Something extraordinary happened last week at the bottom of the world: 55 very determined, possibly crazy people participated in a marathon on the continent of Antarctica. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

President Donald Trump is donating his third-quarter salary to the Department of Health and Human Services to help fight the opioid epidemic.

The White House did not immediately announce the amount of the check that acting Health Secretary Eric Hargan accepted Thursday. Trump previously donated salary in the amounts of $78,333 and $100,000 to the National Park Service and the Education Department, respectively.

Hargan says the donation will be put toward the planning and design of a large-scale public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid addiction.

Trump announced the ad campaign in October, the same time he declared opioid misuse a national public health emergency. The declaration included no new federal funding to combat the epidemic.

Hargan says 175 people die every day from drug overdose.
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From: MeNeedIt

Senate Republicans delayed a final vote on an overhaul of the U.S. tax code late Thursday amid furious, behind-the-scenes efforts to fine-tune the legislation to satisfy a small group of fiscal hawks whose support is needed to pass one of President Donald Trump’s core campaign promises.

“Senators will continue to debate the bill tonight,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said, adding that further votes pertaining to the tax bill would occur later Friday.

Only hours earlier, Republicans appeared poised to pass a massive restructuring of federal taxes and deal a stinging defeat to Democrats. Several wavering Republicans had signaled support for the bill, including John McCain of Arizona.

Late in the day, however, three Republicans, led by Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, clung to a demand that proposed tax cuts would be pared back if future U.S. economic performance did not meet projections.

Republicans have a two-seat Senate majority. Three defections from their ranks would torpedo the bill, given unified Democratic opposition.

With time needed to rewrite portions of the bill to satisfy the Corker contingent, Republican leaders opted to postpone further votes.

Details of plan

The underlying proposal would permanently cut corporate taxes, temporarily cut taxes on wages and salaries, boost some tax deductions Americans can claim while eliminating others, and increase the U.S. national debt, which currently is more than $20 trillion.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation issued a report Thursday estimating the Republican plan would sap federal coffers by more than $1 trillion over a decade, even taking into account more than $400 billion in new revenue generated by a projected increase in economic activity.

“The [JCT] score ends the fantasy about magical growth, about unicorns and growth fairies showing that tax cuts pay for themselves,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said.

Republicans insisted a vibrant economy was necessary for fiscal health, and that tax cuts would promote growth.

“If this legislation is signed into law, we are going to have a smaller deficit in future years than we are on the path to have now,” Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said. “The right incentives lead to stronger growth.”

Democrats shot back that the federal deficit and income inequality both expanded after every tax cut enacted in recent decades.

“Trickle-down economics did not work under Ronald Reagan, did not work under George W. Bush,” independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with Democrats, said. “It is a fraudulent theory.”

“All we are doing is shifting the tax to our kids,” Maine Senator Angus King, another independent who also caucuses with Democrats, said. “If 5-year-olds knew what we were doing and could vote, none of us would have a job.”

Corporate tax rate

The tax plan would cut corporate taxes from a maximum rate of 35 percent to 20 percent.

“Other countries have learned how to use their tax codes to entice U.S. businesses overseas, businesses around the globe, to their country — to move away from the United States to their countries’ more competitive tax code,” Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado said. “That disparity between the U.S. tax code and foreign tax rates has literally chased jobs and wages out of this country.”

Some Democrats agreed that U.S. corporate taxes should be lowered, but insisted the Republican plan goes too far and would eventually trigger painful cuts to federal programs that benefit the poor and elderly in the future.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey accused Republicans of mounting a “con game” in which they tout tax breaks but gloss over “their brutal, vicious cuts to programs for the poorest, the sickest, the elderly, neediest in our country.”

In a sign that Republicans were confident of passing the bill, House Speaker Paul Ryan laid the groundwork for creating a bicameral committee to reconcile differences between the Senate’s legislation and a House version that was approved several weeks ago.

A unified tax plan would have to pass both chambers before it could go to the White House for Trump’s signature.
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From: MeNeedIt

Google, which prides itself on developing simple, intuitive software that seems to know what you want almost before you do, is finding itself in a very different world when it comes to its own phones and other gadgets.

Its new Pixel 2 phones, released in October, got high marks for their camera and design — at least until some users complained about “burned in” afterimages on their screens, a bluish tint, periodic clicking sounds and occasionally unresponsive touch commands.

Then the company’s new Home Mini smart speaker was caught always listening. Finally, its wireless “Pixel Buds” headset received savage reviews for a cheap look and feel, mediocre sound quality, and being difficult to set up and confusing to use.

In short, Google is re-learning an old adage in the technology business: Hardware is hard.

Growing pains

Google quickly extended the warranty on the Pixel 2 and tweaked software on the devices and its Home Mini in an attempt to fix the troublesome issues. (It hasn’t had much to say about the Pixel Buds.) Still, the problems served as a high-profile reminder of the company’s inexperience in making consumer electronics — a field where Apple has a 40-year head start.

But the company insists that its problems are being blown out of proportion.

“I believe, quite frankly, that Google has a spotlight on it,” Rick Osterloh, the executive in charge of the company’s hardware division, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Things that would normally be pretty minor issues are a bit amplified in today’s environment.”

