A new mass spectroscopy machine is helping forensic scientists who are looking for a much better view of fingerprints on objects used in a crime. The current methods of making a copy of a fingerprint may not be good enough and DNA swabbing can damage evidence. VOAs Deborah Block reports.
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South Africa, which has the largest population of rhinos in the world, has been the country hit hardest by poaching. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a 9,000% increase in poaching there, reaching a high of 1,215 animals in 2014. While numbers have been declining since then, poaching remains a problem. But as Faith Lapidus reports, technology is helping turn one game reserve into a high-tech fortress.
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The U.S. said Sunday it expects that China will retaliate with increased tariffs on U.S. exports after President Donald Trump sharply boosted levies on Chinese products headed to the United States.
Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday” that “both sides will suffer” from the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies.
In the U.S., he said that “maybe the toughest burdens” are on farmers who sell soybeans, corn and wheat to China. But he said the Trump administration has “helped them before on lost exports” with $12 billion in subsidies and that “we’ll do it again if we have to and if the numbers show that out.”
Trump on Friday more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, boosting the rate from 10 percent to 25 percent, while also moving to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese products, although Kudlow said it could take months for the full effect of the tariffs to be felt. China had previously imposed taxes on $110 billion of American products, but has not said how it might retaliate against Trump’s latest increase in tariffs.
Trade talks between the two economic super powers have been going on in Beijing and Washington for months, but they recessed again in the U.S. capital on Friday without a deal being reached.
“We were moving well, constructive talks and I still think that’s the case,” Kudlow said. “We’re going to continue the talks as the president suggested.”
Kudlow said Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to discuss trade issues at the G-20 summit in Japan at the end of June.
The economic adviser renewed U.S. claims that China had backtracked from earlier agreements reached in the talks, forcing negotiators to cover “the same ground this past week.”
“You can’t forget this: This is a huge deal, the broadest scope and scale…. two countries have ever had before,” Kudlow said. “But we have to get through a lot of issues. For many years, China trade was unfair, non-reciprocal, unbalanced in many cases, unlawful.”
The U.S. has claimed that China steals technology and forces U.S. companies to divulge trade secrets it uses in its own production of advanced technology products.
On Saturday, Trump suggested that China could be waiting to see if he wins reelection next year, but said Beijing would be “much worse” off during a second term of his in the White House.
“I think that China felt they were being beaten so badly in the recent negotiation that they may as well wait around for the next election, 2020, to see if they could get lucky & have a Democrat win,” he said, “in which case they would continue to rip-off the USA for $500 Billion a year.”
“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs?” the U.S. leader said, “Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!”
Every year on May 4 – which echoes the Jedi blessing from “Star Wars,” May the Force be with you – fans celebrate the unofficial holiday dedicated to their favorite movie. Observances include binge watching the legendary films. But some people think one day a year is not enough. Maxim Moskalkov met with volunteers at Garrison Tyranus, which contributes to the local community through costumed charity and volunteer work.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order this month designed to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity workforce, the front line against hackers, domestic and foreign. With 7 billion internet-connected devices in the world, and numbers expected to rise, the threat is growing. Faith Lapidus reports, web-connected devices, from smart homes to drones, are vulnerable.
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A cat who lost his back legs when he was hit by a train got a new lease on life by getting new prosthetic limbs. They were designed by engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using a 3D printer. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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“Laughter is the best medicine” is a common phrase often found printed on plaques and sewn onto pillows at your grandma’s house. But the practice of yoga has taken it in a whole new direction over the years. We found a laughter yoga class in Richmond, Virginia. Ali Orokzai was there and has the story. Bezhan Hamdard narrates.
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Peggy Lipton, a star of the groundbreaking late 1960s TV show “The Mod Squad” and the 1990s show “Twin Peaks,” died of cancer Saturday. She was 72.
Lipton died surrounded by her family, her daughters, Rashida and Kidada Jones, said in a statement.
“We are heartbroken that our beloved mother passed away from cancer today,” they said. “She made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side. We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her. We can’t put all of our feelings into words right now but we will say: Peggy was, and will always be our beacon of light, both in this world and beyond. She will always be a part of us.”
