Monthly Archives: July 2017

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Network, leads a gathering at The Underground Museum in Los Angeles in memory of Charleena Lyles and other police shooting victims. Michael Radcliffe/NPR hide caption

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Network, leads a gathering at The Underground Museum in Los Angeles in memory of Charleena Lyles and other police shooting victims.

It's been almost four years since Patrisse Khan-Cullors helped birth the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Those three words gained national attention for demonstrations against police brutality and grew into a movement.

But progress has been slow, admits Khan-Cullors, a Los Angeles-based activist who co-founded the Black Lives Matter Network.

"The local is where the work is. If we're looking at just the national, it's pretty devastating. But if you zoom into cities, to towns, to rural areas, people are fighting back and people are winning," she says, pointing to one example in Jackson, Miss., where voters recently elected a progressive new mayor in the Deep South.

Other Black Lives Matter activists around the country, who are part of a decentralized movement, are also focusing on local activism.

"We go to locations where people generally ... don't have to think about or don't want to think about white supremacy and patriarchy and how that's affecting black people," says Mike Bento, an organizer with New York's NYC Shut It Down, a group which considers itself part of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mike Bento (center), an organizer with NYC Shut It Down, leads a march in honor of a black transgender person who was recently killed in New York City. Hansi Lo Wang/NPR hide caption

Mike Bento (center), an organizer with NYC Shut It Down, leads a march in honor of a black transgender person who was recently killed in New York City.

The group started holding weekly demonstrations around New York City two years ago to honor mainly people who have died at the hands of police. On a recent Monday evening, about two dozen protesters gathered outside a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, where diners sipped wine at bistro tables on the sidewalk.

While a protester held up a sign saying "MX BOSTICK, REST IN POWER," Bento started a call-and-response describing the recent death of a black transgender person who was found unconscious on a sidewalk after being struck in the head in May. A suspect is now charged with manslaughter.

"We're here tonight because while you are dining, black trans people are dying," Bento shouted at the restaurant patrons.

Still, it's not all about protesting in the streets. Sometimes, Bento and other Black Lives Matter activists go underground and into New York's subways. They pay for people who would otherwise try to get on a train without paying, which could earn them a misdemeanor.

"This is all connected," Bento says. "This is all part of how we get a system of mass incarceration. And so we start with basic things that we can do to keep our brothers and sisters out of that system."

Other basic forms of activism include standing outside the courthouse to support people charged with low-level offenses and helping to serve dinner to homeless people.

In Washington, D.C., April Goggans, an organizer with Black Lives Matter DC, is holding meetings with other local activist groups to figure out how they can make communities facing high crime rates more self-sufficient.

Goggans says she's been following the recent police shooting of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant, black mother in Seattle, as well as the not-guilty verdicts for police officers involved in the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Sylville Smith in Wisconsin. They've all reinforced her conclusion, she says, that any type of reform will not improve police departments.

"I don't even know that I would put my effort into charging and imprisoning individual police officers because it's just not gonna happen very much and that kind of justice, it's not a deterrent for other police officers," says Goggans, who says she is focused on getting rid of the current system of policing in the long term.

Khan-Cullors says she is also taking a long view when thinking about how the Black Lives Matter movement will tackle issues black people have been living with for decades.

"We are not new to police brutality. We are not new to police violence. We are not new to people dying inside jail cells and prisons," she says. "What is new is the visibility. What is new is that they become headlines."

Khan-Cullors helped birth the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Starting campaigns to change laws and policy, she says, is the obvious work. But staying together as a movement is harder. Michael Radcliffe/NPR hide caption

Khan-Cullors helped birth the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Starting campaigns to change laws and policy, she says, is the obvious work. But staying together as a movement is harder.

She says she's always been concerned about how the movement can sustain itself when social media is inundated with photos and videos of black people killed at the hands of police and victories for the movement seem hard to come by.

With the U.S. Supreme Court reinstating part of President Donald Trump's travel ban and Congress considering substantial cuts to Medicaid, she's worried that the current political environment is becoming even more overwhelming for activists.

