We know that fingerprints can be lifted off various surfaces. But now technology is available to steal fingerprints from a digital photograph. VOA’s Deborah Block explains how.
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From: MeNeedIt

Hugh Jackman, Lupita Nyong’o, Aaron Paul and Demi Lovato will co-host this year’s Global Citizen Festival, an annual free event held in New York’s Central Park.

Performers at the Sept. 23 event include Stevie Wonder, Green Day, The Killers, The Lumineers, The Chainsmokers, Pharrell Williams, Big Sean, Andra Day and Alessia Cara.

The organization announced Friday that Frieda Pinto, Connie Britton, Deborra-lee Furness, Joan Smalls, Kal Penn, Malin Akerman, Mark Cuban and others will also co-host the multi-hour event. It will air live on MSNBC and Comcast NBCUniversal.

Fans can earn their free tickets for admission by joining the movement at globalcitizenfestival.com.

Last year, Jackman co-hosted the event with Neil Patrick Harris, Chelsea Handler and others. Performers at the 2016 concert included Rihanna, Eddie Vedder, Kendrick Lamar and Metallica.
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From: MeNeedIt

Real estate experts say Hurricane Irma’s winds threaten 8.5 million homes and businesses in Florida.

A report from data analysis firm CoreLogic says storm surges — floodwaters driven by high winds and low pressure — may also endanger 3.5 million commercial and residential properties.

Standard & Poor’s analysts say they are still adding up the costs of Hurricane Harvey, but Irma seems likely to cost even more. Researchers at Barclays Bank say hurricane claims costs might rise high enough to wipe out a year of earnings for certain insurance companies.

Deadly Hurricane Irma is also hurting transportation companies, including airlines, which have canceled 4,600 flights to and from airports in the Caribbean and Florida, according to FlightAware.com. Bad weather is forcing Miami’s airport to stop operating Friday and Orlando’s facility to end flights on Saturday. Together, these major airports handle about 2,000 flights on normal days.

Florida accounts for about 5 percent of the U.S. GDP and 6 percent of U.S. jobs. PNC Bank chief economist Gus Faucher says U.S. economic growth may briefly slow in the third quarter because of Harvey and Irma, but he thinks it will bounce back late this year and early next year. Faucher says insurance and government aid will fund rebuilding efforts in the wake of the storms, and that will add to economic activity and hiring.

Commonwealth Financial Network’s Brad McMillan says previous major storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy caused huge local problems but did not change the national economy in a “fundamental” way. He says the recovery in this case may take “longer than usual.”
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From: MeNeedIt

This is the Top Five Countdown! We’re taking aim at the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart for the week ending September 9, 2017.

You’ll be glad you joined us this week because countdown history is made – this is one for the record books.

Number 5: Charlie Puth “Attention”

Charlie Puth rebounds a slot to fifth place with “Attention,” which tops this week’s Billboard Pop Songs chart.

How did Charlie know this song was a hit? His artist & repertoire partner Mike Beard tells Billboard that they usually have other people critique their songs…but this time they didn’t need to. They knew “Attention” was a winner.

Number 4: Imagine Dragons “Believer”

Also on the upswing is Imagine Dragons in fourth place with “Believer.” 

Lead singer Dan Reynolds says therapy has made him a better person. Dan says he went through a crisis of faith, which has now led him to fight on behalf of others. Last month, Imagine Dragons headlined their own festival, LoveLoud, which works to benefit LGBTQ youths…particularly within the Mormon community.

Number 3: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Holding in third place is Cardi B with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).”

Earlier this year the New York rapper signed with the Atlantic label, and now says her debut album will drop in October. She broke the news to her fans last weekend at the Made In America festival in Philadelphia.

Number 2: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna & Bryson Tiller ” Wild Thoughts”

DJ Khaled, Rihanna, and Bryson Tiller occupy the runner-up slot for another week with “Wild Thoughts.”

DJ Khaled tells E! News that he used to fear flying so much that he hadn’t stepped on a plane in 10 years. He says taking his infant son Asahd on tour has helped him overcome that fear. Khaled couldn’t bear to be apart from him, so he’s back in the air and feeling fine.

Number 1: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

“Despacito” remains airborne for an incredible 16th week at number one, and yes…that ties the all-time Hot 100 record, set in late 1995 and early 1996 by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. The name of their song? “One Sweet Day.”

Next week looms large: what will happen on the Hot 100? We’ll be here to tell you so don’t miss a moment!
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From: MeNeedIt

About 143 million Americans could be affected by a cyberattack on the credit monitoring company Equifax.

The Atlanta-based company said Thursday the hackers obtained names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses of more than 40 percent of the U.S. population.

“Based on the company’s investigation, the unauthorized access occurred from mid-May through July 2017,” the company said in a statement.

The company said credit card numbers were also compromised for some 209,000 U.S. consumers, as were credit dispute accounts for 182,000 people.

Additionally, limited personal information was also compromised for some in Britain and Canada.

Equifax said it doesn’t believe that any consumers from other countries were affected.

The company has established a website to enable consumers to determine if they are affected and will be offering free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to customers.

Equifax is one the largest credit-reporting companies in the U.S.
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists have accused the alcohol industry of misleading the public over the link between alcohol and cancer.

Researchers looked at the websites of 28 global organizations representing the alcohol industry, and concluded that the vast majority distort or misrepresent the evidence of an alcohol-related cancer risk.

“What you might see is that certain health problems related to alcohol consumption are mentioned on the website, but cancer is missing, or specific types of cancer are missing, particularly breast cancer or colorectal cancer,” said Mark Petticrew, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the research.