Lipton played one of a trio of Los Angeles undercover “hippie cops” on “The Mod Squad,” which aired on ABC.
The Los Angeles Times says it was one of pop culture’s first efforts to reckon seriously with the counterculture and one of the first TV shows to feature an interracial cast. Lipton was nominated for Emmys and won a Golden Globe in 1971 for her performance. The show addressed issues such as the Vietnam War, drugs and domestic violence.
Lipton married music producer Quincy Jones in 1974, and they had two daughters. The couple divorced in 1989.
In the 1990s, she played the role of Norma Jennings in the TV series “Twin Peaks.”
“It was very scary,” Lipton told The Times in a 1993 interview. “I had a push-pull thing inside me that I wanted to do it. I had become so insulated in my world as a mother, that I didn’t know how to pick up the phone and call anybody to put myself out there.”
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President Donald Trump’s combative approach to trade has been one of the constants among his often-shifting political views. And he’s showing no signs of backing off now, even as the stakes intensify with the threat of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
The president went after China on Day 1 of his presidential bid, promising to “bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.”
Trump’s views on trade helped forge his path to victory in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, where he linked the loss of manufacturing jobs to the North America Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals. He warned the worst was yet to come with President Barack Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.
His trashing of existing and proposed trade agreements grabbed the headlines, but he also made clear his view that globalization had been bad for America and that he would use tariffs to protect national security and domestic producers. He cited the nation’s Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as leaders whose footsteps he was following when it came to trade and tariffs.
Our original Constitution did not even have an income tax,'' Trump told voters in Monessen, Pa., four months before the 2016 presidential election.Instead, it had tariffs, emphasizing taxation of foreign, not domestic production.”
Taking on China
No. 7 on his list of trade promises in that speech: taking on China for “its theft of American trade secrets.”
“This is so easy. I love saying this. I will use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes, including the application of tariffs consistent” with existing trade laws, Trump said.
Those laws include Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which Trump cited to enact tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.
They also include Section 301 of the Trade Act, which Trump used last year to apply 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods. That 10 percent was increased to 25 percent on Friday. Trump is laying the groundwork to extend the 25 percent tariff to all of China’s exports to the U.S.
“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
Of course, America’s trading partners haven’t let Trump’s tariffs stand without taking similar action themselves. Farmers, boat makers, and whiskey and wine producers are just some of the U.S. industries caught in the middle.
Farming is a very small-margin, small-profit business. We rely on lots of volume and lots of sales to generate a profit,'' said Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Ind., who has seen prices for both commodities drop in the past year.We are operating at a loss now.”
Trump’s philosophy on some issues has evolved over the years.
He once described himself regarding the abortion issue as very pro-choice.'' Now, his administration promotes him as the mostpro-life president in American history.”
Complaint about Japan
On trade, not so much. In Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump complained of the Japanese that “what’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.”
Fast-forward nearly three decades, and Trump declared in his 2015 announcement for the presidency that other nations were prospering at America’s expense. “When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time,” Trump said.
Trump’s approach on trade is a dramatic departure for the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have declined to take action that would block his tariffs. They credit his tactics for getting improvements to a trade deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, and for getting China to the negotiating table.
President Trump is the first president to take China head-on,'' said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. He saideveryone knows I’m not a fan of tariffs, but I think everyone knows as well that China has been cheating for far too long.”
Trump has received some encouragement from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted to Trump: “Don’t back down. Strength is the only way to win with China.”
Current and former officials in the administration believe that voters will give the president credit for standing up to China, and not blame him for any pain that may result from the tariffs war.
Overall, AP VoteCast found Americans critical in their assessments of Trump on trade. But that’s not the case with his supporters. According to the survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, 45% approved of Trump on trade, while 53% disapproved. Among voters who approved of Trump’s job overall, fully 88% approved of his handling of trade.
Who pays?
While Trump casts his tariffs as being paid for by China, they actually are paid by the American companies that bring a product into the U.S. This can help some U.S. producers, though, because it makes their goods more competitive pricewise. Still, the burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University.
Republican-leaning business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have warned that the tariffs threaten to derail the economy raise unemployment, but with economic growth at 3.2 percent last quarter and the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, Trump isn’t changing strategy now.
“Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!” Trump tweeted on Friday.
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It’s 9 o’clock in the morning, time for 3-year-old Lucas’ weekly music therapy session.
“Lucas is autistic,” his mother Katey Hernandez explained. “He has a lot of sensory processing sensitivities, which means he’s really sensitive to loud noises, bright lights and a lot of [activity] around his body, and he really likes to jump and swing and climb and anything active.”
Music therapist Dixie Mazur brings to Lucas’ home session a bag full of instruments. During the session she plays music and sings.
“I like to bring in a wide variety of instruments because, especially with younger kids, the attention spans naturally are very short and I like to be able to give them the freedom and ownership to kind of move our session in the direction they want to go,” Mazur said.
She brings in a piano, a couple of drums, rain stick and egg shakers, “things that provide a lot of sensory feedback as well.”
Hernandez is happy with the results so far.
“It’s been very helpful,” she said. “Ms. Dixie has come up with a few songs to help him with social dialogue. So, it helps him communicate with us a lot more, when we can’t figure out what he needs.”
Healing soul and body
Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have shown that music has many health benefits, too. Those range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients.
So, music has become a part of the therapists’ toolbox, used either in one-on-one sessions or group settings. It can be passive, where patients listen to music, or active, where they participate in playing instruments and singing.
Zoe Gleason Volz brings music therapy to a group of people with a range of cognitive disabilities.
“As a group, they don’t really engage with each other,” she said. “So, a lot of my work is trying to slowly get them to positively engage with their fellow group members and actively engage with me.”
The instruments stimulate patients’ senses and muscles. She says the impact is obvious on brain scans of people listening to music.
“When you’re listening to music the entire brain is lit up because it’s having the music and the intellectual sides both kind of firing all at once. Whereas when you’re talking with somebody, you’re probably more into one hemisphere of the brain rather than both.”
Becoming a music therapist
There are more than 6,000 board-certified music therapists in the United States. They’ve gone through 1,000 hours of training, including getting an undergraduate degree and completing a six-month internship, and passing a certification exam.
But music therapist Kelsi Yingling, who founded NeuroSound Music Therapy, where Gleason Volz and Mazur work, looks for more than a certificate.
“The type of skills we wanted to see in a music therapist are strong musical skills, interpersonal skills and the ability to relate to our clients,” she said.
Music therapists should be patient and able to adapt to various situations, she says, adding that the work is easier when therapists have passion for music and for helping people.
“The fact that I get to use music to help other individuals achieve their goals and their highest potential is really one of the most rewarding things I can be doing in my life,” she added.
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Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have proved that music has many health benefits, too. They range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients. Faiza Elmasry tells us more about music therapy. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space tourism dream a step closer to reality.
Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or Consequences.
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set a specific deadline for the first commercial flight.
An interior cabin for the company’s space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the company in the “home stretch,” Whitesides said.
The manufacturing of the space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based in the community of Mojave, California.
Taxpayer backing
Taxpayers invested more than $200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant.
Virgin Galactic’s spaceship development has taken far longer than expected and had a major setback when the company’s first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.
Branson thanked New Mexico politicians and residents for their patience over the past decade. He said he believes space tourism — once aloft — is likely to bring about profound change.
“Our future success as a species rests on the planetary perspective,” Branson said. “The perspective that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from the black sky of space.”
Branson described a vision of hotels in space and a network of spaceports allowing supersonic, transcontinental travel anywhere on earth within a few hours. He indicated, however, that building financial viability comes first.
“We need the financial impetus to be able to do all that,” he said. “If the space program is successful as I think … then the sky is the limit.”
Gushing passenger
In February, a new version of Virgin Galactic’s winged craft SpaceShipTwo soared at three times the speed of sound to an altitude of nearly 56 miles (99 kilometers) in a test flight over Southern California, as a crew member soaked in the experience.
On Friday, that crew member, Beth Moses, recounted her voyage into weightlessness and the visual spectacle of pitch-black space and the earth below.
“Everything is silent and still and you can unstrap and float about the cabin,” she said. “Pictures do not do the view from space justice. … I will be able to see it forever.”
