenagers, but Myriam Golden, a social worker who specializes in treating traumatized children, says touch is very important, especially for small children.

“When you rock a child, they can hear your heart rate. You can hear their heart rate, and it is through that co-regulation, children can be soothed,” she said. Goldin is one of the founders of the Gil Institute for Trauma, Recovery and Education in Virginia.

Fortuna says a parent’s touch teaches a child that they are being taken care of and loved. She says if children are not touched, they can become despondent and withdrawn. They don’t learn how to relate to others. They lose the ability to trust. They can stop expressing emotion even if they are reunited with their parents.

Goldin cites a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Adverse Childhood Experiences, that shows that early childhood experiences have a profound impact on future violence and victimization. Goldin says the study proves scientifically that if the needs of children are not met, long-term mental and physical health problems can result.

Not every child separated from their family will have permanent health problems, but young children are the most vulnerable, and the separation from a parent can compound the stress they may have already experienced in unsafe conditions in their home countries.
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From: MeNeedIt

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to keep migrant children with their parents at the southwestern U.S. border, but more than 2,000 children are living in shelters without their families. Doctors and mental health workers are concerned that some of these children will suffer permanent damage. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will meet Russia’s energy minister next week in Washington, a person familiar with the situation said Friday, as the two countries compete to supply global markets with natural gas and crude.

Perry will meet Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Tuesday, in the context of the World Gas Conference in Washington, the source said.

Meetings between top energy officials from Russia and the United States, two of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, have been rare in recent years.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have cooled over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and as the Trump administration blames the Russian government for cyber attacks that targeted the U.S. power grid over the last two years.

The two countries are competing to sell natural gas to Europe. Russia’s Gazprom, the European Union’s biggest gas supplier, and several Western energy companies hope to open Nord Stream 2, a pipeline to bring Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany.

The United States, meanwhile, has begun some sales of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Poland and Lithuania, though LNG shipments can be more expensive than gas sent via pipeline.

The United States says the advantage of its LNG is dependability and stable pricing.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as did the administration of former President Barack Obama. Washington believes that the pipeline would give Russia, which has at times frozen deliveries to parts of Europe over pricing disputes, more power over the region.

The meeting comes as U.S. national security adviser John Bolton plans to visit Moscow next week to prepare for a possible meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Perry and Novak will also likely talk about oil markets. On Friday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in Vienna to raise oil output by a modest amount after consumers had called for producers to curb rising fuel prices.

Russia, which is not an OPEC member, began cooperating last year with the group for the first time, holding back production to support global oil prices. Before the Vienna OPEC meeting, Novak said Moscow would propose a gradual increase in output from oil-producing countries, starting in July.
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From: MeNeedIt

Tracking wildlife migration has been historically difficult in the rugged terrain of Alaska. Researchers primarily rely on either surveys or GPS tracking to understand bird migration patterns. Both methods are expensive, either in terms of time or money. And the trackers are often too large or heavy. 

One way to sidestep these common issues is to record audio from frequently used nesting grounds. Using birdsong allows researchers to unobtrusively study the animals, although there’s a downside. Each day produces a flood of audio recordings from multiple microphones placed around nesting grounds. It takes trained listeners endless hours to search the noisy soundscape for birdsong.

In a recently published paper in the journal Science Advances, U.S. researchers explain how they got around these tracking troubles. Columbia University ecologist Ruth Oliver and her fellow collaborators replaced the human ears with machine learning algorithms to listen to birdsong.

Costly proposition

Oliver told VOA News, “Arrival times of migratory song birds is really important for their reproductive success. And obviously sending people to the Arctic to do field work is very expensive and takes a lot of time” — hence, the scientists’ interest in creating an automated method for tracking bird species.

Oliver and her colleagues focused on migratory songbirds who fly to northern Alaska during their mating season. These birds tend to chirp more frequently as soon as they reach the breeding grounds to attract a mate. Spring is short in Alaska and the birds must breed and hatch their clutch before winter.

The team of researchers recorded the springtime soundscape of northern Alaska for five sequential years. They placed microphones at four sites in the foothills of the Brooks Range, which recorded 1,200 audio hours.

However, Oliver admitted the recordings weren’t always perfect. “There’s a lot of other noise in these recordings” Oliver said. “Even in May in northern Alaska there’s lots of wind, lots of rain, and all of that is confounding when you’re listening to birds.”

