Stretching another couple years out of your PlayStation 4 console? Try some of these lovely extras, including headsets, controllers, chargers, cables, and more.
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Thursday, October 10, 2019
Docs give Kevin Hart greenlight to return to work to promote ‘Jumanji’ movie
Guess who’s back!
It seems Kevin Hart’s got a lot of heart getting back to work so soon as he continues to heal from a fractured back, just so he can join the marketing campaign to promote the upcoming “Jumanji: The Next Level,” movie.
—Let’s discuss why Kevin Hart gaslighting Lil Nas X is so infuriating—
According to an E!News, Hart got his doctor’s approval to go back to work and talk about the movie during a media blitz, joining Dwayne Johnson and Danny DeVito. But according to a source, Hart will have a reduced work schedule which is understandable given that he had major back surgery to fix fractures in his spine following a car crash Sept. 1 in Calabasas, Cali.
During the accident, Hart received three spinal fractures that required fusions surgery and is enduring what is believed to be a lengthy-term of physical therapy.
Hart’s lucky to be alive, according to reports, after he was a passenger in a horrific car crash in Calabasas and his vehicle tumbled over several times. Hart’s vehicle, a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, reportedly was driven by Jared Black, and plummeted off the side of the road into an embankment. Rebecca Broxterman, another passenger reportedly had minor injuries.
Hart was in the hospital for 10 days and endured a grueling bout of physical therapy to help him get back on track.
“He really cherishes the fact that he’s alive, and wants to make the most of it in every respect,” a source told TMZ last month. “The crash had a huge impact on him.”
—Kevin Hart is reportedly walking and on the road to recovery after horrific car crash—
As far as Hart’s career, medical professionals state with the proper focus he will return to his pre-accident shape.
It remains unclear how the accident will affect Hart, who has emerged from his roots in standup comedy to become one a major Hollywood star. His next major release, “Jumanji: The Next Level,” is scheduled for release in December.
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Washington, DC votes to change ‘Columbus Day’ to ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’
The Washington, D.C. Council gave the green light to covert the name Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
—Montgomery, cradle of the Civil Rights movement, elects first Black mayor—
On Tuesday, the “Indigenous Peoples’ Day Emergency Declaration Act of 2019” was passed paying homage to the indigenous civilizations in America who were here long before Columbus.
The truth is Columbus “enslaved, colonized, mutilated and massacred thousands of indigenous peoples,” Councilman David Grosso told lawmakers, WTOP-FM reports. Grosso said the passing of the legislation was long overdue, especially in a area that still disrespects indigenous people, as he referenced the Washington Redskins.
To take effect, Mayor Muriel Bowser need to sign off on it or Columbus Day would remain.
—Amid perceived power vacuum, dozens vie to be Haiti’s leader—
A segment on the HBO comedy show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver summed up the situation perfectly: “Columbus became famous for his discoveries, specifically the discovery that you can discover a continent with millions of people already living on it.”
“What they tend not to learn are the parts of Columbus’ life where he kidnapped native Americans and sold them into slavery, had his men slash them to pieces and through disease and warfare killed roughly half the population of Haiti,” said the narrator in the John Oliver segment.
“But in fairness, none of that rhymes with, ‘In fourteen hundred and ninety two.’”
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NJ jury deadlocked on deciding if racist police chief committed hate crime
On Wednesday, a jury in New Jersey remained deadlocked on deciding if a racist police chief committed a hate crime.
—Rogue NJ cop who stole money, drugs pleads guilty in sweeping corruption probe—
Former Bordentown Township Police Chief Frank Nucera was found guilty on one count of lying to the FBI for brutally slamming the head of a handcuffed Black teen, Timothy Stroye, into a metal doorjamb, Yahoo reports.
But despite Nucera’s revolting recording disparaging Black citizens, hurling racial slurs, and threatening Black residents saying they should “stay the f**k out of Bordentown,” the jury hearing the case in Camden, told U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler, they couldn’t decide on if Nucera committed federal civil rights and hate crimes charges.
Kugler has asked them to keep trying to reach a verdict, the outlet reports.
Nucera’s racist rant was recorded by other officers. He was also caught on audio saying that Donald Trump was the “last hope for white people.”
