At a time when podcasts, e-books and smartphones are blossoming, old-fashioned books are still popular in the United States. That is why tiny free libraries, where people exchange books, are sprouting up across the nation to help book lovers. For VOA, Iryna Matviichuk visited some exchanges in the Washington area. Anna Rice narrates our story.
 

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Tall buildings made of wood are beginning to pop up around the world, from the United States and Canada to Norway and soon England. Builders say wood may well be the construction material of the future. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
 

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Extracting venom from snakes, scorpions and other venomous animals has become a lucrative business. The number of companies producing venom for antidotes has dropped and the demand has risen, according to market research groups. Two businessmen in Herat, Afghanistan, have opened a venom extraction laboratory in a nation that is home to 27 species of snakes and an unknown number of scorpion species. Khalil Noorzai has more in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
 

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Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rossello announced Saturday that his chief financial officer and secretary of state will step down following their participation in a private chat that used profanities to describe an ex-New York City official and a federal control board overseeing the island’s finances.

The U.S. territory’s CFO Christian Sobrino, who is also the governor’s representative to the control board, announced he was stepping down via Twitter on Saturday. Its Secretary of State Luis G. Rivera Marin also offered his resignation.

Rossello later released a statement saying he would let go members of his administration who participated in the chat on a messaging system used by government officials. The release of the chat’s contents in local media had led to calls for the governor’s resignation.

Governor apologizes, doesn’t resign

Rossello apologized for the comments late Thursday, saying he’d been working 18-hour days and releasing tensions when he called former New York City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito the Spanish word for “whore” and in English told the oversight board to “go f— yourself” followed by a string of emojis with the middle finger raised.

“Aware that the current environment cannot be maintained, I have communicated to all the other public officials involved in the chat that I will have to dispense with their services and/or their advice,” he said in the statement.

He said he would ask Ricardo Llerandi to remain as Puerto Rico’s secretary of the interior and Anthony Maceira to stay as secretary of Public Affairs.

“This is a very painful situation for me, as governor, as a human being and as a Puerto Rican,” Rossello said. “But I recognize there is no other way out and there is no worthwhile forgiveness on my part that does not include corrections and clear signs of intent to change.”

Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez announced that she was appointing a special task force to determine whether any laws were broken regarding the chat and comments made.

Puerto Ricans ashamed

The comments had drawn the ire of many Puerto Ricans who said they were ashamed of his language and of how this might affect the reputation of the U.S. territory, which had already come under scrutiny earlier this week with the arrests of former government officials including the island’s education secretary.

Rossello said late Thursday that he had not yet spoken to Mark-Viverito, who posted a lengthy statement on Twitter that read in part, “A person who uses that language against a woman, whether a public figure or not, should not govern Puerto Rico …this type of behavior is completely unacceptable.”

In the chat, Rossello wrote that he was upset Mark-Viverito had criticized Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, for supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin, who was mentioned in the chat with a homophobic comment, urged Rossello to step down.

Martin tweeted that the governor “lacks the abilities of a true leader, who inspires, stimulates and guides by example so that our people attain a higher level of life.”

Rossello, who faces other troubles, has said he will not resign.

Six arrests

Days earlier, FBI agents arrested Julia Keleher, Puerto Rico’s former education secretary, and five others on charges of steering federal money to unqualified, politically connected contractors.

Officials said the alleged fraud involves $15.5 million worth of federal funding issued between 2017 and 2019. They said $13 million was spent by Puerto Rico’s Department of Education while Keleher was secretary and another $2.5 million spent by Angela Avila Marrero when she was director of Puerto Rico’s Health Insurance Administration. Avila Marrero was charged along with businessmen Fernando Scherrer-Caillet and Alberto Velazquez-Pinol, and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, who are sisters.

Officials said there was no evidence that Keleher or Avila Marrero had personally benefited from the scheme.