The scientists fed hours of audio into two types of machine learning algorithms — one that used human expertise to help train it and one that relied solely on the collected audio. Both algorithms were based on the same model that’s used by applications like Siri and Alexa.

Oliver told VOA that in creating the human-supervised algorithm, she “wrote a little program to randomly sample about 1 percent of the data set” and then listened to 4-second clips. She scored these clips as either containing or not containing songbird vocalizations and then fed this information into the program.

Both algorithms were fairly accurate at estimating when the avian commuters arrived in the foothills. The models showed the importance of snowmelt for the arrival of the traveling birds. The human-trained model was slightly better at recognizing the relationship between weather conditions and bird calls, although neither model specifically tracked individual species.

This technique has great potential according to Emily Jo Williams, vice president of migratory birds and habitat at the American Bird Conservancy, “This kind of technique that allows you to survey populations in those remote areas is really exciting and could allow us to even discover new places where protection and conservation efforts are needed,” she said.

This study looked at nesting grounds near the Alaskan Arctic Refuge, which is a summer home for birds from nearly every continent. For example, the Northern Wheatear travels approximately 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles) from Africa to summer in the refuge.

Climate change

Williams told VOA, “We know from some research that some birds’ ranges have actually changed, and they’ve moved in response to what we think is a warming climate.” She went on to explain that “the timing of that migration has evolved over eons, and in large part it’s relative to what food sources are available over a particular time, what weather patterns are or aren’t favorable. So you could end up with bird migration out of sync with insect hatches or the phenology of plants that birds have a relationship to.”

Tools like the algorithm created in this study could be used to track how migratory patterns of many species may shift in response to climate change. Using machine learning is a new way to follow these shifting patterns in birds, insects and other animals.
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From: MeNeedIt

“All I want to do is the Bataclan, the Bataclan.” Those are lyrics to a song released earlier in the year by rapper Medine. Two of his concerts are scheduled for the Bataclan theater in October. But not everyone wants to see the shows go on.

At issue, in part, are the words to another song by the artist, whose real name is Medine Zaouiche. In the song, “Don’t Laik,” one line goes, “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.” The song was released in 2015 — the same year that France was hit by several terrorist attacks, including one targeting the Bataclan.

This is not the first time Medina has generated controversy. A decade earlier, he released an album titled Jihad — and he has been photographed in a T-shirt bearing the term, and a massive sword.

Now, thousands of people have signed a petition launched by the far right and demanding Medine’s concerts be canceled. Critics are tweeting their opposition via the hashtag #pasdemedineaubataclan, or “no Medine at the Bataclan.”

On French radio, far-right National Rally party head Marine Le Pen described Medine as an Islamic fundamentalist. His performance at the Bataclan, she said, is a threat to public order.

Victims’ associations are divided. Philippe Duperron, who heads one of them, is against the concerts taking place, out of respect for the victims and the memory of them.

Medine and his lawyers are fighting back. The rapper has criticized Islamic fundamentalism a number of times and says he is against violence. He says “Don’t Laik” is more of a slap at France’s tough secular creed, and that the jihad he refers to is an internal spiritual struggle, rather than violence.

“It’s been 15 years since I’ve criticized all forms of radicalism in my albums,” he posted recently on social media. Banning his concerts, he argues, amounts to caving in to the far right.

Medine’s arguments are drawing support, partly in the name of free expression. That appears to be the argument of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. 

Still, others argue the divisions over the rapper’s concerts are the worst outcome, at a time when the French should be united against terrorism. 
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From: MeNeedIt

The human backup driver in an autonomous Uber SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking downward just before fatally striking a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix, according to a police report.

The 300-page report released Thursday night by police in Tempe revealed that driver Rafaela Vasquez had been streaming the musical talent show via Hulu in the 43 minutes before the March 18 crash that killed Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk. The report said the crash, which marks the first fatality involving a self-driving vehicle, wouldn’t have happened had the driver not been distracted.

Dash camera video shows Vasquez was looking down near her right knee for four or five seconds before the crash. She looked up a half second before striking Herzberg as the Volvo was traveling about 44 miles per hour.

Vasquez told police Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see her prior to the collision. But officers calculated that had Vasquez been paying attention, she could have reacted 143 feet before impact and brought the SUV to a stop about 42.6 feet before hitting Herzberg.

“This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted,” the report stated.

Tempe police are looking at a vehicular manslaughter charge in the crash, according to a March 19 affidavit filed to get a search warrant for audio, video and data stored in the Uber SUV.