Nucera also likened Black people to ISIS and animals, said they should be “mowed down by a firing squad” because they have “no value.”
When an anonymous officer wrote to the local paper about Nucera, the police chief tried to have the letter seized and tested for fingerprints to discover who the source was.
When he disagreed with an online critic, he reportedly sought to subpoena the IP address to uncover who the commenter was.
“I had lost all trust and confidence in the process,” Brian Pesce, Bordentown Township’s current police chief, said while testifying during Nucera’s federal trial. Pesce served under Nucera for 18 years and admitted he had seen first hand a “history of indifference” from the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.
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Media events canceled in China for NBA preseason game
By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
In response to the NBA defending Daryl Morey’s freedom of speech, Chinese officials took it away from the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets.
All of the usual media sessions surrounding the Lakers-Nets preseason game in Shanghai on Thursday — including a scheduled news conference from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and postgame news conferences with the teams — have been canceled. It’s the latest salvo in the rift between the league and China stemming from a since-deleted tweet posted last week by Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets.
“There will be no media availabilities for tonight’s game between the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers,” the NBA said in a statement Thursday, released a few hours before the game.
The game was held as scheduled, with Lakers forward LeBron James and Nets guard Kyrie Irving getting loud ovations when they were introduced as starters. But neither national anthem was played before the game, and no players addressed the crowd before tip-off in a departure from tradition before such international games. Fans arriving at the arena to watch — many of them donning NBA jerseys — were handed small Chinese flags to carry with them inside, and at least one person carried a sign critical of Silver.
“I understand that there are consequences from that exercise of, in essence, his freedom of speech,” Silver said at a news conference in Tokyo earlier this week. “We will have to live with those consequences.”
And this move was one of those consequences.
Most seats were filled, and fans reacted as they would normally — oohs and aahs for good plays, applause for baskets, the loudest cheers coming whenever James touched the ball. Some fans may be upset with the NBA, but they still seem to have their favorite players.
“If we have to choose, we will choose to support our country,” said fan Ma Shipeng, who brought 900 flags to hand out to fellow fans. “We only like some particular basketball players, but we don’t like NBA anymore. I give away Chinese flags tonight, as I hope people to put the national interest in front of following NBA. I will continue to support James. But none of our Chinese people would accept what Morey and Silver said.”
Morey’s tweet expressed support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, and sparked fallout that has completely overshadowed the NBA’s annual trip to China — which typically takes on a celebratory tone.
Not this year. Most events in advance of the game, such as NBA Cares events to benefit educational causes and the Special Olympics, were called off, as was a “fan night” where Lakers and Nets players were to interact directly with some Chinese ticketholders. Signage in Shanghai to promote the game — huge photos of James, Anthony Davis, Irving and other players — was ripped down, and mentions of the game were scrubbed from the arena website.
All that comes as many Chinese corporations suspended their business ties to the NBA. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said it was not going to show the Lakers-Nets games on Thursday or in Shenzhen on Saturday, and NBA broadcast partner Tencent also said it was changing its coverage plans for the league.
Silver said earlier this week that Rockets great Yao Ming, a Basketball Hall of Famer and now the president of the Chinese Basketball Association — which has also suspended its ties with Houston as part of the Morey tweet fallout — is angry as well.
“I’m not sure he quite accepts sort of how we are operating our business right now, and again, I accept that we have a difference of opinion,” Silver said. “I also think that as part of our core values, tolerance is one of those as well. I think tolerance for differing societies’ approaches, tolerance for differing points of view and the ability to listen. Certainly I don’t come here, either as the commissioner of the NBA or as an American, to tell others how they should run their governments.”
In the U.S., there was governmental reaction as well leading up to the game.
On Wednesday in Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers — including the rare alignment of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — sent a letter to Silver saying the NBA should show the “courage and integrity” to stand up to the Chinese government. They asked the NBA to, among other things, suspend activities in China until what they called the selective treatment against the Rockets ends.
“You have more power to take a stand than most of the Chinese government’s targets and should have the courage and integrity to use it,” the lawmakers told Silver.