The company’s current spaceship doesn’t launch from the ground. It is carried under a special plane to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before detaching and igniting its rocket engine.
“Release is like freefall at an amusement park, except it keeps going,” Moses said. “And then the rocket motor lights. Before you know it, you’re supersonic.”
First commercial flight may be this year
The craft coasts to the top of its climb before gradually descending to earth, stabilized by “feathering” technology in which twin tails rotate upward to increase drag on the way to a runway landing.
Branson previously has said he would like to make his first suborbital flight this year as one of the venture’s first passengers on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20. But he made no mention of timelines on Friday.
Pressed on the timeframe, Whitesides said he anticipates the first commercial flight within a year.
Three people with future space-flight reservations were in the audience.
“They’ve been patient, too,” Branson said. “Space is hard.”
Hundreds of potential customers have committed as much as $250,000 up front for rides in Virgin’s six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet.
Virgin not alone
Other Branson’s plans have gradually advanced amid a broader surge in private investment in space technology with cost-saving innovations in reusable rockets and microsatellite technology.
Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that his space company, Blue Origin, will send a robotic spaceship to the moon with aspirations for another ship that could bring people there along the same timeframe as NASA’s proposed 2024 return. Bezos has provided no details about launch dates.
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President Donald Trump let loose with a morning round of tweets Friday that downplayed the possible consequences of his trade war with China.
Trump minimized the worth of China’s purchases of U.S. goods and services, which support nearly 1 million jobs in the U.S.; misstated the trade deficit; and ignored the inevitable rise in many costs to consumers when imports are heavily taxed.
The tweets came as his tariffs kicked in on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, with another round of tariffs in the offing, and as U.S. and Chinese officials negotiated in Washington. With trade relations between the economic giants seemingly rupturing and the stock market sinking, Trump called the talks “congenial.”
A look at some of his statements:
Trump: “Your all time favorite President got tired of waiting for China to help out and start buying from our FARMERS, the greatest anywhere in the World!”
The facts: The notion that China doesn’t buy from U.S. farmers is false. China is the fourth-largest export market for U.S. agriculture. It bought $9.3 billion in U.S. agricultural products last year.
As for calling himself “your” favorite president, polls find Trump’s approval rating to be high among Republicans, but it generally ranges between 35% and 45% among Americans overall.
Trump: “We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!”
The facts: That’s wrong. When sizing up the trade deficit, Trump always ignores trade in services — where the U.S. runs a surplus with China — and speaks only of goods. Even in that context, he misstated the imbalance.
The U.S. trade deficit with China last year was $378.6 billion, not $500 billion. On goods alone, the deficit was $419.2 billion.
Trump is also misleading when he puts the deficit in that ballpark for many years. It’s true that the imbalance has long been lopsided, but the U.S. trade representative’s office notes that exports of goods to China have increased by nearly 73% since 2008 and U.S. exports to China overall are up 527% since 2001.
Nor is the trade gap a “loss” in a pure sense. U.S. consumers and businesses get electronics, furniture, clothing and other goods in return for their money. They are buying things, not losing cash.
Trump: “Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.”
The facts: This is not how tariffs work. China is not writing a check to the U.S. Treasury. The tariffs are paid by American companies, which usually pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices. One theory in support of such tariffs is that higher prices for Chinese imports will encourage consumers to buy goods made in the U.S. or elsewhere instead. But the risk is that consumers could simply respond by spending less than they otherwise would, which would hurt growth.
The burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University. By the end of last year, the study found, the public and U.S. companies were paying $3 billion a month in higher taxes and absorbing $1.4 billion a month in lost efficiency.
A coalition of U.S. trade organizations representing retail businesses, tech, manufacturing and agriculture said this week: For 10 months, Americans have been paying the full cost of the trade war, not China.'' It said:To be clear, tariffs are taxes that Americans pay, and this sudden increase with little notice will only punish U.S farmers, businesses and consumers.”
Trump: “Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind. Also, much easier & quicker to do. Our Farmers will do better, faster, and starving nations can now be helped. Waivers on some products will be granted, or go to new source!”
The facts: In addition to repeating the canard that China pays the tariffs, he’s failing to account for the damage that tariffs can do.
