Tom Brady’s Super Bowl jersey was stolen again – this time by Rob Gronkowski in full view of 37,000 screaming Red Sox fans.

The New England Patriots quarterback was showing off the recently re-acquired uniform top during the pregame ceremony on opening day at Fenway Park on Monday when Gronkowski ripped it out of his hands. Brady chased him around the infield and playfully tackled him in right field.

The Patriots said it was the same jersey that had been stolen out of their locker room in Houston after the Super Bowl victory over the Atlanta Falcons in February.

“That was awesome seeing those guys out there,” said Boston outfielder Andrew Benintendi, whose three-run homer propelled the Red Sox to a 5-3 victory over the Pirates in a rematch of the first World Series, in 1903. “I grew up watching them and still do. It was cool to see them all out there.”

Brady got the jersey back at owner Robert Kraft’s home in suburban Brookline earlier Monday . “It took an international trip,” Kraft said in the video that was tweeted out on the team’s account.

The Patriots brought all five of their Vince Lombardi trophies out for the first pitch ceremony, coming out from behind a giant American flag draped over the Green Monster. Joining Brady, Gronk and Kraft were James White, who scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl in overtime, and fellow running back Dion Lewis.

The other players wore their blue uniform tops, but Brady walked out in the white one from the Super Bowl before he pulled it off and began waving it around.

Gronkowski jumped behind him and snatched it away.

“It was fun. They were kind of making fun of the whole jersey-taking thing,” said Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., who started the winning burst with a fifth-inning triple. “It was good seeing some champions out there. And they definitely know a lot about winning.”

Brady threw out the first pitch to Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia – like the Patriots quarterback, the longest tenured player on his team – before the two embraced. Even the Pirates enjoyed the pregame shenanigans.

“It was pretty hard not to,” said Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole. “Tom Brady is on the field, and he’s tackling Gronk. It’s a pretty special environment. I’ll probably forget everything after the fourth inning.”

The Patriots tweeted a video earlier on Monday showing Kraft presenting his star with two No. 12 Super Bowl jerseys that had been missing. (Another had disappeared after the 2015 Super Bowl.)

Kraft thanked the authorities who found the jerseys while searching the property of Mexican media executive Martin Mauricio Ortega. He has not been charged.
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From: MeNeedIt

It’s OK, Carolina, you can open your eyes.

An unwatchable game turned into a beautiful night for the Tar Heels, who turned a free-throw contest into a championship they’ve been waiting an entire year to celebrate.   

Justin Jackson delivered the go-ahead 3-point play with 1:40 left Monday and North Carolina pulled away for a 71-65 win over Gonzaga that washed away a year’s worth of heartache.

It was, in North Carolina’s words, a redemption tour — filled with extra time on the practice court and the weight room, all fueled by a devastating loss in last year’s title game on Kris Jenkins’ 3-point dagger at the buzzer for Villanova.

Winners struggle from field

“I wanted to see this confetti fall on us and we’re the winners,” said Carolina’s Joel Berry II, who led the Heels with 22 points. “We came out here and we competed. It came down to the last second, but we’re national champs now.”

Berry, along with most of Roy Williams’ players, returned for another run. To say everything went right for them at this Final Four would not be the truth.

The Tar Heels (33-7) followed a terrible shooting night in the semifinal with an equally ice-cold performance in the final — going 4 for 27 from 3-point land and 26 for 73 overall.

Gonzaga, helped by 8 straight points from Nigel Williams-Goss, took a 2-point lead with 1:52 left, but the next possession was the game-changer.

Jackson took a zinger of a pass under the basket from Theo Pinson and converted the shot, then the ensuing free throw to take the lead for good. Moments later, Williams-Goss twisted his right ankle and could not elevate for a jumper that would’ve given the Bulldogs the lead.

Tar Heels finish strong

Isaiah Hicks made a basket to push the lead to 3, then Kennedy Meeks, in foul trouble all night, blocked Williams-Goss’ shot and Jackson got a slam on the other end to put some icing on title No. 6 for the Tar Heels. Williams got his third title, putting him one ahead of his mentor, Dean Smith, and now behind only John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Mike Krzyzewski.

“I think of Coach Smith, there’s no question,” Williams said. “I don’t think I should be mentioned in the same sentence with him. But we got three because I’ve got these guys with me and that’s all I care about right now — my guys.”