The Rockets were extremely popular in China, largely because of Yao. But the team’s merchandise has been taken off e-commerce sites and out of stores selling NBA apparel in the country, murals featuring the team’s stars and logo were painted over and even the Chinese consulate office in Houston expressed major displeasure with Morey and the Rockets.
Morey has been silent on the matter since a tweet Sunday where he attempted to make some sort of amends with the Chinese.
“I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention,” he wrote Sunday. “My tweets are my own and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA.”
Saturday’s game between the Lakers and Nets in Shenzhen also remains on as scheduled.
___
Associated Press reporter Zhu Pei contributed to this report.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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5 game-changing Supreme Court cases to watch that could challenge Black people’s rights for years to come
This week the Supreme Court went back into session, kicking off what’s expected to be one of the most divisive and controversial terms in recent history. Everything from guns to abortion rights are on the docket, and America will get to see the impact of the addition of Trump-appointee Brett Kavanaugh.
Although judges are expected to be politically impartial, Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation hearing after being accused of sexual assault, left him charging Democrats with unfairly going after his character.
READ MORE: Kamala Harris and Cory Booker blast Comcast in $20B Byron Allen civil rights lawsuit
Now, some experts are bracing for a possible “conservative revolution,” after the court overturned two precedents (a highly unusual move) last term, and President Donald Trump has successfully appointed 150 judges to lifetime seats on the bench (whoever told said your vote didn’t matter, lied.)
These are just five of the most-watched cases the highest court in the land will decide on in the months to come. The stakes couldn’t be higher for each, and they will draw out fierce arguments on both sides.
The case for protecting racial discrimination claims…
Cable TV giant Comcast is going head-to-head with the National Association of African-American Owned Media, over a claim that Comcast declined to do business with a Black-owned company, Entertainment Studios, due to race.
What makes this battle so important, is that Comcast has taken aim at Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, meant to protect minorities from racial discrimination.
The cable company wants anyone using the law to prove “but-for” causation– meaning that they wouldn’t have been discriminated against “but for” their race.
Considering that many instances of discrimination aren’t that explicit, the interpretation puts a huge burden on plaintiffs to prove their case. It’s a way to kill the protection from discrimination, and conservative Supreme Court Justices may be all for it…
The case for protecting LGBTQ people at work…
Three employment cases are headed to the Supreme Court, and all involve members of the LGBTQ community.
READ MORE: Attorney Benjamin Crump says it’s ‘open season’ on Black people’s civil rights
Two men say they were fired for being gay, and one person was fired after transitioning from male to female.
Now the court must decide whether the protection from “sex” discrimination via Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, applies to sexual orientation.
The case for changing the definition of gun rights…
The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association is suing New York City because its members were restricted from taking guns outside of their homes, despite having licenses.
The court will determine if this regulation undermines the right to bear arms or if the limitation is reasonable.
In an era where mass shootings in America outnumber the days of the year, lobbyists and citizens alike will closely watch the outcome.
The case for keeping open- or shutting down- abortion clinics…
June Medical Services v. Gee is a case coming out of Louisiana which would determine whether strict laws that require extreme licensing for abortion doctors, are just another way to deny the constitutional right to abortion.
It’s very similar to another 2016 case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which justices struck down a law that made it nearly impossible for abortion clinics in Texas to stay open.
But with a very different Supreme Court under Trump, the addition of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh giving conservatives an edge, the outcome of this case could be different- and essentially another way to shut down Roe V. Wade.
The case for suing federal law enforcement…
While the Black community may not instantly come to mind on the issue of border patrol, one Supreme Court case creates an interesting intersection for multiple communities.
READ MORE: A brief history of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and how it is still used
In 2010, an American Border Patrol agent shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old Mexican boy playing near the American border.
At the heart of the case, is that the federal agent, Jesus Mesa, Jr., shot across the border at the boy. The U.S. declined to prosecute Mesa or let him go to Mexico where he has been charged with murder, so the boy’s parents took the case to civil court.
But the 1988 Westfall Act protects federal officers from liability under state common law. That act came shortly after a Brooklyn man sued narcotics officers for ransacking his home in a false arrest in 1965.
Whatever the court decides will have huge implications in the space of litigating police brutality.