"If you can't fight the state, and you can't fight for the things that you need, then you take it out on each other," says Khan-Cullors, who cautions that infighting could destroy the movement.

That's why gatherings like a recent candle-light vigil at The Underground Museum in Los Angeles for Lyles and other police shooting victims are important to Khan-Cullors, who wants to keep activists energized and encourage them to work together.

Starting campaigns to change laws and policy, she says, is the obvious work. But staying together as a movement, that's the hard stuff.

Shaheen Ainpour contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.; Michael Radcliffe contributed from Los Angeles.

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Amid 'Devastating' Progress Nationally, Black Lives Matter Engages ... - NPR

(Reuters Health) - White and black children in the United States did not benefit equally from a recent reduction in infant mortality, according to new research.

From 2005 to 2015, if black infants had experienced the same mortality rate as white infants, thousands fewer babies would have died, the researchers estimate.

"The benefits to the black population have stalled and we have to pay attention to that," said Corinne Riddell, of McGill University in Montreal.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this year that infant mortality declined 15 percent over the past decade. To see if non-Hispanic black infants benefited as much from the falling infant mortality rates as non-Hispanic white infants, Riddell and colleagues analyzed U.S. data collected from 2005 through 2015.

Infant mortality rates are calculated as the number of deaths within the first year of life relative to the number of live births.

From 2005 to 2015, the mortality rate among white infants declined from 5.7 deaths per 1,000 births to 4.8 per 1,000 births, Riddell's team reports in JAMA Pediatrics.

Among black infants, the death rate declined from 14.3 per 1,000 births in 2005 to 11.6 per 1,000 in 2012, where it plateaued before going back up to 11.7 per 1,000 births in 2015.

For every thousand births, there were 8.6 more infant deaths among blacks than among whites in 2005. The difference fell to 6.6 extra deaths in black infants in 2012 but rose again to 6.9 extra deaths in 2015.

When the researchers looked at causes of death, they found that deaths due to preterm birth and low birthweight among black infants followed a similar pattern as the mortality rate - a decrease and plateau.

That might be where public health efforts should be directed, "to target the disparity," Riddell told Reuters Health.

Riddell's team hopes to examine infant mortality rates by region to see if some states are doing better than others in addressing the disparity. States with larger racial gaps in infant mortality rates could possibly learn from policies in states with smaller disparities, she said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2tjz7LS JAMA Pediatrics, online July 3, 2017.

SYDNEY Australian women have brought a class-action case against Johnson & Johnson over complications arising from vaginal mesh implants - a lawsuit that follows many others in the United States, Canada and Europe.

PARIS Togo reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu at a poultry farm in the southern part of the country, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Monday, citing a report from the Togolese farm ministry.

Originally posted here:

Progress reducing infant mortality uneven between whites and blacks - Reuters

SEATTLE, WA - JUNE 28: From left, catcher Mike Zunino

Mariners Mid-Season Awards by Nick Lee

20 Most Interesting Seahawks: #17 Jermaine Kearse by Colby Patnode

Seattle is now 41-42, and 1 1/2 games out of the Wild Card race. The spots are currently occupied by the Yankees and Rays, just so you know who to root against.

Lets review this week in Mariners baseball.

The Mariners averaged 4.2 runs per game this week, a big step back from the averages of the last few weeks when they were around six. This week started badly with two grueling losses to the worst team in baseball, the Phillies. Seattle managed six runs in those two games. They were also shut out in Saturdays loss to the Angels when they managed a meager three hits.

Jean Segura seems to have come back into form. He hit .409 with a 1.071 OPS during these five games. He homered in Tuesdays 8-2 loss to Philadelphia.

ANAHEIM, CA JULY 02: Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano seems to be returning to Cano-form has he hit four home runs this week, tied for the most in that time. He also hit .350 with a 1.331 OPS. During the 10-0 win in Anaheim on Friday, Cano blasted two home runs. Ben Gamel was four-for-five with two runs and two RBI. He is currently the American League leader in hitting with a .336 average.

