Airbus Expects Strong Growth, Looks Past Plane Troubles

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Shares in European plane maker Airbus flew higher on Thursday after the company reported improved earnings and was more upbeat about the future following problems to several of its key aircraft programs.   The company said that it surged to a net profit of 1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) in the fourth quarter, from a loss of 816 million euros a year earlier, while revenue was stable around 23.8 billion euros. Airbus delivered a record 718 aircraft last year and expects that figure to rise further in 2018, to 800.   CEO Tom Enders credited "very good operational performance, especially in the last quarter."   Shares in the company jumped about 10 percent on Thursday in Paris. Investors seem optimistic that the company is putting behind it the worst of…


Pay-As-You-Go Service Offers Smartphone Access to the Cash-Strapped

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Until recently, Javier, a 60-year-old line cook, couldn’t afford a smartphone. Now, thanks to a Silicon Valley company, Javier has a Galaxy S8, one of Samsung’s high-end smartphones. Javier said he relies on it for everything. Once a month, he walks into a mobile phone store near San Francisco and makes a cash payment. If he didn’t, the phone would be remotely locked. No YouTube, no Skype calls, no Facebook. He has never missed a payment.   WATCH: Pay-As-You-Go Smartphone Gives the Poor Access to Better Technology Smartphones out of many people’s reach Around the world, people rely more and more on their smartphones for connecting to the internet, and yet for many, the device is still cost prohibitive. For the roughly 1 in 10 American consumers without financial identities…


Uber’s Net Loss Widens to $4.5B for Tumultuous 2017

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Ride-hailing giant Uber's full-year net loss widened to $4.5 billion in 2017 as the company endured a tumultuous year that included multiple scandals, a lawsuit alleging the theft of trade secrets and the replacement of its CEO. The results also showed that Uber cut its fourth-quarter net loss by 25 percent from the third quarter as new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi moves to make the company profitable ahead of a planned initial public stock offering sometime next year. The full-year loss grew from $2.8 billion in 2016, a year with results skewed by a gain from the sale of Uber's unprofitable business in China. Uber also said its U.S. ride-hailing market share fell from 82 percent at the start of last year to 70 percent in the fourth quarter. Uber said…


Fries, Not Flowers: Fast-Food Chains Try to Lure Valentines

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Is that love in the air or french fries? White Castle, KFC and other fast-food restaurants are trying to lure sweethearts for Valentine's Day. It's an attempt to capture a bit of the $3.7 billion that the National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend on a night out for the holiday. Restaurant analyst John Gordon at Pacific Management Consulting Group says it appeals to people who don't want to splurge on a pricier restaurant. And some customers enjoy it ironically. White Castle, which has been offering Valentine's Day reservations for nearly 30 years, expects to surpass the 28,000 people it served last year. Diners at the chain known for its sliders get tableside service and can sip on its limited chocolate and strawberry smoothie. KFC is handing out scratch-and-sniff Valentine's…


US Inflation Increases Most in a Year

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The U.S. on Wednesday reported its biggest increase in consumer prices in a year, pushing stocks lower in early trading. The consumer price index, which follows the costs of household goods and services, advanced by a half percentage point in January, up from two-tenths of a point in December. The January increase pushed the year-over-year inflation rate up by 2.1 percent. It was the same 12-month rate recorded in December, increasing fears among investors that firming inflation, along with increasing wages paid to American workers, could lead policymakers at the country's central bank, the Federal Reserve, to boost interest rates at a faster pace. The Labor Department said consumer prices, minus the volatile changes in food and energy costs, rose three-tenths of a percentage point in January, the largest increase…


NYC E-Bike Ban is Disaster for Immigrant Delivery Workers

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Electric powered bicycles, known as “e-bikes,” are a common sight among New York’s immigrant delivery workers, who consider the bikes a necessity to make a living wage. The problem is, they’re illegal to operate in the city, creating a dilemma for these immigrants who feel they have no alternative employment options. VOA’s Ramon Taylor and Ye Yuan report. ...


