Federal law enforcement agents have searched three facilities of the American heavy-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Incorporated in the U.S. Midwest.

Caterpillar spokeswoman Corrie Heck Scott said in an email that the company, the world’s largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment, was cooperating with law enforcement, but she gave no further details about the searches Thursday. Federal agents with search warrants entered three Caterpillar offices in Peoria, Illinois, and the surrounding area.

News of the searches sent Caterpillar shares tumbling more than 4 percent on U.S. stock exchanges within hours. Caterpillar reported $38.5 billion in sales last year, but that was an 18 percent decline from 2015.  

Sharon Paul, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Illinois’ Central District, said the searchers were agents from the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s office of export enforcement and inspectors from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which investigates banks.

The Commerce Department said its office of export enforcement focuses on “sensitive exports to hostile entities” and “prohibited foreign boycotts,” among other things.

Caterpillar has faced a number of investigations in recent years focusing on its business practices, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Most recently, in 2015, a federal court in Illinois subpoenaed the company for documents and information relating to the distribution of profits and movement of cash among its subsidiaries. The IRS has charged Caterpillar with $2 billion for unpaid taxes and penalties in that case, but the corporation said it is “vigorously contesting” the tax demand.
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From: MeNeedIt

Street vendors are a part of the life of many American cities. They’re not always regulated and many are immigrants. Los Angeles is a prime example. Street vending is has been illegal. A number of the vendors there are undocumented immigrants. With hopes to protect them from deportation for breaking the law, the city recently decriminalized street vending. Goldy Fogel narrates for video journalist Arturo Martinez.
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From: MeNeedIt

Every year, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum in Los Angeles holds an exhibit showcasing the works of Oscar nominated fashion designers of that year. VOA got a closer look at the designs of this year’s costumes, and spoke to one of the nominees.
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From: MeNeedIt

The more science learns about staying healthy, one thing seems increasingly clear: to stay fit, mentally and physically, keep moving. But moving can be hard when most people sit at desks all day. A new study suggests that even if you spend all day in a chair, a couple of hours a week of movement may be enough to keep you healthy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The death from childbirth of a woman named Time magazine “Person of the Year” in 2014 for her work fighting Ebola in Liberia is being investigated after reports surfaced that health workers were afraid to treat her, the country’s health ministry said Wednesday.

Ebola survivor Salomé Karwah died last week four days after suffering complications from giving birth by cesarean section in a major hospital, according to the ministry’s chief medical officer, Francis Kateh.

Josephine Manley, Karwah’s sister, told Time that they rushed her back to hospital after she lapsed into convulsions following the birth, but said staff refused to touch her because she had contracted the deadly virus in late 2014.

“It is tragic that one of our heroes, who survived Ebola, died from childbirth in a hospital,” Kateh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.

“We are taking the death very seriously,” he said, adding that the authorities were investigating whether staff had refused to treat Karwah.

Karwah, who worked as a nursing assistant after recovering from the virus, was one of five people featured on the Time magazine cover for their work battling Ebola.

Thousands of victims

Liberia was hit hardest by the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola, losing more than 4,800 people in an epidemic that killed about 11,300 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2016.

Many survivors have been shunned by their families, communities and even health workers.

The virus can lie dormant and hide in parts of the body such as the eyes and testicles long after leaving the bloodstream — raising questions about whether it can ever be beaten, with West Africa’s 17,000 survivors acting as a potential human reservoir.

While health experts say the risk of Ebola re-emerging in survivors and being transmitted to others is low, some fear that the stigma surrounding the virus could lead to further preventable deaths of survivors in the three affected countries.

“Emergencies like these create lasting effects, partly because they can be so destructive to the social fabric of a country or community,” said Richard Mallett, research officer at the Overseas Development Institute, a U.K.-based think tank.

The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), a medical charity, said many Ebola survivors were struggling to access health care in West Africa, but not as a result of being stigmatized by health workers.

“Many survivors lost their jobs, or their spouse, and can no longer afford health care for themselves or their family,” said Ivonne Loua, head of ALIMA’s survivor care program in Guinea.
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From: MeNeedIt

The predicted peak blooming period for this year’s cherry blossom season in Washington is being announced.

The window is expected to be announced Wednesday at a news conference at the Newseum.

Last year’s peak bloom happened March 25. According to the National Park Service website, however, from 2013 to 2015, peak bloom was around April 10.

Peak bloom means at least 70 percent of the trees around Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin are blossoming. Once peak bloom is reached, the blossoms can remain on the trees from four to 10 days.