The Washington-based International Alliance for Responsible Drinking, or IARD, is accused of misleading the public over the risk of contracting specific types of cancers, and trying to confuse the issue by highlighting a range of other risk factors.

In a statement provided to VOA, the IARD disputed the conclusions, saying: “We believe in sharing the current state of the scientific evidence and stand by the information that we publish on drinking and health.”

Petticrew compares the industry’s actions with those of the tobacco giants, which for a long time disputed the link between cancer and smoking.

“In the U.K., around 4 percent of cancers are attributable to alcohol consumption,” Petticrew said. “I think what’s important to remember is that the risk itself is quite low for people who consume at low levels. But the fact is that the information about the risk that is disseminated by these organizations is distorted and misrepresented.”

The report says further research is needed on whether the alcohol industry is distorting information on other risks, such as cardiovascular disease.
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From: MeNeedIt

At least 1.4 million people uprooted by Boko Haram’s insurgency in northeast Nigeria are living in ‘cholera hotspots,’ prey to an outbreak of the deadly disease which is sweeping through camps for the displaced, the United Nations said on Thursday.

An estimated 28 people have died from cholera in the conflict-hit region, while about 837 are suspected to have been infected with the disease, including at least 145 children under the age of five, said the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF).

The outbreak was first identified last week in the Muna Garage camp in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, which is the heart of jihadist group Boko Haram’s brutal eight-year campaign to carve out an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria.

About 1.8 million people have abandoned their homes because of violence or food shortages, U.N. agencies say, and many live in camps for the displaced throughout northeast Nigeria.

Several aid agencies last month told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that Nigeria’s rainy season could spread disease in already unsanitary displacement camps, and 350,000 uprooted children aged under five are at risk of cholera, UNICEF said.

“Cholera is difficult for young children to withstand at any time, but becomes a crisis for survival when their resilience is already weakened by malnutrition, malaria and other waterborne diseases,” UNICEF’s Pernille Ironside said in a statement.

“Cholera is one more threat amongst many that children in northeast Nigeria are battling today in order to survive,” added Ironside, UNICEF’s deputy representative in Nigeria.

UNICEF said aid agencies have set up a cholera treatment centre at the Muna Garage camp, chlorinated water in camps and host communities to curb the outbreak, and mobilised volunteers and local leaders to refer suspected cases to health facilities.

The disease, which spreads through contaminated food and drinking water, causes diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. It can kill within hours if left untreated, but most patients recover if treated promptly with oral rehydration salts.

The latest figures represent a 3.3 percent fatality rate – well above the 1 percent rate that the World Health Organization rates as an emergency. The short incubation period of two hours to five days means the disease can spread with explosive speed.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in the conflict with Boko Haram, at least 2.2 million have been displaced, and 5.2 million in the northeast are short of food, with tens of thousands living in famine-like conditions, U.N. figures show.
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From: MeNeedIt

After the last space shuttle mission ended, in July 2011, the activity at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, seemed to be waning. NASA’s next launch vehicle was still in the early stages of design, so launch activity was transferred to the Russian space center in Baikonur. But this opened new opportunities for the space center, and today it is booming with private business activity. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. congressmen have approved a bill to deploy self-driving cars and prevent states from blocking them. The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday passed the bill that would allow automakers to obtain exemptions to deploy up to 25,000 vehicles without meeting auto safety standards in the first year. That number would increase to 100,000 vehicles annually over the next three years. Automakers and technology companies hope to begin deploying vehicles around 2020. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Belgium-based start-up is on its way to making the world a bit sunnier, by printing the first 3-D sunglasses out of recycled plastic.

The Antwerp-based company w.r.yuma – pronounced “We are Yuma” and named after one of the sunniest places on earth – began a month-long online crowd-sourcing campaign on Kickstarter on Wednesday.

After two years of prototyping and testing different materials, it promises to transform old car dashboards, soda bottles, fridges and other plastic waste into different colored shades.

“It’s the icon of cool, really, and when you wear, literally you are looking to the world through a different set of lenses, and that’s exactly the message that I want to bring,” Founder Sebastiaan de Neubourg said of the company, named after Yuma, Arizona.

“I want to inspire people to have, quite literally, another look at waste.”

The plastic waste is sourced from the Netherlands and Belgium’s Flemish region. The waste is fed into the 3-D printer, melted to form thin strands of plastic wire and layered together to construct the frames.

These are then assembled by hand and fitted with Italian made Mazzuchelli lenses.

Marketing schemes include setting up stands at music festivals to transform plastic drinking cups into sunglasses on the spot.

The company is also making a limited number of soda white sunglasses made from 90 percent recycled PET plastic from soda bottles.

It is also inviting would-be clients to return the glasses once they are done with them to be turned into a new pair of glasses.

“The idea … [is] also to make sure that the materials eventually come back to us in a closed loop system,” de Neubourg said.

With five unique designs and three colours of lenses to choose from, de Neubourg is trying to make sustainable recycling fashionable and useful. The sunglasses will be shipped to customers in January 2018.

“I think that sustainability should become mainstream,” said de Neubourg, a former mechanical engineer for a sustainability consultancy.

“We’re not going to solve the plastic waste problem by just taking this plastic and putting it in sunglasses, but it’s a first step. … I want to touch a lot of people with that message.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Rockets that will take Americans back to space from U.S. soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 could also launch new careers in space science. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

One of China’s biggest textile mills is planning its first North American factory in a small town in the southern U.S. state of Arkansas. VOA’s Ping Zhang went to have a look at local expectations and the promise of new jobs.
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From: MeNeedIt