‘Can You Dig It?’ Africa Reality Show Draws Youth to Farming

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As a student, Leah Wangari imagined a glamorous life as a globe-trotting flight attendant, not toiling in dirt and manure.   Born and raised in Kenya's skyscraper-filled capital, Nairobi, the 28-year-old said farming had been the last thing on her mind. The decision to drop agriculture classes haunted her later, when her efforts in agribusiness investing while running a fashion venture failed.   Clueless, she made her way to an unusual new reality TV show, the first of its kind in Africa. "Don't Lose the Plot," backed by the U.S. government, trains contestants from Kenya and neighboring Tanzania and gives them plots to cultivate, with a $10,000 prize for the most productive. The goal: Prove to young people that agriculture can be fun and profitable.   "Being in reality TV…


Land Fight Simmers Over Brasilia’s Shrine of Shamans

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Brasilia - It is one of the most expensive areas in the Brazilian capital - and one of the most sacred. A plot in downtown Brasilia - known as Santuário dos Pajés or Shrine of the Shamans - is at the center of a conflict between indigenous people hoping to preserve their traditional way of life and developers eager to build an upmarket neighborhood. While property is often contested in Brazil, it is usually waged over remote jungles or distant mountains - vast swaths of land that can be mined or farmed for profit. This conflict centers on Brasilia's urban power base. Just minutes from the National Congress, the Shrine of the Shamans - with its unpaved roads, forest and small houses - sits surrounded by lavish high rises. Indigenous…


Solar Power Push Lights Up Options for India’s Rural Women

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In her village of Komalia, the fog swirls so thick at 7 a.m. that Akansha Singh can see no more than 15 meters ahead. But the 20-year-old is already cycling to her workplace, nine kilometers away. Halfway there she stops for two hours at a computer training center, where she's learning internet skills. Then she's off again, and by 10 a.m. reaches the small garment manufacturing plant where she stitches women's clothing for high-end brands on state-of-the-art electric sewing machines. Solar energy powers most of her day — the computer training center and the 25-woman garment factory run on solar mini-grid electricity — and clean power has given her personal choice as well, she said. If the mini-grid system had not been put in place, Singh — a recent college…


US Social Media Firms Step Up Help on Security Efforts, Intelligence Leaders Say

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Leaders of U.S. national security and law enforcement agencies said Tuesday the U.S. private sector has been helpful in efforts to keep the country safe. While the leaders did not name companies, industry sectors or what specific help has been provided, they did discuss the challenges of monitoring social media. The comments may reflect a shift in what law enforcement has seen as the technology industry's adversarial approach when it comes to fighting crimes and addressing national security issues. The most notable example of this tension was support by tech industry groups for Apple's battle with law enforcement over breaking the encryption of an iPhone used by the man who killed 14 people in the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. 'Forward-leaning engagement' At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing…


US Postal Service Rolls Out Virtual Mail

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A new service that sends virtual images of the day's mail to inboxes, before snail mail arrives in actual mailboxes, is now a reality in the United States.   "Informed Delivery" is the latest way the United States Postal Service (USPS) is trying to stay competitive.   “Informed Delivery is a way for you to receive an email every single day of all the digital images of all your mail," explained David Rupert, media relations specialist at USPS.  Rupert said his digital images arrive around 9 a.m. each day. Though the USPS delivers about 46 percent of the world’s total mail, it is battling email, text messages, online advertising, television and other delivery services for consumers' attention and business.   "In a digital world, more and more people are having…


Hotel in DC Offers a Cooking Class for Couples before Valentine’s Day

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Valentine's Day is probably the most romantic holiday. In the United States, with people sending 190 million Valentine's Day cards and spending around $100 per person on gifts. Instead of going out for a restaurant dinner for the holiday, a new idea is taking hold. These days more couples are planning to do something together. Classes like painting and cooking are a popular. Mariia Prus checked out the options for couples at one of Washington's fanciest hotels. ...


GM to Close Auto Plant in South Korea in Restructuring

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General Motors said Tuesday it will close an underutilized factory in Gunsan, South Korea, by the end of May as part of a restructuring of its operations.   The move is a setback for the administration of President Moon Jae-in, who has made jobs and wages a priority.   A GM statement said Monday the company has proposed to its labor union and other stakeholders a plan involving further investments in South Korea that would help save jobs.   "As we are at a critical juncture of needing to make product allocation decisions, the ongoing discussions must demonstrate significant progress by the end of February, when GM will make important decisions on next steps," Barry Engle, GM executive vice president and president of GM International, said in the statement.  …


Opioid Makers Gave $10 Million to Advocacy Groups Amid Epidemic

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Companies selling some of the most lucrative prescription painkillers funneled millions of dollars to advocacy groups that in turn promoted the medications' use, according to a report released Monday by a U.S. senator. The investigation by Missouri's Senator Claire McCaskill sheds light on the opioid industry's ability to shape public opinion and raises questions about its role in an overdose epidemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives. Representatives of some of the drugmakers named in the report said they did not set conditions on how the money was to be spent or force the groups to advocate for their painkillers. The report from McCaskill, ranking Democrat on the Senate's homeland security committee, examines advocacy funding by the makers of the top five opioid painkillers by worldwide sales…


