The store checkout line may be a thing of the past sooner than we think. A year after Amazon opened its first store without a cashier, retailers and start-ups are competing to get similar technology in other stores worldwide, so shoppers do not have to stand in line. VOAs Deborah Block has a report.
…
President Donald Trump received an update on trade talks with China on Saturday at his Florida retreat after discussions in Beijing saw progress ahead of a March 1 deadline for reaching a deal.
Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago club, was briefed in person by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and trade expert Peter Navarro, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, economic adviser Larry Kudlow and other aides joined by phone.
The White House offered no additional detail.
Both the United States and China reported progress in five days of negotiations in Beijing this week, but the White House said much work remained to be done to force changes in Chinese trade behavior.
Shortly after the meeting with his trade team, Trump said on Twitter the talks in Beijing were “very productive.”
At a White House press conference on Friday, he said the talks with China were “very complicated” and that he might extend the March 1 deadline and keep tariffs on Chinese goods from rising.
U.S. duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent if no deal is reached by March 1 to address U.S. demands that China curb forced technology transfers and better enforce intellectual property rights.
China’s vice premier and chief trade negotiator, Liu He, and Lighthizer are to lead the next round of talks next week in Washington.
…
In early November, word began to leak that Amazon was serious about choosing New York to build a giant new campus. The city was eager to lure the company and its thousands of high-paying tech jobs, offering billions in tax incentives and lighting the Empire State Building in Amazon orange.
Even Governor Andrew Cuomo got in on the action: “I’ll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that’s what it takes,” he joked at the time.
Then Amazon made it official: It chose the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens to build a $2.5 billion campus that could house 25,000 workers, in addition to new offices planned for northern Virginia. Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Democrats who have been political adversaries for years, trumpeted the decision as a major coup after edging out more than 230 other proposals.
But what they didn’t expect was the protests, the hostile public hearings and the disparaging tweets that would come in the next three months, eventually leading to Amazon’s dramatic Valentine’s Day breakup with New York.
Immediately after Amazon’s Nov. 12 announcement, criticism started to pour in. The deal included $1.5 billion in special tax breaks and grants for the company, but a closer look at the total package revealed it to be worth at least $2.8 billion. Some of the same politicians who had signed a letter to woo Amazon were now balking at the tax incentives.
“Offering massive corporate welfare from scarce public resources to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world at a time of great need in our state is just wrong,” said New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris and New York City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, Democrats who represent the Long Island City area, in a joint statement.
The next day, CEO Jeff Bezos was on the cover of The New York Post in a cartoon-like illustration, hanging out of a helicopter, holding money bags in each hand, with cash billowing above the skyline. “QUEENS RANSOM,” the headline screamed. The New York Times editorial board, meanwhile, called the deal a “bad bargain” for the city: “We won’t know for 10 years whether the promised 25,000 jobs will materialize,” it said.
Anti-Amazon rallies were planned for the next week. Protesters stormed a New York Amazon bookstore on the day after Thanksgiving and then went to a rally on the steps of a courthouse near the site of the new headquarters in the pouring rain. Some held cardboard boxes with Amazon’s smile logo turned upside down.
In this Nov. 14, 2018 file photo, protesters hold up anti-Amazon signs during a coalition rally and press conference of elected officials, community organizations and unions opposing Amazon headquarters getting subsidies to locate in New York.
They had a long list of grievances: the deal was done secretively; Amazon, one of the world’s most valuable companies, didn’t need nearly $3 billion in tax incentives; rising rents could push people out of the neighborhood; and the company was opposed to unionization.
The helipad kept coming up, too: Amazon, in its deal with the city, was promised it could build a spot to land a helicopter on or near the new offices.
At the first public hearing in December, which turned into a hostile, three-hour interrogation of two Amazon executives by city lawmakers, the helipad was mentioned more than a dozen times. The image of high-paid executives buzzing by a nearby low-income housing project became a symbol of corporate greed.
Queens residents soon found postcards from Amazon in their mailboxes, trumpeting the benefits of the project. Gianaris sent his own version, calling the company “Scamazon” and urging people to call Bezos and tell him to stay in Seattle.
At a second city council hearing in January, Amazon’s vice president for public policy, Brian Huseman, subtly suggested that perhaps the company’s decision to come to New York could be reversed.
“We want to invest in a community that wants us,” he said.
Then came a sign that Amazon’s opponents might actually succeed in derailing the deal: In early February, Gianaris was tapped for a seat on a little-known state panel that often has to approve state funding for big economic development projects. That meant if Amazon’s deal went before the board, Gianaris could kill it.
“I’m not looking to negotiate a better deal,” Gianaris said at the time. “I am against the deal that has been proposed.”
Cuomo had the power to block Gianaris’ appointment, but he didn’t indicate whether he would take that step.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s own doubts about the project started to show. On Feb. 8, The Washington Post reported that the company was having second thoughts about the Queens location.
On Wednesday, Cuomo brokered a meeting with four top Amazon executives and the leaders of three unions critical of the deal. The union leaders walked away with the impression that the parties had an agreed upon framework for further negotiations, said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union.
“We had a good conversation. We talked about next steps. We shook hands,” Appelbaum said.
An Amazon representative did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The final blow landed Thursday, when Amazon announced on a blog post that it was backing out, surprising the mayor, who had spoken to an Amazon executive Monday night and received “no indication” that the company would bail.
Amazon still expected the deal to be approved, according to a source familiar with Amazon’s thinking, but that the constant criticism from politicians didn’t make sense for the company to grow there.
“I was flabbergasted,” De Blasio said. “Why on earth after all of the effort we all put in would you simply walk away?”