By most private estimates, a trade war leads to slower growth rather than the prosperity that Trump is promising. The president’s tweet also goes beyond past claims that tariffs are simply a negotiating tactic to force better terms with China. Trump appears to be suggesting that a tariff increase would generate revenues that could then be spent on farm products and infrastructure, something that might in theory require support from Congress.
But on their own, tariffs are a clear drag on growth.
Analysts at the consultancy Oxford Economics estimate that implementing and maintaining the latest increase would trim U.S. gross domestic product by 0.3%, or $62 billion, in 2020. This would be equal to a loss of about $490 per household.
Economists at Nomura note that gross domestic product this year could take a hit of as much as 0.4% if Trump expands the taxes to all Chinese imports, as business confidence slumped and financial conditions tightened.
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The question comes up over and over, with extremist material, hate speech, election meddling and privacy invasions. Why can’t Facebook just fix it?
It’s complicated, with reasons that include Facebook’s size, its business model and technical limitations, not to mention years of unchecked growth. Oh, and the element of human nature.
The latest revelation: Facebook is inadvertently creating celebratory videos using extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of Islamic State and al-Qaida. The company says it is working on solutions and the problems are getting better. That is true, but critics say better is not good enough when mass shootings are being live-streamed and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly violence.
“They have been frustratingly slow in dealing with everything from child sexual abuse to terrorism, white supremacy, bullying, nonconsensual porn” and things like allowing advertisers to target categories such as “Jew hater,” simply because some users had listed the term as an “interest,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
As new problems crop up, Facebook’s formula has been to apologize and promise to make changes, sometimes also noting that it did not anticipate how malicious actors could so readily misuse its platform. More recently, the company has also emphasized just how much it is improving, both technically in its use of artificial intelligence to detect problems and in terms of focusing more money and effort on fixing them.
“After making heavy investments, we are detecting and removing terrorism content at a far higher success rate than even two years go,” Facebook said Wednesday in response to the revelations about the auto-generated pages. “We don’t claim to find everything, and we remain vigilant in our efforts against terrorist groups around the world.”
It has seen some success. In late 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg infamously dismissed as “pretty crazy” the idea that fake news on his service could have swayed the election. He later backtracked, and since then the company has reduced the amount of misinformation shared on its service, as measured by several independent studies.
Zuckerberg has also, by and large, avoided similar gaffes by conceding mistakes and delivering apologies to the public and to lawmakers.
‘Stuck with all this garbage’
But even as the company bats down one problem, others pop up. The reason for that might be baked into its DNA. And that’s not just because its business model relies on as many people as possible using it as much as possible, leaving behind personal details that can then be targeted by advertisers.
“Almost everything Facebook has designed has been designed for good people. People who are nice to each other, who have birthdays to celebrate, who have new puppies and generally like to treat others well,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. “Basically Facebook is made for a better species than ours. If it were made for golden retrievers, everything would be great.”
But if just 1% of the 2.4 billion people on Facebook want to do terrible things to others, that’s 24 million people.
“Every couple of weeks, we hear about Facebook knocking down troublesome pages, making promises about hiring more people, building AI and so on,” Vaidhyanathan said. “But at Facebook’s scale, none of that will matter. We are basically stuck with all this garbage.”
Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, called for a breakup of the social media giant in a Thursday op-ed. Vaidhyanathan also thinks strong government regulation could be the answer, such as laws that “limit companies’ ability to suck up all our data and use it to target advertising.”
“We really should be addressing the back end of Facebook,” he said. “That’s what you have to attack.”
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One of the main intentions of Habiba Nowrose’s work as a Bangladeshi photographer is to draw attention to the pressure Bangladesh society puts on women to always present their “beauty” in public. Nowrose’s conceptual photography project, “Concealed,” exposes the way women lose their identity, individuality and sense of self in the Bangladesh society. The faces of her models are always fully covered, representing the stripping away, loss and erasure of the personal stories, traumas and individuality of each subject, says the 29-year-old artist.
In this photo story, we take a glimpse into the “Concealed” world of Bangladesh women through Habiba Nowrose’s lens.
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Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West have welcomed their fourth child, a boy born via surrogate.