Kyle Seager has awoken from his slumber, hitting .300 in these five games with two home runs.

The Mariners struggled to take advantage of some key situations in their three losses. Danny Valencia struck out 8 times this week while hitting just .222. He did hit a monstrous home run in Wednesdays loss, however. Nelson Cruz has been nagged by injury and hit just .214 with one extra base hit.

Mitch Haniger has disappeared, amounting just two hits in 19 at-bats with six strikeouts.

ANAHEIM, CA JULY 02: James Paxton

Seattle posted a 3.20 ERA during the five games. James Paxton made two starts, allowing a total of four runs in 13 1/3 innings and 12 strikeouts. His batting average against was .143 in those two outings as he seems to be returning to his pre-DL form.

Felix Hernandez made his second start since coming off of the disabled list. He went six innings in Wednesdays loss to the Phillies. He allowed three runs and struck out five and was in line for the win before an Edwin Diaz meltdown in the ninth.

Sam Gaviglio continues to hold down the fort, going 6 1/3 innings in the shutout loss to the Angels on Saturday. He allowed three runs and made his fourth quality start.

Ariel Miranda once again proved reliable as he threw seven innings of shutout, two-hit ball in Fridays win. He leads all Mariners starters with seven quality starts.

The bullpen was less than stellar this week. Diaz blew a 4-3 lead in Wednesdays loss to Philly. He allowed six total runs and two homers in three appearance.Nick Vincent allowed two earned runs in two outings along with four hits, as hitters batted .571 against him. The bright spots in the pen were a steady James Pazos and the young Max Povse. Povse pitched two scoreless innings in his lone outing this week.

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA JULY 01: Shortstop Jean Segura

The Mariners committed two errors this week. They both just happened to come in the 8-2 breakdown against Philadelphia. Those errors by Mitch Haniger and Diaz cost the Ms four runs. They are now at +4 Defensive Runs Saved, sitting at 14th in baseball. The Ms also stole just two bases in three tries as Jarrod Dyson and Segura swiped bags. Seattle comes in at 9th in all of baseball with 50 steals.

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Mariners Progress Report: Treading Water - Emerald City Swagger

ExxonMobil reported in June that scientists had developed a way to double the size of natural algae that could be used as biofuel to take the place of diesel, according to a news release.

Commercially viable biofuel as an alternative to fossil fuels, however, is still years away, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company vice president Vijay Swarup admitted.

Advancements as potentially important as this require significant time and effort, Swarup said in the the news release. Each phase of our algae research requires testing and analysis to confirm that were proceeding down a path toward scale and commercial viability.

Former ExxonMobil CEO and current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson estimated in 2013 that algae was at least 25 years away from competing in the market as a viable source of fuel.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a federal mandate that requires a certain amount of cellulosic ethanol, the class of biofuels to which algae belongs, to be used commercially.

In 2010, Congress set the first RFS mandate at 100 million gallons. The Environmental Protection Agency quickly dropped the number to 6.5 million gallons after not enough biofuel appeared in the market, according to a 2016 Heritage Foundation study.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the EPAs RFS mandate in 2013, saying the EPA let its aspirations for a self-fulfilling prophecy divert it from a neutral methodology, or that the agency did not adequately consider the commercial prospects of the good it was mandating.

The EPA has proposed new cellulosic ethanol mandates in 2014, 2015 and 2016, but none were made into law, according to The Heritage Foundation.

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Despite Progress, Algae Diesel Stills Years To Go In Development - The Daily Caller

By Judith Martin, Nicholas Martin and Jacobina Martin By Judith Martin, Nicholas Martin and Jacobina Martin July 4 at 12:00 AM

Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper etiquette to join a conversation already in progress?

For example, at a social gathering, a couple of people are already having a conversation. Is it okay to approach the group and say hello, or do I approach the group and wait for them to acknowledge me?