…
Uganda’s junior minister for tourism this month sparked controversy by suggesting that curvy women could be promoted as a tourist attraction. Uganda earns billions of dollars from wildlife tourism. But, the idea of adding women to that list has generated heated debate about objectifying women. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
…
Italian fashion house Gucci announced a major push Friday to step up diversity hiring as part of a long-term plan to build cultural awareness at the luxury fashion company following an uproar over an $890 sweater that resembled blackface.
Gucci also said it will hire a global director for diversity and inclusion, a newly created role that will be based in New York, plus five new designers from around the world for its Rome office.
It also will launch multicultural scholarship programs in 10 cities around the world with the goal of building a “more diverse and inclusive workplace on an ongoing basis.”
Harlem meeting with Dapper Dan
The announcement came after Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri met in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood with Dapper Dan, a well-known African-American designer, and other community members to hear their perspectives.
Dapper Dan, who collaborated with Gucci in 2017 on a menswear line, has emerged as a leading voice demanding accountability from Gucci over the sweater, which was black with a pull-up neck featuring a cutout surrounded by cartoonish red lips.
Bizzarri said Gucci has spent the past days conducting a “thorough review of the circumstances that led to this” and consulting with employees and African-American community leaders on what actions the company should take.
“I am particularly grateful to Dapper Dan for the role he has played in bringing community leaders together to offer us their counsel at this time,” Bizzarri said in statement.
Earlier Friday, Dapper Dan tweeted that the participants at the meeting “made great demands” of Gucci. He said he would announce a town hall meeting in Harlem “for us to talk about what they have proposed.”
In May, Gucci said it will begin conducting annual one-day unconscious-bias training sessions for its 18,000 employees around the world.
Designer scholarships
The design scholarship program will be launched in New York, Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, New Delhi, Beijing, the Chinese city of Hangzhou, Seoul, Tokyo, Beirut, London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The company described it as a 12-month fast-track program leading to full-time employment.
Gucci has apologized for the sweater, which creative director Alessandro Michele said was not inspired by blackface but by the late Leigh Bowery, a performance artist, club promoter and fashion designer who often used flamboyant face makeup and costumes.
“I look forward to welcoming new perspectives to my team and together working even harder for Gucci to represent a voice for inclusivity,” Michele said in statement Friday.
…
Payless ShoeSource is shuttering all of its 2,100 remaining stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, joining a list of iconic names like Toys R Us and Bon-Ton that have closed down in the last year.
The Topeka, Kan.-based chain said Friday that it will hold liquidation sales starting Sunday and wind down its e-commerce operations. All of the stores will remain open until at least the end of March and the majority will remain open until May.
The debt-burdened chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2017, closing hundreds of stores as part of its reorganization.
At the time, it had over 4,400 stores in more than 30 countries. It remerged from restructuring four months later with about 3,500 stores and eliminated more than $435 million in debt.
The company said in an email that the liquidation did not affect its franchise operations or its Latin American stores, which remain open for business as usual. It lists 18,000 employees worldwide.
Shoppers are increasingly shifting their buying online or heading to discount stores like T.J. Maxx to grab deals on name-brand shoes. That shift has hurt traditional retailers, even low-price outlets like Payless. Heavy debt loads have also handcuffed retailers, leaving them less flexible to invest in their businesses.
But bankruptcies and store closures will continue through 2019, so there’s “no light at the end of the tunnel,” according to a report by Coresight Research.
Before this announcement, there had been 2,187 U.S. store closing announcements this year, with Gymboree and Ascena Retail, the parent of Lane Bryant and other brands, accounting for more than half the total, according to the research firm. This year’s total is up 23 percent from the 1,776 announcements a year ago. Year-to-date, retailers have announced 1,411 store openings, offsetting 65 percent of store closures, it said.
Payless was founded in 1956 by two cousins, Louis and Shaol Lee Pozez, to offer self-service stores selling affordable footwear.
…
A gay French writer has lifted the lid on what he calls one of the world’s largest gay communities — the Vatican, estimating that most of its prelates are homosexually inclined and attributing much of the current crisis in the Catholic Church to an internecine war among them.
In the explosive book, In the Closet of the Vatican, author Frederic Martel describes a gay subculture at the Vatican and calls out the hypocrisy of Catholic bishops and cardinals who in public denounce homosexuality but in private lead double lives.
Aside from the subject matter, the book is astonishing for the access Martel had to the inner sanctum of the Holy See. Martel writes that he spent four years researching it in 30 countries, including weeks at a time living inside the Vatican walls. He says the doors were opened by a key Vatican gatekeeper and friend of Pope Francis who was the subject of the pontiff’s famous remark about gay priests, “Who am I to judge?”
Martel says he conducted nearly 1,500 in-person interviews with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops or monsignors, and 45 Vatican and foreign ambassadors, many of whom are quoted at length and in on-the-record interviews that he says were recorded. Martel said he was assisted by 80 researchers, translators, fixers and local journalists, as well as a team of 15 lawyers. The 555-page book is being published simultaneously in eight languages in 20 countries, many bearing the title Sodom.
The Vatican didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Culture of secrecy
Martel appears to want to bolster Francis’ efforts at reforming the Vatican by discrediting his biggest critics and removing the secrecy and scandal that surrounds homosexuality in the church. Church doctrine holds that gays are to be treated with respect and dignity, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”
“Francis knows that he has to move on the church’s stance, and that he will only be able to do this at the cost of a ruthless battle against all those who use sexual morality and homophobia to conceal their own hypocrisies and double lives,” Martel writes.