4 Robots That Aim to Teach Your Kids to Code

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You've seen apps and toys that promise to teach your child to code. Now enter the robots. At the CES electronics show in January, coding robots came out in force. One convention hall area was packed with everything from chip-embedded, alphabet-like coding blocks to turtle-like tanks that draw on command. Of course, no one can really say how well these coding bots teach kids, or even whether learning to code is the essential life skill that so many in the tech industry claim. After all, by the time today's elementary-school kids are entering the workforce, computers may well be programming themselves. But experts like Jeff Gray, a computer science professor at the University of Alabama and an adviser to the nonprofit coding education group Code.org, say kids can derive other…


Disposable Delivery Drone Goes Where Other Services Do Not

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Plastic foam, plywood and some other plastic parts could make the difference between life and death. These are the materials that make up a delivery drone created by DASH Systems. The California company also describes its lightweight aircraft as an unmanned aerial vehicle or glider. It can be used to deliver up to 20 kilograms of food, medicine or other essential supplies to people in need in areas that traditional shipping and delivery companies cannot reach. And because it's made of low-cost materials, it's disposable, so there is no worry about getting it back. "Many times, we found that during times of crisis or humanitarian need, it's very, very difficult to get supplies into remote regions," said Joel Ifill, chief executive officer and co-founder of DASH Systems. "Couple that with reduced or…


African Immigrant Truckers Turn a Profit on Open Road

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It's a long way from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast to the interstate highway near Chicago where trucker Mamoudou Diawara relishes the advantages that come with traveling the open road. "Trucking is the freedom," Diawara says. "It is the freedom and the money is right. I am not going to lie to you. You make more than the average Joe." Increasing demand for long-haul truckers in the United States is drawing more African immigrants like Diawara onto America's roads. He says truckers in the United States can make as much as $200,000 a year. The sometimes dangerous work involves long hours, but it's a chance to make a new life in a new country on his terms. "You got to get the goods to the people," he says. "This is…


Trump’s $4 Trillion Budget Helps Move Deficit Sharply Higher

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President Donald Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget for next year that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years. And that's before last week's $300 billion budget pact is added this year and next, showering both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big increases.   The spending spree, along with last year's tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.   The original plan was for Trump's new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year's proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both…


Who’s at Fault in Amtrak Crash? Amtrak Pays Regardless

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Federal investigators are still looking at how CSX railway crews routed an Amtrak train into a parked freight train in Cayce, South Carolina, last weekend. But even if CSX should bear sole responsibility for the accident, Amtrak will likely end up paying crash victims’ legal claims with public money. Amtrak pays for accidents it didn’t cause because of secretive agreements negotiated between the passenger rail company, which receives more than $1 billion annually in federal subsidies, and the private railroads, which own 97 percent of the tracks on which Amtrak travels. Both Amtrak and freight railroads that own the tracks fight to keep those contracts secret in legal proceedings. But whatever the precise legal language, plaintiffs’ lawyers and former Amtrak officials say Amtrak generally bears the full cost of damages…


Tesla’s Roadster Takes Flight, Enters Orbit

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Billionaire CEO Elon Musk is off to a big 2018. He's chief executive of both SpaceX and Tesla. His space-travel company launched off the planet and into orbit a roadster from his electric car company. It was the latest milestone for an executive who looks to revolutionize space travel and technology. Arash Arabasadi reports. ...


As Brexit ‘Cliff-Edge’ Fears Grow, France Courts Japanese Firms in Britain

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There are growing fears that Britain could be headed for a so-called cliff-edge exit from the European Union, as big differences remain between Brussels and London over the shape of any deal. It comes as Japan warns its businesses may pull out of Britain if they face higher costs after Brexit. A leaked government analysis suggests that economic growth in Britain will decline by up to 8 percent after it leaves the bloc. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. ...


OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Stop Promoting Opioids

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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP said Saturday that it has cut its sales force in half and will stop promoting opioids to physicians, following widespread criticism of the ways that drugmakers market addictive painkillers. The drugmaker said it will inform doctors Monday that its sales representatives will no longer be visiting physician offices to discuss its opioid products. It will now have about 200 sales representatives, Purdue said. “We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers,” the Stamford, Connecticut-based company said in a statement. New marketing push Doctors with opioid-related questions will be directed to its medical affairs department. Its sales representatives will now focus on Symproic, a drug for treating opioid-induced constipation, and other potential non-opioid products, Purdue said.…