For more political coverage and election updates, visit theGrio’s Politics section and follow us on IG #WokeVote2020.
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Oprah Winfrey says she doesn’t regret not marrying or not having children
Oprah Winfrey has dedicated her life to giving back and helping others and she’s content with how that’s worked out for her.
—VIDEO: Oprah Winfrey surprises Morehouse College with $13 million gift—
The billionaire media mogul says she “not one regret” about choosing not to have kids or not getting married to her longtime beau Stedman Graham, in PEOPLE’s extraordinary Women Changing the World issue.
Winfrey admits that while she once thought about tying the knot and having babies early on, she believes if she had gotten married, she and Graham, 68, wouldn’t be together today.
“At one point in Chicago I had bought an additional apartment because I was thinking, ‘Well, if we get married, I’m going to need room for children,’” says Winfrey.
But she says her work hosting the The Oprah Winfrey Show gave her insight into the lives of others and saw “the depth of responsibility and sacrifice that is actually required to be a mother,” which served as the catalyst that helped change her mind about motherhood.
“I realized, ‘Whoa, I’m talking to a lot of messed-up people, and they are messed up because they had mothers and fathers who were not aware of how serious that job is,’” she says.
“I don’t have the ability to compartmentalize the way I see other women do. It is why, throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home [with] their kids, because I don’t know how you do that all day long. Nobody gives women the credit they deserve.”
She continues, “I used to think about this all the time, that I was working these 17-hour days, and so were my producers, and then I go home and I have my two dogs and I have Stedman, who’s letting me be who I need to be in the world. He’s never demanding anything from me like, ‘Where’s my breakfast? Where’s my dinner?’ Never any of that, which I believed would have changed had we married.”
—Tyler Perry opens up about how Hollywood “ignored” him—
“Both he and I now say, ‘If we had married, we would not be together,’” she adds. “No question about it — we would not stay married, because of what that would have meant to him, and I would have had my own ideas about it.”
Winfrey said her satisfaction comes in serving others.
“I have not had one regret about that. I also believe that part of the reason why I don’t have regrets is because I got to fulfill it in the way that was best for me: the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa,” she says. “Those girls fill that maternal fold that I perhaps would have had. In fact, they overfill — I’m overflowed with maternal.”
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Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Engineers put Leonardo da Vinci’s bridge design to the test
In 1502 A.D., Sultan Bayezid II sent out the Renaissance equivalent of a government RFP (request for proposals), seeking a design for a bridge to connect Istanbul with its neighbor city Galata. Leonardo da Vinci, already a well-known artist and inventor, came up with a novel bridge design that he described in a letter to the Sultan and sketched in a small drawing in his notebook.
He didn’t get the job. But 500 years after his death, the design for what would have been the world’s longest bridge span of its time intrigued researchers at MIT, who wondered how thought-through Leonardo’s concept was and whether it really would have worked.
Spoiler alert: Leonardo knew what he was doing.
To study the question, recent graduate student Karly Bast MEng ’19, working with professor of architecture and of civil and environmental engineering John Ochsendorf and undergraduate Michelle Xie, tackled the problem by analyzing the available documents, the possible materials and construction methods that were available at the time, and the geological conditions at the proposed site, which was a river estuary called the Golden Horn. Ultimately, the team built a detailed scale model to test the structure’s ability to stand and support weight, and even to withstand settlement of its foundations.
The results of the study were presented in Barcelona this week at the conference of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures. They will also be featured in a talk at Draper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later this month and in an episode of the PBS program NOVA, set to air on Nov. 13.
A flattened arch
In Leonardo’s time, most masonry bridge supports were made in the form of conventional semicircular arches, which would have required 10 or more piers along the span to support such a long bridge. Leonardo’s bridge concept was dramatically different — a flattened arch that would be tall enough to allow a sailboat to pass underneath with its mast in place, as illustrated in his sketch, but that would cross the wide span with a single enormous arch.
The bridge would have been about 280 meters long (though Leonardo himself was using a different measurement system, since the metric system was still a few centuries off), making it the longest span in the world at that time, had it been built. “It’s incredibly ambitious,” Bast says. “It was about 10 times longer than typical bridges of that time.”