But the book’s Feb. 21 publication date coincides with the start of Francis’ summit of church leaders on preventing the sexual abuse of minors, a crisis that is undermining his papacy. The book isn’t about abuse, but the timing of its release could fuel the narrative, embraced by conservatives and rejected by the gay community, that the abuse scandal has been caused by homosexuals in the priesthood.
Martel is quick to separate the two issues. But he echoes the analysis of the late abuse researcher and psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe that the hidden sex lives of priests has created a culture of secrecy that allowed the abuse of minors to flourish. According to that argument, since many prelates in positions of authority have their own hidden sexual skeletons, they have no interest in denouncing the criminal pedophiles in their midst lest their own secrets be revealed.
‘Gossip and innuendo’
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of Building a Bridge about how the Catholic Church should reach out more to the LGBT community, said that based on the excerpts he had read, Martel’s book “makes a convincing case that in the Vatican many priests bishops and even cardinals are gay, and that some of them are sexually active.”
But Martin added that the book’s sarcastic tone belies its fatal flaw. “His extensive research is buried under so much gossip and innuendo that it makes it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction.”
“There are many gay priests, bishops and cardinals in ministry today in the church,” Martin said. “But most of them are, like their straight counterparts, remaining faithful to a life of chastity and celibacy.”
In the course of his research, Martel said he came to several conclusions about the reality of the Holy See that he calls the “rules,” chief among them that the more obviously gay the priest, bishop or cardinal, the more vehement his anti-gay rhetoric.
Martel says his aim is not to “out” living prelates, though he makes some strong insinuations about those who are “in the parish,” a euphemism he learns is code for gay clergy.
Martin said Martel “traffics in some of the worst gay stereotypes” by using sarcastic and derogatory terms, such as when he writes of Francis’ plight: “Francis is said to be ‘among the wolves.’ It’s not quite true: he’s among the queens.”
Martel moves from one scandal to another — from the current one over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington to the priest-friendly gay migrant prostitute scene near Rome’s train station. He traces the reasons behind Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and the cover-up of the Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ, the pedophile Rev. Marcial Maciel. In each, Martel parses the scandal through the lens of the gay-friendly or homophobic prelates he says were involved.
Gay rights advocate
Equal parts investigative journalism and salacious gossip, Martel paints a picture of an institution almost at war with itself, rife with rumor and with leaders struggling to rationalize their own sexual appetites and orientations with official church teachings that require chastity and its unofficial tradition of hostility toward gays.
“Never, perhaps, have the appearances of an institution been so deceptive,” Martel writes. “Equally deceptive are the pronouncements about celibacy and the vows of chastity that conceal a completely different reality.”
Martel is not a household name in France, but is known in the French LGBT community as an advocate for gay rights. Those familiar with his work view it as rigorous, notably his 90-minute weekly show on public radio station France Culture called Soft Power. Recent episodes include investigations into global digital investment and the U.S.-China trade war.
As a French government adviser in the 1990s, he played a prominent role in legislation allowing civil unions, which not only allowed gay couples to formalize their relationships and share assets, but also proved hugely popular among heterosexual French couples increasingly skeptical of marriage.
His nonfiction books include a treatise on homosexuality in France over the past 50 years called The Pink and the Black (a sendup of Stendhal’s classic The Red and the Black), as well as an investigation of the internet industry and a study of culture in the United States.
Martel attributes the high percentage of gays in the clergy to the fact that up until the homosexual liberation of the 1970s, gay Catholic men had few options. “So these pariahs became initiates and made a strength of a weakness,” he writes. That analysis helps explain the dramatic fall in vocations in recent decades, as gay Catholic men now have other options, not least to live their lives openly, even in marriage.
…
Amazon jilted New York City on Valentine’s Day, scrapping plans to build a massive headquarters campus in Queens amid fierce opposition from politicians angry about nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and the company’s anti-union stance.
With millions of jobs and a bustling economy, New York can withstand the blow, but experts say the decision by the e-commerce giant to walk away and take with it 25,000 promised jobs could scare off other companies considering moving to or expanding in the city, which wants to be seen as the Silicon Valley of the East Coast.
“One of the real risks here is the message we send to companies that want to come to New York and expand to New York,” said Julie Samuels, the executive director of industry group Tech: NYC. “We’re really playing with fire right now.”
In November, Amazon selected New York City and Crystal City, Virginia, as the winners of a secretive, yearlong process in which more than 230 North American cities bid to become the home of the Seattle-based company’s second headquarters.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded the city’s selection at the time as the biggest boon yet to its burgeoning tech economy and underscored that the deal would generate billions of dollars for improving transit, schools and housing.
Opposition came swiftly though, as details started to emerge.
Critics complained about public subsidies that were offered to Amazon and chafed at some of the conditions of the deal, such as the company’s demand for access to a helipad. Some pleaded for the deal to be renegotiated or scrapped altogether.
“We knew this was going south from the moment it was announced,” said Thomas Stringer, a site selection adviser for big companies. “If this was done right, all the elected officials would have been out there touting how great it was. When you didn’t see that happen, you knew something was wrong.”
Stringer, a managing director of the consulting firm BDO USA LLP, said city and state officials need to rethink the secrecy with which they approached the negotiations. Community leaders and potential critics were kept in the dark, only to be blindsided when details became public.
“It’s time to hit the reset button and say, “What did we do wrong?”‘ Stringer said. “This is fumbling at the 1-yard line.”
Amazon said in a statement Thursday its commitment to New York City required “positive, collaborative relationships” with state and local officials and that a number of them had “made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward.”
Not that Amazon is blameless, experts say.
