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9/27/2020
USA presidential debates schedule
Washington (CNN) The presidential debates are around the corner.
All debates will take place from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. without commercial
breaks.
- First presidential debate, September 29
The first debate between Biden and Trump will be moderated by
Fox News' Chris Wallace and will be on Tuesday, September 29, at Case Western
Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland.
The topics for the first debate will be: "Trump and Biden Records,"
"The Supreme Court," "Covid-19," "The Economy,"
"Race and Violence in our Cities," and "The Integrity of the
Election".
- Second presidential debate, October 15
The next debate between Trump and Biden will be moderated by Steve
Scully of C-SPAN Networks and will take place on Thursday, October 15, at the
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, in Miami.
The Miami debate will take the form of a town hall where the questions
will be posed by citizens from the South Florida area. The participants will be
uncommitted voters selected under the supervision of Frank Newport of
Gallup. The candidates will have two minutes to answer each question and there
will be an additional minute for further discussion.
- Last presidential debate, October 22
The third and final debate between Biden and Trump will be moderated by
Kristen Welker of NBC News and is scheduled to take place on Thursday, October
22, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Each segment will last about 15 minutes, and the candidates will have
two minutes to answer after the moderator opens each segment with a question. Kristen
Welker will then use the rest of the time in the segment to facilitate further
discussion.
From CNN (edited)
Free tuition for essential workers (audio)
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San Francisco birds during the pandemic
San Francisco birds started
singing differently in the quiet of the coronavirus lockdown, says a study
in Science.
Before, urban bird
territories were almost three times as loud as rural territories.
However, during the
pandemic, researchers noted that noise levels in urban areas were drastically
lower. In fact, they were consistent with traffic flow in the mid-1950s.
"In other words, the
Covid-19 shutdown created a proverbial silence across the SF Bay Area," researchers
noted.
By analyzing traffic flow
data from the Golden Gate Bridge, researchers found that vehicle crossings from
April to May 2020 returned to levels not seen since 1954. While noise
recordings are not available from the 1950s, researchers said this indicates
that a brief but dramatic change in human behavior effectively erased more than
a half-century of urban noise pollution.
Birds responded by
producing higher performance songs at lower amplitudes, maximizing
communication distance and salience.
"We found that birds sang more softly when noise levels were lower
and at shorter recording distances before and during the shutdown,"
researchers said in the study.
Even though the birds were singing more softly, the study found that
communication distance nearly doubled, elevating species fitness and increasing
mating potential.
"In addition, the signal-to-noise ratio doubled in relative energy,
which helps explain media reports suggesting that bird songs sounded louder
during the shutdown," the researchers said.
From CNN
9/23/2020
Istanbul restaurant private bubbles (video)
Can you spot any mistakes?
One? Two? How many?
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9/22/2020
Did you leave litter in a Thai national park?
Officials in
Thailand have an unorthodox approach to deal with visitors who leave litter in
a national park: mail the trash to the offenders.
The country’s environment
minister said that he wanted to call attention to a garbage problem at Khao Yai
National Park that endangers animals that could eat the litter while looking
for food. He promised in a Facebook post last week to track down anyone responsible
for littering in the park.
“I will pick up every
single piece of your trash, pack them well in a box and mail it to your home as
a souvenir,” the minister, Varawut Silpa-archa, said in the post. He also
posted photos of a delivery box filled with used plastic water bottles, soda cans, torn
packs of chips and sunflower seeds.
Thai officials mailed the box of trash to campers who had left the waste in a tent they abandoned. The special package came with a message for the group: “You have forgotten some of your belongings at the Khao Yai National Park. Please let us return these to you.”
Activists are increasingly
sounding the alarm as garbage continues to clog oceans, showing up in the
stomachs of dead whales in countries like Indonesia and Spain.
Several cities have banned
the use of plastic straws and single-use plastic bags. But efforts to eliminate
plastic bags are suffering setbacks during the coronavirus pandemic due to
increased food deliveries at home.
Trash is becoming a
political issue, with some countries in Asia and Africa refusing to continue
accepting trash shipped from countries in the West.
Thailand’s approach,
targeting individuals with a shaming reminder of their misdeed, is unusual.
The message that officials wanted
to send did not end with mailing the trash to the offenders. Citing two
incidents of littering and drunken behavior by different campers, Mr. Varawut,
the environment minister, said in his post that campers who violate park rules
will be reported to the police.
Littering in a Thai
national park can lead to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to
$16,000.
“You can take only two
things from our parks,” Mr. Varawut wrote on Facebook, addressing would-be
campers. “Those are memories and photos. Leave only footprints behind.”
From The New York Times (edited)
"I'm f---- hungry!!!!"
Her order was hard to stomach.
An irate customer at a California KFC restaurant hopped up onto the counter and threatened to stab a worker after she was refused service for not wearing a face mask, wild video shows.