On Thursday, a group of protesters had gathered at Puerto Rico’s main international airport to received Rossello as he cut a European vacation short to address the arrests and the leaked chat. The protesters then traveled to the governor’s seaside mansion where Rossello spoke late Thursday and demanded his resignation.

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A team of researchers across three universities is working on a cell-killing machine invisible to the naked eye.

“We want to be bacteria’s worst nightmare,” said James Tour, T.T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry at Rice University in Houston. He is also a professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and computer science.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose one of the biggest threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization. Researchers at Rice University, Durham University in Britain and North Carolina State University may have discovered a way to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Harmful Bacteria’s Worst Nightmare May Be a Microscopic Drill video player.

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They’re experimenting with tiny, manmade nanomachines that can drill into a cell, killing it. The machines are single molecule motors that can spin at about 3 million rotations a second when a blue light shines on them. As they spin, they drill into the cell. Harmful bacteria cannot mutate to overcome this type of weapon, Tour said.

“We may have found something that the cell could never build a resistance to,” he added.

The nanomachines are so small that about 50,0000 of them can fit across the diameter of a human hair. In comparison, only about 50 cells can take up that amount of space.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not the only enemies this weapon can fight.

Cancer killer

The nanomachines can drill into cancer cells, causing the cells’ nucleus to disintegrate into fragments.

“We’ve tried four different types, and every cancer cell that it touches is toast,” said Tour, whose team tested the nanomachines on a couple strains of human breast cancer cells, cancerous skin cells and pancreatic cancer cells.

The way it works is that a peptide, also a molecule that consists of amino acids, is added to the nanomotor. That peptide recognizes specific cells and binds the nanomachine to that cell so that only cancer cells, not healthy cells, are targeted. A blue light activates the machine.

“Generally, it’s not just one nanomachine, it’s 50, and each cell is going to get 50 holes drilled in it generally,” Tour said.

The nanomachines can fight cancerous cells in the mouth, upper and lower gastrointestinal tracts and bladder “wherever you can get a scope in, a light, apply it right there, and use the light” to activate the motors, Tour said.

It would only take a few minutes to kill cancerous cells with nanomachines, in contrast to days or longer using radiation or chemotherapy, Tour said.

Sculpt away fat

In another application, nanomachines could be used to sculpt away fat cells when applied onto the skin through a gel.

“You just take a bright light and just pass it over and these start attacking the adipocytes, which are the fat cells and blow those open,” Tour said.

Next steps

Researchers have only worked with nanomachines in a lab, so using this method in a clinical setting is still some time off. Later this year, researchers will start testing nanomachines on staphylococcus bacteria skin infections on live rodents.

One challenge scientists will have to overcome as nanomachine research progresses is how to get the blue light deep into the body if the motors are to fight bacteria or tumor cells that are well below the skin’s surface.

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A report submitted to the UN human rights council this week accuses Nicaragua of continuing to repress, threaten and harass human rights defenders and other opponents one year after the government’s violent crackdown on nationwide demonstrations.

More than 300 people were killed, 2000 injured, and hundreds arbitrarily arrested during last year’s violent repression of peaceful nationwide protests.  More than 70,000 people also fled into exile to escape the heavy-hand of the Nicaraguan government.  

U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, says peaceful protests and dissent continue to be repressed in Nicaragua.   She says more than 440 imprisoned protestors have been released, but more than 80 remain in custody under severe conditions.

“Our Office has received allegations that some of them were subjected to torture or ill-treatment by correction officers. . . . We are deeply concerned that human rights defenders and community leaders continue to be targets of attacks, of threats, harassment and constant surveillance,” Gilmore said.

Nicaragua Says Released all Considered Political Prisoners

President Daniel Ortega’s government said in a statement that it has complied with a 90-day period for releasing such prisoners as part of negotiations this spring, a period that expired Tuesday

Gilmore says people are deprived of the right to freedom of expression, including freedom of the media.  She says journalists and other media workers are threatened, harassed and censored.  She notes two prominent journalists were detained for more than five months under terrorism charges.