Joe Parilla, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said the company’s high-profile bidding process may have stoked the backlash. Companies usually search for new locations quietly, in part to avoid the kind of opposition Amazon received.
“They had this huge competition, and the media covered it really aggressively, and a bunch of cities responded,” Parilla said. “What did you expect? It gave the opposition a much bigger platform.”
Richard Florida, an urban studies professor and critic of Amazon’s initial search process, said the company should have expected to feel the heat when it selected New York, a city known for its neighborhood activism.
“At the end of the day, this is going to hurt Amazon,” said Florida, head of the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute. “This is going to embolden people who don’t like corporate welfare across the country.”
Other tech companies have been keeping New York City’s tech economy churning without making much of a fuss.
Google is spending $2.4 billion to build up its Manhattan campus. Cloud-computing company Salesforce has plastered its name on Verizon’s former headquarters in midtown, and music streaming service Spotify is gobbling up space at the World Trade Center complex.
Despite higher costs, New York City remains attractive to tech companies because of its vast, diverse talent pool, world-class educational and cultural institutions and access to other industries, such as Wall Street capital and Madison Avenue ad dollars.
No other metropolitan area in the U.S. has as many computer-related jobs as New York City, which has 225,600, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas each have a greater concentration of their workers in tech.
In the New York area, the average computer-related job pays roughly $104,000 a year, about $15,000 above the national average. Still, that’s about $20,000 less than in San Francisco.
Even after cancelling its headquarters project, Amazon still has 5,000 employees in New York City, not counting Whole Foods.
“New York has actually done a really great job of growing and supporting its tech ecosystem, and I’m confident that will continue,” Samuels said. “Today we took a step back, but I would not put the nail in the coffin of tech in New York City.”
…
So, Regina King walked into a 99-cent store. And what’d she get? A prophecy on her life.
No joke. King was shopping around — “sometimes people will say, ‘You at the 99-cent store?’ I like a bargain too” — when a woman walked up to her with something of a prediction.
“She said, ‘You don’t know it but you’re going to run for president.’ And I was like, ‘President of a company?’ She was like, ‘No… of the United States,’” King recalled, adding that she thought the woman was a clairvoyant.
“She said, ‘Close your eyes. You are. I see it,’” King continued. “I was like, ’Girl, I appreciate that but no— that’s not happening. I like my life too much. I like my family too much. I like my friends too much.”
The idea of King, 48, running for presidency isn’t too far-fetched. Rather, it’s not a stretch for people to jokingly ask her to: The seasoned actress is one of the most likable and genial celebrities in the industry, and one fans and peers are constantly rooting for. Remember Taraji P. Henson happily screaming at the top of her lungs when King won her first Emmy in 2015?
King has picked up two more Emmys since — earning acclaim and praise for her riveting roles in John Ridley’s anthology “American Crime” and Netflix’s “Seven Seconds,” where King stunned on-screen as the mother of a son killed by police.
Now King is hitting new heights with her first big screen role since 2010: Her portrayal of a devoted mother in Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk” already won her honors at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Awards. She’s up for best supporting actress at the Academy Awards, pitting her against Oscar winners Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz; Amy Adams, a six-time Oscar nominee; and first-time Marina de Tavira, who co-starred in “Roma.”
″(Regina) has been stalwart in this industry for so long. For a long time, she was doing the work to do the work and I think the industry sort of catches up to wonderful artists like Regina. She shows up and does the work, whether it be in front or behind the camera, and the industry is taking notice,” said Colman Domingo, who plays King’s husband in “Beale Street.” ″I think it’s not only an Oscar nomination for ‘If Beale Street Could Talk,’ I think it’s also for her body of work.”
King called the nomination “extra-special” since it’s her first; the film also is also competing for best adapted screenplay and best original score at the Oscars on Feb. 24.
King has shined on-screen since she appeared on NBC’s “227” in 1985. Her credits include films like “Jerry Maguire,” ″Friday,” ″Ray,” ″Boyz n the Hood,” ″Enemy of the State” and “Miss Congeniality 2.”
But King traded movie roles for TV ones so she could easily raise her son — her regular date at awards show — in Los Angeles: “I wasn’t interested in homeschooling my son.”
“I had the conversation with my team,” she said, “and they felt like TV was going to be the best space for me to live in.”
She landed a starring role in TNT’s “Southland” in 2009, playing Detective Lydia Adams — a part originally not written for a black woman.
“Everyone at the agency had been put on notice, ‘Do not treat Regina King like a black actor. She is an actor,‘” King said. “I hadn’t even quite seen it that way, but that’s what they felt. It kind of started with ‘Legally Blonde 2.’ That was the reach out, like, ‘You know what, why don’t you guys consider Regina King?’”
More TV roles came to her, including “The Big Bang Theory,” ″Shameless,” ″American Crime,” ″The Leftovers” and “Seven Seconds” — all while film stars turned to TV and found success, from Nicole Kidman to Matthew McConaughey to Viola Davis. Even Meryl Streep is heading to the so-called “small screen.”
“I think of myself as a trailblazer for film actors going to television,” King said.
But no matter the screen, King always comes through. She’s known for digging deep into her roles, giving a dramatic, stirring performance that leaves audiences wanting more.
“I’m doing my research. I’m talking to real life people who’ve had these horrific experiences,” King said.
One of the real people was Marion Gray-Hopkins, whose son was killed by police officers. King spoke extensively with Gray-Hopkins as she prepped for “Seven Seconds,” which also earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
While King is usually able to leave the drama on the set, she said it was hard to escape the madness of the TV series.