This year’s National Cherry Blossom Festival , which is timed to coincide with the blooming, will be held from March 20 to April 16.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

[[As people age, their bones can get thinner, their memories can fail, their hormone levels decline and they are more likely to suffer from heart disease. The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded studies to see if testosterone therapy in men could help offset the ravages of age. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports the results were mixed.
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From: MeNeedIt

In the shadow of New York City, a group of farmers is tending their crop and prepping it for shipment into the Big Apple on a same day basis. But there isn’t a whole lot of room for a farmer’s field in Kearny, New Jersey. That’s where some high tech hydroponics are changing the face of suburban farming. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Vietnam is coming under pressure from lawmakers in Europe to improve its human rights record before ratification of an EU free trade deal that the Communist government prizes after the loss of a major U.S.-led agreement.

European Parliament members voiced concerns in late February about Vietnam as its Subcommittee on Human Rights traveled to the Southeast Asian country. The committee recommended more debate in Vietnam on political rights and freedom of expression and religion.

Europe’s human rights concerns

Without meeting Europe’s strict conditions on human rights, ratification of the trade agreement will be difficult, the subcommittee’s chair was quoted saying in Hanoi. The Vietnamese government has not directly responded to the comments. 

The deal, signed in December 2015 and due to take effect next year, must pass the European Parliament as well as the legislatures of the member countries. When lawmakers in Belgium deliberated the agreement in January, a number raised questions about Vietnam’s socio-economic situation.

“They have this very daunting prospect of having to go through 27 national assemblies to get anything ratified,” said Frederick Burke, partner with the multinational law firm Baker & McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. “That’s a challenge to get through all those ratifications.”

The European Union had pursued the trade deal with Vietnam so its companies could better access an increasingly wealthy consumer market of about 93 million people. The agreement also builds toward an eventual EU free trade agreement with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which Vietnam belongs.

Vietnam wants the agreement as a burgeoning export-driven nation keen to diversify markets and avoid dependence on China, a long-time political rival. 

TPP died with Trump Administration

Vietnam was a member of the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP, which would have dropped import tariffs in Japan and the United States. The deal effectively died after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in January.

EU-Vietnam trade comes to about $40.1 billion per year. Vietnam counts the European Union, with a market of about 500 million people, as its No. 3 trading partner after China and the United States.

“If it’s ratified soon, it’s much better. The sooner the better for Vietnam,” said Hoang Viet Phuong, head of institutional research and investment advisor at SSI Securities Services in Hanoi.

Free trade deal helps garment and textile exports

“It should not be a problem because already (it has) been signed,” she said. “I think people expected the TPP the most but as the TPP was not realized, this FTA will also help. For sectors such as garments and textiles, we export to Europe a lot.”

The deal would drop almost all import tariffs within seven years and open Vietnam to European services such as healthcare, packaging and holding exhibitions.

Almost a year before the parliament committee’s visit to Vietnam, the French advocacy group Worldwide Movement for Human Rights had accused the European Union of failing to do a human rights impact study.

Human rights demands less rigorous than TPP

The FTA includes “strong commitments to protect people’s basic rights at work, their human rights more broadly, and the environment,” chief European negotiator Mauro Petriccione said in a statement last year.

But the European agreement’s language is less rigorous than corresponding text in the TPP, Burke said. 

The TPP would have required pro-union changes in Vietnamese labor law to stop worker exploitation and forced heavy industries to pay penalties if poor pollution controls caused an impact on trade, with violators facing extra tariffs.

“The EU FTA was not drafted as clearly as the TPP,” he said. “The language is not as self-enforcing. It relies more on goodwill and people willing to do things.”

Human rights abuses continue

Vietnamese authorities harass and imprison bloggers and political activists as well, American advocacy group Human Rights Watch says. Workers cannot form their own unions, it says, while farmers are losing land to development projects.

Some of the estimated 8 million Christians in the officially atheist state are sometimes arrested for airing their beliefs because the government sees their religion as “being tied to foreign powers,” the American advocacy group Open Doors says.

To satisfy European legislators, the country will probably pass laws or release a few prisoners of conscience without making fundamental changes, said Carl Thayer, Vietnam scholar and emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia.

Hanoi changed what it was required before being allowed into the TPP, he noted. Human rights activists could still criticize Vietnam, he said, but American officials were satisfied.

“The real answer is that Vietnam will resist, but instead of stonewalling, like they did with the U.S., they worked out a kind of modus vivendi,” he said. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Barack and Michelle Obama have book deals.

The former president and first lady have signed with Penguin Random House, the publisher announced Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed for the books, which several publishers had competed for, although the deals are likely in the tens of millions of dollars.

Both Obamas have published through Crown, a Penguin Random House imprint.  But Penguin Random House declined comment on which imprint or imprints the books would be released through.

“We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama,” Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement.

“With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same. Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.”

The Obamas were represented in negotiations by Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell of Williams & Connolly. Barnett has worked on deals with Barack Obama’s two immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and with Michelle Obama’s predecessors Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush.

The Obamas plans to donate a “significant portion” of their author proceeds to charity, including to the Obama Foundation. Barack Obama’s book is a strong contender to attract the largest advance for any ex-president; the previous record is believed to be $15 million for Bill Clinton’s My Life.