Berry recovered from ankle injuries to lead the Tar Heels, but needed 19 shots for his 22 points. Jackson had 16 on a 6-for-19 night and, overall, the Tar Heels actually shot a percentage point worse than they did in Saturday night’s win over Oregon.

Referees are busy

Thank goodness for free throws. They went 15 for 26 from the line and, in many corners, this game will be remembered for these three men: Michael Stephens, Verne Harris and Mike Eades, the referees who called 27 fouls in the second half, completely busted up the flow of the game and sent Meeks, Gonzaga’s 7-footers Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins and a host of others to the bench in foul trouble.

The most bizarre sequence: With 8:02 left, Berry got called for a foul for (maybe) making contact with Karnowski and stripping the ball from the big man’s hands. But as Karnowski was flailing after the ball, he grabbed Berry around the neck and, after a long delay, got called for a flagrant foul of his own.

That resulted in four straight free throws, a 52-all tie and booing from every corner of the massive Phoenix University Stadium.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Babies cry more in Britain, Canada, Italy and Netherlands than in other countries, while newborns in Denmark, Germany and Japan cry and fuss the least, researchers said on Monday.

In research looking at how much babies around the world cry in their first three months, psychologists from Britain have created the first universal charts for normal amounts of crying during that period.

“Babies are already very different in how much they cry in the first weeks of life,” said Dieter Wolker, who led the study at Warwick University.

“We may learn more from looking at cultures where there is less crying — [including] whether this may be due to parenting or other factors relating to pregnancy experiences or genetics.”

The highest levels of colic — defined as crying more than three hours a day for at least three days a week — were found in babies in Britain, Canada and Italy, while the lowest colic rates were found in Denmark and Germany.

On average, the study found, babies cry for around two hours a day in the first two weeks. They then cry a little more in the following few weeks until they peak at around two hours 15 minutes a day at six weeks. This then reduces to an average of one hour 10 minutes by the time they are 12 weeks old.

But there are wide variations, with some babies crying as little as 30 minutes a day, and others more than five hours.

The research, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, was a meta-analysis of studies covering some 8,700 babies in countries including Germany, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain.

Wolker said the new crying chart would help health workers reassure parents whether their baby is crying within a normal range in the first three months, or may need extra support.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Cereals such as wheat and barley are important food plants, grown almost everywhere in the world. But they are susceptible to diseases and one of the most damaging is a fungal pathogen that causes the dreaded “wheat head blight” or “wheat scab.” Using modern gene editing technique scientists have discovered a new and effective way to fight the disease.
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From: MeNeedIt

Facebook and Mozilla are among the companies and organizations launching a $14 million fund to promote news literacy and increase trust in journalism.

The nonprofit, called the News Integrity Initiative, will be based at the City University of New York. It will run as an independent project of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. 

Others contributing to the fund include Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and the Ford Foundation. 

Recent polls show the public’s trust in the news industry at a low. 

False news and misinformation, often masquerading as trustworthy news and spreading on social media, has gained a lot of attention since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Companies like Facebook are trying to address the issue. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Japanese big manufacturers’ business confidence improved for a second straight quarter to hit a one-and-a-half year high in March, a closely watched central bank survey showed, a sign the benefits of an export-driven economic recovery were broadening.

Service-sector sentiment improved for the first time in six quarters and companies remained upbeat on their capital expenditure plans, the Bank of Japan’s “tankan” survey showed, offering hope the economic recovery will gather momentum in coming months.

The data, which will be among factors the BOJ will scrutinize at its next rate review on April 26-27, reinforces a dominant market view the central bank’s next policy move would be to reduce rather than expand monetary stimulus.

“The tankan showed a balanced improvement in corporate sentiment at manufacturers and service-sector firms,” said Yuichiro Nagai, an economist at Barclays Securities. “Overall, the results support the BOJ’s rosy view on the economy.”

The headline index measuring big manufacturers’ business sentiment rose to plus 12 in March from plus 10 three months ago, the tankan showed on Monday, falling slightly short of market forecasts but marking the highest reading since December 2015.

The index gauging big non-manufacturers’ sentiment improved 2 points from plus 20, rising for the first time in six quarters and hitting the highest level since March 2016, the survey showed.

Brexit, Trump cloud outlook

Big manufacturers and non-manufacturers expect business conditions to deteriorate slightly in the coming three months, as risks to global trade such as Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist statements cloud the outlook.