When someone approaches my group conversation, I always acknowledge the person right away and share the topic we are discussing. Most of the time, I approach a group and say hello, but is this considered interrupting? A few times, I have walked up to a conversation and stood there and was never acknowledged. Very awkward. Help I dont want to be rude, but I love to talk, too!

Inserting oneself into a conversation in progress, like cutting in for a dance, does have its own etiquette. The newcomer must wait for a lull in the conversation, acting in the interim as if what is being said is both interesting and, even without the preamble, intelligible.

The established group is required to assume the opposite, namely that the newcomer does not know what is being said and is therefore entitled to a brief, explanatory aside. At the next natural break, introductions can be made all around. While a group holding a conversation in a social gathering should welcome newcomers, Miss Manners warns that such will not always be the case. It is therefore best to actually listen to what is being said, in case it is time to beat a hasty retreat.

Dear Miss Manners: Is dancing to or parodying the national anthem disrespectful?

Yes. But isnt that why you thought of it?

Miss Manners cannot often count on the public to enforce proper behavior, except when it concerns slights to themselves. And perhaps that is just as well. But this would certainly bring it on, and it is not likely to be gentle.

She would advise you to go no further with this idea, which is as unwise as it is unfunny.

Dear Miss Manners: My mother invited her family on a cruise, where we dined nightly in the main cabin. My 54-year-old sisters manners were a nightmare. My mother was visibly embarrassed in front of her new husband.

I suggested to my sister to follow the level of formality and cues from our mother. She said I was being judgmental. How do you help someone understand that manners matter?

Without justifying your sisters behavior, Miss Manners notes that 54 years is a long time to wait before attempting to correct a problem. At least your sister cannot accuse you of rushing to judgment.

Your mother will need to talk to her, admitting that she bears some responsibility for not speaking sooner. She must resist the temptation to justify her tardiness by blaming it on the newcomer (your new stepfather was appalled), as he was minding his own business.

New Miss Manners columns are posted Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com.

2017, by Judith Martin

Link:

Miss Manners: Gracefully joining an in-progress conversation - Washington Post

BRISTOL Construction along Highway 45 in Bristol will require people to take an alternate route to Bristol Progress Days July 7-9, but has otherwise not affected the event, organizer Carol Nichols said.

Everything is going on as planned, Nichols said.

From Highway 50, Nichols said motorists should go south on 184th Avenue (Highway D), west on 83rd Street and south on 198th Avenue to the park.

While the parade, 80 units long, is staged west of Highway 45, the route will still be able to follow its traditional route east on 82nd St., south on 199th Avenue, east on Highway AH, and south on 198th Avenue.

We always have a huge turnout for the parade on Sunday, Kopczynski said. People really love it.

The event simultaneously kicks off Friday with the annual Banquet at Parkway Chateau and the carnival and softball tournament at Hansen Park, 8600 200th Ave.

Tickets for the banquet which must be reserved by July 1 by calling Nichols at 262-857-2447. Cost is $20 for adults and $11 for children ages 7-11. Children under age 7 are free. Miss Bristol, the Outstanding Citizens and the Outstanding Junior Citizens are named at the banquet.

The number of live bands performing at the event has been increased to include five groups over three days.

They are going to put on a great show, music organizer Kris Sampson, said. People will be singing along.

Resistance, a rock band out of Racine, will perform Friday. Audiowise, a rock cover band, will open at 8 p.m. Saturday for In The Stix, a modern country group that will take the stage at 9:30 p.m. Blue Hotel will perform at 2 p.m. Sunday, followed by Trip, a Kenosha-based band, at 6 p.m.

The tentative schedule is:

Friday, July 7

Saturday, July 8

Sunday, July 9

More here:

Bristol Progress Days set for July 7-9 - Kenosha News

(TNS) -- Ford is making "great progress" towards its goal of deploying its first fully autonomous car in 2021, says Ken Washington, Ford's vice president of research and advanced engineering and chief technology officer.

But Washington said Ford's development team, which is working alongside start-up artificial intelligence company Argo AI, isn't caught up in the race to be the first automaker.

