A sculptor who produced the image of Queen Elizabeth used on Britain’s coins has been chosen to create a new statue of Princess Diana, the office of Princes William and Harry said Sunday, to commemorate 20 years since her death.

Ian Rank-Broadley, whose effigy of the Queen has appeared on all UK and Commonwealth coinage since 1998, will design the statue, which will not be unveiled until 2019.

“Ian is an extremely gifted sculptor and we know that he will create a fitting and lasting tribute to our mother,” Prince William and his younger brother, Harry, said in a statement.

In January, the brothers commissioned a statue in honor of their mother, who died in a Paris car crash 20 years ago, to be erected outside their official London home Kensington Palace.

Diana, the first wife of the heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, was killed when the limousine carrying her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed in a Paris tunnel in August 1997.

William was 15 and Harry was 12 at the time.

“We have been touched by the kind words and memories so many people have shared about our mother over these past few months,” the brothers said. “It is clear the significance of her work is still felt by many in the UK and across the world, even 20 years after her death.”

It had been hoped that the statue would be unveiled before the end of the year to mark the anniversary, but Kensington Palace said that it was now envisaged that the statue would be unveiled in 2019.

The first permanent memorial to her, a 210-meter (689-foot) long fountain was unveiled in Hyde Park in 2004 after years of bureaucratic wrangling and squabbling over the design.
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From: MeNeedIt

If God were a stonemason … Utah’s Arches National Park would be the back room of his workshop. The Arches National Park, established almost a century ago, is now one of the most popular destinations for Americans and tourists from around the world. The park has more than 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks. VOA’s Alex Yanevskyy had a chance to take in these majestic wonders.
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From: MeNeedIt

Many scientists believe the Arctic, one of the fastest-changing places on the planet, could drive change in other parts of the world, including wildfire-ravaged Southern California.

In a recent NASA mission called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), climate scientist Josh Willis embarked on a journey to study ice in Greenland and surrounding oceans and how much oceans are eating away at the ice around the edges of the ice sheet. The data collected included the ocean’s temperature and salinity, and the shape and depth of the sea floor.

“The shape of the sea floor determines how much the warm water can reach in and touch the glaciers,” said Willis, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.

“Warm water is widespread across the Greenland shelf, and it is very much a major threat to the glaciers,” Willis said. “The thing we really don’t know is how fast is Greenland’s ice going to disappear.

“If it takes a thousand years or two thousand years, then we can probably adapt. But if it happens in a few hundred, we should already be evacuating cities around the world,” he added.

Impact of sea ice

A separate study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggests a link between sea ice melting in the Arctic and drier conditions in California. A new simulation that only looks at sea ice in the next two decades, shows a pressure ridge pushing the winter air masses north into Alaska and Canada, which impacts California.

“We saw quite substantial drying of California so with (looking at) the sea ice alone, we saw 10 to 15 percent decrease in precipitation over a 20-year period,” said Ivana Cvijanovic, an atmospheric scientist and post-doctoral researcher at the national laboratory.

Other factors such as greenhouse gases and particulate pollution can also affect the future of rainfall in California. The modeling framework used in the study at Lawrence Livermore helps scientists understand the impact of sea ice in isolation to these other factors.

“Ice is disappearing on the Arctic Ocean. It’s disappearing from Greenland and this is reshaping climate patterns all across the planet,” Willis said.

He and other scientists predict that as Arctic regions warm, the American Southwest will feel the impact.

“We will probably see drier conditions in the long run in the second half of the [21st] century in the Southwest and that means we’re going to struggle with water needs and also fire,” Willis said.

Intersection of wildland, people

Dry conditions plus a growing population and urban sprawl equals more wildfires and costly devastation, such as the ones in Southern California.

“We are in Southern California and a lot of the fires we find that happen right where people intersect with wildland happen because of people,” said Natasha Stavros, an applied science system engineer and fire expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As the weather evolves and more wildfires burn, Stavros expects other environmental changes.

“As we experience climate changes and things become hotter and dryer, fire acts kind of like an eraser. It erases the landscape and it actually allows new ecosystems to establish because they don’t have to compete with what was there,” Stavros said.