She urges the government of President Daniel Ortega to engage in a genuine and meaningful dialogue to address people’s legitimate demands for justice and reparation.

Nicaragua’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Carlos Ernesto Morales Davila dismisses the charges as ill-founded.  He says human rights defenders are not persecuted.  They can freely promote and defend human rights.  However, he accuses some of these groups of perverting their cause and engaging in destructive activities.

He says they are trying to destroy the constitutional order of the country and to undermine the work of the government to restore peace and reconciliation.

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New Zealand has held its first public fire-arms collection event in Christchurch Saturday as part of the government’s response to the city’s mosque shootings in March.  Ownership of the types of high-powered weapons used in the attacks that killed 51 people has been restricted.

There were long lines at a racecourse in Christchurch as gun-owners waited to hand in weapons that are now illegal.  It is the first of more than 250 buy-back events that will be held across New Zealand.  The police expect that tens of thousands of guns will be surrendered, although the exact number is unknown.

Semi-automatic weapons were outlawed following attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that left 51 people dead.  The government said the law would remove the most dangerous guns from the community.

New Zealand Announces Assault Weapons Ban in Wake of Christchurch Mass Shootings

Nearly one week after 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand were gunned down, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed an immediate ban on all military-style semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles.

The ban, which Prime Minister Ardern announced Thursday in Wellington, includes high-capacity magazines, which can hold multiple rounds of ammunition, and accessories that can convert ordinary rifles into fast-acting assault rifles.

Chris Cahill, from the New Zealand Police Association, which represents officers, believes the buy-back scheme will go smoothly. 

“We know the vast majority of firearms owners are law-abiding citizens,” said Cahill. “While disappointed they have to lose these sorts of firearms they understand why and they want to abide by the law.”

More than $130 million has been set aside to compensate owners of semi-automatic weapons.  The amount each individual will receive will depend on the value and condition of their guns.

But some owners are complaining that the compensation is inadequate.  There are concerns, too, that farming communities, which rely on firearms for hunting and pest control, will suffer because of the ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons.

Judicial Probe Opens Into Christchurch Mosque Shootings

A judicial inquiry into whether New Zealand’s police and intelligence services could have prevented the Christchurch mosque attacks in which 51 worshippers died began taking evidence on Monday.

The royal commission — the most powerful judicial probe available under New Zealand law — will examine events leading up to the March 15 attack in which a lone gunman opened fire on two mosques in a mass shooting that shocked the world.

“This is a critical part of our ongoing response to the attack — the commission’s findings will help to ensure such an attack never happens here again,” Prime

Nicole McKee is a spokesperson for New Zealand’s Council of Licensed Firearms Owners.

“We are a rural and farming community here at the bottom of the world and we use firearms as a tool and there is quite a few of us that hunt as well to put food on the table,” said McKee.

New Zealand authorities hope the scheme will be as successful as one in Australia that was implemented after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 on the island of Tasmania, where a lone gunman murdered 35 people. It prompted more than 700,000 weapons to be surrendered.

The Australian man accused of the Christchurch shootings has denied 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and a terrorism charge.  He is expected to go on trial next year.

The gun collection event in Christchurch will continue Sunday.

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Thousands of protesters in Hong Kong turned out Saturday to demonstrate against traders from mainland China.

The demonstration was mounted in Sheung Shui, a town near the Chinese city of Shenzhen, along the border with Hong Kong.

The protesters want traders from China to stop buying goods in Hong Kong that the traders then sell on the mainland.

Many of the stores in the area of the demonstration in Sheung Shui were shuttered.

The protests started peacefully, but ended with clashes between the demonstrators and the police, who used pepper spray on the crowd.