The design also featured an unusual way of stabilizing the span against lateral motions — something that has resulted in the collapse of many bridges over the centuries. To combat that, Leonardo proposed abutments that splayed outward on either side, like a standing subway rider widening her stance to balance in a swaying car.
In his notebooks and letter to the Sultan, Leonardo provided no details about the materials that would be used or the method of construction. Bast and the team analyzed the materials available at the time and concluded that the bridge could only have been made of stone, because wood or brick could not have carried the loads of such a long span. And they concluded that, as in classical masonry bridges such as those built by the Romans, the bridge would stand on its own under the force of gravity, without any fasteners or mortar to hold the stone together.
To prove that, they had to build a model and demonstrate its stability. That required figuring out how to slice up the complex shape into individual blocks that could be assembled into the final structure. While the full-scale bridge would have been made up of thousands of stone blocks, they decided on a design with 126 blocks for their model, which was built at a scale of 1 to 500 (making it about 32 inches long). Then the individual blocks were made on a 3D printer, taking about six hours per block to produce.
“It was time-consuming, but 3D printing allowed us to accurately recreate this very complex geometry,” Bast says.
Testing the design’s feasibility
This is not the first attempt to reproduce Leonardo’s basic bridge design in physical form. Others, including a pedestrian bridge in Norway, have been inspired by his design, but in that case modern materials — steel and concrete — were used, so that construction provided no information about the practicality of Leonardo’s engineering.
“That was not a test to see if his design would work with the technology from his time,” Bast says. But because of the nature of gravity-supported masonry, the faithful scale model, albeit made of a different material, would provide such a test.
“It’s all held together by compression only,” she says. “We wanted to really show that the forces are all being transferred within the structure,” which is key to ensuring that the bridge would stand solidly and not topple.
As with actual masonry arch bridge construction, the “stones” were supported by a scaffolding structure as they were assembled, and only after they were all in place could the scaffolding be removed to allow the structure to support itself. Then it came time to insert the final piece in the structure, the keystone at the very top of the arch.
“When we put it in, we had to squeeze it in. That was the critical moment when we first put the bridge together. I had a lot of doubts” as to whether it would all work, Bast recalls. But “when I put the keystone in, I thought, ‘this is going to work.’ And after that, we took the scaffolding out, and it stood up.”
“It’s the power of geometry” that makes it work, she says. “This is a strong concept. It was well thought out.” Score another victory for Leonardo.
“Was this sketch just freehanded, something he did in 50 seconds, or is it something he really sat down and thought deeply about? It’s difficult to know” from the available historical material, she says. But proving the effectiveness of the design suggests that Leonardo really did work it out carefully and thoughtfully, she says. “He knew how the physical world works.”
He also apparently understood that the region was prone to earthquakes, and incorporated features such as the spread footings that would provide extra stability. To test the structure’s resilience, Bast and Xie built the bridge on two movable platforms and then moved one away from the other to simulate the foundation movements that might result from weak soil. The bridge showed resilience to the horizontal movement, only deforming slightly until being stretched to the point of complete collapse.
The design may not have practical implications for modern bridge designers, Bast says, since today’s materials and methods provide many more options for lighter, stronger designs. But the proof of the feasibility of this design sheds more light on what ambitious construction projects might have been possible using only the materials and methods of the early Renaissance. And it once again underscores the brilliance of one of the world’s most prolific inventors.
It also demonstrates, Bast says, that “you don’t necessarily need fancy technology to come up with the best ideas.”
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MIT alumna addresses the world’s mounting plastic waste problem
It’s been nearly 10 years since Priyanka Bakaya MBA ’11 founded Renewlogy to develop a system that converts plastic waste into fuel. Today, that system is being used to profitably turn even nonrecyclable plastic into high-value fuels like diesel, as well as the precursors to new plastics.
Since its inception, Bakaya has guided Renewlogy through multiple business and product transformations to maximize its impact. During the company’s evolution from a garage-based startup to a global driver of sustainability, it has licensed its technology to waste management companies in the U.S. and Canada, created community-driven supply chains for processing nonrecycled plastic, and started a nonprofit, Renew Oceans, to reduce the flow of plastic into the world’s oceans.