The American Southwest is not the only place where change is predicted.

“As the atmosphere heats up, it becomes a better pipe for carrying water for picking it up from one place and dumping it in another,” Willis said. “This means that dry places are more likely to get drier and wet places are likely to get wetter. It also means that bigger more torrential downpours become more likely.”
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From: MeNeedIt

A new report from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory predicts a link between sea ice melting in the Arctic and drier conditions in California over the next several decades. This finding comes at a time when several wildfires are raging across Southern California. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports on the work of scientists as they look at the global implications of the melting of glaciers and sea ice, and other impacts a changing climate could have around the world.
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From: MeNeedIt

A new exhibition aims to show how the art world has responded to the global changes since the terror attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 at London’s Imperial War Museum brings together 40 artists from across the world whose works reflect on conflict and society since that day. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. economy posted another impressive month, adding 228,000 jobs in November. The unemployment rate, now at a 17-year low, remains unchanged at 4.1 percent. But even as more Americans returned to the workforce, job recruiters say the job market is changing and both employers and employees need to be prepared. Mil Arcega reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The environmental group EcoWatch estimates that at least 1 million sea birds, and 100,000 marine mammals are killed every year by ingesting plastic or getting caught in it. It is an environmental nightmare, and it’s getting worse every year. But this week, more than 200 countries signed an agreement to begin dealing with the problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Last month, U.S. Catholic bishops voted unanimously to pursue sainthood for Oglala Lakota healer and visionary Nicholas Black Elk, who is credited with bringing hundreds of Native Americans to the Catholic faith. It is the realization of a dream for Catholic Lakota on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, among them, some of Black Elk’s descendants.

But not everyone one supports the move, mindful of the Church’s role in the historic suppression of indigenous cultures.

Background

Most of what is known about Black Elk is derived from an autobiography dictated to writer John Neihart in 1932, “Black Elk Speaks.”

He was born in present-day Wyoming in December, 1863, according to the Lakota calendar, and given the name of Hehaka Sapa, literally, “Black Elk.”

Black Elk grew up during the period of American settler expansion into the West and the U.S. government’s forced removal of Native Americans onto reservations. During this time, missionaries from various Christian denominations flocked to reservations in order to “save” Native souls. Catholic priests of the Jesuit order — called “black robes” by Lakota — established a mission at Pine Ridge.

Black Elk’s childhood was punctuated by religious visions which led him to later serve as a wichasha wakan, a traditional healer and spiritual leader. Black Elk announced his vocation in 1881, but after the U.S. government banned many Native American religious practices, he was forced to go underground.

“The Jesuits could tolerate Lakota spirituality and practice, but they did not like the healing ceremonies,” said Damian M. Costello, author of Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. “They saw them as calling in spirits in an inappropriate way.”

In 1904, Costello explained, a Jesuit priest angrily interrupted Black Elk while he was performing a healing ceremony.

“In the aftermath of that, Black Elk was invited to Holy Rosary Mission, and he stayed there, learned about the faith and was eventually baptized,” he said.

Black Elk took the Christian name of Nicholas, after the 4th century healer, St. Nicholas. For the next 40 years, he served as a Church catechist, or lay cleric, and is said to have brought more than 400 Native Americans to the Catholic faith.

The road to sainthood

The movement to have him declared a saint began in March 2016, when some of Black Elk’s descendants presented a formal petition to Rapid City, South Dakota, Bishop Robert D. Gruss.

Gruss formally opened the case for sainthood on October 21 during a Mass at Pine Ridge’s Holy Rosary Church.

“Our task now is to continue to gather more information, testimony about his life, and to pray that he is found worthy to have his cause moved forward,” Gruss said.

The canonization process involves three steps: First is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the church declares the person “venerable.” Second is beatification, after which the person is called “blessed.” Third is canonization, sainthood.

Petitioners must show evidence of two miracles occurring before and after beautification.

Bill White, a Lakota Catholic, will serve as the postulator for Black Elk’s cause. His job is to gather evidence to present to Rome.