Still, the survey found big firms plan to increase capital spending by 0.6 percent in the fiscal year ending in March 2018, compared with a median market forecast for a 0.1 percent drop.

“There has been talk about the risks of protectionism, but so far Japanese companies are not taking any specific steps related to this,” said Norio Miyagawa, senior economist at Mizuho Securities.

“This tankan will reinforce expectations that the BOJ is on hold for the time being. We certainly don’t see the need to ease or tighten policy,” he said.

Signs of life

Japan’s economy has shown signs of life in recent months, with exports and factory output benefiting from a recovery in global demand.

With inflation expected to accelerate later this year, a growing number of analysts now predict the BOJ’s next move would be to start scaling back its massive monetary stimulus.

The tankan’s sentiment indexes are derived by subtracting the number of respondents who say conditions are poor from those who say they are good. A positive reading means optimists outnumber pessimists.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Fed up with the theft of toilet paper from public bathrooms, tourist authorities in China’s capital have begun using facial recognition technology to limit how much paper a person can take.

The unusual move – part of a “toilet revolution” – is another step in China’s vast upgrading of public facilities.

Bathrooms at tourist sites, notorious for their primitive conditions and nasty odors, are a special focus of the campaign, a response to a vast expansion in domestic travel and demands for better-quality facilities from a more affluent public.

“Today in China, people are highly enthusiastic about tourism, and we have entered a new era of public tourism,” said Zhan Dongmei, a researcher with the China Tourism Academy. “The expectation of the public for the toilet is becoming higher.”

At Beijing’s 600-year-old Temple of Heaven, administrators recognized the need to stock the public bathrooms with toilet paper, a requirement for obtaining a top rating from the National Tourism Authority. But they needed a means of preventing patrons from stripping them bare for personal use – hence the introduction of new technology that dispenses just one 60-centimeter (2-foot) section of paper every nine minutes following a face scan.

“People take away the paper mostly because they are worried they can’t find any when they want to use it the next time. But if we can provide it in every toilet, most people will not do it anymore,” Zhan said.

Launched two years ago, the revolution calls for at least 34,000 new public bathrooms to be constructed in Beijing and 23,000 renovated by the end of this year. Authorities are also encouraging the installation of Western-style sit-down commodes rather than the more common squat toilets. Around 25 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) has already been spent on the program, according to the National Tourism Administration.

The ultimate target, Zhan said, “is to have a sufficient amount of toilets which are clean and odorless and free to use.”

At Happy Valley, the largest amusement park in Beijing, around 4 million annual visitors rely on 18 bathrooms, each of which is assigned one or two cleaners who must make their rounds every 10 minutes on busy days.

“People come here to have fun, but if the toilets are disgusting, how can they have a good time here?” said Vice General Manager Li Xiangyang. “It is the least we should do to offer a clean and tidy environment for tourists to enjoy both the tour of the park and the experience of using our toilets.”

Going a step further, the financial hub of Shanghai even opened its first gender-neutral public toilet in November in order to boost convenience and efficiency.

“Women are stuck waiting in longer lines for stalls than men, and it is fair for men and women to wait in line together,” Shanghai resident Zhu Jingyi said after using the facility.

Zhan said the toilet revolution is about 90 percent complete, but warned that it has yet to be won.

“We can’t accept the situation that a lot of investments have been made to build toilets and they turn out to be unsanitary and poorly managed,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

 Iraq’s oil minister said on Sunday that his country plans to increase daily crude oil production to 5 million barrels by the end of this year, up from the current rate of about 4.4 million barrels per day, to secure sorely needed cash for its ailing economy.

Iraq, where oil revenues make up nearly 95 percent of the budget, has been reeling under an economic crisis since 2014, when oil prices began their descent from a high of above $100 a barrel. The Islamic State group’s onslaught, starting in 2014, has exacerbated the situation — forcing Iraq to divert much of its resources to a long and costly war.

Addressing an energy conference in Baghdad, Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi didn’t give details on which of the country’s oil fields would supply the increased output.

Late last year, Iraq joined a deal by OPEC and non-OPEC members to lower production for six months by 1.8 million barrels a day in order to prop up global oil prices. The mutual production decrease began on Jan. 1. Iraq’s share in the deal is to reduce output by 210,000 barrels a day to 4.351 million barrels.