Of course, Google has actively courted this spotlight. In 2016, Osterloh took the stage at a product event to tout the Pixel phone as “the best of hardware and software, designed and built by Google.” The company is also currently running a major ad campaign to draw attention to its gizmos for the holiday shopping season.

“Being a software company is an entirely different animal from being a hardware company,” said technology analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research. “The cultures are very different and there are more moving parts in hardware, so you have to learn along the way.”

Google has to realize a “fail fast” philosophy that worked well for free software products doesn’t work as well for smartphones that cost hundreds of dollars, said analyst Ross Rubin of Reticle Research.

Software “can be more forgiving of that development philosophy,” he said. “You can’t do that with atoms. You risk some backlash.”

Hardware full of Google

Google’s push into devices, which includes its own Wi-Fi routers and an older line of web-based notebook computers, has become a key strategy for the internet giant. It sees these gadgets as a way to ensure services such as search, maps, Gmail, and its voice-activated assistant remain prominent as personal computing expands on mobile devices and new smart gizmos in homes.

All those Google services are baked into Android, which powers more than 2 billion devices worldwide — but device makers such as Samsung that use the free software also can make adjustments to highlight their own products instead. And Apple only uses Google’s search engine as a built-in service on iPhones, and that’s only because Google pays billions of dollars annually for the access.

The Pixel phones and Home speakers also serve as a showcase and data-collection tool for the Google Assistant, its voice-activated digital concierge. The virtual assistant is key to Google’s artificial-intelligence efforts, aimed at making computers that constantly learn new things and eventually seem more human than machine.

Slow start

The Pixels, however, got off to a slow start. Google sold only 2.8 million of the first-generation model, accounting for about 0.1 percent of the market, according to the research firm International Data Corp.

Such a low sales volume makes it more difficult to acquire the highest-quality components for hardware, particularly when suppliers make it a priority to meet the demands of market leaders Apple and Samsung.

Apple is expected to sell between 230 million and 250 million iPhones during the fiscal year ending in September.

Like the Pixel 2s, the new iPhone X features an OLED screen to display more vibrant colors. And like the Pixel 2 XL, the iPhone X’s screen may also display a bluish tint and suffer “image retention” that makes it look like something has burned into the screen, by Apple’s own admission.

As part of its effort to catch up to Apple and Samsung, Google recently acquired more expertise in a $1.1 billion deal with device maker HTC that included the brought in 2,000 more smartphone engineers and certain hardware technologies.

But Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor believes many consumers will balk at paying a premium price for the Pixel 2 (prices start at $650), given its troubles. “It appears that the best way to get the most value from Google services is still to use them on another device,” Windsor said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Fed Chair Janet Yellen appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday for what may be the last time she speaks before U.S. lawmakers. Yellen, whose term expires in February, will likely be succeeded by President Donald Trump’s pick, Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell. This week, members of the U.S. Congress got a chance to speak to both. Mil Arcega has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

The founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, said at its inception in 1927 that the organization needed a library and museum. The Academy, best known for giving Oscars at its annual awards ceremony, soon got its library, but has been waiting nearly a century for the museum. 

The long wait is nearly over, said film historian Kerry Brougher during a tour of the site of the $388 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is under construction and scheduled to open in 2019 with Brougher as its director. The 27,000-square meter facility will be built around a historic department store that was built in 1939, and which, since 1994, has been used for exhibitions of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art next door. The expanded facility will include a glass-domed sphere with a view of the Hollywood Hills and a 1,000-seat theater.

​Brougher says the museum will open as Hollywood enters a new phase in creating entertainment, extending its reach beyond movie theaters. “Film is expanding,” he says. “It’s in the theaters still, but it’s also projected onto buildings, it’s also on your iPhone, it’s on your computer…It’s part of the art gallery world, with film installations.” And while films and multi-media projects are made worldwide, he says the heart of the industry is still in Hollywood.

​The museum will feature exhibits from the Academy’s collection of 12 million photographs and 80,000 screenplays, and which include props, costumes and set elements from such classic films as Casablanca, Psycho and The Ten Commandments.

Known as the Academy Museum, the venue will also feature Oscar statuettes donated by people who won them.

Brougher says visitors will have the feeling that they are in a movie in immersive exhibits. They will even get a chance to walk on a red carpet and accept their own Academy Award.

It will be “like a journey,” Brougher says. “You won’t necessarily know what’s coming next, what’s around the next corner. And you’ll be in environments sometimes that make you feel like you’ve gone back to the past, that you’re in the era that you’re actually exploring.”

​Visitors to Los Angeles have been able to tour movie studios and view the sidewalk plaques that honor movie stars or the footprints of them in the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. They can visit the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars are presented, but beyond that, they are often at a loss, says Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “I think they wander around wondering where they can experience this great golden ticket…to the movies,” he says. “Now they’ll have a place.” That will include the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the movie business and who will finally be able to visit a site that celebrates LA’s iconic industry, Garcetti notes.