“I believe God spoke to Black Elk at a very early age, and it isn’t likely that this was a message that just came from his village,” White said. “The message that we must all live in peace and harmony, it was such a Christian concept that it had to have come from God Himself, and it actually informed him and gave him direction for the rest of his life.”

Debating conversion

The nature of Black Elk’s conversion, however, is still debated by some scholars: Did the traditional healer become a Catholic out of true conviction or did he simply give in to pressure?

His great-granddaughter, Lakota activist Charlotte Black Elk, has been critical of the Church.

“There are varying types of genocide,” she told C-Span in a 2001 interview. “There’s the genocide where you outright kill people. There’s the genocide where you deny them identity through religious expression, through theology.”

She believes Black Elk converted because it was politically expedient.

“In those days, we weren’t allowed to travel without permission,” she told VOA. “But as a catechist, Black Elk could go everywhere and conduct traditional ceremonies.”

She said she does not support the idea of the Catholic Church claiming her ancestor as a saint, “but I do respect those who do,” she said. “And I will live well together with all my relatives.”

White is aware that not everyone supports the cause, but rejects their criticism.

“For over four decades, he was a catechist. He brought in hundreds of converts. Is this something you do just for a meal ticket, just to be able to travel freely?”

That said, he issued an invitation to skeptics: “I would invite them to give me some evidence. In my job as postulator, I would want to hear evidence to the contrary of what I feel and what I believe.”

The final decision will lie in the hands of Pope Francis, who has been vocal in his support of indigenous rights.

If confirmed, Black Elk would be the second Native American to receive the Church’s highest honor. The first was Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th century Mohawk, canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
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From: MeNeedIt

Rising seas driven by climate change are threatening coastal cities around the world. The Southern U.S. city of Miami is already feeling the effects. Every autumn, when tides are at their highest, residents contend with flooded streets. Now, scientists are turning citizens into scientists to help them understand the impacts. VOA’s Steve Baragona spent time with volunteers splashing in puddles for science.
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From: MeNeedIt

Bangladesh’s central bank has asked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to join a lawsuit it plans to file against a Philippines bank for its role in one of the world’s biggest cyber-heists, several sources said.

The Fed has yet to respond formally, but there is no indication it would join the suit.

Unidentified hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed in February last year, using fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments system. The money was sent to accounts at Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp and then disappeared into the casino industry in the Philippines.

Nearly two years later, there is no word on who was responsible, and Bangladesh Bank has been able to retrieve only about $15 million, mostly from a Manila junket operator.

​Legal action discussed

Officials from Bangladesh Bank and the New York Fed spoke about legal action against RCBC in a conference call last month that was also attended by two representatives from SWIFT, according to three sources in Dhaka who had direct knowledge of the conversations.

It was agreed that Bangladesh Bank would send a proposal on the suit to the New York Fed, they said.

“The aim is to file a case by March-April in New York,” said one of the sources. “Work is on. Bangladesh Bank is likely to send something to the Fed soon.”

The source said the idea was it would be a civil suit to recover the money, and that Bangladesh hoped the Fed and SWIFT would be joint petitioners.

Subhankar Saha, a spokesman for Bangladesh Bank, said he had no knowledge of any plans to sue RCBC but that “efforts are on to recover the entire stolen money.”

The New York Fed and SWIFT declined comment.

A source familiar with the New York Fed’s thinking confirmed that Bangladesh Bank’s external counsel raised the idea of filing a suit against RCBC in the call.

The New York Fed officials agreed to review any proposal Bangladesh Bank wrote up, but they did not formally agree to a joint effort, and have not since worked on it nor heard from Bangladesh Bank, the source said.

​Rogue employees

RCBC has blamed rogue employees, and Philippine prosecutors have filed money-laundering charges against a former RCBC bank manager and four people who owned the bank accounts where the funds were sent, but are not identifiable because the accounts were in fake names. They are the only people to be formally cited in association with the crime.

Bangladeshi officials have cited internal RCBC documents, also seen by Reuters, to assert that the Filipino bank ignored suspicions raised by some RCBC officials when the money was first remitted to the accounts on Feb. 5, 2016, and then delayed acting on requests from RCBC’s head office to freeze the funds on Feb. 9.

