Study: Kids Who Play Violent Video Games May Be More Likely to Handle Guns

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Children who either played or watched a video game that included gun violence were more likely afterward to handle a gun and pull the trigger, a new study finds. More than 200 children were randomly assigned to play either a non-violent video game or a game with firearm violence. Soon after, more than 60% of kids who played the violent game touched a gun, compared to about 44% of those who played a non-violent game, researchers report in JAMA Network Open. The lessons from the new findings are that: "gun owners should secure their guns," and "parents should protect their children from violent media, including video games," said study coauthor Brad Bushman, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University. "Each day in the United States, nearly 50 children…


Energy Secretary: US Aims to Make Fossil Fuels Cleaner 

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The Trump administration is committed to making fossil fuels cleaner rather than imposing ``draconian'' regulations on coal and oil, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday at an energy conference in Salt Lake City. Perry previously said the administration wants to spend $500 million next year on fossil fuel research and development as demand plummets for coal and surges for natural gas.    ``Instead of punishing fuels that produce emissions through regulation, we're seeking to reduce those emissions by innovation,'' Perry said at the conference. Fossil fuel emissions have been cited by scientists as a major source of global warming.    U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said the world must change how it fuels factories, vehicles and homes to limit future global warming. Perry said the Trump administration has proven…


IMF Denies Pressuring Venezuela to Release Economic Data

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The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it had not pressured Venezuela to release economic indicators after years of silence, while two sources said the country's surprise data release this week was due to pressure from China. The central bank on Tuesday unexpectedly released data confirming Venezuela is suffering hyperinflation and massive economic contraction. The release reversed President Nicolas Maduro's unofficial policy of classifying economic indicators as state secrets. The data reported a 22.5 percent contraction in Venezuela's economy in the third quarter of 2018 from the same period of the previous year. The bank did not provide a full-year 2018 figure for economic activity. Monthly inflation in April 2019 was 33.8 percent, while 2018 full-year inflation reached 130,060 percent, the bank said. The IMF said it suspended work with…


Wall Street Slump Continues on U.S.-China Trade Uncertainty

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U.S. stocks lost ground again on Thursday, as conflicting comments on trade talks from President Donald Trump and Beijing  reinforced investor nervousness that a lengthy battle could be in the offing and harm global growth. Trump said talks with China were going well but those comments were countered by a senior Chinese diplomat who said provoking trade disputes is "naked economic terrorism." The lack of clarity around the trade battle has rattled investors of late, after the S&P 500 had risen more than 17% through the first four months of the year on optimism a trade deal between the two countries could be reached. That optimism has faded, however, as the escalating dispute between the two countries has weighed heavily on Wall Street in May, with each of the three…


Telecoms Giant EE Launches Britain’s First 5G Services

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British mobile phone operator EE on Thursday became the first in the country to launch a high-speed 5G service, but without smartphones from controversial Chinese technology giant Huawei. EE, which is a division of British telecoms giant BT, has launched 5G in six major cities comprising Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Manchester — and more hubs will follow. "From today, the U.K. will be able to discover 5G for the first time thanks to EE," it announced in a statement, after an official launch featuring a performance from chart-topping grime act Stormzy on a boat on London's River Thames. Next-generation 5G mobile networks offer almost instantaneous data transfer that will become the nervous system of Europe's economy in strategic sectors like energy, transport, banking and health care. EE had announced…


Should Facebook Delete Fake Pelosi Video?

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When a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — one altered to show the Democratic leader slurring her words — began making the rounds on Facebook last week, the social network didn't take it down. Instead, it "downranked" the video, a behind-the-scenes move intended to limit its spread. That outraged some people who believe Facebook should do more to clamp down on misinformation. Pelosi derided Facebook Wednesday for not taking down the video even though it knows it is false. But the company and some civil libertarians warn that Facebook could evolve into an unaccountable censor if it's forced to make judgment calls on the veracity of text, photos or videos. Facebook has long resisted making declarations about the truthfulness of posts that could open it up to charges…