The latter project has brought Bakaya and her team to one of the most polluted rivers in the world, the Ganges. With an effort based in Varanasi, a city of much religious, political, and cultural significance in India, Renew Oceans hopes to transform the river basin by incentivizing residents to dispose of omnipresent plastic waste in its “reverse vending machines,” which provide coupons in exchange for certain plastics.
Each of Renewlogy’s initiatives has brought challenges Bakaya never could have imagined during her early days tinkering with the system. But she’s approached those hurdles with a creative determination, driven by her belief in the transformative power of the company.
“It’s important to focus on big problems you’re really passionate about,” Bakaya says. “The only reason we’ve stuck with it over the years is because it’s extremely meaningful, and I couldn’t imagine working this hard and long on something if it wasn’t deeply meaningful.”
A system for sustainability
Bakaya began working on a plastic-conversion system with Renewlogy co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Benjamin Coates after coming to MIT’s Sloan School of Management in 2009. While pursuing his PhD at the University of Utah, Coates had been developing continuously operating systems to create fuels from things like wood waste and algae conversion.
One of Renewlogy’s key innovations is using a continuous system on plastics, which saves energy by eliminating the need to reheat the system to the high temperatures necessary for conversion.
Today, plastics entering Renewlogy’s system are first shredded, then put through a chemical reformer, where a catalyst degrades their long carbon chains.
Roughly 15 to 20 percent of those chains are converted into hydrocarbon gas that Renewlogy recycles to heat the system. Five percent turns into char, and the remaining 75 percent is converted into high-value fuels. Bakaya says the system can create about 60 barrels of fuel for every 10 tons of plastic it processes, and it has a 75 percent lower carbon footprint when compared to traditional methods for extracting and distilling diesel fuel.
In 2014, the company began running a large-scale plant in Salt Lake City, where it continues to iterate its processes and hold demonstrations.
Since then, Renewlogy has set up another commercial-scale facility in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the waste management company Sustane uses it to process about 10 tons of plastic a day, representing 5 percent of the total amount of solid waste the company collects. Renewlogy is also building a similar-sized facility in Phoenix, Arizona, that will be breaking ground next year. That project focuses on processing specific types of plastics (identified by international resin codes 3 through 7) that are less easily recycled.
In addition to its licensing strategy, the company is spearheading grassroots efforts to gather and process plastic that’s not normally collected for recycling, as part of the Hefty Energy Bag Program.
Through the program, residents in cities including Boise, Idaho, Omaha, Nebraska, and Lincoln, Nebraska, can put plastics numbered 4 through 6 into their regular recycling bins using special orange bags. The bags are separated at the recycling facility and sent to Renewlogy’s Salt Lake City plant for processing.
The projects have positioned Renewlogy to continue scaling and have earned Bakaya entrepreneurial honors from the likes of Forbes, Fortune, and the World Economic Forum. But a growing crisis in the world’s oceans has drawn her halfway across the world, to the site of the company’s most ambitious project yet.
Renewing the planet’s oceans
Of the millions of tons of plastic waste flowing through rivers into the world’s oceans each year, roughly 90 percent comes from just 10 rivers. The worsening environmental conditions of these rivers represents a growing global crisis that state governments have put billions of dollars toward, often with discouraging results.
Bakaya believes she can help.
“Most of these plastics tend to be what are referred to as soft plastics, which are typically much more challenging to recycle, but are a good feedstock for Renewlogy’s process,” she says.
Bakaya started Renew Oceans as a separate, nonprofit arm of Renewlogy last year. Since then, Renew Oceans has designed fence-like structures to collect river waste that can then be brought to its scaled down machines for processing. These machines can process between 0.1 and 1 ton of plastic a day.
Renew Oceans has already built its first machine, and Bakaya says deciding where to put it was easy.
From its origins in the Himalayas, the Ganges River flows over 1,500 miles through India and Bangladesh, serving as a means of transportation, irrigation, energy, and as a sacred monument to millions of people who refer to it as Mother Ganges.
Renewlogy’s first machine is currently undergoing local commissioning in the Indian city of Varanasi. Bakaya says the project is designed to scale.