"I think we are extremely well-positioned because weve got a technology company working with us that understands how to build the robot," Washington recently told the Free Press. "And weve got an automotive manufacturer underneath us ....with more than 100 years of experience of systems integration."

Ford is relying on Argo AI a company co-founded last year by Google car project veteran Bryan Salesky and Uber engineer Peter Rander to take the lead on the development of the brains of its self-driving car. Ford acquired a majority stake in Argo AI in February.

"We dont worry too much about where the competitors are. What we are worried about is how do we bring this technology to market in a way thats a fit (for customers). And thats what we are focused on," he said on the same day that Ford offered members of the media rides in the company's self-driving Ford Fusion test car.

Washington has been a top executive at Ford since joining the automaker in 2014 who now is taking on even more responsibility under Ford CEO Jim Hackett. At Ford, Washington oversees the automaker's advanced research and engineering efforts and gained the additional title of chief technology officer in May.

That essentially gives Washington oversight of all of Ford's autonomous vehicle efforts as well as oversight of the development of a wide range of other new technology.

Before joining Ford, Washington was vice president of the Advanced Technology Center at Lockheed Martin and was one of the most prominent African-Americans in aerospace. Now he is one of eight top executives at Ford who reports directly to Hackett.

The Free Press spoke with Washington about his new role and Ford's autonomous vehicle programs. The following is edited for clarity and brevity, and includes some additional comments from Washington's recent blog post on Medium, which included an announcement that Ford is creating a new artificial intelligence research team.

Question: So, tell us about your new role, and what you will now be doing at Ford?

Answer: I kind of wear two hats for the company. I am the vice president of research and advanced engineering ... and that didn't change. And with Jim Hackett coming to our company as CEO, he really wants to put an emphasis on technology and its promise for enabling us to be a great business. And so he invited me to be the chief technology officer to help drive that vision. ... And so thats a new role. And in that new role, I am really just looking to do what naturally comes to any executive who oversees a group that does that kind of technology work."

Q: How do the various pieces of Ford's autonomous vehicle program fit together? You have Ford's own development team, Ford Smart Mobility and Argo AI. How does it all work?

A: We recently welcomed Sherif Marakby back to Ford (from Uber). Sherif owns autonomous vehicles at Ford, and so his job is to define for us where we are going to play in the market, and how we are going to bring autonomous vehicle technology to bear and put it into the market.

But building the autonomous vehicle has three parts three big parts. There is the virtual driver, and thats Argos job. Thats the part that replaces the driver with a robot. And that includes software and sensors.

Ford product development is building the vehicle and the autonomous vehicle team is part of that and we are working on the integration of the virtual driver into the vehicle.

Washington elaborated on the role of Ford's internal autonomous vehicle team in his Thursday blog post on Medium:

We are announcing the creation of the robotics and artificial intelligence research team as part of Ford research and advanced engineering. This move aligns multiple disciplines under one team for a more concerted effort as we increasingly come to understand the potential for robotics and artificial intelligence. The move also serves to further advance projects weve already presented such as our autonomous vehicle development program, and those we arent quite ready to reveal.

Q: It's only been a few months since Ford publicly stated its goal to commercially launch a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021 but can you tell us how that effort is going and how fast you are making progress?

A: They are going great, they are absolutely going great.... They have some fabulous momentum. Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, the cofounders of Argo AI, have attracted a really great team already. Over 100 employees are already on board at Argo. So, I am excited about the path they are on. They are making great progress.

Q: It can be difficult from the outside to really know who is leading the race to develop driverless cars. Is Ford leading? Or have you fallen behind competitors like Waymo or even GM? And how much do you think it matters right now?

A: Well I would start by saying there is so much hype out there its hard to sort through it. And you said it well when you said it kind of doesnt matter. We dont worry too much about where the competitors are. What we are worried about is how do we bring this technology to market in a way thats fit. And thats what we are focused on.

2017 the Detroit Free Press Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Ford's Chief Technology Officer Touts Autonomous Tech Progress - Government Technology