Kardashian West tweet Friday: “He’s here and he’s perfect!” A spokeswoman said in an email, “They are not sharing any additional details at this time.”
The new baby joins North, Saint and Chicago. Chicago, who’s a year and a half, was also born via a gestational carrier. North, the oldest, is five. The new baby is the couple’s second son after Saint.
The birth comes after Kardashian West disclosed she’s studying to be a lawyer through California rules that allow for professional mentorship over law school.
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French luxury goods group LVMH is launching a new brand with Barbadian singer Rihanna, building on a previous joint venture in cosmetics with the “Umbrella” hitmaker to branch out into clothing, shoes and accessories.
The label – which joins a roster of 70 brands at the world’s biggest luxury player, including Louis Vuitton and Moet & Chandon champagne – will be called Fenty, after the singer’s full name, Robyn Rihanna Fenty.
LVMH said on Friday the launch was “fast approaching” and due in spring 2019.
It marks a rare move by the acquisitive Paris-based group to set up a new brand from scratch, and follows the creation of Fenty Beauty with Rihanna in September 2017, which rapidly became a sales hit.
The singer, 31, has become known for her often bold fashion statements at red carpet events and is followed almost as much for her style as her music.
Rihanna has already collaborated with other labels such as shoemaker Manolo Blahnik and has a lingerie range called Savage X Fenty.
Building a high-end brand with LVMH, which also owns storied couture houses Christian Dior and Givenchy, propels the singer’s fashion ventures onto another level, however, with the might of a cash-rich industry leader behind her.
LVMH’s billionaire boss Bernard Arnault said in a statement the group would support her with a team and resources, though it did not give any financial details.
Rihanna said she had been given “a unique opportunity to develop a fashion house in the luxury sector, with no artistic limits.”
The collaboration with Rihanna introduces an edgier note in LVMH’s portfolio, at a time when luxury groups are vying to attract younger shoppers and moving into less familiar areas such as streetwear.
They are also increasingly promoting themselves on social media, a medium which Rihanna has used to great effect, amassing 70.5 million followers under her Instagram handle “badgalriri”.
Fenty Beauty had reached nearly 500 million euros ($562 million) in sales by the end of 2018, LVMH said in January. ($1 = 0.8896 euros)
France welcomed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on Friday with a threat of sweeping new regulation.
With Facebook under fire on multiple fronts, Zuckerberg is in Paris to show that his social media giant is working hard to limit violent extremism and hate speech shared online.
But a group of French regulators and experts who spent weeks inside Facebook facilities in Paris, Dublin and Barcelona say the company isn’t working hard enough.
Just before Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the 10 officials released a report calling for laws allowing the government to investigate and fine social networks that don’t take responsibility for the content that makes them money.
The French government wants the legislation to serve as a model for Europe-wide management of social networks. Several countries have introduced similar legislation, some tougher than what France is proposing.
To an average user, it seems like the problem is intractable. Mass shootings are live-streamed, and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly violence. Facebook is even inadvertently creating celebratory videos using extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of the Islamic State group and al Qaida.
The company says it is working on solutions, and the French regulators praised Facebook for hiring more people and using artificial intelligence to track and crack down on dangerous content.
But they said Facebook didn’t provide the French officials enough information about its algorithms to judge whether they were working, and that a “lack of transparency … justifies an intervention of public authorities.”
The regulators recommended legally requiring a “duty of care” for big social networks, meaning they should moderate hate speech published on their platforms. They insist that any law should respect freedom of expression, but did not explain how Facebook should balance those responsibilities in practice.
After meeting Macron, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that he welcomed governments taking a more active role in drawing up regulations for the internet. He made similar remarks earlier this year but has been vague on what kind of regulation he favors.
Facebook faces “nuanced decisions” involving content that is harmful but not illegal and the French recommendations, which set guidelines for what’s considered harmful, “would create a more consistent approach across the tech industry and ensure companies are held accountable for enforcing standards against this content,” Zuckerberg said.
The regulators acknowledged that their research didn’t address violent content shared on private chat groups or encrypted apps, or on groups like 4chan or 8chan, where criminals and extremists and those concerned about privacy increasingly turn to communicate.