“There are positive elements in that deal and we achieved a lot of its targets,” al-Luaibi told reporters on the sideline of the conference. “Work and cooperation are underway … to reach the 1.8 [million barrels a day] reduction,” he added, without divulging whether Iraq is going to support an extension to that deal.

OPEC Secretary-General, Mohammed Barkindo, said the compliance among the participants was 86 percent in January and 94 percent in February. Barkindo told reporters that OPEC members would consider whether to extend the production decrease agreement at a meeting next month.

The deal propped up the crude price to around $50 per barrel.

Iraq holds the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves. This year, it added 10 billion barrels, bringing its total reserves up to 153.1 billion barrels.

Al-Luaibi also said that more 15 billion barrels are planned to be added by 2018.

Iraq’s 2017 budget stands at about 100.67 trillion Iraqi dinars, or nearly $85.17 billion, running with a deficit of 21.65 trillion dinars, or about $18.32 billion. That’s based on an estimated oil price of $42 per barrel and daily export capacity of 3.75 million barrels.

Iraq is also grappling with a major humanitarian crisis. The U.N. estimates that more than 3 million people have been forced from their homes since 2014. It also faces growing dissatisfaction among residents of areas recaptured from IS who have had their properties demolished and suffer from scarce public services.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Humans have always wondered why certain animals, such as tigers or pandas, have such unusual color patterns. Folklore usually explained it as a consequence of some dramatic event. But scientists say it has to do with the animal’s natural habitat, which is also the answer for panda’s black and white fur. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Investors are plowing ever more into ethical funds to back their views on issues such as global warming and gender equality, but such investments can be confusingly similar to standard funds, except for higher fees and “green halo” marketing.

The $23 trillion “sustainable, responsible and impact” (SRI) investment sector has received a rush of money since the Paris climate agreement and, more recently, in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to slash environmental regulations.

Europe is the dominant region for such investments, with $12.04 trillion, followed by the United States, with $8.72 trillion, while Asia lags some way behind.

U.S. investors have poured $1.8 billion into actively managed U.S. equity funds in the socially responsible category from November to January, according to Lipper data, while other funds saw a net outflow of $133 billion.

Even in fossil-fuel-rich Australia and New Zealand, SRI investment rose from $148 billion to $516 billion between 2014 and 2016, and from $729 billion to $1.09 trillion in oil-rich Canada, according to the Global Sustainable Investment Review released Monday.

Gavin Goodhand, a portfolio manager at Sydney-based Altius Asset Management, said the company’s sustainable bond fund tripled shortly after the 2015 climate accord, where nearly 200 countries signed up to measures designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

“The Paris conference was the line in the sand for many of our retail customers, particularly the millennial generation, who want to do the right thing for the environment,” Goodhand said.

Green funds may be not so green

Governments are also tapping the trend, selling green bonds to fund projects such as wind farms or low-carbon transport, with Poland, France and Nigeria making their debut this year.

Some managers, however, are skeptical.

“While environmental, social and governance factors should always factor into investment decisions, this is largely a marketing exercise,” said Steve Goldman, a global portfolio manager at Sydney-based Kapstream Capital, which has A$10 billion ($7.6 billion) of fixed-income assets.

Goldman said Kapstream did not have a responsible investment fund because its clients had not asked for it.

The bond market does not have commonly agreed standards or criteria for what constitutes a green bond, and there is no guarantee the proceeds go to the low-carbon project as claimed.

There are similar concerns over equity products.

Stuart Palmer, head of ethics research at Australian Ethical Investment, said there was a danger that some marketing departments would “greenwash” their products to lure investors into funds that were little different to standard products.

Higher fees

There are no agreed definitions on what is considered ethical, sustainable and socially responsible, but ethical investors are typically expected to cough up higher fees.

For example, retail investors pay more than a third higher fees for the sustainability and ethical funds at Sydney-based BT Investment Management (BTIM) than for its standard share fund equivalent.

The three funds hold six or seven of their top-weighted stocks in common, including major banks Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Westpac Banking Corp, National Australia Bank and miner BHP Billiton , according to December filings.

A BT spokeswoman did not return requests for comment.

Due diligence difficult

For investors, it can be a minefield.

“I find it difficult as a consumer to do the due diligence I would like to do because even the ethical funds are not always totally transparent about what they define as ethical,” said retail investor Meraiah Foley, a Sydney academic.