When the frenzied woman did not get her mashed potatoes and gravy at the chain in Fresno she flew into a profanity-laced fit of rage.
“I’m f–king hungry!” she screams in the clip. “Give me something to eat! Now!”
An employee at the fast-food joint answered that it’s against store policy to serve customers who aren’t wearing face coverings, telling her, “I can’t … I’ll get fired.”
But his explanation did little to stop her Kentucky-fried freakout.
“You don’t even work here!” she yells at the worker — who is wearing a KFC uniform and standing by the register.
At one point, she also told a worker “she wanted some mashed potatoes and gravy or he was going to get stabbed,” a witness, Leah Chastain, wrote on TikTok.
The woman tromped across the counter, kicked a promotional sign and called the eatery “disgusting” before finally giving up and leaving.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the angry customer was charged with a crime.
From New York Post
Teleworking and the income gap
When IMF economists looked at workers’ ability to telework in 35 countries, they found that roughly 100 million people—15% of the workforce in those places—cannot do their specific jobs online. The ability to telework also varied dramatically from country to country: more than half of households in most developing countries don’t have a computer at home.
The workers least likely to be able to work from home were the youngest, between 15 and 29 years old. Young workers, especially those without college educations and women, were already suffering from unfavorable labor market conditions prior to the pandemic.
Women are also disproportionately represented in sectors that don’t lend themselves to remote work, such as food service, hospitality, as well as wholesale and retail trade. The IMF analysis found approximately 20 million workers in those areas were at a high risk of losing their jobs.
The ability to telework varied dramatically from country to country, even within the same occupation. More than half the households in most emerging and developing countries don’t even have a computer at home.
From Quartz (edited)
9/20/2020
Airlines and flights affected by COVID-19 (captions)
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Is the age of oil ending?
If the world is going to move away from fossil fuels
and avoid catastrophic global warming, many things will have to change.
Petrostates like Saudi Arabia will see their budgets
fall short, and as oil demand shrinks, they will face a fight for market share
which will be won by the countries with the cheapest and cleanest crude. The world
will have to reorganize itself around a new imperative for clean, electric
energy. As a result, supply chains for things like wind-turbine and solar-panel
components will gain primacy.
China, which currently makes a large share of them, will have a huge advantage.
Chinese investments in mines from the Democratic Republic of Congo to
Chile and Australia, will secure their access to the minerals needed for solar
panels, electric vehicles and the like. Unable to be a petrostate, China is
becoming an electrostate, investing strategically all along the chain.
Europe, home to big turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa, will also be in the
game, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has set an ambitious
goal of cutting emissions by at least 50% compared to 1990 levels in 10 years.
But China is seen as the potential big winner, via sales of electricity-related
infrastructure around the world.
Chinese
companies are starting to invest more in wind and solar power abroad. China
Three Gorges, a big power company, said in August that it will buy half a
gigawatt of Spanish solar capacity from X-Elio, a developer based in Madrid.
Last year state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group bought more
than 1gw of wind and solar farms in Brazil.
China
now produces more than 70% of the world’s solar modules. It dominates the
supply chain for lithium-ion batteries, according to Bloombergnef, controlling
77% of cell capacity and 60% of component manufacturing.
Politicians
in America, Europe and Australia have expressed concern at Chinese control of
minerals critical to not just energy but defense. A company backed by Bill
Gates and other billionaires plans to search for cobalt in Quebec. America’s
Development Finance Corporation is, for the first time, taking equity stakes in
mining companies. One beneficiary is TechMet, which is betting that some
investors will prefer mines independent of Chinese control.
“It’s
a very significant strategic issue for the United States and the West,” says
Admiral Mike Mullen, a former chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and
now the head of TechMet’s advisory board. “I almost liken it to Huawei. We wake
up and they’re in control of the world.”
From The Economist (edited)
9/13/2020
Citigroup's next CEO - another crack in the ceiling
Citigroup named retail banking head Jane Fraser as
its next chief executive, making her the first woman ever to head a major U.S.
bank.
Fraser will replace Michael Corbat, who unexpectedly announced his retirement after eight years on the job. He will leave the bank in February
The Scottish-born Fraser, 53, joined Citigroup 16 years ago and is the president and CEO of the Global Consumer Banking division. She also headed the bank's Latin American division following a loans scandal involving its Mexican subsidiary, Banamex.
Jane Fraser is a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, serves on Stanford University’s Global Advisory Council and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Jane has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an M.A. in economics from Cambridge University.
She is married with two children
"We believe Jane is the right person to build
on Mike's record and take Citi to the next level," Citi's Chairman John
Dugan said.