RCBC did not respond to requests for comment. But it has said in the past that it would not pay any compensation and that Bangladesh Bank bore responsibility for the theft since it was negligent.

RCBC was fined a record 1 billion Philippine pesos ($20 million) by the country’s central bank last year for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen money through it.

Separately, a Bangladesh court has sent letters rogatory to the United States seeking the findings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into the case, said the main police investigator in Dhaka. Letters rogatory are documents used to obtain judicial assistance from foreign courts.

“We have questions for the Federal Reserve Bank, we want to collect the FBI report, what their findings are,” Molla Nazrul Islam, a special superintendent of police in Bangladesh, told Reuters this week.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency could not comment on ongoing cases.

A hacking group called Lazarus that is believed to have connections to North Korea has been linked to the Bangladesh cyberheist, and some U.S. officials said earlier this year that prosecutors were building a case against Pyongyang. But no case has yet been filed.
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From: MeNeedIt

Mammography has been a standard screening device for breast cancer since the mid-1970s. And the practice is credited with a 30 percent decline in death, thanks to early detection and treatment.

Now, many doctors are urging women to get a 3-D mammogram, which produces a more detailed view of the breast. But there has not been a large-scale study to determine if the technology actually provides a better outcome — until now.

Women older than 50 are advised to get a mammogram every year or two to screen for breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.

​Comparing mammograms

A new study funded by the National Cancer Institute will compare traditional mammograms with the 3-D version to determine if the newer, often pricier choice really improves early detection of tumors.

“It’s a new technology that has been FDA approved,” said Dr. Tova Koenigsberg of Montefiore Health Systems in New York. “But we don’t actually have studies that know whether in a large population 3-D actually helps.”

Koenigsberg heads the project at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, one of about 100 clinics participating in the five-year study. The clinics, spread across the United States, and a few in Canada, will soon enroll healthy women ages 45 to 74 who are planning to get a routine mammogram, including Sabitri Jaipersaud.

After a doctor found what turned out to be a benign abnormality in her breast, she became diligent about annual mammograms and felt joining the study was important.

“It immediately piqued my interest because I feel that all, all of us can benefit from this and for the future,” Jaipersaud said.

The women in the study will be randomly assigned to get either the regular mammogram or the 3-D version for five years. Most will be screened annually but post-menopausal women who don’t have certain cancer risk factors will be screened every other year.

A traditional mammogram takes an X-ray of the breast from top to bottom and side-to-side.

“In a 3-D mammogram,” Koenigsberg said, “the camera actually sweeps at an angle and allows us to see the breast at different angles and projections.”

Known pros, cons

Doctors know that there are pros and cons to 3-D mammography, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

“It might find disease that we need to find that two-dimensional does not,” Brawley said. “There’re potential cons in that it has a higher cost, higher amount of radiation, given every dose, every time a person has a test, as well as it may find a higher number of false positives.”

As for what type to choose, some insurers, including Medicare, cover the 3-D version, and a small number of states mandate coverage. Other insurers may require women to pay $50 to $100 more out of pocket.

After collecting the result of every scan, biopsy and cancer at the end of the study, researchers hope to provide certainty about how often women should get mammograms, and which women would benefit most from which type.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Congolese fashion designer is promoting safe sex with a collection of clothes made of condoms that she hopes will help combat HIV/AIDS in the central African country.

Felicite Luwungu started making her condom line, which includes strapless evening gowns and tops, after the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit close to home.

“I have lost loved ones to HIV – that’s what inspired me to do this,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the capital, Kinshasa. “The message that I hope people will apply is to be prudent.”

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS and dying from related infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been falling for more than a decade, according to the United Nations.

The prevalence rate of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is about 0.7 percent, among the lowest in southern and central Africa, UNAIDS data shows.

Luwungu, 40, displays her work in runway shows and exhibitions. When she finishes the condom collection, she plans to present it at a large fashion show next year.

The designs have shocked audiences but responses have been mostly positive, Luwungu said.

“People make jokes but it doesn’t discourage me,” she said. “That only pushes me to do this more.”
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From: MeNeedIt