Facebook said Zuckerberg is in France as part of meetings around Europe to discuss future regulation of the internet. Facebook agreed to embed the French regulators as an effort to jointly develop proposals to fight online hate content.
Zuckerberg’s visit comes notably amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections.
Next week, the leaders of France and New Zealand will meet tech leaders in Paris for a summit seeking to ban acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown online.
Facebook has faced challenges over privacy and security lapses and accusations of endangering democracy — and it came under criticism this week from its own co-founder.
Chris Hughes said in a New York Times opinion piece Thursday that it’s time to break up Facebook. He says Zuckerberg has turned Facebook into an innovation-suffocating monopoly and lamented the company’s “slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news.”
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With a ring of the opening bell, Uber began picking up passengers as a newly minted public company Friday and investors waited to bet on a service with huge potential, but a long way from turning a profit.
Shares in the ride-hailing giant were sold in an initial public offering for $45 each, raising $8.1 billion, but it will take several hours for new investors to show how much they’re interested. Officials expect trading to start around 11:30 a.m.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and other company officials stood on a balcony above the New York Stock Exchange and clapped as the bell rang to signal the start of the day’s trading.
The IPO price on Thursday came in at the lower end of Uber’s targeted price range of $44 to $50 per share. The caution may have been driven by escalating doubts about the ability of ride-hailing services to make money since Uber’s main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago.
Jitters about an intensifying U.S. trade war with China have also contributed to the caution. Stocks opened broadly lower on Wall Street after the two countries failed to reach a deal before Friday’s tariff deadline.
Even at the tamped-down price, Uber now has a market value of $82 billion — five times more than Lyft’s.
Before the opening bell, Khosrowshahi tried to manage expectations for the first day of trading.
“Today is only one day. I want this day to go great, but it’s about what we build in the next three to five years,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “And I feel plenty of pressure to build over that time frame.”
Uber, Khosrowshahi said, is dealing with a potential $12 trillion market so “it makes sense to lean forward.”
He predicted that younger generations will not want to own cars. “I think more and more you’re going to have transportation on demand services, essentially de-bundle the car. They’re going to want to push a button and get the transportation they want.”
Austin Geidt, one of Uber’s first employees, rang the opening bell. She joined the company nine years ago and is now head of strategy for the Advanced Technologies Group, working on autonomous vehicles. Over the years, she helped to lead its expansion in hundreds of new cities and countries.
Both Uber co-founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp were present at the exchange but absent from the podium during the bell ringing.
A black Uber logo was hanging over exchange floor and bright green Uber Eats trucks were parked outside. Men in black T-shirts and hats with the Uber Eats logo handed out drinks and snacks on the trading floor while photos of sedans, helicopters and Jump bikes were shown on screens above.
No matter how Uber’s stock swings Friday, the IPO has to be considered a triumph for the company most closely associated with an industry that has changed the way millions of people get around. That while also transforming the way millions of more people earn a living in the gig economy.
Uber’s IPO raised another $8.1 billion as the company it tries to fend off Lyft in the U.S. and help cover the cost of giving rides to passengers at unprofitable prices. The San Francisco company already has lost about $9 billion since its inception and acknowledges it could still be years before it turns a profit.
That sobering reality is one reason that Uber fell short of reaching the $120 billion market value that many observers believed its IPO might attain.
Another factor working against Uber is the cold shoulder investors have been giving Lyft’s stock after an initial run-up. Lyft’s shares closed Thursday 23% below its April IPO price of $72.
Uber “clearly learned from its `little brother’ Lyft, and the experience it has gone through,” Wedbush Securities analysts Ygal Arounian and Daniel Ives wrote late Thursday.
Despite all that, Uber’s IPO is the biggest since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group debuted with a value of $167.6 billion in 2014.
“For the market to give you the value, you’ve either got to have a lot of profits or potential for huge growth,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at Navigant Research.
Uber boasts growth galore. Its revenue last year surged 42% to $11.3 billion while its cars completed 5.2 billion trips around the world either giving rides to 91 million passengers or delivering food.
Uber might be even more popular if not for a series of revelations about unsavory behavior that sullied its image and resulted in the ouster of Kalanick as CEO nearly two years ago.