“I called my son so much (for) just like random things. He couldn’t watch all of ‘Seven Seconds.’ He saw the first episode, and he tried to watch the second. He was like, ‘I can’t.’ He said, ‘It feels like that’s me,’” King said. “And he was like, ’Now I get why you were calling me with just like weird stuff, like, ‘Did you remember to put the clothes in the dryer? I’m like, yeah mom. I put the cleaning towels in the dryer. Did you feed the dog?’ I just wanted to hear his voice.”
King’s son, Ian Alexander Jr., will be by her side at the Academy Awards on Feb. 24 to cheer her on — just like so many others.
“I feel the love,” she said. “I can just be anywhere, from the grocery store to wherever. Sometimes, it’ll be the sweetest thing, I’ll get a woman that’s just like 70, 80-years-old say, ‘Just thank you. Thank you for just representing us.’”
“I’m just living my life and trying to remain a good person and give what I get and remain open so that what I get is good, so that’s what I can put back out. But you’re not thinking about how your walk always effects people that you don’t know,” she added.
But still, she’s not running for president.
“When you make the choice to be in the public’s eye, you are letting go of anonymity. You’re letting go of some things that you want to hold dear and protect. … For a president, that’s on level 9 million,” she said. “I am all here for sacrifices, but not that one.”
…
These days, Native American Flute Players perform at music festivals across the globe. But few belong to any tribe or nation, something that troubles Darren Thompson, a member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Wisconsin and an award-winning flutist.
This week, he is performing at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in New York, sharing stories and music that speak to the history, trauma and resilience of the Ojibwe people. And of course, to the instrument itself, which the Ojibwe call “bibigwan.”
“The Native American Flute’ is the name of the instrument, so anybody who picks one up and plays it can call himself a Native American Flute Player,'” said Thompson.
Technically, playing an inauthentic flute violates the U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Act, passed in 1990 to ban the sale of goods falsely labeled “Native American. But there is nothing to stop non-Native performers from falsely claiming Native American heritage.
“It’s not so much the fact that they are playing the flute that bothers me. It’s the fact that a lot of them are non-Native and try to play the part of a Native, wearing what they think is Indian’ attire. It’s offensive, and it perpetuates the stereotype that Native Americans are still running around as they did in the past,” said Thompson.
‘Singing trees’
Thompson grew up hearing traditional Ojibwe music, but it wasn’t an important part of his life until he left the reservation.
“I went to Marquette University, where there weren’t any other Native kids,” he said. “I was still in Wisconsin, but it was a foreign environment.”
Homesickness led him to the music of Navajo/Ute flutist Raymond Carlos Nakai, which evoked memories of his childhood.
“One of the first stories I ever heard came from the elders, who talked about trees,” Thompson said. “I remember them saying trees sing to us and give us guidance.I think I was four, and that story came to mind 15 years later when I first heard Nakai playing.”
It was then, he said, he understood what the elders had been trying to tell him: Trees do sing — through flutes carved from their wood.
Each flute unique
Thompson bought his first flute from a non-Native vendor at a cultural festival. He taught himself to play, and as he learned, he felt moved to connect to the music of his ancestors — music that preceded government assimilation policies that nearly killed off the Ojibwe language, culture and religious traditions.
“I went out to museums to research actual instruments that were seized 200 years ago and taken into collections,” he said. “Store-bought “Native” flutes are similar in construction, but they are tuned to a minor Western music scale. But an authentic one would be tuned to the maker himself.”
Traditionally, players carved their own instruments from a single piece of wood — cedar, for example, or ash. Each flute would have two chambers, which allowed the player to breathe, Thompson explained.
No two instruments would have been alike.
“The length of the instrument would be the distance from that person’s armpit to his first knuckle,” he said. “The width would be the same as the width of his thumb. Even the spacing of the finger holes is calibrated to the player’s body.”
The number of open holes carved into the flute varies.Thompson owns several flutes, some he made himself and others custom made. Some have only four holes, which can produce eight notes. Others have five and six holes, allowing for greater range in melody.
The result is a sound unique to each player — a deep and clear tone that Thompson says “touches a lot of people.”
He has wanted to perform at NMAI for at least a decade.
“NMAI has a program called The Art of Storytelling.” My performance is unique, in that I try to reintroduce stories and music from history. Songs I’ve learned that were recorded in the early 1900s, before our culture got erased,” Thompson said.
To hear a sample of Thompson’s work, click below:
The stories don’t just speak to what was lost, but what has survived. And some carry messages that are universal:
“If you take all the four-leggeds, those who walk on all fours, from the Earth, life on Earth would not be able to sustain itself.
“If you take all the winged ones, those that fly in the sky, life on Earth would not be able to sustain itself.
“If you take away all the plants from the Earth, life on Earth would not be able to sustain itself.
“If you take away all the water, and those that live in water, from the Earth, life on Earth would not be able to sustain itself.
“If you take away man from the Earth, life on Earth would flourish.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Friday with members of the U.S. trade delegation in Beijing where China and the U.S. are attempting to hammer out a trade deal.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin posted on Twitter Friday that he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had “productive meetings with China’s Vice Premier Liu He.”
Another round of negotiations between the two countries will continue next week in Wahington, Chinese state media reported.
Earlier, a top White House economic adviser expressed confidence in the U.S. – China trade negotiations in Beijing.
“The vibe in Beijing is good,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters at the White House Thursday.
Kudlow provided few details but said the U.S. delegation led by Lighthizer was “covering all ground.”
“That’s a very good sign and they’re just soldiering on, so I like that story,” Kudlow said, “And I will stay with the phrase, the vibe is good.”
Negotiators are working to strike a deal by March 1, to avoid a rise in U.S. tariffs on $200 million worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent. President Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that if talks are seeing signs of progress, that deadline could be pushed back.