Fox Host, Chinese State TV Anchor Face Off Over Trade War

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A Chinese state TV anchor and a host from Fox Business, whose sparring over the U.S.-China trade war has been avidly followed on Chinese social media, brought their duel to the American cable network for what turned out to be a respectful encounter. The showdown between Liu Xin of China’s state-run English channel CGTN and Fox Business Network host Trish Regan was aired on Wednesday evening in the United States but was not shown live on TV in China, though it had been hyped by state and social media. Following U.S. moves this month to increase tariffs on Chinese imports and blacklist tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd the rhetoric out of Beijing has become more strident. At the start of the roughly 16-minute segment, Liu corrected Regan to say…


Pro-China Policies Unlikely in Australia, India After Recent Elections

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In recent weeks, Australia and India have re-elected incumbent prime ministers. These Asia-Pacific countries, who have a difficult relationship with China, are unlikely to make the kind of policy changes that Beijing has been seeking for a long time, analysts said. Australia this month re-elected Prime Minister Scott Morrison stunning pollsters who had anticipated his defeat for several months. India gave a landslide victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, who campaigned largely on a nationalistic agenda. China wants support from Australia and India on issues like the U.S.-China trade war, the Huawei controversy, South China Sea controversy and the Belt and Road Initiative. The Communist Party in Beijing attaches great importance to obtaining support from democratic countries as a means to enhance China’s global influence. It has…


Drought Forces Water Bans in Sydney

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Water restrictions are to be imposed in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, for the first time in almost a decade because of falling reservoir levels and a long-standing drought. Residents who breach the regulations could be fined US$150. The flow of rainwater into some of Sydney’s reservoirs is at its lowest since World War II. From Saturday, households will face restrictions that will target the use of water outdoors. Garden sprinklers will be banned, and tougher measures could follow. The New South Wales state government says that “early and decisive action” will help to conserve supplies as a record-breaking drought worsens. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is predicting below-average rainfall and higher temperatures for the next three months across the much of the continent. “With the lowest inflows into Sydney’s water storage…


How One Pollution-Weary Asian Island Adopted Electric Vehicles

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Electric vehicles have struggled to gain mass appeal in much of the world despite the fanfare surrounding Tesla Motors, the world’s best-selling brand of plug-in cars last year. Drivers worry about prices, comfort and what happens when a battery expires in the middle of a trip. But in Taiwan, scooter vendor Gogoro doubles its sales every year largely because of a widespread battery exchange network supported by a central government that's keen to control emissions. Gogoro designs what it describes as ride-able scooters as well as engines for other brands, filling what the chief executive officer calls earlier market voids. “People say we’re the two wheels of Tesla, and in some ways, we are,” CEO and co-founder Horace Luke said. “We do a little bit of everything.” The company, which launched…


US Treasury Says 9 Trade Partners Deserve Scrutiny Over Currency Practices

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The Trump administration said on Tuesday that no major trading partner met its currency manipulation criteria but nine countries, including China, required close attention as Washington presses tariffs and negotiations to address trade deficits. The Treasury Department, in a semi-annual report to Congress, said it reviewed the policies of an expanded set of 21 major U.S. trading partners and found that nine required close attention due to currency practices: China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. "No major U.S. trading partner met the relevant 2015 legislative criteria for enhanced analysis" as a currency manipulator, the department said in a statement. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and begun the process of imposing tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese…


MacKenzie Bezos Pledges to Give Away Half Her Fortune

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MacKenzie Bezos, who just months ago divorced the world's richest man, has pledged to give away half her fortune to charity.  The former wife of Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos is one of the 19 new signatories to the Giving Pledge who have promised to donate more than 50% of their wealth, the organization said.  "I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,'' MacKenzie Bezos said in a letter released Tuesday. "My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty."  Bezos' personal fortune is worth nearly $37 billion, making her the 22nd-richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.  The Giving Pledge…


Sneezing a Lot? Handheld Allergen Detector Can Help

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Whether you live in a city of somewhere more rural, there are always things in the air, invisible to the naked eye that could make you sneeze or cause major illness. Detecting these microscopic materials such as pollen, mold and pollutants could be time consuming and costly. A lab at the University of California, Los Angeles is trying to solve that problem by developing a handheld allergen detector for consumers. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details. ...