“The aim is to take this to other major polluted rivers where we can have maximum impact,” Bakaya says. “We’ve started with the Ganges, but we want to go to other regions, especially around Asia, and find circular economies that can support this in the long term so locals can derive value from these plastics.”
Scaling down their system was another unforeseen project for Bakaya and Coates, who remember scaling up prototypes during the early days of the company. Throughout the years, Renewlogy has also adjusted its chemical processes in response to changing markets, having begun by producing crude oil, then moving to diesel as oil prices plummeted, and now exploring ways to create high-value petrochemicals like naphtha, which can be used to make new plastics.
Indeed, the company’s approach has featured almost as many twists and turns as the Ganges itself. Bakaya says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’d really encourage entrepreneurs to not just go down that easy road but to really challenge themselves and try to solve big problems — especially students from MIT. The world is kind of depending on MIT students to push us forward and challenge the realm of possibility. We all should feel that sense of responsibility to solve bigger problems.”
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Simone Biles on her way to becoming the most decorated gymnast in history
Simone Biles is still breaking records. This time she has dominated, earning her 21st medal, clearing the path to become the most decorated woman in gymnastics on Tuesday at the gymnastics world championships in Germany.
—Simone Biles dominates world championships with amazing new signature move—
The US team also took first place thanks to Biles leading score of 172.330, The Daily Mail reports. It is the USA team’s 5th straight all-around world championship and the seventh consecutive title at an Olympics or world championships.
“I guess it’s kind of crazy,” said Biles/ “I feel like I haven’t gotten the chance to process it yet.
“But I think we’ll do some celebrating tonight, for all of it. For the team, for the medal count, for the fifth year in a row.”
Biles surpassed Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina’s record with her 21st world medal and she’s on course this week to beat Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus who has 23 under her belt.
Still even with her history making feats she admits to sometime feeling defeated.
“Sometimes, I wish I would quit because the other day we walked out there, and I was like, ”I literally hate this feeling. I don’t know why I keep forcing myself to do it,” she told the Olympic Channel.
“But you know, we love the thrill of it. It reminds me to never give up because, one day, I won’t have the opportunity to get that feeling.”
On Saturday, dominated world championships with amazing new signature move.
Biles performed the triple-double during her floor routine and then the double-double dismount on the balance beam, which became a signature move bearing her name Biles II, CNN reports.
The 22-year-old stunned the audience with her remarkable moves but even though she has cemented herself as a superstar, she admitted that the title gives her pause.
“If I were to label myself as a superstar, it would bring more expectations on me and I would feel pressured, more in the limelight, rather than now,” Biles said at a press conference the 2019 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Germany, before her performance.
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Three suspects arrested in shooting man nine times on Facebook Live
An Arizona photographer faced death while filming on Facebook Live.
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A man only identified as “CT” shared the moment he was confronted in a Phoenix Park and verbally assaulted by two men and a teen who called him a “n*gger” as he tried to take photos around 9p.m.
The 33-year-old victim happened to be streaming live on Facebook around 9p.m. when they approached and things quickly went left.
“My man, I told you you can’t say the n-word, you’re not Black,” CT said he told one of the men, according to Fox 10.
“I say what the [expletive] I want,” one of the suspects responded.
“No, you cannot.. not in front of me,” CT says, “Didn’t I tell you don’t say the n-word? Didn’t I say that?”
Police said CT was then shot nine times by Ricardo Mendoza-Sanchez and Angel Romero, both 18. The 17-year-old minor along with the suspects, has not been named.
CT managed to muster up the strength to call the police and was rushed to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries to his shoulder, hip, arm, wrist and legs, but expects to recover, ABC 15 reports.
“I’m here because of the blessing of god. I’m here because I have a purpose on earth,” CT told the outlet.
The incident was all caught on live and helped to aid police in identifying the suspects
One suspect, Mendoza-Sanchez was arrested September 17, while the other two Romero and the minor were arrested September 25.
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Romero reportedly tried to pull his gun out on cops as they sought to arrest him but they confiscated the weapon in time.
Romero faces felony charges of resisting arrest and misconduct involving weapons.
Mendoza-Sanchez and Romero were also charged with charged with aggravated assault and street gang activity for reportedly being involved with a local gang.
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