When asked Thursday if there would be an extension, Kudlow said, “No such decision has been made so far.”
Analysts such as William Reinsch, a former president of the National Foreign trade Council and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, say the talks are complicated by the three main areas under negotiation.
“Market access, which I think is well on the way to completion. Some Chinese offers on intellectual property, which I think they are not going to offer what we want…And some compliance in enforcement matters.”
Reinsch told VOA’s Mandarin service that U.S. negotiators are specifically seeking ways to hold China accountable for the commitments it makes in any deal.
Munich security conference
While American and Chinese negotiators continue talks in Beijing, both countries are setting up for another potential face-off in Europe.
The U.S. and China are sending large delegations to Friday’s Munich Security Conference in Germany, a high-level conference on international security policy. Vice President Mike Pence leads the U.S. delegation while Politburo member Yang Jiechi will be the most senior Chinese official.
Yang Jiechi is heading the largest-ever Chinese delegation to the conference traditionally attended by the U.S. and its European allies. He is pushing back against Washington’s campaign pressing Europe to exclude Chinese tech giant Huawei from taking part in constructing 5G mobile networks in the region.
U.S. officials say allowing the Chinese company to build the next generation of wireless communications in Europe will enhance the Chinese government’s surveillance powers, threatening European security.
Although the technology behind 5G is complex, Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department, said the decisions for European countries is simple.
“Given the nature of modern telecommunication, countries do have to make a choice about whether or not they believe that Huawei, given its relationship, not an ownership relationship, with Chinese government, can be trusted to provide the backbone of their future telecommunication system.”
Both Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned allies in Poland and other Central European countries this week on the dangers of closer ties with Beijing and collaboration with Chinese firms. In Budapest, Hungary on Monday, Pompeo said American companies might scale back European operations if countries continue to do business with Huawei.
Huawei has repeatedly denied its products could be used for espionage.
U.S. prosecutors have filed charges against Huawei including bank fraud, violating sanctions against Iran, and stealing trade secrets. The company refuted these accusations and rejected charges against its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is currently on bail in Canada following her arrest in December.
This year’s Munich Security Conference topics include the “great power competition” between the United States, China, and Russia. Conference organizers have listed US-China tensions as one of their top 10 security issues of 2019.
VOA’s Mandarin Service reporter Jingxun Li contributed to this report
…
Members of Kenya’s LGBT community are looking forward to a High Court ruling that might decriminalize gay sex. The impending ruling is raising hopes among LGBT persons across the region.
South of Nairobi, in a remote town, models are in training in a safe house tucked in a quiet neighborhood. These are not just any models. These are LGBT refugees from Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.
Most fled persecution from their home countries because of their sexual orientation.
Lubega Musa, 27, fled to Kenya in 2015. He, together with other LGBT refugees, started an economic empowerment program called Lunco Haute Cotoure, whose activities focus on fashion, design and music.
“There are things we would love to do as Lunco Houte Cotoure for the gay community openly, but we cannot do them because of the law,” Musa said. “So, if there is change in the law, if same-sex becomes legal in Kenya, we as artists, we work with the gay community. The situation will be much better for us to exhibit our talent, and you know the LGBT community is one that is most talented in the arts.”
WATCH: Kenya High Court Ruling on Decriminalizing Gay Sex Awaited
High Court ruling
Kenya’s High Court will rule this month on whether to repeal Section 162 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes gay sex.
In Kenya, one can be sentenced to up to 14 years for violating the law.
Activists say the case is a milestone in the fight for LGBT rights in the region.
“This is an opportunity for LGBTI people to claim their spaces,” said Brian Macharia, a gay rights activist. “Whether we win this case or not, there is visibility that is coming by the fact that we managed to get this far at the courts, that we got a lot of Kenyans thinking and talking about this.”
Homophobic attacks are common in Kenya, as a majority of the population objects to homosexuality.
Too soon, some say
Charles Kanjama, the lead lawyer representing the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum in the case, says Kenya is not ready to accept homosexuality.
“We think that it is in the interest of our country, as do most other Africans in this continent in which we live, to outlaw homosexuality. That is gay sex in particular, and any manifestations as promotion or propagandizing in favor of gay sex, so that we can try as much as possible to encourage and promote healthy sexual behavior,” he said.
Activists in Africa and elsewhere are campaigning against penal codes that criminalize gay sex, most of which date from the colonial period.
The laws in many countries are being overturned. India scrapped them last year. Angola in January.
Kenya might do it in a matter of weeks.
However the High Court rules, both sides are likely to appeal to the Supreme Court if they lose.
…
The Mars Opportunity Rover landed on the Red Planet’s surface in 2004 for a 90-day mission of exploration. More than 14 years later, NASA has finally closed the book on this tiny rover that wandered across Mars sending back troves of information. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
A report says Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are negotiating a “multibillion dollar” fine for the social network’s privacy lapses.
The Washington Post said Thursday that the fine would be the largest ever imposed on a tech company. Citing unnamed sources, it also said the two sides have not yet agreed on an exact amount.
Facebook has had several high-profile privacy lapses in the past couple of years. The FTC has been looking into the Cambridge Analytica scandal since last March. The data mining firm accessed the data of some 87 million Facebook users without their consent.
At issue is whether Facebook is in violation of a 2011 agreement with the FTC promising to protect user privacy. Facebook and the FTC declined to comment.
…
Mexico’s new government is trying to slash the cost of sending cash home for Mexican families living abroad and is hoping competition from “fintechs” (financial technology) will encourage banks and services like Western Union to reduce commissions and improve exchange rates.