Desperate Zimbabweans Risk Lives in Abandoned Mines

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Officials in Zimbabwe say the bodies of eight illegal miners have been retrieved from an abandoned gold mine about 50 kilometers north of Harare. The news Monday was a reminder of the risk faced by desperate illegal miners trying to make a living in the economically troubled southern African country. Matopo is a gold rich area in southern Zimbabwe, and some men there enter such mines, despite the danger involved.  These men are illegal miners, using a metal detector to search for gold at the Nugget Mine, about an hour's drive from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.  ​Piniel Ndingi-Nyoni is one of those who entered the mine, despite the recent collapse of a mine shaft that killed four men.  Ndingi-Nyoni says he has no choice but to take the risk. …


Fiat Chrysler Proposes Merger With Renault

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Fiat Chrysler proposed a merger Monday with Renault, a union that would create the world's third biggest automaker. The merger, if it happens, would vault the new company, with annual sales of 8.7 million vehicles, into a position ahead of General Motors and behind only Volkswagen and Toyota, both of which sell about 10.6 million. The merger could give the combined companies a better chance in the battle among auto manufacturers to build new electric and autonomous vehicles. Investors in both companies showed their initial approval of the announcement, with Renault’s shares jumping 15 percent in afternoon trading in Paris and Fiat Chrysler stock up more than 10 percent in Milan. The proposal calls for shareholders to split ownership of the new company. Fiat Chrysler said the deal would save…


AI Phones, PCs Edging Into Global Consumer Technology

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Artificial intelligence-driven phones that turn photos into 3D images and PCs with interactive speakers will come a step closer to reality this week during Asia’s biggest consumer technology show.   Organizers of the Computex Taipei show with 1,685 exhibitors -- including a who’s who of global high tech companies -- call artificial intelligence one of their top 2019 themes.   Microchip developers Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm are expected to talk up their latest gear during the four-day show that opens Tuesday. Memory chip maker Micron Technology says it will exhibit a “broad portfolio of memory and storage” for artificial intelligence.   “My personal expectations toward AI this year are quite high,” said Helen Chiang, general manager of market research firm IDC in Taipei. “Whether from the perspective of the information…


Ghana Just Scratching Surface of Illegal Gold Mining

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Only the chirping of birds and insects break the silence at a gold mining site in the Eastern Region of Ghana, right at the foot of the Atewa forest reserve. Caterpillar excavators stand still, as the two Ghanaian companies operating them wait for a new mining permit  a process that has been in the works for months. But a fresh pile of sludge spilt over a patch of vegetation suggests the mine is being operated illegally. Felix Addo-Okyreh, who works for Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says the sludge — referred to as slime' in mining jargon — is dirty waste water created when gold is separated from sediment, sometimes with the help mercury. It is stored in dams on the site. "It rained heavily last week. The embankment of the dam…


New Tech Keeps Phone Lines Open During Disasters

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When a natural disaster strikes, some of first pieces of infrastructure to go down are communication networks. And for first responders, that could lead to chaos and in some cases even lives lost. But a group of entrepreneurs, with some help from IBM, has created what they think is a solution to the problem. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...


Virtual Reality Offers Glimpse of Rome’s Circus Maximus

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The Circus Maximus Experience, opened in Rome this week and offers visitors the chance to relive the ancient splendors of chariot racing in the Imperial period of Rome through augmented and virtual reality. The innovative project implements interactive display technologies never before used in such a large outdoor area. "Now you find yourself in front of the Arch of Titus, which was possibly built in the place of a more ancient arch and dedicated in the year 81 After Christ by the Roman Senate and people to Emperor Flavius". This is just an example of what modern-day visitors will be listening to in their headsets, while at the same time through special visors see a virtual rendering of the majestic 20-meter Arch of Titus in Rome's Circus Maximus. Thanks to…


Drones Monitor Whale Health In Australia

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A water-proof drone is being used by Australian scientists to collect the highly-treasured nasal mucus of migrating whales. The snot is rich with fresh DNA, viruses and bacteria, and is collected by a drone that hovers over the blowholes of humpback whales as they embark on their epic annual journey along Australia's east coast. Whales, like all mammals need air, and come to the surface to breathe through a blowhole. Vanessa Pirotta, a marine biologist at Macquarie University, says that nasal mucus indicates the health of the whale. “It is the juicy biological mixture that you see as a whale takes a breath as they surface from the water," she said. "You often see that plume and it sounds like this like [sounds of sharp breaths] as a whale breathes…


At Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Outpost, Urgency Amid Tensions With China

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In a building a few miles from Google and Facebook’s plush campuses is the Pentagon’s sparse outpost in Silicon Valley. Here, military personnel and civilians look for commercial technology that can help the armed services solve problems they face in the field. That could be working with a local commercial rocket company to deploy satellites faster. Or finding an up-and-coming firm that has created a novel communication system that works in some of the harshest conditions. Defense Innovation Unit Founded four years ago, the Defense Innovation Unit has a sense of urgency now more than ever, says its director, Michael Brown, formerly chief executive of Symantec, the cyber security firm, and of Quantum, a computer storage firm. Because of the new so-called Tech Cold War, tensions are surging between the…


Silicon Valley Carefully Navigates US-China High Tech Cold War

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Silicon Valley has long been a power center of American innovation. Now that high-tech is also becoming a focus of tensions between the U.S. and China, companies based here are trying to understand how they fit in. VOA's Michelle Quinn speaks with the head of the U.S. Defense Department's local outpost who sees the tech industry as key to U.S. national security. ...


Trump ‘Honored’ to Provide US Farmers with $16 Billion in Aid 

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President Donald Trump says he is "honored" to give U.S. farmers hurt by the trade war with China another $16 billion in aid.  Flanked by potato growers, ranchers and dairymen in the White House, Trump said Thursday the aid "will help keep our cherished farms thriving and make clear that no country has a veto on America's economic and national security." Trump added that trade has been "very unfair" to the farmers who he says support him politically. This is the second multibillion-dollar bailout the Trump administration has provided to U.S. farmers who have seen Chinese markets for their products dry up because of tariffs China imposed on U.S. goods to retaliate for U.S. tariffs on Chinese products. The White House gave farmers $12 billion last year. U.S. Agriculture Secretary…


Canada, Europe to Choose When 737 MAX Is Safe as Regulators Meet

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In a potential challenge to U.S.-led efforts to build consensus on the Boeing Co 737 MAX flying again, Canada and Europe said on Wednesday they would bring back the grounded aircraft on their own terms if their specific concerns are not addressed. Global regulators will meet in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday where the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration hopes to reach an international consensus on how to move forward with the MAX, U.S. officials told Reuters. The plane was grounded worldwide in March following a fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash just months after a similar Lion Air disaster in Indonesia which together killed 346 people. Global airlines that had rushed to buy the fuel-efficient, longer-range aircraft have since canceled flights and scrambled to cover routes that were previously flown by the…


UK, Japan Mobile Operators Suspend Huawei 5G Phone Launches

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British and Japanese mobile phone companies said Wednesday they're putting on hold plans to sell new devices from Huawei, in the latest fallout from U.S. tech restrictions aimed at the Chinese company. Britain's EE and Vodafone and Japan's KDDI and Y! Mobile said they are pausing the launch of Huawei smartphones, including some that can be used on next generation mobile networks, amid uncertainty about devices from the world's No. 2 smartphone maker. The U.S. government last week restricted technology sales to Chinese telecom gear suppliers because of alleged security risks, though telecom carriers got a 90-day grace period to let them find other suppliers. The sales ban is part of a broader trade war between Washington and Beijing. British mobile chip designer Arm said separately it was complying with…


Britain’s May Faces Calls to Resign After Revised Brexit Plan Unveiled

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British lawmakers are denouncing Prime Minister Theresa May's latest proposal to withdraw from the European Union (EU) amid growing demands from her own Conservative Party for her resignation. May said on Tuesday a bill she plans to present to Parliament next month would include a provision to vote on whether to hold a second referendum to leave the EU, a key demand of many opposition lawmakers. May also offered closer trading arrangements with the EU as another incentive in what she called a "last chance" opportunity to finalize a Brexit deal. Speaking before the House of Commons on Wednesday, May implored lawmakers to support her bill, warning a rejection would lead to "division and deadlock." May said her withdrawal bill would be disclosed Friday so that lawmakers would have time…