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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. television network NBC has fired its leading morning news anchor, Matt Lauer, just days after receiving a complaint against him describing sexual misconduct. Hours later, U.S. lawmakers discussed how to handle harassment on Capitol Hill. Esha Sarai reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Friday marks World AIDS Day, and the World Health Organization is promoting a campaign of universal health coverage to help the 36.7 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS. Gabrielle Weiss reports for VOA on the efforts of a Washington, D.C., clinic, Whitman Walker Health.
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From: MeNeedIt

As refugees resettle in a new country, their identities are often lost in the transition. A photo exhibit in the U.S. Midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, offers a small window into one local refugee community. VOA’s June Soh explored the exhibit that sheds light on the refugees’ brave journeys from Bhutan through refugee camps in Nepal before finally settling in central Ohio.
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is targeting opioid abuse in Appalachia by establishing a new field office in Kentucky to oversee a region ravaged by overdose deaths.

Acting DEA Administrator Robert Patterson says the new Louisville field office will have a special agent in charge to oversee investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The agency says the new office will enhance efforts in the Appalachian mountain region and streamline drug trafficking investigations under a single office. D. Christopher Evans, an associate agent in charge in the DEA’s Detroit field office, will lead the new Louisville office.

Overdose deaths were 65 percent higher among residents in Appalachia than in the rest of the country in 2015, a recent Appalachian Regional Commission study found.
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From: MeNeedIt

After decades of legal challenges and political battles that have pitted states against the federal government, U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday finally adopted a plan to guide the recovery of a wolf that once roamed parts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

The plan sets a goal of having an average of 320 Mexican gray wolves in the wild over an eight-year period before the predator can shed its status as an endangered species. In each of the last three years, the population would have to exceed the average to ensure the species doesn’t backslide.

Officials estimate recovery could take another two decades and cost nearly $180 million.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered tens of thousands of public comments – from state lawmakers and business groups to independent scientists and environmentalists – as it worked to meet a court-ordered deadline to craft the recovery plan. It was a long time coming as the original guidance for restoring the wolf was adopted in 1982.

“This plan really provides us a roadmap for where we need to go to get this species recovered and delisted and get its management turned back over to the states and tribes,” Sherry Barrett, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Barrett said state wildlife officials reviewed the scientific data and the models used to calculate the best way forward for the agency as it works to bolster genetic diversity and continue building the wild population.

There are now more of the wolves roaming the Southwest than at any time since the federal government began trying to reintroduce the animals in 1998. The most recent annual survey shows at least 113 wolves spread between southwestern New Mexico and southeast Arizona.

There are about 31 wolves in the wild in Mexico, officials said.

Under the recovery plan, those numbers would be expected to grow to 145 in the U.S. and 100 in Mexico over the next five years.

Barrett said targeted releases of captive-bred wolves and translocations are necessary to make the program work.

In an effort to avoid future skirmishes with states, the plan calls for coordination with wildlife officials in New Mexico and Arizona when it comes to the timing, location and circumstances of the releases.

Environmentalists are voicing concerns, suggesting there needs to be more than 700 wolves in the wild if the population is to withstand illegal shootings, genetic issues and other challenges.

They have pushed for years for more captive wolves to be released, but ranchers and elected leaders in rural communities have pressed back because the predators sometimes attack domestic livestock and wild game.

Last year, the U.S. Interior Department’s internal watchdog said the Fish and Wildlife Service had not fulfilled its obligation to remove Mexican gray wolves that preyed on pets and cattle.

Barrett said with the new plan and other rules that give the agency flexibility in managing problem wolves, there is optimism among officials that progress can be made.

“I know that with most things having to do with wolves, there’s going to be a lot of strong opinions on both sides,” she said. “But to us, it is a big step forward for us to have something in place to start working toward and working with the public to achieve.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The world’s largest economy shook off the impact of several hurricanes and grew a bit faster than first thought in July, August, and September.

On Wednesday, U.S. government experts said the economy expanded at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, which is three-tenths of a percent faster than their first estimate. Officials routinely update economic statistics as more complete data become available.

The improved performance of the gross domestic product or GDP was partly the result of a healthy U.S. job market, which supports the consumer spending that drives most economic activity. Growth was also helped by a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar and a pick up in global growth both of which boost U.S. exports.

The outgoing head of the U.S. central bank, Janet Yellen, told a key congressional committee Wednesday that the outlook is for continued growth and a strengthening job market.

She also made it clear that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise its key interest rate slightly in mid-December.

The Fed slashed interest rates to record lows near zero during the recession in a bid to boost economic growth by making it cheaper to borrow money to build factories and make other investments that could boost employment. As the economy recovered, officials have gradually boosted rates, but they remain below historic averages.

Keeping rates too low for too long risks sparking a high rate of inflation that could harm the economy. But inflation remains stubbornly below the two percent rate that many economists say is best for U.S. economic growth.

Coping with inflation, growth, unemployment, and congress will probably soon be the job of Jerome Powell, the person President Donald Trump picked to replace Yellen when her term ends early next year. In Tuesday’s confirmation hearing, Powell expressed views on interest rates very similar to Yellen’s.
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From: MeNeedIt