Deputy Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said the government did not plan to place new regulations on the flow of remittances, one of the country’s largest sources of foreign currency and a lifeline for millions of poor families.
Sending remittances
However, the former World Bank executive envisaged that the increasing use of money transfer apps would help bring down the cost of sending remittances. Currently, the commission charged and the foreign exchange rates imposed together take a bite out of each remittance of 8 percent on average. Herrera said that should be brought down to 5 percent.
“That is to say, the cost of transactions must come down by about 40 percent. That is something the fintechs are probably in a better position to do than traditional actors such as banks,” Herrera told Reuters in an interview earlier this week.
“Their great advantage is that they can operate in a more efficient and direct way and at lower costs, which should lead to lower commissions,” Herrera said.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1, has made fighting poverty and inequality a centerpiece of his administration. Herrera said bringing down the cost for financial services like remittances would help many of the nation’s neediest.
Banking costs are a sensitive issue in Mexico. When Lopez Obrador’s ruling MORENA party introduced a bill last year to limit banking fees it triggered a selloff in the stock market. Lopez Obrador distanced himself from the bill.
Calm investors
Other changes were better received, with credit ratings agency Fitch saying a bill introduced by Lopez Obrador to loosen restrictions on pension fund managers could lead to better returns and payouts for beneficiaries.
Lopez Obrador has also tried to calm investors’ nerves by saying there would be no modifications to the legal framework relating to economic, financial and fiscal matters in the first three years of his tenure.
The government says 24 million Mexicans live in the United States, by far the largest source of money sent home. Mexicans sent a record $33.5 billion in remittances in 2018, a 10.5 percent jump from a year earlier, Mexican central bank data show.
Mexico is already home to 75 startups that specialize in payments and remittances, data from fintech platform Finnovista show, while remittance apps like Remitly and Xoom have been gaining popularity.
Herrera said banks and Western Union would have to make their services cheaper to compete with money transfer apps. He did not say how quickly that would happen.
“I wish we could make it happen immediately,” he said.
No comment from Western Union
Western Union and its closest rival Moneygram did not respond to requests for comment. The Mexican Banking Association declined to comment on the topic.
Turning to fintechs for change is part of a broader strategy aimed at decreasing the use of the cash in Mexico, Herrera said. He said the Finance Ministry planned to reveal additional measures at the annual Banking Convention in March.
Ninety percent of transactions in Mexico are made in cash, in a system that he said is inefficient and expensive and creates ample opportunities for corruption and money laundering.
…
Melania Trump gave some love to her new city during a Valentine’s Day arts-and-crafts session with pediatric patients Thursday.
At a station where the children wrote their “favorite things” on construction paper hearts, the first lady went with “My favorite city is Washington.” She signed the heart with her name and stuck it on a board on a wall in the middle of several other hearts.
During the visit to The Children’s Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, she also helped make candy boxes — and assisted a line of children in filling them up with a variety of sugary treats — and snow globes.
Amani, a 13-year-old boy from Mombasa, Kenya, was responsible for showing her how to turn a wooden clothespin into a colorful clip.
“This is a big project,” Trump said during the tutorial. Amani has sickle cell disease and is preparing for a bone marrow transplant with marrow donated by his sister, the White House said. The first lady told Amani that she will pray for him. He presented her with a red heart-shaped box that held a silver necklace with “Hope & Faith” inscribed on a silver circle.
He also gave the first lady a bouquet of white roses.
The Children’s Inn is a private, nonprofit residence for children and families participating in pediatric research at NIH. The first lady was at the inn on Valentine’s Day last year when she was informed by her staff of a shooting at a south Florida high school that killed 17 people.
She was greeted Thursday by Amber, 9, of San Jose, California. Amber, who participates in a gene therapy trial, was among the children with whom Mrs. Trump spent time during last year’s visit.
Trump is focusing her work as first lady on the well-being of children.
…
Amazon will not be building a new headquarters in New York, a stunning reversal after a yearlong search.
The online retailer faced opposition from some New York politicians, who were unhappy with the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives Amazon was promised. The Seattle-based Amazon had planned to bring 25,000 jobs to New York, and spend $2.5 billion building its offices.
“We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York,” the company said in a blog post, adding that it has 5,000 workers in the city and plans to grow those teams.
Amazon said Thursday it does not plan to look for another location at this time, and will continue to build out offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Uganda’s junior minister for tourism this month sparked controversy by suggesting that curvy women could be promoted as a tourist attraction. Uganda earns billions of dollars off of wildlife tourism but, the idea of adding women to that list has generated heated debate about objectifying women.
Ann Mungoma was a judge at two pageants that showed that being slim should not be equated with beauty — Ms. Curvy Africa 2016 and Ms. Curvy Nigeria 2017.
“So, here we are giving a chance to the ladies and telling them, please, you’re most welcome,” she said. “God created you that way, bless him for the way you are shaped, your size, come, we are giving you a platform to show the world that this is how we are. This is how Ugandan ladies are designed.”
But Mungoma’s plan to bring the well-rounded contest to Uganda this year has — well — hit a curve.
Godfrey Kiwanda, Uganda’s junior minister for tourism, sparked debate at the pageant’s launch. He said curvy women should be counted among the country’s tourist attractions — such as wildlife.
Kiwanda said Uganda’s tourism industry is facing stiff competition and should diversify.
“Tourism is not just about animals, it’s about our food, the way we walk, the way we were created, our curves,” he said.
Uganda’s women’s rights activists called Kiwanda’s objectifying women’s bodies a gross insult.
Some called for the Ms. Curvy Uganda beauty pageant to be cancelled.