The unique dual arrangement announced Tuesday is for books that are among the most anticipated in memory from a former president and first lady. Barack Obama is widely regarded as one of the finest prose stylists among modern presidents, and his million-selling Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope are considered essential to his rise to the White House. Michelle Obama has given few details about her time as first lady: Her only book is about food and gardening, American Grown, released in 2012. Both Obamas are widely popular with the public in the U.S. and abroad.

Titles and release dates were not immediately available. The books will reflect on the Obamas’ White House years, although Penguin Random House declined to give further details. A publishing official with knowledge of the negotiations said that Barack Obama’s book will be a straightforward memoir about his presidency, while Michelle Obama plans to write an inspirational work for young people that will draw upon her life story.

The official was not authorized to discuss the negotiations and asked not to be identified.

Presidential memoirs have contributed little to the literary canon, a tradition many believe Barack Obama will change. But recent books have found large audiences: Clinton’s My Life and George W. Bush’s Decision Points were million sellers. Books by first ladies, including Hillary Clinton’s Living History, have been dependable best-sellers.
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From: MeNeedIt

Americans born in 1990 have double the risk of colon cancer and quadruple the risk of rectal cancer than those born around 1950, a new study suggests.

The study found that colorectal cancer is on the rise among young and middle-aged adults in their early 50s. Rectal cancer is growing particularly fast among people younger than 55, with 30 percent of diagnoses in people under 55.

“Trends in young people are a bellwether for the future disease burden,” said Rebecca Siegel, of the American Cancer Society and lead author of the study that appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

“Our finding that colorectal cancer risk for millennials has escalated back to the level of those born in the late 1800s is very sobering. Educational campaigns are needed to alert clinicians and the general public about this increase to help reduce delays in diagnosis, which are so prevalent in young people, but also to encourage healthier eating and more active lifestyles to try to reverse this trend.”

Researchers note that rates of colorectal cancer have been falling since the 1980s with an even steeper decline in the past decade, which has been caused by more screening.

But they wanted to find out why some studies have shown a rising rate among people under 50 for whom screening is generally not done. For their study, researchers looked at cases of colorectal cancer in people over 20 from 1974 to 2013. There were 490,305 cases.

The data showed the rates of colon cancer initially decreased after 1974, but then grew by one or two percent from the mid-1980s to 2013 among adults aged 20 to 39. For people aged 40 to 54, the rates increased between .5 percent and one percent from the mid 1990s to 2013.

For rectal cancer, the increases were greater, with rates rising about three percent per year from 1974 to 2013 in adults aged 20 to 29. For adults between 30 and 39, there was a similar rise from 1980 to 2013. For adults between 40 and 54, rates increased by two percent from the 1990s to 2013.

Rates for adults older than 55 has been declining for about 40 years, researchers said.

Researchers say the results could change the age at which screening for colorectal cancer starts and cite 10,400 cases diagnosed in people in their 40s plus 12,800 cases in people in their early 50s.

“These numbers are similar to the total number of cervical cancers diagnosed, for which we recommend screening for the 95 million women ages 21 to 65 years,” Siegel said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Humans are responsible for 84 percent of all wildfires in the United States, a new study suggests.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst say during 20 years, human-started fires have “tripled the length of the fire season and dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning-caused fires.”

The study looked at the years 1992 to 2012 and found that of the 1.5 million fires that were large enough to require fire fighting, humans were responsible for 44 percent of the area burned.

Researchers say humans are responsible for expanding what they call the “fire niche,” which analyzes ignition sources, fuel mass and dryness to measure fire potential.

“Humans are expanding fires into more locations and environmental conditions than lightning is able to reach,” said study co-lead, Bethany Bradley at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “Humans create sufficient ignition pressure for wetter fuels to burn. Human ignitions have expanded the fire niche into areas with historically low lightning strike density.”

Researchers say efforts to stem the rise in wildfires need to focus on how humans are increasing the fire niche. For example, they say the “wild land-urban interface,” where houses are close to natural areas is expected to double by 2030.

“It’s generally pretty well known that people start a lot of fires; everything from campfires to burning yard waste to accidental fires in homes and other structures,” Bradley said.

“But in the past, I used to think of ‘wildfire’ as a process that was primarily natural and driven by lightning. This analysis made me realize that human ignitions have an extraordinary impact on national fire regimes. From our analysis, we learned that human-started fires are amazingly common. We found that humans play a primary role in redistributing wildfires in space and over time.”

The study found that lightning-started fires happen mostly in the inter-mountain west and almost only in the summer months. Human-started fires, on the other hand, happen everywhere and occur in the spring, summer and fall.

“Economic and ecological costs of wildfire in the United States have risen substantially in recent decades,” researchers said.“While climate change has likely enabled a portion of the increase in wildfire activity, the direct role of people in increasing wildfire has been largely overlooked.”
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From: MeNeedIt