The self-inflicted wounds included complaints about rampant internal sexual harassment, accusations that it stole self-driving car technology, and a cover-up of a computer break-in that stole personal information about its passengers. What’s more, some Uber drivers have been accused of assaulting passengers, and one of its self-driving test vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona last year while a backup driver was behind the wheel.
Uber hired Khosrowshahi as CEO to replace Kalanick and clean up the mess, something that analysts say has been able to do to some extent, although Lyft seized upon the scandals to gain market share.
Kalanick remains on Uber’s board and while he kept a relatively low profile on Friday, he can still savor his newfound wealth. At $45 per share, his stake in Uber will be worth $5.3 billion. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other Uber employees are expected to become millionaires in the IPO.
Meanwhile, scores of Uber drivers say they have been mistreated by the company as they work long hours and wear out their cars picking up passengers as they struggle to make ends meet. On Wednesday, some of them participated in strikes across the United States to highlight their unhappiness ahead of Uber’s IPO but barely caused a ripple. A similar strike was organized ahead of Lyft’s IPO to the same effect.
In its latest attempt to make amends, Uber disclosed Thursday that it reached a settlement with tens of thousands of drivers who alleged they had been improperly classified as contractors. The company said the settlement covering most of the 60,000 drivers making claims will cost $146 million to $170 million.
Now, Uber will focus on winning over Wall Street.
Uber may be able to avoid Lyft’s post-IPO stock decline because it has a different story to tell than just the potential for growth in ride-hailing, says Alejandro Ortiz, principal analyst with SharesPost. Uber, he said, has plans to be more than a ride-hailing company by being all things transportation to users of its app, offering deliveries, scooters, bicycles and links to other modes of transportation including public mass transit systems.
“Whether or not that pitch will work kind of remains to be seen. It’s nearly impossible to tell now,” he said. “Obviously the risk to the company now is they have a lot more shareholders that they have to convince.”
The United States and China appear to have ended their latest round of trade negotiations without announcing any agreement.
On Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met briefly with the Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He. After the talks, Mnuchin briefly spoke to reporters saying that discussions had been “constructive.”
There have been no further comments from the administration.The Chinese delegation is scheduled to return to Beijing late Friday.
After the talks ended, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that the relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping remains “a very strong one” and that conversations “will continue” but that the U.S. is imposing tariffs on China which “may or may not be removed.”
Earlier in the day, Trump sent a series of tweets on the escalating trade war with China, as the U.S. increased tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Beijing has vowed to retaliate for the U.S. action.
“We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!”
Trump went on to tweet that trade talks with China are proceeding in a “congenial manner” and “there is absolutely no need to rush” to finalize a trade agreement.
The president threatened to impose 25% tariffs on an additional $325 billion worth of Chinese goods. He noted that Washington sells Beijing about $100 billion worth of goods, and with the more than $100 billion in tariffs received, the U.S. will buy agricultural products from U.S. farmers and send them as humanitarian assistance to nations in need.
While some taxes are paid directly to the government when products are imported, these taxes, also known as customs duties, are frequently added to the price of the imported product. This means the taxes are paid by those who buy the product. In this case, it would be the American consumer.
Trump also chided China for trying to “redo” the deal at the last minute after the terms already had been set.
Trump said he also received “a beautiful letter” from Chinese President Xi Jinping that expressed a sentiment of “let’s work together.”
Trump told reporters he believes “tariffs for our country are very powerful,” and would benefit America’s economy.
Some economists, however, predict such tariffs would cut the U.S. economic growth rate.
David French of the U.S. National Retail Federation said in a VOA interview “a negotiating strategy based on tariffs is the wrong direction” and expressed hope the Chinese “make substantial concessions to avert this disaster.”
Shanghai University economics professor Ding Jianping told VOA the tariffs would also adversely impact the U.S. financial markets, which have climbed to record highs. Jianping said the record performance makes the markets “most vulnerable” because they are “not supported by science and technology.” He added, “The peak created by fiscal and monetary policy is unsustainable.”
The Trump administration hopes the new tariffs will force changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices. The two sides have been unable to reach a deal due, in part, to differences over the enforcement of an agreement and a timeline for removing the tariffs.
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