In a statement, Jane Fraser said: “I am honored by the Board’s decision and grateful to Mike for his leadership and support. The way our team has come together during this pandemic shows what Citi is made of. Our balance sheet is strong and our commitment to serving our clients and communities is even stronger. I will do everything I can to make all of our stakeholders proud of our firm as we continue to build a better bank and improve our returns. We will invest in our infrastructure, risk management and controls to ensure that we operate in a safe and sound manner and serve our clients and customers with excellence. Citi is an incredible institution with a proud history and a bright future. I am excited to join with my colleagues in writing the next chapter.”
By becoming CEO of Citigroup, one of the country's
biggest banks by assets, Fraser is breaking one of the most durable glass
ceilings around.
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Child care at Nike factory in Vietnam
At a factory outside Ho Chi Minh City that makes athletic shoes for Nike, Can provides security services, while his child plays nearby. That’s because his company built a kindergarten next to the factory, part of a new trend of rethinking child care in Vietnam. As three-generation homes become less common, parents are less likely to have grandparents around to watch children while they work.
Companies that pay for these and other child care solutions say they do it for a counterintuitive reason -- it saves them money.
Eric Lee, a human resource manager at Taekwang Vina, a footwear company, estimates his company lost $1 million a year because of unplanned absences by employees.
“Opening a kindergarten has helped our factories cut unplanned absenteeism by 20 percent,” said Lee. “The benefits certainly outweigh the challenges, and we believe child care is an important part of the company’s growth strategy,” he added.
Such savings help to convince companies they should ensure that staff have a way to get child care, according to the International Finance Corporation. In addition to the ethics of access to child care, it helps to attract good employees, increase productivity, and increase staff satisfaction.
Companies that can’t afford to build kindergartens are offering other incentives. They include monthly subsidies to help staff pay for care, paternity and maternity leave, work from home or other flexible work, or a mix of options.
Such “family-friendly workplaces” can give employers a hiring edge, said Kyle Kelhofer, IFC country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Foreign investment is increasing in Vietnam, leading to more competition among companies to recruit workers. When companies provide support, such as child care, they are more likely to attract and retain workers, according to the IFC report.
Among other benefits, Lee said access to child care decreased the rate of turnover in the workforce at his company. Additionally the efforts also improved its relationship with local authorities and its corporate reputation.
“When schools and daycares closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear how closely linked productivity is to child care. We cannot forget that as we head into recovery from the COVID-19 crisis,” Kelhofer said. “There is an opportunity for businesses in Vietnam to gain a competitive edge and differentiate themselves by introducing child care support for employees.”
From VOA News (edited)
Back to the drive-in
In the early 1930s Richard Hollingshead, a car-parts salesman, had an idea. His mother used to complain about how uncomfortable she found the wooden seats in cinemas. What if she could watch a film from the comfort of her car?
To test the concept in his driveway, he put a film projector on the hood of his car, hung a sheet from some trees and invited his neighbours. He patented the idea and in June 1933 opened his first drive-in cinema – he called it a “park-in theatre” – near Camden, New Jersey. His clever ramp system positioned cars at slightly different heights, to ensure that everyone had a good view of the screen. Tickets cost 25 cents for each person and each car.
His invention, declared Hollingshead, “virtually transforms an ordinary motor car into a private theatre box”. But the idea was slow to take off. By 1945 there were only 96 drive-ins in America. Everything changed in 1949 when Hollingshead’s patent was overturned, allowing other entrepreneurs to open drive-ins without having to pay him royalties. The development of an in-car speaker, which could be clipped to a car window, ensured good sound quality and perfect synchronization with the on-screen image, even for those at the back. The number of drive-ins in America jumped to 2,000 by 1950 and more than 4,000 by 1958.
Hollywood studios saw drive-ins as a threat to their own theatre chains and withheld their best films. For many customers, however, the quality of the film was of secondary importance. Press coverage denounced drive-ins as “passion pits”, which only heightened their popularity. They were also attractive to families, providing a cheap night out without the need for a babysitter, because children could sleep in the car.
Drive-in cinemas went into decline in the late 1950s as shopping malls sprang up in American suburbs. The space occupied by drive-ins was more valuable to property developers as a location for daytime shopping, rather than just showing films in the evening. Besides, more and more people had televisions at home.
The few hundred remaining drive-ins are experiencing an unexpected renaissance in 2020 as social-distancing requirements forced indoor cinemas to close. Some are adding extra screenings, and there are new pop-up drive-ins to meet demand. In a neat reversal of history, 160 Walmart parking lots were turned into temporary drive-ins in USA. Around the world, existing drive-ins and car parks are staging church services, concerts, theatrical performances and, in Germany, even a drive-in nightclub.
The question is whether this new enthusiasm for drive-ins will persist. In many ways, the covid-19 outbreak has propelled us into the future, accelerating the adoption of remote working, online learning, e-commerce and telemedicine. When it comes to drive-ins, however, the pandemic is taking us back to the past.
From The Economist (edited)
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