 The detective seeking the warrant, identified as J. Barutha, wrote that based on information from the vehicular homicide unit, “it is believed that the crime of vehicular manslaughter has occurred and that evidence of this offense is currently located in a 2017 Grey Volvo XC-90.”

A previously released video of the crash showed Vasquez looking down just before the crash. She had a startled look on her face about the time of the impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report issued last month, said the autonomous driving system on Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.

The system is disabled while Uber’s cars are under computer control, “to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior,” the NTSB report said. Instead of the system, Uber relies on the human backup driver to intervene, the report stated. But the system is not designed to alert the driver.

Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona the day before the NTSB report was released, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles. The company had suspended testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto while regulators investigated the cause of the crash. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited Uber from continuing its tests of self-driving cars after Herzberg was run over.

Police initially determined that Vasquez was not impaired after giving her a field test.

Analysis of video taken from the vehicle shows Vasquez looked downward 204 times in the 11.8 miles traveled before the crash. While the SUV was in motion, Vasquez averted her eyes away from the roadway nearly a third of the time, according to the report.

“Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down,” the report said. “Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times.”

The office of Cristina Perez Hesano, an attorney for Herzberg’s daughter and husband, declined to comment on the police report. Attorney Pat McGroder, who represents Herzberg’s mother, father and son, didn’t immediately respond to a call late Friday morning seeking comment.

An Uber spokeswoman said in a prepared statement Friday morning that the company is cooperating with investigations while it does an internal safety review. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon,” the statement said.

Use of a mobile device while an autonomous vehicle is moving is a fireable offense, and “this is emphasized on an ongoing basis,” the statement said.

After the crash, the ride-hailing company said it did a top-to-bottom safety evaluation, reviewing internal processes and safety culture. Uber also said it brought in former transportation safety board chairman Christopher Hart to advise the company on safety.

Both Vasquez and Uber could still face civil liability in the case, Uber for potentially negligent hiring, training and supervision, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who closely follows autonomous vehicles.

Vasquez could be charged criminally, and if there’s evidence that Uber or its employees acted recklessly, then charges against them are possible, Smith said. But charges against the company are not likely, he added.

“This should not have happened in so many ways and on so many levels,” Smith said. “This report, if true, makes things worse. And obviously it would not look good to a jury.”

Uber settled quickly with some of Herzberg’s family members but others have retained legal counsel.

The Yavapai County Attorney’s Office hasn’t set a deadline for deciding whether to bring charges, said Penny Cramer, assistant to County Attorney Sheila Polk. The prosecutorial agency declined to comment on the police report.

The case was handed to Polk’s office after the prosecutor’s office in metro Phoenix passed on the case, citing a potential conflict of interest. The agency in Phoenix had previously participated in a public-safety campaign with Uber.

On a body camera video the night of the crash, police gathered at the scene quickly realized that they were dealing with a big story because an autonomous vehicle was involved.

An officer who identifies himself as supervisor of the unit that investigates fatal crashes is seen asking a man who appears to be an Uber supervisor about getting video from the SUV and whether Uber’s lawyers have been contacted.

“You guys know as well as I know that this is going to be an international story,” the police supervisor says. “We want to make sure that we’re doing not only what we normally do and not doing anything different, but also making sure that everything’s above board and everything’s out in the open.”

The supervisor goes on to say that he’s going to communicate as honestly as he can. “I hope that you guys do the same because we’re going to be working together throughout this whole process from now, probably for months from now.”
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who killed himself in a French hotel room earlier this month, had no narcotics or alcohol in his body when he died, a local prosecutor said on Friday.

Bourdain, host of CNN’s food-and-travel-focused “Parts Unknown” television series, was 61. Brash and opinionated, he had spoken openly about his use of drugs and addiction to heroin earlier in his life.

“No trace of narcotics, no trace of any toxic products, no trace of medicines, no trace of alcohol,” prosecutor Christian de Rocquigny told Reuters.

Bourdain, whose career catapulted him from washing dishes at New York restaurants to dining in Vietnam with President Barack Obama, hanged himself in a hotel room near Strasbourg, France, where he had been working on an upcoming episode of his TV series, according to CNN.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Michael Benanav has traveled around much of the world, chronicling in words and pictures nomadic communities from Mali, to Jordan to Mongolia. But when the photographer heard about the Van Gujjar tribe of Northern India, he knew he wanted to do more than just document their existence. He wanted to join them on a migration to better understand their nomadic way of life and culture.
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From: MeNeedIt