Rita Aciro, the executive director of the Uganda Women’s Network, has been fighting for women and girl’s rights for the last 18 years.
She demanded the junior tourism minister apologize.
“He should stop using women’s bodies as sex objects. We are not. Not Ugandan women, not any African woman, not any woman in the world,” she said. “Our bodies are not sex objects. We have equal brains, we have equal abilities, we just need equal opportunities.”
In the media and on the streets of Kampala, Ugandans had mixed views on the controversy and if the curvy contest should continue.
Some insulted women who would take part in the beauty pageant while others defended them.
University student Georgia Nakyonza said she would join the contest if she qualified.
“It’s not bad, it doesn’t mean that if you go for Miss curvy you are a protest, you are selling off your body. Actually, the way they put on is just the way models put on,” she said.
Uganda’s Tourism Board has distanced itself from the Ms. Curvy pageant, saying it will concentrate instead on promoting the country’s current attractions.
…
Google plans to invest more than $13 billion this year on new and expanded data centers and offices across the U.S.
CEO Sundar Pichai announced the news in a blog post Wednesday , emphasizing the company’s growth outside its Mountain View, California, home and across the Midwest and South.
“2019 marks the second year in a row we’ll be growing faster outside of the (San Francisco) Bay Area than in it,” he wrote.
Google will build new data centers in Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia. Pichai estimated the construction of the new centers will employ 10,000 workers.
It makes good political sense for Google to highlight its expansions outside coastal cities, said CFRA Research analyst Scott Kessler.
U.S. legislators have paid increasing attention to Google and other big tech companies in the past year, and are considering passing privacy laws to regulate the companies’ reach. Investing more widely across the U.S. could help it curry favor with federal politicians and officials, he said.
Google is focused on expanding its cloud-computing business, a market where it faces stiff competition from larger rivals Amazon and Microsoft.
The company will have a physical presence in 24 states by the end of the year. It currently has locations in 21 states, and is expanding into Nevada, Ohio and Nebraska.
Its expansion is likely also a way to attract new employees, Kessler said. Google will add an office in Georgia, and expand its offices in several cities including in Seattle and Chicago.
Google said it spent more than $9 billion on similar expansions across the country last year.
Google did not give an exact number of employees it expects to hire as a result of the 2019 expansions, but said it would be “tens of thousands” of full-time workers.
…
Some taxpayers are getting a bitter surprise this year as their usual annual tax refunds have shrunk — or turned into tax bills — even though President Donald Trump loudly promised them largest tax cut “in American history.”
And with tax season under way, thousands of unhappy taxpayers have been venting their displeasure on Twitter, using hashtags like #GOPTaxscam, and some threatened not to vote for Trump again.
“Lowest refund I have ever had and I am 50 yrs old. No wall and now this tax reform sucks too!!” a woman going by “Speziale-Matheny” wrote from the crucial political swing state of Florida. “Starting to doubt Trump. I voted for him and trusted him too.”
During the year, American wage earners see a portion of each paycheck withheld as income tax, and many then receive a refund the following year if they have overpaid the federal government. That cash boost is eagerly awaited each year, and used to help pay off debt or make large purchases.
But the 2017 tax overhaul — which Republicans promoted as a boon to the middle class — meant many workers paid less in taxes during the year reducing the amount withheld, a change which may have gone unnoticed.
And the reform also cut some popular deductions, sometimes resulting in thinner refunds or even unexpected tax bills.
Early data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service show that refunds so far this year are 8.4 percent lower than 2018 payouts on average, falling to $1,865 from $2,035.
However, many millions more taxpayers will be filing tax returns by the annual April 15 deadline, meaning this figure could change.
Mark Mazur, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy under former President Barack Obama, told AFP the negative reaction was “understandable.”
“People focused on the amount of the refund but that’s not the same as their tax liability, the amount of tax they pay for the year,” he said.
Because of lower withholding during the year, some taxpayers have in effect already seen the benefit of the tax cut in their higher paychecks, said Mazur, who is vice president at the Urban Institute.
About five percent of taxpayers — 7.5 million people — will in fact see a tax increase, while about 80 percent should pay less, he said.
‘Angry, disappointed and betrayed’
The IRS on Wednesday said taxpayers who suddenly found they owe taxes could pay their bill in installments and apply for a waiver of penalties normally imposed for failing to pay by the deadline.
“The IRS understands there were many changes that affected people last year, and the new penalty waiver will help taxpayers who inadvertently had too little tax withheld,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.
A key change of the 2017 tax reform is it limited federal deductions for certain state and local taxes like real estate taxes. As a result, many homeowners in states with higher property taxes will owe more to the federal government.
Neil Frankel, a New York accountant, told AFP people were feeling “angry, disappointed and betrayed.”
“I sympathize with them. The new tax law’s withholding tables were incorrect and misleading. A complete shenanigan,” he added.
“Since my clients are mostly professionals, I don’t really hear any screaming,” he said. “However, I do hear long diatribes on hatred for the U.S. government.”
Last year, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin invited taxpayers to use an online calculator to estimate their tax payments, to determine if they should modify their withholding amount.
‘Misleading’ reports
This week, the Treasury Department said media reports on the lower refunds were “misleading.”
“Refunds are consistent with 2017 levels and down slightly from 2018 based on a small, initial sample from only a few days of data,” the department said on Twitter.
But, Mazur said, perception is key: When the administration of former President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001, it mailed out checks directly.
“Taxpayers remembered that they got that check,” he said.
Under Obama, however, a tax cut showed up as smaller withholdings and fatter checks during each pay cycle.
“Most Americans when they were surveyed didn’t think they got a tax cut from Obama,” he said.
…