Hong Kong Protesters United Despite Differences

Unofficial policy of present protest campaign — ‘no division’— is sharp contrast from 2014 democracy campaign that dissolved into bitter fights that left opposition camp fractured

Hong Kong has been the site of weekend demonstrations for weeks.

The protests began because of a controversial extradition bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong criminal suspects to  mainland China.

After several weeks of controversy and large, angry street protests, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam recently said the extradition bill is “dead.”

Lam called the attempts at passing the bill “a total failure,” but did not say whether the bill is being withdrawn, as protesters have demanded.

The bill sparked massive demonstrations from the moment it was introduced in April, with opponents alarmed about extraditing criminal suspects to China, which has a substantially different legal system than Hong Kong. The sentiment was shared along a wide cross section of Hong Kong society, from international business groups to legal societies and pro-democracy parties.

The former British colony was granted special autonomy for 50 years after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. But many in Hong Kong are concerned that China is slowly encroaching on those rights and tightening its grip on the territory.
 
The extradition debate has seen the government unwittingly reignite Hong Kong’s protest movement, and calls for the direct election of its leader, five years after 2014’s so-called Umbrella Movement democracy protests came to an end.

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Meteorologists say rainbands from Tropical Storm Barry began to move onshore Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center warns that Barry is likely to bring dangerous storm surges, plus heavy wind and rain conditions.  

Maximum sustained winds are 100 kilometers per hour and the storm is moving toward the coastline at seven kilometers per hour.

Residents in New Orleans are fortifying their homes and stocking up on supplies as Barry begins to roll in from the Gulf of Mexico.
 
City officials have advised residents to shelter in their homes, with the exception of two coastal parishes south of the city, where mandatory evacuations have been ordered.
 
Tourists had largely left the city Friday. Some airlines canceled outbound flights on Saturday.
 

New Orleans Residents Shelter in Homes as Tropical Storm Rolls In

Storm could trigger more flooding in and around New Orleans 

The National Hurricane Center expects Barry to strengthen before landfall and hit the coast as a Category 1 storm. It would be the first Atlantic hurricane of the season.
 
The main threat from the storm is expected to be its flood potential rather than its high winds. The storm is widely seen as a test of the city’s weather defenses put in place following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which left about 1,800 people dead.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana Thursday night, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate federal funds and resources to help the state cope with the storm and its aftermath.

Barry’s maximum sustained winds Friday night were clocked at 100 kilometers per hour and the storm is expected to drop as much as 60 centimeters of rain in some places, leading to severe flooding.

New Orleans, which is already dealing with floods from Wednesday’s fierce rainstorms, is likely to see more flash flooding. The city of Baton Rouge is also facing threats of flash flooding.

As of Friday evening, Barry was on a path toward Morgan City, which is surrounded by water and nearly 140 kilometers southwest of New Orleans.

Forecasters predict the city can expect as much as 51 centimeters of additional rain from Barry, pushing the Mississippi River’s crest close to the top of the 6-meter-high levees protecting New Orleans.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has already declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard.

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for about 10,000 people living near the stretch of the Mississippi closest to the Gulf. A storm surge warning is in effect for southern and southeastern Louisiana.

Along with heavy rain and strong winds, Barry could bring tornadoes before it moves inland and weakens.

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Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

U.S.: Undocumented people on alert for federal immigration raids, again.
For the second time in a month, there is talk of federal raids to detain undocumented immigrants across the United States. It’s a fearful time for those who are vulnerable.

U.S.: Break in the border spike
A months-long increase in border apprehensions reversed in June, shortly after the U.S. brokered a migration deal with Mexico amid threats of a tariff. It’s also the time of year when temperatures creep up in the southwestern U.S., leading to fewer attempts to enter the country through some of the nation’s remotest, most desolate areas. But it’s too early to say whether the downward trend in border arrivals will continue.

U.S.: Questions over fast-tracking asylum procedures
As the U.S. faces a monumental backlog of asylum cases and an increase in families and unaccompanied children seeking sanctuary in the country, the Trump administration wants to speed up the process. The move worries many immigration lawyers who tell VOA that hurrying cases could jeopardize asylum-seekers’ ability to seek help or advice.

U.N.: Bachelet blasts Washington over border facilities
The UN’s top human rights official joined a chorus of condemnation over the condition of migrant detention facilities in the southwestern United States. Michelle Bachelet is one of the most high profile international voices to criticize how Washington is handling a spike in young children and families crossing the border from Mexico without authorization, overcrowding Border Patrol facilities and being held in substandard conditions. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers again pushed for more oversight of the border detention system.

CAR and Cameroon: Refusing to return home
Central African Republic refugees seeking safety in Cameroon are reluctant to return home. They aren’t confident life will be better if they go back, either in terms of security, work or education.

Bangladesh and Burma: Monsoon mayhem
The U.N. relocated thousands of refugees living in a Bangladeshi camp after a monsoon brought heavy rains through Cox’s Bazar, triggering dozens of landslides and destroying hundreds of shelters. The camp primarily houses Burmese refugees, many from the Rohingya community.

Libya: Detainees march for help, freedom
People detained at a Tripoli facility protested and pleaded for aid organizations to relocate them, in the wake of a recent bombing that killed 53. VOA’s Heather Murdock spoke with one detainee. 

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Federal prosecutors say a Pennsylvania man sexually molested four teenage girls at a Kenyan orphanage he founded with a church’s help.

U.S. Attorney William McSwain announced charges Friday against 60-year-old Gregory Dow of Lancaster, hours after Dow was taken into custody.

McSwain says Dow fled Kenya in September 2017 after being accused in that country of sexual abuse of girls at the Dow Family Children’s Home in Boito, Kenya.

A tipster contacted the Lancaster County prosecutors’ office last year. That started an investigation that produced the new charges that he violated a U.S. law against sexual contact with minors in foreign countries.

Dow told the LNP newspaper this year that he had not done anything wrong.

He is expected to appear in federal court in Philadelphia on Friday.

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Egypt’s legendary movie critic and film historian Youssef Cherif Rizkallah, the man who helped popularize Hollywood movie reviews on Egyptian and Middle East televisions, died Friday.

His death comes two days after revealing he had kidney problems. He was 76.

The famed broadcast journalist, best known as Egypt’s mobile movie encyclopedia, was an invaluable film resource for Arab media. He wrote thousands of movie reviews for Egyptian and Arab newspapers, magazines, radio and TV shows.

Rizkallah, who prepared and co-hosted three iconic and popular movie review shows on Egyptian television, including, Oscar, Telecinema, and The Magic Lantern, started his career as a news editor with the Egyptian TV News in the 1960s after graduating with a political science degree at Cairo University. In the 1980s, he hosted a show that introduced Hollywood stars to Egyptian and Arab audiences.

The Jesuit-educated movie critic, Rizkallah, was drawn most in his early career to romance and classical storytelling of Hollywood greats like Michael Curtiz, David Lean, Blake Edwards, Richard Attenborough, Garry Marshall, and Rob Reiner.  

He introduced several Hollywood stars via satellite on Egyptian televisions, including actress Meryl Streep and American film actor and director Peter Bogdanovich. 
 

“It is a sheer joy for me to invite Hollywood stars to Egypt, watch their movies and write about them,” he once said. He helped establish more than 40 years ago the Cairo International Film Festival, where many colleagues describe him as a perceptive and world movie guide.

Multi-lingual Rizkallah won several awards for film criticism over the past 20 years, during which he travelled the world to cover film festivals, including Cannes in France, where he was a frequent guest critic. He was also granted The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, an Order of France.

Rizkallah was buried Friday in Cairo. He is survived by his wife Mervat el-Ebiary, the daughter of a famed screenplay writer, and their two sons – Ahmed and Karim.

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