“One of the ethical funds I have invests very heavily in retail banks in Australia, and those banks themselves may be underwriting projects that the fund itself would not invest in.”

There is also no standard practice on what to do when an existing fund stock breaches a manager’s policies. Some investment managers will sell, but others argue they can influence behavior by retaining their shareholding.

“We believe in engagement rather than divestment,” said Sam Sicilia, chief financial officer at the A$22 billion pension fund Hostplus. “When you sell a share in a ‘bad’ company, it’s a transfer of ownership and does nothing to the company that’s causing the issue, so divestment does not really work.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose work focused on war atrocities and denounced anti-Semitism and tyrannical dictators, has died. He was 84.

Ginny Hensley, a spokeswoman for Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, confirmed Yevtushenko’s death. Roger Blais, provost at the University of Tulsa, where Yevtushenko was a longtime faculty member, said he was told Yevtushenko had died Saturday morning.

“He died a few minutes ago surrounded by relatives and close friends,” his widow, Maria Novikova, was quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. She said he’d died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure.

Yevtushenko gained notoriety in the former Soviet Union while in his 20s, with poetry denouncing Josef Stalin. He gained international acclaim as a young revolutionary with “Babi Yar,” the unflinching 1961 poem that told of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.

Heard by huge crowds

At the height of his fame, Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large audiences on tours of the West.

With his tall, rangy body, chiseled visage and declaratory style, he was a compelling presence on stages when reading his works.

“He’s more like a rock star than some sort of bespectacled, quiet poet,” said former University of Tulsa President Robert Donaldson, who specialized in Soviet policy during his academic years at Harvard.

Until “Babi Yar” was published, the history of the massacre was shrouded in the fog of the Cold War.

“I don’t call it political poetry, I call it human rights poetry, the poetry which defends human conscience as the greatest spiritual value,” Yevtushenko, who had been splitting his time between Oklahoma and Moscow, said during a 2007 interview with The Associated Press at his home in Tulsa.

Yevtushenko said he wrote the poem after visiting the site of the mass killings in Kyiv, Ukraine, and searching for something memorializing what happened there — a sign, a tombstone, some kind of historical marker — but finding nothing.

“I was so shocked. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it, that people didn’t keep a memory about it,” he said.

It took him two hours to write the poem that begins, “No monument stands over Babi Yar. A drop sheer as a crude gravestone. I am afraid.”

Native of Zima

Yevtushenko was born in the Siberian town of Zima, a name that translates to winter. He rose to prominence during Nikita Khrushchev’s rule.

His poetry was outspoken and drew on the passion for poetry that is characteristic of Russia, where poetry is more widely revered than in the West. Some considered it risky, though others said he was only a showpiece dissident whose public views never went beyond the limits of what officials would permit.

Dissident exile poet Joseph Brodsky was especially critical, saying, “He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved.” Brodsky resigned from the American Academy of Arts and Letters when Yevtushenko was made an honorary member.

Donaldson invited Yevtushenko to teach at the university in 1992.

“I like very much the University of Tulsa,” Yevtushenko said in a 1995 interview with the AP. “My students are sons of ranchers, even cowboys, oil engineers. They are different people, but they are very gifted. They are closer to Mother Nature than the big city. They are more sensitive.”

He was also touched after the 1995 bombing of a federal government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. He recalled one woman in his class who lost a relative in the blast, then commented that Russian women must have endured such suffering all their lives.

“This was the greatest compliment for me,” he said.

Blais, the university provost, said Yevtushenko remained an active professor at the time of his death. His poetry classes were perennially popular and featured football players and teenagers from small towns reading from the stage.

“He had a hard time giving bad grades to students because he liked the students so much,” Blais said.

Lauded in Russia

Yevtushenko’s death inspired tributes from his homeland.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on the Russian social media site Vkontakte: “He knew how to find the key to the souls of people, to find surprisingly accurate words that were in harmony with many.”

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said the poet’s legacy would remain “part of Russian culture.”

Natalia Solzhenitsyna, widow of the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said on Russian state television that Yevtushenko “lived by his own formula.”

“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” she said. “And he really was more than a poet — he was a citizen with a pronounced civic position.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists working at Cambridge University in England have coaxed a collection of mouse stem cells to turn into a mouse embryo. This breakthrough could change the way scientists study early development and how it can go wrong early in a pregnancy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt